[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 134 (Friday, October 11, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1832-E1834]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ACTIONS OF THE PRESIDENT OF KAZAKHSTAN
______
HON. NORMAN D. DICKS
of washington
in the house of representatives
Thursday, October 10, 2002
Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, Once again I would like to call the attention
of my colleagues to a news report concerning the ongoing undemocratic
actions of the President of Kazakhstan. In the Wall Street Journal
report that I would ask to insert into the Record today, the
correspondent Steve LeVine detailed a series of bizarre actions by
President Nazarbayev to silence his critics from within the government,
to silence any opposition from the news media and to further
consolidate his power. I believe it is important for members of this
body to pay closer attention
[[Page E1833]]
to developments in the former Soviet Republics in central Asia,
particularly as some drift quickly away from democratic rule.
[lsqb]From the Wall Street Journal, Sept. 12, 2002[rsqb]
Caspian Intrigue: Odd Family Drama In Kazakhstan Dims Democratic Hopes
--Petroleum-Rich Land's Ruler Smacks Down Son-in-Law And Sundry
Challengers--Oil Companies Feel Heat, Too
(By Steve LeVine)
Almaty, Kazakhstan.--In three frenzied days last November,
government troops raided a television station, offices and
homes and took up positions at the airport. Their target:
anything connected to a powerful son-in-law of Kazakhstan's
long-ruling president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
``Karavan newspaper has been closed, KTK-TV has been closed
and censorship has been imposed in the country,'' read a
message greeting viewers tuned to the TV station, which, like
the newspaper, belonged to the family of the son-in-law,
Rakhat Alliyev. He, meanwhile, played a cat-and-mouse game
with his father-in-law, stealing in and out of Western
embassies and hinting that he might like political protection
abroad.
So began a bizarre drama in this oil-rich Central Asian
land while the world's eyes were riveted on a war just to its
south, in Afghanistan. It is a drama that does nothing to
encourage those hoping for a softening of authoritarian rule
in the region.
The events include the sidelining not only of Mr. Aliyev
but of nearly all other potential challengers to the Kazakh
president. One politician who proposed limits on presidential
power has just drawn a seven-year prison term. Eight
journalists or news organizations that criticized members of
the Kazakhstan first family have faced harassment, one paper
finding a headless dog on the doorstep.
The crackdown reflects a broad trend in a region about
which the U.S. had high hopes. Since the early 1990s, former
Soviet republics in Central Asia and the Caucasus have drawn
intense interest from the U.S. America has been eager to tap
into these countries' energy reserves--of which Kazakhstan's
are by far the richest--and to see them establish open
economies and democratic rule.
And in the past year, the U.S. has developed another vital
interest in this region: military alliances for the war on
terrorism. As U.S. forces moved into Afghanistan last fall,
the U.S. established military arrangements with six former
Soviet republics. Mr. Nazarbayev has wholeheartedly supported
the war on terrorism and permitted the U.S. to use Kazakhstan
airfields for emergency landings.
Though the Central Asian countries initially encouraged
hopes for democratic rule, they have veered further and
further from the democratic path. Uzbekistan, for instance,
tolerates no political dissent, despite the destruction in
Afghanistan last year of its exiled Islamic opposition.
Turkmenistan's president, Saparmurat Niyazov, has just
renamed the days of the week and the months of the year in
honor of himself and matters dear to his heart.
Mr. Nazarbayev's crackdown has been especially dispiriting,
because the 62-year-old Kazakh president has been considered
one of the region's more tolerant leaders. Day-to-day life in
Kazakhstan, with busy Internet cafes and vibrant shopping, is
open and relaxed. But this doesn't include venturing into
politics without the president's blessing. His reassertion of
power leaves another of the world's major oil-producing
nations under authoritarian rule.
A U.S. State Department spokesman, Phil Recker, said last
month: ``The U.S. believes that recent developments in
Kazakhstan, such as the new restrictive legislation regarding
political parties and the ongoing harassment of opposition
figures and the independent media, pose a serious threat to
the country's democratic process.'' Mr. Nazarbayev and others
in his government declined repeated requests for comment.
Politics isn't the only arena feeling the Kazakh
government's new assertiveness. The government is pressuring
some Western companies operating here to renegotiate long-
signed contracts. For instance, the government has fined
Chevron Texaco Corp. $73 million for storing sulfur. Chevron
says its contract permits this and is fighting the fine.
Washington has protested the recent business interference.
These are the latest trials for a land that has seen many,
including great tragedies. In the 1930s, Stalin forced the
nomadic Kazakbs, accustomed to wandering the steppes with
sheep and camels, to settle down and learn to raise crops. An
estimated 1.5 million people died of starvation during this
period. Stalin also used Kazakhstan, a sprawling land of
temperature extremes, as a kind of western Siberia. He exiled
hundreds of thousands here--including the whole population of
Chechnya, relocated en masse in 1944. The Soviets also did
their nuclear testing in one corner of Kazakhstan.
Mr. Nazarbayev, a former steelworker who rose through
Communist Party ranks, has ruled Kazakhstan since 1989
through a simple lever: the power to name and shuffle
virtually every minister, governor and judge. Early on, he
appointed enough young, reform-minded officials to fuel the
optimism of those who hoped for a democratic future. But in
the mid-1990s, he began moving relatives into powerful
positions. Then three years ago, he grew more self-protective
after coming under suspicion of stowing funds in Swiss bank
accounts.
Mr. Nazarbayev named his eldest son-in-law, Mr. Aliyev, now
39, to senior positions first in the Tax Police and then the
security agency KNB, local successor to the KGB. Another son-
in-law, Timur Kulibayev, 35, was put in charge of oil-and-gas
transportation and now is deputy chief of an agency that
oversees most oil industry.
Both became powerful in business as well. Mr. Aliyev grew
rich through sugar trading and other enterprises. Members of
his family bought control of three TV stations, a bank called
Nurbank, a regional carrier called Atyrau Airlines and the
largest-circulation newspaper, Karavan.
The other son-in-law, Mr. Kulibayev, gained control of
another bank, oil-field interests and a caviar-trading
monopoly, say people familiar with the deals. In one
instance, a government company Mr. Kulibayev headed did a
$150 million Eurobond financing to help build an export
pipeline to an oil field called Alibekmola--a field in which,
say people familiar with the matter, Mr. Kulibayev himself
owns a 17.5% stake.
Mr. Kulibayev declined to be interviewed. Mr. Aliyev, in
interviews before his clash with the president, said his own
business dealings were appropriate. President Nazarbayev has
said it is fine for his relatives to be in business and
government simultaneously so long as they don't break the
law.
In recent years, new laws have tightened Mr. Nazarbayev's
grip on power. One passed in 1998 barred anyone convicted of
a legal infraction from running for election--a potent tool,
since among illegal acts here is any criticism that ``insults
the honor and dignity of the president.''
In 1999, a Swiss judge, suspecting money laundering, froze
about 11 Swiss bank accounts that he said appeared to belong
to Mr. Nazarbayev or other leading Kazakhs. The U.S. Justice
Department joined the probe in 2000. It empaneled a grand
jury to hear allegations that $35 million of oil-company
money had been funneled to Swiss accounts appearing to belong
to Kazakhstan political figures. The U.S. probe advanced a
bit this week as a federal judge in New York endorsed the
grand jury's right to see certain documents.
In Kazakhstan, however, it was Mr. Aliyev, the oldest son-
in-law of the president, who was becoming the lightning rod.
As head of the Tax Police, he raised hackles by moving about
Almaty with hulking policemen trained in martial arts,
staging televised raids on suspected tax-dodgers, terrorists
and narcotics traders. Business rivals and political
opponents saw his tactics as intimidation.
Mr. Aliyev dismissed his critics as people who thought they
were above the law. ``To force someone to abide by the law is
difficult, and nobody likes it when discipline and order are
demanded of them,'' he said in an interview a year ago.
But last fall, two prominent Kazakhs--a provincial governor
and a tycoon--launched a campaign against Mr. Aliyev. Their
allies stood up in parliament to accuse him of demanding
``tribute'' from businessmen. The critics also suggested Mr.
Aliyev was disloyal to the president.
One critic, Galimzhan Zhakianov, the provincial governor,
linked Mr. Aliyev to a Web site that had carried allegations
of bribe-taking by the president. (Mr. Aliyev denied the
link.)
A newspaper owned by the other critic, media and banking
tycoon Mukhtar Ablyazov, stated that Mr. Aliyev was ``pushing
to become the top leader of the country. The President is in
danger. . . . It's his time to act!''
As rumors grew that Mr. Aliyev was plotting a coup, the
campaign against him found allies among top aides to his
father-in-law, the president. One presidential aide demanded
Mr. Aliyev's resignation. Mr. Aliyev said he would quit only
at the president's personal request. And in a veiled threat
to reveal corruption, he warned the aide there would be
``big, big problems'' if anything happened to him.
Mr. Aliyev then vanished. The next day, Nov. 16, armed
troops staged their sweep through Almaty in search of him.
Mr. Aliyev slipped into the U.S. and French embassies,
hinting that he might exchange sensational revelations in
return for protection, according to one diplomat.
The strange standoff ended on the third day, as President
Nazarbayev and Mr. Aliyev made a joint television appearance.
The president said his son-in-law would now serve on his
personal guard, which was a big demotion from his previous
role. Mr. Aliyev said he was the victim of ``slanderous''
talk, and was just fighting the ``scum that [blocks] healthy
forces in society.''
But Mr. Aliyev's demotion had emboldened his critics--and
they now overplayed their hand. The two main critics made
plans to release documents concerning Kazakh-owned Swiss bank
accounts, according to their political associates. They also
announced a new political party, in league with certain
reform-minded businessmen and members of the government.
The president asked them one by one what they wanted. They
pressed him to loosen his grip on power, strengthen
Parliament and allow the election of local leaders. Mr.
Zhakianov, in particular, may have gone too far. He warned
the president that he risked a
[[Page E1834]]
fate like that of Indonesia's Suharto, who was forced
ignominiously from office.
Mr. Nazarbayev seemed taken aback, Mr. Zhakianov said in an
interview last December. ``He was shocked over what happened
with Rakhat [Aliyev]. . . . He was in shock over what
happened with us because young people working under him were
talking about political reform and the need to change the
system.'' Still, the reformers were convinced Mr. Nazarbayev
would meet at least a few of their demands.
Instead, three days later, he fired all the political
appointees in the group--Mr. Zhakianov, a minister and three
deputy ministers. Later, he branded the critics
``Bolsheviks,'' likening their call for greater parliamentary
authority to an early Communist refrain.
Then followed a series of unexplained assaults on the
Kazakh news media. The body of a headless dog was found in
front of a weekly paper called the Republic, and the dog's
head outside the editor's apartment. Four journalists were
seriously beaten.
Shortly after a journalist named Lira Baisetova wrote a
story critical of Mr. Nazarbayev, her 25-year-old daughter,
Leyla, vanished, then died. The authorities said she hanged
herself while in police custody. Human Rights Watch in New
York and the Paris-based Journalists Without Borders raised
questions about how she died, after opposition figures
claimed she had been beaten. The government said it had
nothing to do with her death or with any of the attacks on
the news media.
In March, the government arrested one of the leading
governmental critics, Mr. Ablyazov, the publishing and
banking tycoon.
Now it was the turn of Mr. Zhakianov, the reform-minded
provincial governor, to find himself on the run and in
hiding. Police raided a hotel, searching room to room for
him. He was there, but eluded the troops, and then slipped
away to a scheduled meeting at the French embassy.
Police learned of the meeting and encircled the embassy.
They pried off manhole covers to make sure their quarry
didn't escape through the sewers. Supported by British,
German and French diplomats who all had offices in the
building, Mr. Zhakianov holed up for six days, until Kazakh
authorities and the diplomats reached an agreement: Mr.
Zhakianov would be held in his own Almaty home and the
diplomats would have access to him. But a few weeks later,
Kazakh officials flew Mr. Zhakianov 620 miles north to
confinement in the city of Pavlodar.
On the day he was arrested, the government acknowledged the
existence of one Swiss bank account--containing $1.2 billion.
It said this was government cash from oil deals and was used
by Mr. Nazarbayev as a rainy-day fund to help the country
weather crises.
The two leading critics went on trial. Mr. Ablyazov, the
tycoon, was convicted of embezzling $3.6 million from the
state and sentenced in July to six years in prison. Mr.
Zhakianov, the former provincial governor, was convicted last
month of selling state enterprises at illegitimately low
prices. He got seven years in prison.
And Mr. Aliyev, the ambitious son-in-law? In a time-honored
form of banishment for out-of-favor officials here, he was
sent off to be an ambassador, in this case to Austria. ``In
the end,'' says one local participant in the political
maneuvering, ``the president simply took power back into his
own hands.''
____________________