Riot police officers standing on duty in the western Kazakh city of Aktau following the deadly riots. Tretyakov / Reuters

Recent riots in Zhanaozen and Shetpe in the Mangystau province in western Kazakhstan have resulted in at least 16 deaths and over 100 injured. This information is according to the Kazakh authorities although unverified eye witness accounts and human rights groups put the death toll at more than 50. The number of those wounded in the clashes is most likely much higher than reported.

The violence that took place between the police and protesting oil workers and their sympathizers last week is the most bloodshed the country has seen since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Ironically (or intentionally) these events coincided with the 20th anniversary festivities held across Kazakhstan to mark the occasion that included the unveiling of a replica of Paris’s Arc de Triomphe in the capital of Astana.

The violence started on Friday, December 16. Since last May, disgruntled oil workers were occupying the central square in Zhanaozen, a nondescript industrial city of some 90,000 residents in western Mangystau province, citing disputes over wages and job losses. Some of the thousands of initial strikers were dismissed, prompting many of their colleagues to return to work.

The New York Times writes that the protesters shifted their focus to political demands including the right to form independence parties. “In response, the authorities announced plans to hold a state-sponsored New Year’s holiday party for children on the site, apparently in a ruse aimed at providing an excuse to clear out the workers. In an online video said to be shot at the scene, protesters are shown pushing past police lines to dismantle a stage for the party, then overturning a tree decorated for the holiday. It also showed police officers firing into the air.”

The Moscow Times reports a slight variation on the theme: “fired oil workers and sympathetic citizens stormed a stage erected for an Independence Day party and smashed sound equipment in central Zhanaozen. They later set fire to the city hall, the headquarters of a local oil company, a hotel and dozens of other buildings, including trade centers and houses, burned cars and buses and plundered ATMs.”

Police opened fire and according to the officials 14 protesters were killed in the clashes in Zhanaozen alone. An article from the Telegraph has a short video of the storming of the stage.

The following day the unrest spread to the neighborhood village of Shetpe, 60 miles north of Zhanaozen, where a crowd blocked a train coming from the port of Aktau. According to the authorities, one person was killed and 12 were wounded.

On Sunday morning, December 18, about 500 protesters gathered near the main square in Aktau facing a large force of riot police.

The city is the capital of the Mangystau region and is one of Kazakhstan’s most important oil producing centers. Aktau is a key transportation hub for the Northern Distribution Network, which provides transit of non-lethal supplies for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. It has a population of around 180,000 people and is home to hundreds of Western expats.

The government declared a state of emergency in Zhanaozen with a 20 day curfew in effect and a ban on public gatherings until January 5, 2012. President Nursultan Nazarbayev was quick to dismiss the clashes as provocations by the “hooligans.”

After clashes in Zhanaozen, protests erupted in Shetpe. (c) The New York Times

Protests in pictures from the BBC.

From the Economist on the Kazakh clashes.

The Jamestown Foundation Blog has a good overview of the recent violence and events in Kazakhstan.

Amateur video of the clashes making rounds on the internet:

Raza Habib Raja

Sixteenth December arouses radically different sentiments in two different and yet related countries of the world. In one, it is cherished and celebrated and in the other it is just “ignored” and of course deliberately.

But then the significance of this day differs so much for each of the aforementioned countries of the world. For one it is the day of victory (though their official Independence Day is March 26, 16^th December is celebrated as the Victory Day) and for other, it is the day of a humiliating defeat which they will like to forget. It is the day when the cherished army made up of so called martial race belonging to the latter was overwhelmed within one month.

It is a day which ideally should never be forgotten by latter country Pakistan but given its tendency to conveniently ignore the inconvenient truth, it is perhaps expected. While our history text books scream about 1965 war with India, they hardly say a word about 1971’s humiliating defeat and more importantly as to what had actually led to the fateful year.

All our history, the one which is taught, is silent about what was happening in East Pakistan during 1950s and 1960s. Our history just talks about West Pakistan and in doing so merely reflects what exactly was happening TO East Pakistan: It was being ignored completely. And when we finally turned attention, it was not to redress their grievances but to undertake an army operation which could be easily called a massacre as well. And of course the official history does not talk about it and even if you go through the popular “unofficial” version you will find that most of the blame would be placed on Mukti Bahni and Indian conspiracies to break Pakistan.

It is only if you start reading some books by the foreign authors or some of the more objective Pakistani writers that a different narrative starts to emerge. And needless to say that even if you read credible writers and objective accounts that narrative is radically different from the official Pakistani version.

Pakistanis had mistreated Bengalis and that mistreatment progressively became worse as the time went by. It started with the denial of freedom to Bengalis to choose a national language and then started to seep into economic domain. Bengalis particularly felt left out in the matters of governance and decision making. And it was this feeling of deprivation which ultimately manifested into secession based movement.

It should have been remembered that humans generally do not have a single identity but rather multiple identities. Which identity actually would actually be at the forefront at a particular time would depend on a host of complicated factors and perception of discrimination, whether real or nor, is one of the most potent ones. Ethnicity, defined on the lines of language and cultural homogeneity within a group has always been a very strong identity.  If an ethnicity feels that it is being discriminated due to its ethnicity, then that becomes the foremost identity and also the rallying point.

And then there is the concept of ethnic nationalism. Nationalism is not merely preservation of identity; it is very much intertwined with the concept of state. If state is perceived as unjust then nationalists will try to create their own state and thus would try to secede. Ernest Gellener actually defines nationalism in the context of injustice. The deprived and excluded if belonging to some common ethnicity will revolt and will form nationalist expression built around that ethnicity and may end up striving for a state of its own.

Let’s not forget that Bengalis were at the forefront of the Pakistan movement. To declare that they did not want Pakistan would be completely incorrect. However, while opting for Pakistan, their cultural as well ethnic identity though for the time being relegated did not simply vanish. And it came out dormancy when State began its exclusion based on that identity.

And we had more than two decades to redress the grievances by giving them a share in the governance and to ensure their greater participation in the national decisions which invariably affected them, but bent on centralization, we did not. We created one unit system, which according to many independent observers, was a twin pronged strategy to negate their population advantage and also to negate the ethnic diversity with in Western Pakistan.

And then when Awami League won the elections, we refused to give them their share of power and later on went on to conduct a military operation which resulted in wide scale loss of human lives.

It is our fear of plurality, particularly the perception that autonomy on ethnic lines would break up Pakistan that made us do all that back then and which continues to make us do similar things to provinces like Baluchistan.

So we have not learnt the critical lesson. We continue to believe that autonomy will break up Pakistan completely overlooking the key historical evidence: lack of autonomy will actually break Pakistan. And even if inhabitants of Baluchistan are not able to actually secede due to lack of military means, in their hearts they will hate Pakistan with increasing intensity.

As pointed out quite eloquently by Mr. Stephen Cohen in his book “The Idea of Pakistan” that Pakistani leaders have not fully grasped that in an ethnically diverse state most politics is of identity and closely linked to issues of pride, status, jobs and social equality. They seem convinced that ethno-linguistic demands are an economic problem, not a political, problem, and if other means fail, a military problem

Civil wars evoke a lot of emotions and subsequently the historical accounts reflect those emotional biases. Exactly how many died during the war of 1971 will always be a matter of dispute and both sides will claim radically different numbers. It is hardly surprising that estimates range from less than ten thousand to over a million.

How many were killed will remain a matter of dispute but even if no one was killed, the point is that we did an injustice by not giving Bengalis their due share and denied them their rights.

Nations move on only by embracing their past blunders and acknowledging their grave mistakes. Only through acknowledgement do we set our future direction right. A very important step towards this embracement and acknowledgement is to apologize to those who have faced the brunt of those mistakes. Yes, sorry is difficult but nevertheless an important step towards making peace with a very bitter part of our history.  Sorry requires a lowering of ego but our misplaced ego has always been our worst enemy.

Yes sorry wont compensate whatever has been done and there is a possibility that many Bengalis won’t even accept it for not being enough. But then to say sorry is our duty and to forgive is their choice. And when it is a matter of duty, it has to be done irrespective of whether the counter party exercises its choice or not.

The real sorry has to come from Pakistan’s government..but I will nevertheless say it..

We are Sorry Bangladesh…

Months after South Sudan emerged as the world’s newest country, celebrations have died down and the government in Juba must address the numerous challenges that face the fledgling nation. Apart from addressing unresolved issues with the north and the many domestic challenges, the key to South Sudan’s progress will be maintaining good governance. Much of this will depend on President Salva Kiir and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement’s (SPLM) abilities to address the needs of the South Sudanese, but also to allow the people’s voices to be heard.

The management of South Sudan’s political dynamics will be a vital indicator in measuring the country’s democratic progress. The SPLM, once Sudan’s political opposition movement with a military branch known as the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), fought against the government in Khartoum for more than two decades. The SPLM is now the ruling party of South Sudan.

The SPLM enjoys broad support throughout the country. According to a September poll conducted by the International Republican Institute (IRI), 91 percent of people who belong to a political party belong to the SPLM. Furthermore, 84 percent of respondents view the SPLM either “very favorably” or “favorably.” Such support is not surprising. South Sudanese view the SPLM/A as their liberators in the long struggle against the north, and according to some experts, it is considered treasonous to speak ill of the SPLM.

While the majority of respondents expressed favorability for the SPLM, their views regarding the necessity of political parties were less definitive. Thirty-eight percent of voters agreed with the statement that political parties create division and confusion and are unnecessary in South Sudan. This is compared to a small majority (53 percent) of respondents who believe political parties are needed to make sure the South Sudanese have a say in who governs them.

While the poll does not reveal the reasoning for this division, it’s clear that the South Sudanese majority is content with the SPLM and is divided on the necessity of political parties. Confident with broad public support, the SPLM-led government has made few efforts to encourage the organization of political parties. South Sudan’s administrative system of governance has remained unchanged since liberation, and the SPLM dominates cabinet positions and nongovernmental institutions across the country. The political parties that do exist are not well known, and some have failed to transition from a revolutionary platform to one that works within the democratic process. While South Sudan’s interim constitution includes political parties in the governing process, critics warn that the constitution is skewed to favor the SPLM and preserve its hold on power.

The United States, a lead mediator during the creation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, is a major investor in South Sudan’s government. Since 2005, the U.S. has spent $10 billion for humanitarian relief in support of the peace process and U.N. peacekeeping operations. In an interview with Voice of America, Susan Page, Washington’s first ambassador to South Sudan, emphasized the need for South Sudan to create “a democratic space to allow other political parties to openly express their views.” A major component of this will be enshrining the rights of political parties in the new constitution. The United States must urge South Sudan’s government to encourage a vibrant civil society via political activity. Having an engaged and active electorate puts pressure on the government to respond to the country’s needs. American NGOs such as IRI, which have had success in assisting political party growth in Africa (e.g. Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change), can facilitate this.

A crucial element of democracy is leaders’ acceptance of defeat when they have lost the confidence of the people. Too often in Africa, rebel groups have been successful in overthrowing autocracies, only to fall into the same pattern as their predecessors. Having amassed significant goodwill from the international community, South Sudan has the potential to be a success story. This opportunity must not be wasted.