by Should I not be posting on the ongoing threat by Putin against Ukraine that is current dominating the news? Nobody is talking about Kazakhstan. Yes, that is right, which means maybe somebody should, if just to sort of check up on what was The Big Crisis very recently.So indeed it looks that the uprising that cost quite a few lives and resulted in a lot of damage is completely over, along with having several thousand people get arrested. The Putin people are all praising him for bringing it to and end by sending in a couple of thousand troops that guarded a few buildings not under attack. But it looks that the Kazakhani security forces pretty much put the uprising down themselves prior to any of those forces arriving. Crucial was the "shoot to kill" order put out by President Tokayev,
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Should I not be posting on the ongoing threat by Putin against Ukraine that is current dominating the news? Nobody is talking about Kazakhstan. Yes, that is right, which means maybe somebody should, if just to sort of check up on what was The Big Crisis very recently.
So indeed it looks that the uprising that cost quite a few lives and resulted in a lot of damage is completely over, along with having several thousand people get arrested. The Putin people are all praising him for bringing it to and end by sending in a couple of thousand troops that guarded a few buildings not under attack. But it looks that the Kazakhani security forces pretty much put the uprising down themselves prior to any of those forces arriving. Crucial was the "shoot to kill" order put out by President Tokayev, which was carried out, with several hundred dead in the end.
One loose end is what really caused this and was there a major role by outsiders? The latter was claimed by the Kazakhstani government, but their only "evidence" of this was a completely goofball story about a jazz musician who entered Kazakhstan from Tajikistan. There have been vague reports that the CIA was training people in the countryside who poured into the cities, especially Almaty, and caused the worst trouble. It does seem that indeed people did come in from the countryside, but nobody has provided any evidence of this supposed training.
The hard fact is that it seems nobody was expecting this or even vaguely predicting it. The widespread view was that the place was one of the more competently run former Soviet republics, despite lots of corruption and inequality. But most of them have that. Its real per capita income had risen more rapidly than in almost all others, and it had risen in the ranking of these with each other. It looked well off and stable. What happened?
I think this may have been an example of the "revolution of rising expectations," that we sometimes see upheavals in places where things are improving because people have hopes of them improving a lot more and demand it. This really does look like a spontaneous outbreak against this entrenched corrupton and inequality that spread suddenly, but then after getting pretty fierce, was fairly easily put down, being spontaneous and not well organized.
What does seem to have come out of it is that Tokayev has cemented his power, especially against former president and "Father of the Nation," Nursultan Nazarbaev. The latter was removed from his position as leading the National Security Council, and the security chief, Kassimov, an ethnic Uighur, was removed from his position and arrested, with him reportedly a close ally of Nazarbaev. The premier was also replaced, and the security forces are being reorganized. It is probably the case that the real import of Putin sending some forces, now reportedly being removed, is that he signaled his support for Tokayev in this power struggle, with Tokayev apparently having attending the KGB higher academy for a while during the Soviet period.
The most recent development is that after disappearing for awhile, Nazarbaev has resurfaed. He has publicly denied that there was a power struggle or any differences. But it looks that he is accepting his loss of position and allies. He has been around and knows what he needs to say to preserve what he can of his standing and power.
Oh, on the Ukraine matter, I do not know what will happen, but here is an action Putin can probably get away with without getting sanctions imposed on him, but that will also allow him to save face, given that the US and NATO will not meet his demands. He can recognize the independence of the Luhanks and Donetsk separatist republics, something he has also done for South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Transdniestria, even though nobody else has recognized them. He can also supply them with a lot more arms and maybe some deniable green men to allow them to expand their territory of control somewhat in a couple of places, with an obvious one to have them retake the Sea of Azov port they briefly held of Mariupol. Probably Putin can get away with these moves, which will provide him with face.
Barkley Rosser