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Chicago Tribune
December 10, 2001
Kazakstan, though thriving, fears ripple effects of war
By Cheryl Collins
Special to the Tribune
ALMATY, Kazakstan -- On the broad, tree-lined streets of this city, there is little evidence that life has changed here since the U.S. began its campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
But in conversations with residents of this cosmopolitan city--the economic and cultural center of the country and, until 1998, its capital--it is clear that most feel the war to be uncomfortably close and fear its potential to destabilize the most stable nation in the region.
Neighboring Uzbekistan is being used as a staging area by the U.S. military, and the television news describes the strengthening of Kazakstan's borders and an increase in its military budget.
"The war is now far away, but I worry that my children will see the war," said Egemberdieva Sapargul, who wore a wool hood tightly around her head to fend off the chill as she sold bottles of soda at a busy bus stop. A mother and grandmother, she is frightened that her children will experience the deprivations her parents' generation knew during World War II.
During the weekend, Secretary of State Colin Powell, on an eight-day visit to Europe and Central Asia, stopped in the capital, Astana, to thank President Nursultan Nazarbayev for granting airspace rights to the United States and offering the use of his bases. While no bases in Kazakstan have been needed in the military campaign, they may play a role in the humanitarian effort, Powell suggested.
U.S. cooperation
Nazarbayev praised the level of U.S.-Kazak cooperation in exporting his country's oil to world markets. He said his country supports building several pipelines, including one through Iran that the U.S. opposes.
The largest and wealthiest country of the five former Soviet states in Central Asia, Kazakstan has emerged almost by default as the most stable nation in that region, with the strongest economy and the least authoritarian political system.
Graced with an abundance of oil and natural-gas reserves and an open market, Kazakstan and Nazarbayev are riding a wave of growth that has not been slowed so far by the war.
As this nation celebrates 10 years of statehood this month, it hardly qualifies as a democratic state. While the methods used are perhaps less obvious and heavy-handed than those elsewhere in the region, Nazarbayev exerts tight control over the government.
He has been the nation's leader since its independence and got 80 percent of the votes in the 1999 elections. However, government officials barred his chief opponent from running against him, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which observes elections, said the election fell short of international standards.
In comparison to other Central Asian states, Kazakstan has worked hard to attract foreign investors by liberalizing its financial system and opening its market, Western analysts say. The nation needs those funds to help finance the development of its vast, largely untapped oil and gas reserves.
Although the influx of petrodollars has swelled the economy, especially in the last year, the vast majority of Kazaks have yet to see tangible benefits.
According to official statistics compiled in 1999, the unemployment rate was about 14 percent, and 35 percent of the 16 million inhabitants lived below the poverty line. Many more are under-employed, listed on the payroll of barely functioning Soviet-era factories.
An ethnically mixed population, a tradition of tolerance and several centuries of Russian influence are seen to contribute to Kazakstan's relaxed attitude toward formal religion, reflected in its constitutional designation as a secular state.
For centuries the nomadic Kazaks, a Mongolian people who speak a Turkic language, ranged across the vast steppes with their herds. Their traditional lifestyle faded by the late 18th Century after Russia annexed the land.
Soviet-era migration
In the early Soviet era, thousands of ethnic Ukrainians, Germans, Poles, Chechens, Koreans and others were sent into exile here. During World War II, many European Russians who lived close to the front lines were relocated to Kazakstan, and in the 1950s and 1960s, many more Soviet citizens settled in the region in an effort to increase agricultural production.
The result is that today Kazakstan is a multiethnic society; according to official figures, 53 percent of the population is ethnic Kazak and 30 percent is ethnic Russian. In the 1999 census, 47 percent of the population was Sunni Muslim and 44 percent was Russian Orthodox.
There has been a religious resurgence since 1991, as throughout the former Soviet Union. However, with a lack of guidance during 70 years of Soviet rule, many Muslims practice a faith that is an amalgam of shamanist beliefs and Islam. One of the most important roles at the hundreds of mosques that have been built in the past 10 years has been to instruct the faithful on proper Islamic practice.
Despite the tradition of tolerance, the most immediate consequence of the war that was widely feared by residents was a wave of Afghan refugees flooding their southern border. However, the threat has not yet materialized.
For many, these potential refugees present the introduction of an unknown, perhaps dangerous element into their country. "I don't know who they are and what they believe," said Sapargul, echoing many.
In Kazakstan, though, the war in Afghanistan is a distant reality.
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