Читать книгу Kazakhstan's Assassinated Democracy - Yerzhan Psy.D. Dosmukhamedov - Страница 6

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 Nazarbayev has been delaying the full registration of our political party, ATAMEKEN, for more than four years since its Founding Convention held on October 27, 2006. The archaic reason is my refusal to give him a secret oath of personal loyalty on the Qur’an and thus become his puppet to fool the Kazakh people and Western public opinion. This procedure is not stipulated by the Constitution. Thus, my party’s refusal to be a pseudo-democratic rattle in the hands of the dictator prevents it from official registration.

US and European politicians, who made the decision to grant Kazakhstan the 2010 OSCE presidency, were well aware of the antidemocratic nature of the Nazarbayev regime. They were therefore insincere when publicly arguing that the presidency of the OSCE will contribute to the process of democratization of Kazakhstan.

My colleagues and I welcomed the election of President Obama. But to this present day, we feel overlooked and somehow betrayed by the world's leading democracy. We believe that the US administration turns a blind eye to the gross human rights abuses by the despotic Nazarbayev regime in exchange for petrodollars which are generously used to perpetuate its survival and further crackdown on the remaining political opposition.

President Obama's words on the support of democracy are inspiring nevertheless. The US Administration and the free world must now show unwavering support for democratic forces in Kazakhstan, or else risk the recreation of dictators who have cost the Western allies so much blood and treasure in the recent past.

A Roadmap towards Democracy

What should the US do now in the context of the 2011 State of the Union?

The constant amendments on the extension of President Nazarbayev's authority, by referendum or premature elections, confirm Mr. Nazarbayev's inability to change and his plain thirst for power, not democratization.

The world's leading democracy should therefore set out clear expectations that Kazakhstan should not lapse back into authoritarianism for yet another decade. Any legislative attempt to further curtail democratic freedoms should be strongly condemned. The best instant message would be to urge President Nazarbayev to step down and let the fair and open elections take place this year.

One immediate step which would demonstrate President Obama’s genuine willingness to support our democracy would be to freeze all the assets of Nazarbayev, his son-in-law Timur Kulibayev, and other cronies acquired or kept in the democratic jurisdictions.

All the prisoners of conscience – opposition activists, independent journalists, and dissidents - must be freed.

All the political parties earlier denied official registration must be allowed to exercise their freedoms and rights.

The Kazakh people want economic opportunity, political participation and the chance to build a better future. Young Kazakh people especially need to have a meaningful role in the decisions that shape their lives. Addressing these concerns will be challenging after 20 years of authoritarian rule by Nazarbayev, whose regime was aptly defined as "despotic" by the British Times.

We hope that the United States will stand ready to help the democratic forces of Kazakhstan, which is highly educated, secular, geographically and culturally close to Europe and thus is a good candidate for democracy in Central Asia.

The new amendments to the Kazakh Constitution are the road to the final execution of the remaining democracy. If this wrong turn is again ignored by the United States and its democratic allies, it will be paved by new assassinations, economic mismanagement, tortures, religious discrimination, corruption, misery, and the poverty of millions of ordinary Kazakhs.

The naive unwillingness of the US administration to stop the ever-growing appetite of President Nazarbayev and his highly corrupt family and cronies, in exchange for US aircraft flying rights or lucrative uranium and oil transactions, says more than the sincerity of President Obama's commitment to defend democracy around the world. We Kazakhstanis pay too high a price for miscalculations by the US administration.

We still trust Western democracies, so when the change comes, I surmise the vacuum will be filled with democratic and progressive ideals, not the anti-Western extremism of an impoverished and angered nation hopelessly disappointed in the Western approach to development.

We hope that the current administration will get on the right side of history and at last give us its hand of support.