The crackdown Putin doesn’t want you to see: Masked Kazakh police pictured rounding up ‘protesters’

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Masked Kazakh police have been pictured rounding up ‘protesters’ and opening fire on journalists a day after they were given a shoot to kill order and authorities blocked the internet as the Central Asian state faces a countrywide wave of violent unrest. 

Dozens have died and public buildings across Kazakhstan have been ransacked and torched in the worst violence experienced by the former Soviet republic in 30 years of independence. 

The unrest was fuelled by public anger over the country’s former ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev and his family amassing a huge fortune, and over a hike in gas prices. 

Security forces regained control of the streets of Kazakhstan’s main city Almaty on Friday morning and the president said constitutional order had mostly been restored after days of clashes in which at least 26 demonstrators were killed and 18 law-enforcement officers died.

It came hours after 2,500 Russian ‘peacekeepers’ from the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) arrived in Kazakhstan on Thursday at the request of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. 

 Russia has emphasised the deployment is only temporary with forces, who have been given the right to use weapons in case they are attacked by ‘armed gangs’, expected to stay in Kazakhstan for only days or weeks.

But it was a move questioned by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken who told reporters during a State Department briefing on Saturday that it was ‘not clear’ why Kazakh officials felt ‘the need for any outside assistance’. 

‘It would seem to me that the Kazakh authorities and government certainly have the capacity to deal appropriately with protests to do so in a way that respects the rights of protesters while maintaining law and order,’ he said. ‘One lesson of recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it’s sometimes very difficult to get them to leave.’ 

And in another twist, Kazakh authorities on Saturday detained Former National Security Chief Karim Massimov, who was fired this week as protests took hold, on suspicion of treason. 

Massimov, who is widely viewed as a close ally of former president Nazarbayev, was detained alongside several other officials on Saturday, the National Security Committee said in a statement, without providing their names or further details.    

On Saturday, there were no immediate reports of unrest in Almaty, but police dispersed a demonstration and made detentions in the city of Aktau, while sporadic gunfire was heard in Kyzylorda, the Russian agency Sputnik said.

No details were given about what Masimov was alleged to have done that would constitute an attempted government overthrow. The security agency he headed, a successor to the Soviet-era KGB, is responsible for counter-intelligence, the border guards service and anti-terror activities. 

Massimov has twice been prime minister and has also served as head of the presidential administration under Nazarbayev. 

Although the protests began as denunciations of the near-doubling of fuel prices at the start of the year, their spread and intense violence indicate they reflect widespread dissatisfaction in the country run by the same party for more than 30 years.

Many demonstrators were shouting ‘old man out’, a reference to Nursultan Nazarbayev, who was president from independence until resigning in 2019 and anointing Mr Tokayev as his successor.

Mr Nazarbayev, who was given the title Ebasy (leader of the nation), retained substantial power after his resignation as head of the National Security Council.

But Mr Tokayev removed him as council head amid the unrest, possibly aiming at a concession to mollify protesters.

Mr Nazarbayev remained invisible during the chaos, but on Saturday his spokesman said he is in the capital and ‘calls on everyone to rally around the president of Kazakhstan to overcome current challenges and ensure the integrity of our country’. 

And in another twist on Friday, Kazakhstan’s president issued a shoot to kill order to his troops to deal with disturbances from those he called ‘bandits’ and ‘terrorists’ – as he vowed to ‘completely eliminate’ protesters who he said he would not negotiate with.    

‘The militants have not laid down their arms, they continue to commit crimes or are preparing for them. The fight against them must be pursued to the end. Whoever does not surrender will be destroyed,’ he said in a televised address.

‘I have given the order to law enforcement agencies and the army to shoot to kill without warning.’

He went on to say the country’s main city Almaty had been attacked by ‘20,000 bandits’ and gave ‘special thanks’ to Russian President Vladimir Putin for sending troops to help quell the unrest. 

He also condemned calls by some countries for talks with the protesters as ‘nonsense’. ‘What negotiations can be held with criminals, murderers?’ he asked.  

Fresh gunshots could be heard in the morning near the city’s central square, where troops and protesters had battled through much of the previous day. 

The streets calmed on Friday, however, after Russian paratroopers arrived in Almaty. 

Troops were deployed to the Central Asian state after President Tokayev – an ally of Russia’s Vladimir Putin – appealed to Russia-dominated security bloc which includes five other ex-Soviet states (Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) for help overnight on Wednesday.    

It is the first time that a contingent of CSTO peacekeeping troops has been dispatched to deal with conflict in one of its member states. 

It comes despite the refusal of Russia’s former President Dmitry Medvedev to send CSTO troops to quell deadly unrest in Kyrgyzstan in 2010, because ‘only in the case of a foreign intrusion and an attempt to externally seize power can we state that there is an attack against the CSTO – all the problems of Kyrgyzstan have internal roots.’ 

Demonstrations that began as a response to a fuel price hike have swelled into a broad movement against the government and ex-leader Nazarbayev, 81, the longest-serving ruler of any former Soviet state, and an ally of Putin.

He stepped down as president three years ago when he turned over power to Tokayev but his family is widely believed to have retained influence in Nur-Sultan, the purpose-built capital that bears his name. A statue of Nazarbayev was toppled late on Wednesday. 

‘An anti-terrorist operation has been launched. The forces of law and order are working hard. Constitutional order has largely been restored in all regions of the country,’ Tokayev said in an earlier statement.

‘Local authorities are in control of the situation. But terrorists are still using weapons and damaging the property of citizens. Therefore, counter-terrorist actions should be continued until the militants are completely eliminated.’

Nazarbayev’s hand-picked successor, Tokayev, called in Russian paratroopers on Thursday as part of a force from former Soviet states to help put down the uprising, which he has described as a revolt by foreign-trained militants.

The interior ministry said 26 ‘armed criminals’ had been ‘liquidated’, 18 injured, and more than 3,000 detained, while 18 police and national guard service members had been killed since the start of the protests. More than 700 were injured.

A former banker who casts himself as the leader of the Kazakh opposition protests said Kazakhstan is now in geopolitical play and unless the West enters the fray then Russia will bring the Central Asian republic to heel in a type of restored Soviet Union.

Mukhtar Ablyazov, a former government minister who is now living in Paris, said the West needed to enter the fray. 

‘If not, then Kazakhstan will turn into Belarus and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin with methodically impose his programme: the recreation of a structure like the Soviet Union,’ Ablyazov told Reuters.

Ablyazov cast himself as the leader of the opposition protests and said he was consulted every day on tactics on the ground in Almaty.

‘I see myself as the leader of the opposition,’ he said. ‘Every day the protesters call me and ask: ‘What should we do? We are standing here: What should we do?”

He said he was ready to fly into Kazakhstan to head a provisional government if the protests escalated and said his activists were awaiting him.

‘The West should tear Kazakhstan away from Russia,’ he said. ‘The West must help so that Putin cannot occupy this country, the West must help civil society elect its leaders so that the country can choose its path, a democratic path like in the West.’

Western countries have called for restraint on all sides and for the respect of people’s right to protest peacefully.