The wide manifestations have already made several tens of death among the inhabitants, and more than a thousand wounded. Eighteen policemen were also killed.
Le Monde with AFP
Since Sunday, Kazakhstan is the bloody theater of a major population uprising, triggered in particular by rising gas prices. The repression is still rising from a notch, Friday, January 7, when the country’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, announced authorizing the police to open the fire “without warning” on the protesters.
“I gave the order to shoot to kill without warning,” said Takayev during a televised speech, adding that “terrorists continue to damage the goods and use weapons against citizens” . The assessment of these events was already heavy Thursday: Dozens of people were killed, according to statements of the police, more than a thousand people were injured – among which 62 were hospitalized in intensive care – and among the police , 700 policemen were injured and another 18 are dead.
In his speech, Mr. Tokayev also rejected any possibility of negotiation with protesters and promised “elimination” of “armed bandits”. He called the “absurd” calls, especially abroad, to negotiate with the protesters with a view to a peaceful resolution of the crisis. “What kind of negotiations can we have with criminals, with murderers? We have been dealing with armed and trained bandits. (…) We must destroy them and it will be done with little”, has it Launched.
Vladimir Putin, “Thank you very specially”
A contingent of Russian troops and other Moscow allied countries arrived Thursday in Kazakhstan to support the power in place by protecting the strategic buildings and shoulder the police. Mr. Tokayev held Friday to “especially thank” Russian President, Vladimir Putin. “He answered very quickly, and especially in a friendly way, to my call,” he said.
The government had announced Thursday to have capped for six months the selling price of fuels. This measure, detailed on the Prime Minister’s website, aimed at “stabilizing the socio-economic situation” in this country of Central Asia, accustomed to two-digit growth rates.
Kazakhstan suffers from lower oil prices and the economic crisis in Russia, which led to the devaluation of its currency, tenge, and strong inflation. Anger had really been triggered at the end of the week by rising GPL prices, in the city of Janaozen, in the west of the country, before spreading to the large regional city of Aktau, located on the banks of The Caspian Sea.