Читать книгу Kazakhstan's Assassinated Democracy - Yerzhan Psy.D. Dosmukhamedov - Страница 13

Central Asia Monitor (Kazakhstan)

30 May 2008

Yerzhan Dosmukhamedov is well known to our readers, first for the Atameken Union and then for the party of the same name. The party's political future seemed to be smooth sailing: intelligent and sound policies, sensible and suitable programs and projects. But suddenly everything changed nearly a year ago. Dr. Dosmukhamedov now lives in exile, protesting the government's refusal to register his party. Another reason he lives abroad is to provide for his personal safety, about which Dr. Dosmukhamedov has considerable doubts. His party colleagues disapproved of his leaving the country, but this fact did not prevent Dr. Dosmukhamedov from proceeding with his plan to foster democracy among the Kazakh people. The hero of the past year now has the floor.

Dr. Dosmukhamedov, what is the real reason for your departure from the country? After a while it seems that real reasons have nothing to do with the party's registration.

From the legal point of view, registration documents are now under consideration in the Ministry of Justice. We were not refused directly, but even after the Founding Convention of the Atameken Party the registration still was not completed. It was also confirmed in the documents released by the official delegation from Kazakhstan at the Warsaw conference last year organized by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. In the Central election Commission's document, it said that no unauthorized citizens received party registration. I'm still the Chairman, authorized by the Founding Convention to represent the Atameken Party, registration of which is one of the terms for Kazakhstan's chairmanship of the OSCE.

The basic reason is that Atameken is not the usual project of the President's Administration aimed at imitating democratic progress in Kazakhstan, and demonstrating to the Western world the splendid growth of democratic society. After the Founding Convention when the bird was let out of the cage and all documents necessary for registration were presented, and after all the hard work in every region of the country, the media started spreading information about the new party (which had become widely talked about). The authorities urgently needed to run the unexpected party aground.

As you remember from my interviews last year, I had long talks with Minister [Yermukhamet] Yertysbayev and the President's son-in-law [Timur] Kulibayev. I rejected demands to sign an oath of loyalty, swear my personal allegiance to the President on the Koran, and to introduce the positions of co-chairmen through which they could control me in the future. After that I received friendly advice "to be careful on my house porch late at night". In private talks, Yertysbayev told me that the reason for non-registration of the party was that President Nazarbayev - a man without a university education or even any decent secondary-school education - suffers from a certain phobia: in politics he is afraid of young, well-educated and independent people with deep knowledge of the Western system. The Minister of Justice also told me that a party could be registered only on the President's order. In other words, the reason is the reluctance to modernize the political system, which would turn it into a real living civil society with the state as a servant instead of a feudal lord as it is today.

After the Founding Convention, we observed how every day the totalitarian government began to show its true face. After this, it was important for me to protest publically, instead of just being a fly buzzing around helplessly under a glass for the amusement of those who ordered the destruction of the houses of Oralmans (ethnic Kazakhs who recently returned to Kazakhstan), those who hijack the business of successful entrepreneurs lacking support from the President's family, and those who demand bribes from contractors of national companies and money for so-called "ruling party electoral fund". even the death of their countrymen is no more than a mere statistic for them. Ranked among Forbes magazine's list of the world's richest people (and still unable to explain why they are listed there), they live in another world of personal planes and gorgeous houses in Italy and England, while their wives - loathing our poor and miserable maternity homes - go to Switzerland to deliver their offspring. I am not going to play the role of a fly that might be killed in our country at any moment. Thank God, there is a Western democratic community, and the press which has the ability to transform this horde of flies - as we are now, living this way thanks to the repressive state apparatus that has existed for the last 17 years - into a nation in which politicians are not bound by any loyalty oaths to a feudal and repressive system.

During the last days of your stay in Kazakhstan, you said that people were following and even spying on you. Can you guess who is behind it and why this supervision was organized?

In our totalitarian country, as in Stalin's time, the Committee of National Security carries out this work, though nowadays there are some peculiarities. even [Imangali] Tasmagambetov's son-in-law, Kenes Rakhishev has a security service within his corporate holdings. He referred to it when he recommended that one of the assistants of an emirati Sheikh stop complaining to me about demands for a bribe for issuing a hunting license in Kazakhstan. The Sheikh, as a charitable gift, sincerely wished to build a modern maternity clinic, but this chance was rejected by Timur Kulibayev, Kenes Rakhishev and Minister of Agriculture [Akhmetzhan] Yesimov's son-in-law Galymzhan Yesenov, who was entrusted to lead the negotiations by Yesimov. They are responsible for the new-born babies' deaths and the mothers' grief because they have to deliver children in primitive, unequipped clinics, having no opportunity to do so under better conditions. I also think that our Parliament must revise the law on private security services in the context of the recent attempt to murder Yermurat Bapy right after his newspaper's critical reports on Timur Kulibayev.

After your former colleagues left you, will you still use the Atameken name? How do you judge what they did?

This question is not quite correct. There is an Atameken Political Council decision to expel from the party those members who, in spite of the decision rendered by the only legitimate Founding Convention, arbitrarily try to unite the party with other parties. [Maksut] Narikbayev and [Alikhan] Baimenov - who have tried to hijack the Atameken Party while I am compelled to be away from Kazakhstan and join our party to their pro-presidential parties - have well-known reputations as the energizer bunnies of the political process in our country. The President's Administration is a true organizer of the plot against our party.

It is not possible to call secret informants of the Committee of National Security my colleagues, nor the people who had been in the Ak Zhol Party but became so corrupt as to extort a few thousands dollars to buy their supportive voice, nor people suffering from illnesses that render their minds so unbalanced that they need a stem-cell serum made from the umbilical cords of unborn babies - prohibited in Western countries. These so-called colleagues - who contributed nothing to the party's budget at the most difficult time - were introduced into it by the Committee of National Security in order to stab us in the back at a suitable moment, which they have already tried to do though with no result on the eve of the parliamentary elections last year. But they do not foresee that the voiceless nation will arise, and they will have to face the indignation of thousands of ordinary citizens who trust Atameken, and who are tired of being deceived cattle on the playground of authority.

What is your occupation nowadays? After your departure, you said that there would not be any problem with your employment, particularly in Western universities. Are you occupied with teaching?

As before, I'm engaged in politics. Last month, I made 10 trips to Western European countries and held meetings with politicians, deputies, European journalists and international organizations. Besides, I participate in research and consulting projects for Western universities. My book in English will soon be published. Unfortunately, I do not have enough time for teaching.

You used to say before that you intend to influence the internal political situation in Kazakhstan from abroad. Are you still eager to do it? Are you still in politics? Do you meet emigrants from Kazakhstan like Akezhan Kazhegeldin, Serik Medetbekov, Rashid Nugmanov, Rakhat Aliyev?

The nature of your questions suggests the informational isolation and censoring that keep Kazakhstan's mass media under strict control. Lately, I have had to communicate more with Western journalists than with journalists from Kazakhstan. Censorship provides false information about my activities - or rather produces an impression of stagnation. But really, all my activity since my departure from Kazakhstan has pertained to politics.

Last year for the first time in 17 years of diplomatic relations between Great Britain and Kazakhstan, Conservative MPs inquired into the country's government concerning Kazakhstan. These were questions about human rights, shadow money transferred from Kazakhstan into English banks, our party's registration, and about a young political prisoner in Kazakhstan. As a result of the inquiry, he was released on probation. Another example, as you remember, the Russian Party, which was refused registration eight times, was turned into the Compatriot NGO, and decided to join Atameken. With the agreement of the party members, meetings were held with Russian politicians, analysts and Kremlin officials. As a result, during a three-week period the decree of the Russian Federation President about representation of the Federal Immigration Service in Kazakhstan was prepared and signed.

In the West the political work is more scrupulous, professional and systematic in nature. It is not just an episode for the press prepared as a conference discussion. There are regular meetings with politicians, statesmen, analysts, journalists - in short, with all those who participate in forming political policy concerning our country. Unlike Kazakhstan, democratic countries have elements forgotten in our country: the separation of powers and an independent press. By the way, last year, partly due to the endeavours of yours truly, the party reviewed personalities such as Mr. [Lakshmi] Mittal. His wealth is enriched with a steady annual flow of miner victims in Karaganda, who work for next to nothing in monstrous conditions. Work has also begun on a documentary film called Democracy in Kazakhstan. There are many aspects to political work, and we want to accelerate the process of real democratization in our country by means of international instruments. Unfortunately, these are the only available instruments nowadays.

A few words about my enthusiasm. I had already staked out my position in 1997, when some leaders from the present opposition admired the President and sent flowers to his wife. I refused to keep a lid on the corruption within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I appealed to the court with all the necessary documents and refused to accept other state work in exchange for my promise to keep silent about the revelry of our elite in the hardest times during our first year of independence. During the academic stage of my post-diplomatic career, and before the emergence of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK), I criticized the systemic problems in Kazakhstan and its so-called political modernization within Western academic circles. You remember my public speeches and my civic stance after my five-year stay in England.

My enthusiasm was very different from those eager people who were pushed back from the feeding trough, or those who were not yet allowed to come near it. It was also very different from an impulsive psychosis, like that demonstrated by Raimbek Batalov who, in the presence of 25 members in the Atameken Union, rushed into the fight, having exhausted his intellect and verbal acumen. In my case, enthusiasm is a core trait of my personality. I was brought up in a simple family. My parents are teachers who grew up in an orphanage. Since my childhood, I have had an acute sense of social justice, eager to help the deprived and to oppose the unjust. And no matter how much force - by propaganda, repression or diplomacy - our state apparatus may waste on me, my resistance will only increase.

A few words about my meetings with politicians who emigrated from Kazakhstan. In the context of the forthcoming chairmanship of Kazakhstan in the OSCE, there are many events that are being organised on Central Asia and on Kazakhstan in particular. So therefore there are enough forums for meeting with these politicians.

You have announced that you will answer the question of who murdered Altynbek Sarsenbayev. What has prevented you from revealing this information?

In one of my interviews last year, I said that European law enforcement bodies have commenced the necessary procedures for investigation of the circumstances of this murder. The work is ongoing. Naturally, whatever information I might get, I have no right to violate European procedural and material criminal law through detailed announcements for the press. I want to emphasize, though, that if it had not been for my interview last year, "Why did [Nurtay] Abikayev come to Klagenfurt?", the investigation could have taken a more conservative course. Now it is being closely monitored by the Western press. And so no diplomatic agreements in the clandestine, Kazakh style have had any effect and will have hardly any at all.

At first you settled in London. Now you live in Vienna. Did you get a resident permit in this country?

I spend most of my time in Great Britain. As for Vienna, you know that the OSCE headquarters are here. That explains my frequent visits for meetings with diplomats and experts, and participating in various consultations and conferences. I have visited Vienna as often as I have visited Warsaw and Strasburg, where the headquarters for the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and the European Parliament are found. I don't understand why diplomats from Kazakhstan don't inform taxpayers about political work performed by citizens of Kazakhstan. Lately we have had to associate with each other at international meetings. They conscientiously informed the Ministry of Internal Affairs about my speeches, meetings and travels.

Forgive me for asking an indiscreet question, but it interests many. On what do you live in the most expensive cities of Europe? They say your traveling expenses are paid by politicians who emigrated from Kazakhstan.

Only in Kazakhstan can intelligent people with three degrees starve. Atameken was also created with the purpose of raising intelligent Kazakhs up from supplicant poverty.

The information you have is not quite correct. I already answered this question last year. It is not so difficult for me to find work in the Western labour market. At the same time Atameken has many members and compassionate friends, sincerely concerned that the middle class, businessmen and the intelligentsia should be the real political means to influence the ground rules in our society. Their support surely is important. I did not take money from any of the political emigrants. Though as far as I know, there is a political emigrant who received a considerable sum of money from Astana for "good behavior" a year and a half ago. But that is a topic for another conversation.

Do you plan to return to Kazakhstan and find a permanent place of residence, and if so, under what conditions? Do you visit your relatives remaining in Kazakhstan?

What do you mean by permanent place of residence? Kazakhstan is my native land, the land of my ancestors. The conditions of my return are the same: the registration of Atameken and the guarantee of my personal safety for further political activity.

What effect did your departure produce both in Kazakhstan and abroad?

In the West, it was certainly noticed. Immediately after my departure, I was received in the U.S. by senators, congressmen, State Department representatives, the Defense Department and the National Security Council, that is, those people who are in charge of forming U.S. foreign policy towards Kazakhstan. The monitoring of our party registration is undertaken by the OSCE and its Bureau for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the European Parliament, the parliaments of individual European countries and the United States Congress. As for the reaction in Kazakhstan, it is entirely controlled by the authorities. And as always, the authorities first try to scare and suppress, and then they try to deride and ignore. In his book the late Vice-President Yerik Asanbayev wrote about these methods of suppressing opposition.

Were you in contact with your former boss Timur Kulibayev after your departure?

No.

With whom among Kazakhstan's politicians and statesmen do you communicate?

I have good relations with many politicians and statesmen. From talks with them, I can sense that even inside the state apparatus there is a growing understanding that the present system is not merely rotten to the core, but also immoral, anti-populist and inhuman in its essence.

Interviewed by Yulia Kistkina