Kazakh envoy to Singapore blames foreign militants for ‘chaos’ as questions persist over deadly unrest
- Arken Arystanov made the comments at a press briefing organised by Kazakhstan’s mission to Singapore
- An internet blackout in the capital Almaty has made it difficult to establish facts on the ground after the country’s worst violence in 30 years
Kazakhstan’s ambassador to Singapore on Tuesday doubled down on claims that foreign militants had escalated initially-peaceful protests over fuel price hikes earlier this month, accusing them of wanting to “form a zone of controlled chaos” to seize power.
The comments by Arken Arystanov, who has been the central Asian country’s envoy in Singapore since 2019, came as questions persist over the Kazakh government’s narrative around the unrest that left at least 225 people dead.
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Arystanov, whose embassy organised a briefing for media representatives in Singapore, said armed militants from central Asian countries and the Middle East were responsible for the “well-coordinated and organised” unrest. He is simultaneously Kazakhstan’s envoy to Australia and New Zealand.
“The idea was to create chaos in the region and maybe create an Islamic state again,” he told reporters. About 70 per cent of Kazakhstan’s 19 million population are Muslim but the country practises a secular form of government.
“The perpetrators’ key goal was disorganisation of government institutions, undermining of the constitutional order, and ultimately the seizure of power in Kazakhstan,” he said.
Arystanov added that police investigations were under way and more concrete evidence could be expected. Over 12,000 people have been detained, including journalists and rights activists.
Due to an extensive internet blackout in the capital Almaty that lasted for about a week, it has been difficult to establish facts on the ground.
News reports said protesters torched public buildings and seized a major airport at Almaty, the country’s largest city, demanding not only for lower fuel prices but also broader political reform. Activists have accused security authorities of excessive force in quelling the unrest.
It was the country’s worst violence in the 30 years since Kazakhstan’s independence from the former Soviet Union, and the third uprising against a Kremlin-aligned nation, following the pro-democracy protests in Ukraine in 2014 and in Belarus in 2020.
The unrest also laid bare a power struggle in the oil rich-country between the influential former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, who stepped down in 2019 and Tokayev, who he hand-picked as his successor.
Tokayev this week accused his 81-year-old mentor of failing to share the oil-rich country’s vast wealth with ordinary Kazakhs, with several of Nazarbayev’s relatives losing leadership positions in public or state firms.
Among those arrested were a former national security chief close to Nazabayev and two of his deputies.
Raffaello Pantucci, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said that while there was a possibility that some Islamic extremists had been involved in the protests, their presence was likely “marginal”.
“I don’t think there has been any credible evidence that has been presented that [suggested that] Islamic militants linked to Afghanistan were somehow behind the troubles that we saw,” he said, adding that the only evidence backing the government’s statements were “some very dodgy videos” that did not appear authentic.
Pantucci pointed out that jihadist groups had not claimed responsibility, and in fact, the Taliban, which rules Afghanistan, said at the height of the unrest that it hoped for peace and stability in Kazakhstan.
One reason for attributing the demonstrations to foreign forces was to justify the involvement of the CSTO, which functioned on the premise of not interfering in the internal affairs of member states unless there was an external threat, he said. “It is a narrative that could fly.”
But pushing such a stance could come at a cost. “The danger is if you blame these sorts of forces, you might not engage with the actual problems that were behind the protests,” explained Pantucci.
“I don’t think we should discount the fact that at the root of this, there was a very deep wellspring of anger in Kazakhstan at the economy and inequality.”
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Even though Arystanov acknowledged that the protests were “not good” for the investment climate, he emphasised that swift action was taken by the government to control the situation.
Businesses that he spoke to still saw potential in the country, and the government would take measures to restore investor confidence, he said. Tokayev last week said order had been restored and promised reform.
Pantucci warned that the government’s next steps could have implications for its international standing.
Countries had been keen to engage with Kazakhstan but if its government advanced narratives that “seem so at odds with reality”, it would become harder for Western powers to continue doing so.
Kazakhstan, located on China’s northwest border, is a large exporter of natural gas to the mainland. Given its position between China and Europe, it is a crucial link in the Belt and Road Initiative aimed at boosting global trade and connectivity.
Foreign firms who have invested heavily in Kazakhstan would rethink their investments, if they found that the government was behaving in an “aggressively authoritarian way”, he said.
“I am generally more optimistic about the country than other places but it is really quite worrying to see what’s happened – the kind of reversion to an authoritarian model which we thought Kazakhstan had sort of grown out of,” he said.
Additional reporting by Reuters and Agence France-Presse
