© KEYSTONE/EPA/Kyrgyz Republic General Staff / HANDOUT
The president of Kazakhstan on Friday authorized the security forces to “shoot to kill” in order to quell the riots which rock the country. With the support of Moscow, he ruled out negotiating with the demonstrators.
In a televised address, Kassym-Jomart Tokaïev “thanked especially” his ally Vladimir Poutine for his help following the arrival on the spot of a contingent of Russian troops and other allied countries of Moscow to support the capacity.
Kazakhstan, the largest country in Central Asia, with rich natural resources, is shaken by a dispute that erupted Sunday in the provinces following a rise in gas prices before spreading to large cities, including Almaty, the economic capital , where the demonstrations degenerated into riots once morest the regime in place, which left dozens of people dead.
After two days of violence, Almaty looked like a ghost town on Friday, with most banks, supermarkets and restaurants remaining closed, AFP journalists noted. Traffic timidly resumed, while police armored vehicles patrolled the streets, still littered with the carcasses of charred vehicles.
The facade of the town hall, set on fire on Wednesday with the presidential residence, appeared largely blackened and smoke still escaping from the windows.
“I ordered the police and the army to shoot to kill without warning,” said Mr. Tokayev on Friday, describing as “absurd” the calls, especially from the West, to negotiate with the protesters. “What kind of negotiations can we have with criminals, with murderers? (…) They must be destroyed and it will be done soon,” he said.
He maintained that Almaty had been attacked by “20,000 bandits”, accusing in particular “certain people abroad” of being behind this crisis, without elaborating.
Moscow to the rescue
The unrest shaking this country of 19 million people is worrying Western countries. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron called on Friday for “an end to violence” and “restraint”. But Chinese President Xi Jinping praised the “strong measures” taken by the Kazakh president, paying tribute to his “sense of duty”.
Called for help by Mr. Tokayev, Russian soldiers, deployed as part of a contingent of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), have already started “to perform the tasks assigned to them” in Kazakhstan, Moscow said Friday. MM. Putin and Tokayev have had several telephone conversations in recent days, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
Order has been “largely restored in all regions”, assured the Kazakh leader, even though “the anti-terrorist operation continues”. As a sign that the situation had not returned to normal, Almaty airport has indicated that it will remain closed at least until Sunday.
The authorities claimed that 26 “armed criminals” had been killed and more than a thousand protesters injured, the police also reporting 18 killed and 748 wounded in their ranks. More than 3,800 people have been arrested. These figures might not be independently verified.
Anger once morest the ex-president
The authorities had initially tried to calm the demonstrations, without success, by conceding a drop in the price of gas, by sacking the government and by establishing a state of emergency and a night curfew throughout the country.
Beyond the rise in prices, the anger of the demonstrators is directed in particular once morest the authoritarian ex-president Noursoultan Nazarbaïev, remained in the shadow of power and whom they accuse of corruption. He has not made any public appearances since the unrest began.
The 81-year-old Mr. Nazarbayev ruled the country from 1989 to 2019 and retains great influence. He is considered the mentor of the current president. “Nazarbaïev should have left (politics) fifteen years ago. A clan lives well and the rest of the population is poor”, plague Yermek Alimbaïev, a sixty-year-old resident of Almaty.
Kazakh opponent Mukhtar Abliazov, a political refugee in France, assured AFP on Friday that a “revolution” was underway in his country and denounced the “occupation” of Kazakhstan by Moscow forces. Some Kazakh media claimed that Mr. Nazarbayev and his family had left Kazakhstan, but this information might not be verified from an independent source.