[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 29 (Tuesday, March 9, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E330-E331]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SUPPORTING KAZAKHSTAN

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. PHIL ENGLISH

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, March 9, 2004

  Mr. ENGLISH. Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw the attention of my 
colleagues to an Op-Ed article published in The Washington Times on 
March 4 authored by Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of the Republic of 
Kazakhstan, one of our consistent allies in the fight against 
international terrorism.
  I had the pleasure to meet President Nazarbayev in December 2001 
during his official visit to the United States and ever since I closely 
follow the development of this country. I know that Kazakhstan has 
achieved significant progress in implementing political, social and 
economic reforms during the dozen years of their independence. Recent 
evaluation by The Economist magazine shows Kazakhstan to be among the 
five most dynamically developing countries in the world with an annual 
GDP growth of 10.1 percent.
  Of course Kazakhstan faces challenges on its path to true democracy, 
and a lot remains to be done. Nevertheless, Kazakhstan is well on the 
road to a free market economy and a functioning democracy. 
Significantly, as a Muslim-majority country, it is also showing the 
world how to promote a religiously tolerant, and open, society.
  It goes without saying that converting from a communist economy to a 
free-market system in a little more than a decade is, under any 
circumstances, a formidable challenge.
  In the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States, 
President Nazarbayev has been one of the first to support us in the 
fight against the global evil of international terrorism. During 
Operation Enduring Freedom, his government gave the United States fly-
over and landing rights as America led the fight for freedom and 
democracy in Afghanistan. Kazakhstan was the first and still the only 
Central Asian country to contribute troops to the multinational 
peacekeeping force in Iraq.
  I believe it is in our nation's interest to continue to support 
Kazakhstan, a country whose actions have demonstrated its commitment to 
global security, nuclear nonproliferation, stability, and tolerance for 
ethnic and religious minorities. Mr. Speaker, I am confident that in 
Kazakhstan we have a crucial ally. I ask unanimous consent that this 
article be printed in the Congressional Record and urge all of my 
colleagues to read it carefully.

               [From The Washington Times, Mar. 4, 2004]

                         Progress in Kazakhstan

                       (By Nursultan Nazarbayev)

       There can be few greater challenges than to attempt to 
     complete in little more than a decade a political process 
     that in the West took many decades, if not centuries. But 
     this is what Kazakhstan has been attempting since becoming 
     independent in 1991.
       In the United States, markets preceded democracy. In 
     Kazakhstan, however, we have sought to lay the foundations of 
     a market economy, civil society and democracy simultaneously. 
     After the collapse of the Soviet Union, we believed this was 
     the only way to pursue economic growth and raise living 
     standards while maintaining stability. Without all three, 
     there was little realistic expectation that an oil-rich state 
     the size of Western Europe, but with a population smaller 
     than that of Holland, could remain free.
       Our actions in the early 1990s, including the decision to 
     remove our arsenal of nuclear weapons inherited from the 
     Soviet Union, laid the foundations of our stability and 
     prosperity. As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld commented 
     during his visit to my country last week, had Saddam Hussein 
     followed Kazakhstan's example, the war in Iraq

[[Page E331]]

     never would have been fought. We are now a key ally of the 
     United States in Central Asia and a force for stability and 
     security in the region.
       Having set our sights on radical change, we had to rely 
     primarily on our own resources, building new civic 
     institutions from scratch, freeing industry from the shackles 
     of state ownership and fashioning political reform in a way 
     that reflected Kazakhstan's wide religious and ethnic 
     diversity.
       Today, 90 percent of the Kazakh economy is in private 
     hands. Growth has averaged 10 percent over the last four 
     years and is projected to continue at comparable levels. Our 
     financial institutions approach Western standards of 
     efficiency. Poverty is steadily being tackled, unemployment 
     is falling, and sound macroeconomic policy has ensured low 
     levels of inflation. Meanwhile, oil exports are rising by 15 
     percent each year. With the world's energy needs set to 
     double during the present century, there is international 
     recognition that Kazakhstan is emerging as an important and 
     responsible player in international energy markets.
       In the longer term, however, we know that oil wealth by 
     itself will not ensure prosperity or guarantee inter-ethnic 
     harmony. Only a broadly based, flexible economy will enable 
     us to address the challenges of rural poverty, provide modern 
     standards of health care, employment and pensions, and tackle 
     the illegal shipment of people, drugs, weapons and extremist 
     ideas from neighboring countries.
       Economic reform will, we hope, be further stimulated by 
     Kazakhstan's forthcoming entry into the World Trade 
     Organization. My country's growing participation in 
     international institutions provides an important learning 
     opportunity. But we are not expecting a free lunch. As 
     President Bush wrote in his recent letter to me, the United 
     States is ``grateful for Kazakhstan's continued assistance in 
     the war on terror.'' We have given robust support, allowing 
     our air space to be used and granting emergency landing 
     rights during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. 
     Currently, our troops assist in the peaceful reconstruction 
     of Iraq.
       After centuries during which the big decisions came from 
     Moscow via a complex bureaucratic chain, freedom and personal 
     responsibility are new concepts to us. But our record should 
     leave no doubt about our intentions.
       Democratic reform and measures to enhance human rights must 
     not, however, be introduced in a way that undermines 
     stability. We cannot afford to disturb the atmosphere of 
     religious and inter-ethnic tolerance that every visitor to 
     our country, including his holiness, the pope, and the chief 
     rabbi of Israel, notices immediately.
       To those who say the pace of political change is too slow, 
     I offer this personal assurance: We have not given up on 
     reform. This is amply demonstrated by the decision made just 
     a few weeks ago to impose a moratorium on the death penalty 
     and by new legislative proposals to ensure free and fair 
     elections this fall. Indeed, we hope that our twin record of 
     external engagement and internal reform may persuade many 
     countries to support our chairmanship of the Organization for 
     Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2009.
       When friends tell me that we are still not moving quickly 
     enough, I am tempted to reply: ``Bearing in mind how far and 
     how quickly we have traveled, how much faster would you like 
     us to go? In steering the infant Kazakh democracy, the 
     accelerator has been used far more than the brake. Please 
     remember also just how long your own societies took to 
     complete the processes on which we are now embarked.''

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