more comprehensible, shed the light of transparency on the government's activities, and confirmed that sooner or later the cat would always be let out of the bag to reveal its true colours.
In contrast to the fragmented and hand-picked information provided to society through the filter of government censorship, the publications here present a complete and systematic picture of the Atameken Party.
They will offer you an opportunity to assess both the party's and its leader's position concerning key issues of politics, economy, law and international relations. Some of my interviews were denied publication, while others were printed only after they had been carefully sifted through the filter of censorship, or were presented in a distorted context.
Censorship and distortion not only infringed the party's rights and impaired my political rights under the Kazakhstan's constitution, but also misled public opinion and cast aspersions on our party. This is why the guidelines of our party - especially those dealing with the political system and the further development of the state - appeared in the foreign democratic press. Hence some publications from the foreign press have been included with this collection.
I did not intend my decision to publish this collection as a tribute to political verbosity, but rather as a commitment to providing every reader with an independent opportunity to analyse and make conclusions about the actual state of affairs in Kazakhstan, and to shatter the efforts undertaken by the state propaganda machine to stain the reputation of our party and myself as its chairman.
Over the past four years, the authoritarian and despotic ruling regime has undertaken efforts to misinform the public and erase the civil initiative of establishing a political platform for the nascent middle class, which is the backbone of any truly democratic society and a market-based economy.
The current ruling regime exerts a stranglehold on power, and is synonymous with a parasitic, inhumane and authoritarian regime with intrinsically transnational characteristics - which have been cruelly manifested in Pinochet's Chile, Saddam's Iraq and Romania under Ceausescu. It smashed into smithereens the hopes of all previous Kazakh generations, millions of whom died on battlefields fighting with conquerors and colonizers, or fell victim to famine and genocide imposed by Stalin's regime.
The Nazarbayev regime has stolen precious time from this and future generations, and the lion's share of their energy will be spent on restoring the position of Kazakhstan in the international economic and political sphere.
The goals of the Atameken Party are simple. They include the prosperity of Kazakhstan as a full-fledged member of the globalization process, rather than merely an appendage for raw exports. We stand for the revival of civil initiative, the transformation of a despotic state into one serving the public, true respect for human dignity and rights, spiritual resuscitation and restoration of justice and humane laws.
Moving towards these goals is the essence of human history. We will continue to make every effort to ensure that each citizen of Kazakhstan with creative potential and energy has the ability to take part in the formation of the genetic code of our restored sovereign state. We want an immediate and positive transformation in everyone's life, instead of waiting for an illusory happiness promised by officials every year, as they fatten themselves like gluttons feasting on the people's suffering and national resources.
This collection is not a pessimistic statement of yesterday's developments rather it aims to enhance discussion. Therefore, dear reader, your thoughts, comments and suggestions are welcome. Please e-mail them to our party's address: atameken.press.[email protected].
In conclusion, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all members of the Atameken Party as well as friends, associates and patriots of our country for their support, courage, stamina, confidence, understanding and trust in the victory of our common cause.
Yerzhan Dosmukhamedov
STATE OF THE UNION AND DEMOCRACY FOR CENTRAL ASIA
Harvard International Review (USA)
6 February 2011
Professor Dr. Yerzhan Dosmukhamedov has been a member of Oxford University's Congregation since 1999, an exiled Founding Chairman of the ATAMEKEN opposition democratic party and former Minister and Deputy Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Germany.
In his 2011 State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama made an inspiring reference to the recent international developments by aptly reflecting on the dramatic events in Tunisia:
And we saw that same desire to be free in Tunisia, where the will of the people proved more powerful than the writ of a dictator. And tonight, let us be clear: The United States of America stands with the people of Tunisia, and supports the democratic aspirations of all people.
It is very symbolic that on the same day when angry crowds in Tunisia forced their president to flee the country, the single-party Parliament of Kazakhstan made yet another gift to its actual patron, President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The Eternal President vs. Genuine Democracy
Kazakhstan's Constitution was recently amended again and a new chapter on the Leader of the Nation was introduced. This new amendment allows President Nazarbayev to once more extend his authorities by referendum, without holding elections, for another 10 years. President Nazarbayev, like his overthrown Tunisian counterpart, has ruled his oil-rich nation, the ninth largest in the world, for more than 20 years.
After having made this bold statement, President Obama should now demonstrate consistency and recognize that dictators like Nazarbayev do not change, even if they are given an opportunity to reform.
For instance, the Kazakstani democratic forces and international human rights organizations warned the leaders of the democratic nations that the Kazakh 2010 presidency of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which officially ended last week, would not result in democratization, but to the contrary, would lend more strength and legitimacy to the authoritarian regime of President Nazarbayev.
The United States and OSCE believed Nazarbayev instead and now must learn a bitter lesson.
A True Face of the Nazarbayev's "Democracy"
As of today, Kazakhstan's ferocious human rights record may rival those of Zimbabwe and Burma. The facts speak for themselves. Prominent opposition leaders like Altynbek Sarsenbayev were killed in Kazakhstan by the KGB Special Forces.
In 2009 President Nazarbayev amended the Constitution and proclaimed himself president for life after the decision by 55 OSCE member-states to grant Kazakhstan the 2010 Presidency.
The recently released documentary book by the exiled former Kazakh Ambassador to the OSCE and chief of the KGB confirms the gross falsification of the last presidential elections which makes the regime illegitimate.
Kazakh journalists operate in an environment of anxiety, facing intimidating lawsuits, personal threats, and physical attacks. Prior to Kazakhstan's OSCE presidency, Ramazan Yesergepov, my friend and editor of opposition newspaper Alma-Ata Info, was jailed for reporting on the anti-democratic methods of KGB activities. Public assembly is very tightly controlled, and any politically motivated public meeting is denied a permit, broken up by police, or both. The 2009 and 2010 Reports by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture officially confirmed the state-sponsored practice of torture in Kazakhstan.
President
