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| kazakhstan, analysis & comments
| | The World Street Journal: Abuse claims in Kazakhstan rattle the U.S.
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| 23 July 2008, 11:24
| CA-NEWS (KZ) - Members of Congress expressed concern Tuesday about allegations of corruption and human-rights abuses in Kazakhstan, a strategic U.S. friend and energy producer.
At a hearing on Capitol Hill, lawmakers questioned the selection of Kazakhstan as the next leader of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a multilateral organization devoted to European security.
Kazakhstan has yet to make overhauls it promised last November when it was chosen to assume the chairmanship of the organization in 2010, said witnesses and members of Congress who recently returned from the OSCE's annual parliamentary meeting, held for the first time in Kazakhstan.
Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D., Md.) said in a statement that "some opposition figures and journalists have been murdered or have died under suspicious circumstances." He said he found "quite sobering" President Nursultan Nazarbaev's assessment that Kazakhstan's democratization "cannot move faster than his giant neighbors Russia and China."
Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D., N.C.) said he was troubled by "very serious allegations" of corruption by Kazakhstan's president reported Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal.
The Journal reported new allegations of government corruption in the oil-rich nation that could further complicate its relations with the U.S. and the West. The former son-in-law of Mr. Nazarbaev, in hiding in Europe after being convicted in Kazakhstan of kidnapping and a plot to overthrow the government, said Mr. Nazarbaev has diverted billions of dollars in state assets to a network of offshore bank accounts.
Mr. Aliyev, once his country's deputy intelligence chief, also told the Journal that the Nazarbayev regime routinely rigged elections. He provided a handful of blank ballots he said were left over from ballot box stuffing during 1999 elections.
In an interview after the hearing, Rep. Butterfield said "the allegations are serious enough that we have got to look into it....We owe it to American companies doing business in Kazakhstan for them to know the truth."
The Kazakh government declined to comment on the allegations by the president's former son-in-law, Rakhat Aliyev. "I have nothing," Askar Tzhiev, the embassy's chargé d'affairs said in an interview, adding he hadn't yet read the article.
Mr. Tazhiev said his country is essentially a one-party state and that the government is still seeking to address the issue, possibly by designating an opposition faction in its Parliament.
Mr. Nazarbayev's re-election with 91% of the vote in late 2005 prompted complaints of vote fraud. The Nur-Otan party, which supports Mr. Nazarbayev, won all 98 contested seats in a parliamentary election last August. Kazakhstan's pledges to institute overhauls haven't gotten off the ground, according to recent reports from the State Department and an independent human rights group, Freedom House.
At the hearing, which was convened by the Helsinki Commission, a U.S. agency that oversees relations with the European security group, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said political and economic overhauls are needed in Kazakhstan. "That is the only way to get away from corruption," he said.
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