Search: zhanaozen

A lazy, ridiculous slur

by Joshua Foust

Washington Free Beacon writer Adam Kredo thinks I’m somehow connected to Chuck Hagel and Chevron and Kazakhstan and… oh well, just read it. When Kazakhstan’s riot police slaughtered dozens of striking oil field workers last year, Atlantic Council affiliate Joshua Foust rushed to discredit the reports. Foust, a member of the Atlantic Council’s Young Atlanticist [...]

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Questions Remain on Zhanaozen

by Nathan Hamm

This is a guest post from Nate Schenkkan, Senior Program Associate for Eurasia at Freedom House. This post represents his views and not the views of Freedom House. Minister Idrissov has raised a lot of issues here that are worth addressing. I will focus on the most important paragraph. “A special public commission carried out [...]

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The Lessons of Zhanaozen

by Erlan Idrissov

OPINION PIECE FROM ERLAN IDRISSOV, FOREIGN MINISTER OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN It is now exactly a year since the violence in Zhanaozen in western Kazakhstan cast a dark shadow over the national celebrations to mark our 20th anniversary as an independent country. A long-running industrial dispute between oil workers and their company erupted into [...]

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Central Asia Monitor 1.24

by Central Asia Monitor

Uzbek Citizen Commits Suicide in Moscow Jail After SNB Threats The Russian human rights organization Memorial reported that Abdusamat Fazletdinov, a 19 year old Uzbek citizen, committed suicide in a Moscow jail after Uzbek SNB agents threatened him. Fazletdinov had been working in Kaliningrad and was arrested with four other citizens of Uzbekistan in Moscow [...]

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Central Asia Monitor 1.23

by Central Asia Monitor

Chelakh Denies Killing Fellow Soldiers at Arkankergen Outpost Appearing in court this week, Vladislav Chelakh, the border guard accused of killing his fellow servicemen at the Arkankergen border outpost, said the he did not commit any murders. He claims that unknown men in civilian clothing attacked the outpost. Chelakh said that he and another border [...]

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Nuclear Retention and Moral High Ground

by Casey_Michel
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While the rest of the United Nations was debating Palestinian statehood late last week, one high-ranking UN official dropped a piece of nuclear intrigue that went relatively unnoticed. According to RIA Novosti, Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev, former Kazakhstani foreign minister and current director-general of the UN office in Geneva, called attention to an as-yet unknown piece of [...]

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The Inherent Contradictions of Kazakhstan’s National Narrative

by Joshua Foust
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The Kazakh government has a very appealing line it likes to sell to foreign audiences: “we are a young but maturing country, the most successful in our region, the most international in outlook, and the strongest and most stable.” Indeed, regime-supporting American wonks have largely bought that line hook, line, and sinker, regardless of any [...]

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Court Decisions

by Casey_Michel

It’s not often that Kazakhstan’s backyard politicking come to the fore. It’s rarer yet when such sniping is aired in English, made available to that much larger of an audience. It’s political gossip at its finest – open and sharp, with accusations anted and points countered with language as colorful as the content is heavy. [...]

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All In A Name

by Casey_Michel

It’s a good thing, I suppose, that Kazakhstan has such lengthy history with the renaming process. As Kazakh nationalism swept two decades ago — as Russified names across the now-defunct USSR began to fall — the nascent nation began to turn its sights on stamping kazakhsha on the country’s commercial centers. Ust-Kamenogorsk became Oskemen. Petropavlovsk became [...]

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One More Down

by Casey_Michel

It’s now been 10 months since the riots of Zhanaozen and Shetpe seared Kazakhstan’s Mangystau province, presenting the largest and most debilitating unrest the nation’s seen in 20 years of independence. We’ve seen authorities tried and jailed. We’ve seen governors ousted and resurrected. We’ve seen persecutions of both workers present and leaders abroad, and we’ve seen any nascent opposition to Nazarbayev cowed and imprisoned. [...]

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