16 December marks the tenth anniversary of the brutal shooting down by state forces of oil-workers and their families who had been on strike for seven months in West Kazakhstan. What began as a strike turned into a mass movement involving pensioners, unemployed youth, the relatives and friends of the strikers. This in part is due to the belief of the strikers that they were fighting for all. They put as one of their demands pay rises for the region’s teachers and doctors because of their low wages and the high cost of living.
Regime concedes “negotiations” with striking oil workers
Firm action needed to win all workers’ demands
Earlier this week, in Zhenoazen, which is the centre of the months-old Kazakhstan oil workers’ strike, a meeting took place between Birzhan Nurymbetov, Deputy Minister for Labour, the City Mayor, Orak Sarbopeyev and representatives of the striking workers from the OzenMunaiGaz and KarazhanbazMunai companies. It was attended by representatives of the oil company, the City Prosecutor, the police and other state organisations.
According to the striking workers, Deputy Minister for Labour Nurymbetov acknowledged that the strike was continuing and offered the strikers complete re-instatement in their jobs, although without conceding the payments for dangerous work that triggered the strike. The workers have, for now, turned down this proposal. Further negotiations may take place.
Significantly, the strikers gained the agreement of the minister that their sackings by the company were not legal, as the law courts had still not completed their hearings on the question. By accepting this, the minister de-facto recognised the strike which previously they had said was over. As a sign of “good will”, Nurymbetov proposed to the strikers that all those who had been sacked should be re-instated to their former jobs but on their former wages.
Representatives of the workers rejected this proposal. They argued that although this was one of the main demands of the strikers, it should be carried out along with the release from prison of the strikers’ lawyer, Natalia Sokolova, who was outrageously sentenced to a 6-year prison sentence during the strike. Although the strike started over wages and payments for dangerous work but Natalia Sokolova was arrested and sentenced at the request of the management. The strikers do not want to desert their lawyer.
The Deputy Minister for Labour is no longer talking about finding work for those strikers locked out at other places of work. His rhetoric has completely changed, with his appeal to the strikers to return to their former work places. This is in sharp contrast to the declaration of Timur Kulibayev, the President’s son-in law and head of the main shareholders in the oil company, who claimed the strike was over and 2,500 workers were sacked. His ‘solution’ was to offer 250 unskilled jobs, at considerably lower wages, in other workplaces.
Nurymbetov and his team proposed the start of “supplementary negotiations” next week, with the aim of discussing in detail the demands of the striking workers at the two companies, during which both sides will have an equal number of representatives. They suggested that the strikers should be helped by representatives from the Karaganda “free” trade unions Belkin and Chaika, who have previously demonstrated their loyalty to the Kazakhstan government. These so-called unions helped to undermine the current oil workers’ strike, arguing that the strikers should be found work in other places.
Of course, these initial proposed negotiations, the agenda of which is not clear nor the authority of the participants, will not guarantee the resolution of the strike or that the workers’ demands will be met.
Maximum democratic accountability
As the crisis in Kazakhstan deepens, as workers in other sectors prepare new protests, and with parliamentary elections due early next year, the authorities are eager to resolve the oil strike. They are cautious about using force to end the dispute, for fear of provoking a wider conflict. They have decided to try and resolve the dispute using various types of “intermediaries” from the ‘yellow’ (‘official’) trade unions, in an attempt to find a temporary rotten compromise. It appears they may try and form a “reconciliation commission” i.e. a diversionary talking shop.
It is therefore important that steps are taken to ensure the workers’ negotiators do not agree conditions unacceptable to the strikers. There should be the maximum possible democratic accountability during these discussions, with clear and forceful demands from the strikers.
The striking oil workers should elect their own representatives, with the right to recall them at any stage during negotiations. The workers need to oppose pro-government ‘third parties’ who will not represent the interests of the workers but try to load the balance in favour of the government.
All negotiations should be conducted openly and transparently, and any decisions should be taken by an open vote by the strikers and not by the negotiators. The negotiations should be based around the strikers’ central demand for the release of Natalia Sokolova and the re-instatement of all workers, to avoid splits opening up amongst sacked workers. The re-instatement of just some strikers, while leaving others outside the gates, is the best way the employers can divide the strikers. This would give the employers the possibility of removing worker-activists and leaders. All the strikers should be re-instated to their former workplaces, where they worked before, and not offered other work on worse terms and conditions.
Only by the oil workers and their representatives maintaining a firm, principled position, can a positive result be achieved for the strikers. Gains made can be consolidated by using the experience of the heroic strike to establish a united trade union covering all the oil industry plants, with tried and trusted leaders and fully democratic structures.
The strike started in May. After the break-up of the protesters camp in July, the protesters started a round — the — clock rally in the city’s central square. It was organised and disciplined. Oil workers from other sites and companies maintained solidarity, regularly collected from their wages money to help the strikers. Even though the two companies involved, “Ozenmunaigaz” and “Karazhanbasmunai” tried to sack the workforce and replace them with new workers, production fell dramatically, and the profits taken by the owners, including members of the ruling family were badly hit.
The most important point is that there was a dramatic jump in the political consciousness of those workers who went through the seven and half months of this school of class struggle in many ways similar to what happened to the Russian working class after the first Russian revolution in 1905. The strike quickly left the boundaries of economic struggle as the workers supported the nationalisation of the oil companies under workers’ control. By November, the strikers set up a unified workers’ committee over the whole region which called for a boycott of the parliamentary election as a result of their lack of confidence in the current political parties and called for the setting up of a national unification of fighting trade unions and their own political party.
These calls culminated in a call for a general strike with the demand for Nazarbayev’s resignation which was due to be made on 16 December at the planned rally. This the ruling clique could not tolerate which led to the decision to prevent the movement developing into a national strike and protest by drowning the Zhanaozen protest in blood. At least 70 people were killed when the police opened fire on the peaceful and unarmed demonstration. For two weeks, the whole city was held in terror with mass arrests, tortures and disappearances. 37 of the most active protesters were put on trial and sentenced to prison terms of up to seven years.
For five days after the shootings, a general strike raged across the region, with protest meetings in the oil-fields themselves. In the following year, two short political strikes were held demanding the release of the imprisoned oil workers.
The ISA (then called the Committee for a Workers International) was active in supporting and building solidarity for the oil workers. As a result of the running commentary from Zhanaozen, the press blockade was broken as news spread around the world. The commentary from 16–18 December 2011 is republished below. Unbelievably, the international trade union bureaucracy, most noticeably in the name of the Editor of ‘Labour Start’ Eric Lee lunched a huge attack on the ISA (CWI) for their support for the strike. Our reply is republished at the end.
On-line reports from Zhanaozen
18 December 2011
We are not rioters — the government must resign
8/12 22:05 UPDATE: Workers being tortured!!
According to reports from the Public commission for investigating the bloody events of 16–17th December in Aktau, young workers from the “OzenMunaiGaz” company who have been arrested in Zhenaozen are being thrown into the open yard at the remand prison and are having water thrown over them. The temperature is currently MINUS 17 CELSIUS. The torturers are attempting to get the workers to admit to rioting and to give evidence against their friends. These Nazi methods must be stopped. Protest immediately to the Kazakhstan Embassy in your country and to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kazakhstan at Email: mid@mid.kz and send messages of support to: Otekeeva0103@mail.ru with copies to kazakhstansolidarity@gmail.com
Update 18/12 21:35 GMT
Thousands of police, internal ministry troops, 1500 marines equipped with modern weapons and armoured vehicles have still not succeeded in defeating the oil workers in West Kazakhstan.
Unknown persons have been driving black jeeps around Zhanaozen and firing at passers-by — yesterday over 20 were wounded in this way. Today apparently gangs have been using white jeeps to try and search out worker activists. Yet unbelievably, despite the reign of terror in the city, the workers and their supporters have still managed to hold a demonstration on the central square holding white sheets with the one word “peace” written on them.
Things are a bit easier in Aktau, where over a thousand workers were able to hold a demonstration in the centre of the city — their banners read — “We are not rioters!” and “the government must resign”. Reports from there say that the workers were demanding the withdrawal of troops from Zhenaozen and were holding placards with an appeal to the police “not to shoot people”. Many of the protesters are young — they show no fear. Even though the riot police are fully equipped with automatic weapons and gas, the protesters are marching on the police shouting for Nazarbayev to go.
The strikers in Aktau have been joined by a delegation from Shepte, where yesterday there was a bitter battle for control of the main railway line, leaving one worker dead and thirteen wounded. Reports indicate this is continuing. The Independent Trade Union “Aktau” has set up a public commission of enquiry to determine the number of dead, to get agreement for a three-day mourning period and action against those responsible.
Journalists have been meeting with difficulties in the region. A group of journalists due to fly from Moscow had their commercial flight cancelled. Four Russian journalists who had made it to Zhenaozen were arrested in the city centre. Murat Tungishbayev had been in Shepte before he was arrested by police and threatened at gunpoint to hand over his camera. While pictures may be better than words, he was still able to give a clear picture of what was happening. According to him, oil-production has stopped throughout the region.
The government understandably is still continuing to spread disinformation. Yesterday it spoke of the strikers deliberately breaking up a children’s birthday concert and burning a New Year tree. (The tree was burnt after the shootings). Today, some government figures are claiming that in fact there were few actual oil workers involved in the initial clashes, that the square had been occupied by bandit groups. Yet a video filmed by a police cameraman demonstrated at an Interior Ministry briefing in Astana clearly show that oil workers and supporters were gathered peacefully in the square and although there were very minor scuffles, usually the oil workers controlled their own supporters. Yet after 3 minutes, the video clearly shows troops or police marching in cordon down the street and heavy shooting can then be heard as they open fire.
Now other forces are wading in to slander and attack the strikers. The official state controlled trade unions in Kazakhstan have attacked the strikers saying that “all disagreements should be settled around the negotiating table and not on the streets”. This is after an eight-month strike in which one of the main demands of the strikers has been meaningful negotiations and they have met repression, violence and the imprisonment of their lawyer for 6 years.
Internationally, some figures in the trade union movement are adding their insults. Boris Kravchenko, President of the Confederation of Labour of Russia, himself a member of President Medvedev’s council of advisors has protested about the use of violence against the workers, but added that whilst he thought that responsibility for the events, for the spilling of the blood of the oil workers lies at the door of the Kazakhstan leadership, this responsibility “should be fully shared by those political speculators, so-called “committees” and “internationals” who use the workers protests to push their own political demands, their provocative actions which push the authorities to use violent measures”.
Some left-wing groups are no better. One with glee, reported a telephone call from Zhanaozen during which the witness spoke of how the oil workers were apparently gathering to celebrate 20 years of Kazakhstan’s independence. This is despite the fact that before the 16th, the mass meeting in the square had condemned the results of the 20 years of independence in which “the authorities have robbed ordinary people of freedom, grabbed all our wealth for themselves… For twenty years the authorities have been lying, promising us the good life but continuing to rob us again and again”.
Another left-wing site attempts to divert the blame from Nazarbayev by suggesting that the Kazakh oligarch Ablyazov, living in London, had provoked the conflict as part of a plan to initiate an orange revolution. Yet a third left wing site criticizes the oil workers, because “under the influence of the CWI” they have raised political slogans such as “nationalization”. Actually, the oil-workers raised that demand independently of the CWI. No doubt they are also wrong to raise the “resignation of the government”.
What is remarkable, is that despite all the cynics and slanders thrown against them by their so called friends, the oil workers through their own experience are becoming politicized. Whatever the final outcome of this brutal conflict, which is completely the responsibility of the government and employers, these events will mark a new stage in the development of the workers’ movement across the country.
17 December 2011
Kazakhstan: Bloody attack has not defeated striking workers
Update 17/12 22:30 GMT:Demonstration in Aktau, shooting again heard in Zhanaozen and a battle rages in Shtepe
Zhanaozen is completely blockaded.
The government commission has spent all day on its investigations throughout Zhanaozen. Mass arrests of participants in yesterday’s protests are taking place and there are attempts to identify those who organized the disorder. Many leaders and well known activists are in hiding, young workers are continuing to resist. The police forces are lodging criminal charges en-masse, people are being stopped on the streets and taken to “filtration centres”. According to the workers, unarmed striking oil workers, up to 1500 have gathered again in the city centre but towards evening have been once again forced out to the edges of the city. The town is full of internal troops, armored cars and police.
Despite this, apart from the oil workers, relatives and supporters are also out on the streets looking for their nearest and dearest, many of whom are missing. The authorities are refusing to hand over the bodies of the dead, and the hospitals in Zhanaozen and Aktau are overflowing with those wounded in the shootings. There are plenty of videos clips showing this. Hospital staff are using whatever excuse they can to kick out the walking wounded, but there are still not enough beds and people are lying in the corridors.
According to the representatives of the Independent trade unions, the number of dead is between 50 and 70 people, and the figure will be clarified tomorrow, when it is intended to organize a meeting for all those whose relatives were killed or are missing.
President Nazarbayev has imposed a State of Emergency in the city until 5 January. The city of Zhanaozen s completely blockaded. But on the outskirts and in the outlying villages as dark settles you can hear the sound of gun fights and grenade explosions. The young workers are not prepared to give up their resistance. Witnesses are trying to film these “Special operations” on their mobile cameras. In the city, as before, the lights are off, mobile communications are constantly interrupted, the internet is blocked. Despite the fact that the centre is in control of the troops, all the oil pumping stations of “OzenMunaiGaz” are not working.
The village of Shetpe in flames
Fighting has been raging in Shepte for hours, even though they have sent another five buses of special troops! The locals have completely torn up the railway tracks, stopped two passenger trains, completely blocking rail communications and have set fire to the wagons. There are no more links with the village, nor with Zhetybai, where there was also a battle earlier today. Representatives of the independent trade union from Aktau are trying to get there to find out the situation.
According to sympathisers from within the army/police force, in addition to the 7 aircraft full of riot troops already in Aktau, another 3 are on their way. It has just been announced that Belarus is sending some of its special troops. The riot police have been given freedom of action, that is to shoot at whoever they think necessary, including pregnant women and children. They also report that in a couple of weeks, they will start executing some of the more dangerous activists for the Almaty regime — under the guise of shooting terrorists.
A number of foreign and Russian journalists have now flown to Aktau and it is hoped they will be able to get hold of the necessary photos, videos and pass on the evidence. We will continue to follow events and keep in contact with the worker activists and independent trade union in the region.
Police can be heard opening fire on crowds at 3:40
Brutal and bloody attack has not defeated striking workers
Only united and extensive workers’ action can end this dictatorial regime
Following yesterday’s violent attacks on a peaceful demonstration in support of striking oil-workers in Zhanaozen, West Kazakhstan, the authorities are facing problems preventing the spread of the protest.
According to reports from worker activists, 4,000 workers from the neighbouring Kalamkas oil field have downed tools and have started a march to their company headquarters demanding the withdrawal of troops from the region.
Reports are also coming in of planned protests in other cities. 150 oil-workers in the city of Aktau, also a centre of the strike were rounded up by police using dogs and detained “for preventative discussions”, although later freed.
In Kazakhstan’s capital, Almaty, in an attempt to prevent this morning’s protest in support of the oil workers, police tried to detain four activists from the Socialist Movement Kazakhstan — Larissa Boyar, Dmitrii Tikhonov, Arman Ozhaubayev and Zhanna Baitelova. They were supposed to be taken in for questioning over charges first lodged earlier this year. The first three, who were detained, were later released.
What happened yesterday?
In order to prevent the distribution of the truth about yesterday’s massacre in Zhenaozen, internet and social network resources and mobile phone networks have been blocked by the state. Opposition websites including www.socialismkz.info (CWI Kazakhstan), www.respublikas.info (Respublika newspaper) and guljan.org have been blocked to readers in Kazakhstan. But the truth will inevitably come out.
According to eye witnesses in the Regional capital Aktau, ambulances have been travelling along the single road from Zhenaozen in convoy. Hospitals in the city have been flooded with casualties.
The regime puts the figure of dead at eleven, with no police among them, but it is trying to put the blame on the workers. It claims that they tried to break up a children’s celebration (even though no pictures show any children present) and to set fire to the New Year tree in the square. The events however developed in a completely different way.
At eleven o’clock, workers, their families and other residents from the city had gathered in the main square for a peaceful demonstration demanding negotiations and the release of the strikers’ lawyer Natalia Sokolova. Whilst they were preparing for a peaceful demonstration (during the eight months of the dispute, they have always insisted that there should be no violence), the state was preparing for a conflict. They drafted in police and riot troops. Suddenly a police car drove into the crowd at high speed. This naturally provoked a reaction from the protesters, who attacked the car.
This clear provocation against the workers was followed within a short space of time by attacks on the City Akimat (Mayor’s office) and the head office of “Ozenmunaigaz”. These were destroyed in flames either by protesters angry at the attacks or, as many workers believe, by provocateurs trying to implicate that the workers were involved in a senseless rampage.
By 12.45 the city was in turmoil as the riot police and internal troops, which had been massed on the edge of the city in preceding days, entered the fray using live bullets to fire into the crowd, further increasing the anger as workers saw their comrades fall, either dead or wounded.
One women interviewed on the TV Channel K+ explained that she saw how people were running up to the police, thinking they had weapons with rubber bullets just for dramatic reasons. The police started shooting, hitting people in the arms and legs, before she saw how one man was hit in the head. She saw three killed outright, three more wounded died on the way to the hospital. She saw a mother and a little girl shot in the head. It is clear that the official version of 11 killed is a real underestimate. Reports from the city bear witness that hospitals cannot cope with the numbers of wounded. Emergency blood transfusion centres have been set up. Estimates of the number killed range from 50 to 150.
Despite such brutality, with the riot police using tear gas and light grenades against them, the workers held their own in the square, at one stage moving to disarm the police and troops. Within a short time, they had taken control of the city, at which stage the police were joined by 1,500 marines and armoured equipment. As the troops began to take back the city, work at all the oil drilling stations around the city ceased, with a strike spreading through the region. Pockets of fighting continued through the night.
Present situation
At the time of writing this report, the authorities claim they have taken the situation back under control. The road (there is only one) to Zhanaozen has been blocked off and the city is surrounded by troops. Helicopters are circling the sky.
Nazarbayev has now announced a state of emergency in the city to last at least until 5 January with a daily curfew lasting from 8 in the evening till 7 in the morning. The town will be under the command of the head of the Internal Affairs Dept (MIA) of Mangystau region. Transport movements will be limited. Demonstrations, public assembly and strikes are forbidden and there is a ban on the use of copy machines, TV, radio, video, audio equipment and loudspeakers.
However, reporters for the K+ TV say that there is still significant resistance. They report that there is still a large group of strikers and youth concentrated in the Central Square of Zhanaozen, surrounded by riot police and holding white flags on which they have written “peace”. In telephone conversations recorded within the last hour from Zhanaozen, automatic gunfire can be clearly heard (although no shooting can be seen as the city is blacked out).
What follows?
Oil production has ceased at the oil companies Kalamkac and Karazhanbas and the workers have marched from the bus station into the Central Square “Yntymak” of Aktau where there are over a thousand gathered, surrounded by 3,000 riot police. It is also reported that production has ceased at the company “Severnii Buzachi”. In the town of Zhetybai, protesters have gathered outside the mayor’s office while the residents of Shepte have blocked the main railway route to the capital. Five busloads of riot police are said to be approaching. Shooting has also now been reported from there.
Other reports say that a further three aircraft full of riot police have been dispatched to Aktau with “full freedom to act”.
During the last eight months, despite the peaceful and remarkably disciplined nature of their dispute, the strikers have faced violence, repression and now massacre. It is reported that electricity supplies to the city have been cut off and all social networks and mobile telephones remain blocked. All the sites (International, Russian, Kazakh) of the CWI have been blocked over the territory of the republic.
It is still too early to predict the final outcome of this conflict. One thing is clear — President Nazarbayev’s plans to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the country’s independence on 16th December have been spoilt. In Astana, Nazarbayev gave a long-winded and unconvincing speech about the need for “free, fair and transparent elections, like those in April“. But even opponents from his own circle are now beginning to worry about the situation.
Nazarbayev’s former son-in-law, now in Austrian exile, has warned: “Don’t follow the tragic destiny of Ceausescu and Gaddafi… as long as you remain in power, in charge of the police actions, stop the mass killing of the Kazakh people. Today you have crossed a line beyond which you cannot stay president: you gave the order to shoot Kazakh people. Don’t follow Gaddafi’s path, stop spilling innocent blood”.
A four day celebratory holiday is continuing. Whether protests continue to develop and become widespread will only be clear at the end of the long weekend. But even if, for now, the regime manages to regain control of the situation, these events have dealt it a huge blow.
Like the events of “Bloody Sunday” in 1905 in Russia and the shooting of the workers on the Lena River in 1912, this brutal massacre marks a turning point in the development of the working class and its political consciousness. While the regime has demonstrated it is prepared to drown the struggle of the oil-workers in blood without making any compromises, it has also demonstrated its real nature as a government, only defending the interests of the employers and oligarchs.
Clearly, whatever the outcome of these current events, the need for establishing a unified and independent fighting trade union and workers’ party has never been posed more sharply. We call for the setting up of joint action committees of workers and local residents for the organisation of street protests and action leading to a general strike demanding:
* An end to the massacre and withdrawal of all troops and riot police from the Mangystau region;
* An immediate inquiry under the full control of the workers and local residents to identify those responsible for giving the order to fire on the peaceful protesters;
* The implementation of all the demands of the striking workers;
* Freedom for all political prisoners, including Natalia Sokolova;
* That there should be no splits or provocations to divide the movement on national or ethnic lines, for the unity of workers of all nationalities in common struggle;
* The immediate resignation of the president and government;
* A boycott of the parliamentary elections, with full rights to form social, political and trade union organisations;
* That all the natural resources, major companies and banks of Kazakhstan are brought into state ownership under the control and management of democratic workers’ committees;
* The formation of a mass workers‘ party;
* A constituent assembly representing all workers and the poor in society to establish new, democratic organs of power.
* A workers’ government with a socialist programme.
16 December
Urgent Solidarity: Reported 70 Dead & 500 wounded by riot police in Kazakhstan
LATEST UPDATE 17:54 GMT Breaking News: Peaceful protesters & supporters of striking oil workers fired upon
Update 17:54 GMT: The Kazakh regime claims that only 10 have died during todays events however strikers claim via the CWI Russian website that they have 70 bodies and are still claiming hundreds were wounded. They are also reporting that the electricity has been turned off in Zhanaozen and that there are helicopters patrolling the skies while military forces including troops and vehicles are in the city.
In Berlin, Brussels, London, Vienna and elsewhere today there were protests at Kazakh embassies, consulates and other targets against the regime and in solidarity with the protesters and strikers.
Update 13:10 GMT: CWI Kazakhstan correspondents report that the “Akimat”, the local administration office building, has been completely burned down. Rallies and protests are planned for tomorrow all over the country.
Update 13:06 GMT: CWI Kazakhstan correspondents report that a young woman, 15 or 16 years of age, is among those killed by state forces. Health centres in the Aktau region are appealing for blood donations to help treat those wounded by state forces.
Update 12:35 GMT: Kazakh mass media is reporting that state forces opened fire on peaceful protesters, strikers and their supporters. CWI Kazakhstan reporters are saying that a general strike is developing across Kazakhstan.
Update: 12:13 GMT: CWI Kazakhstan reporters on the ground are saying that hundreds are rallying in support of the oil workers in Aktau. In Zhanaozen, the oil production has been completely stopped. Workers from other oil companies have gone on strike in solidarity. Workers in all of the oil companies and companies related to oil production have gone on strike.
Update 11:42 GMT: CWI Kazakhstan reporters on the ground say up to 70 workers have now been shot dead. All social media and mass media has been blocked by the Nazarbayev regime. 1500 marines have now entered Zhanaozen. People are rallying in the main square.
Today, at Kazakhstan’s independence day, more than 3000 people assembled peacefully in Zhanaozen, to promote the demands of the oil workers who have been on strike since May. Police and special forces attacked the meeting and opened fire on the strikers and their families. By around 10 a.m., London time, 50 had already been killed, with at least 500 more wounded. Administrative buildings and the christmas tree in the center square have been set on fire. One of the buildings of the oil company, Uzenmunaigaz, was blown up.
An information blockade has been set up, the CWI Kazakhstan website was blocked. At around 10:15 London time reports of armoured vehicles and military forces approaching from the city of Aktau.
CWI reporters currently post live updates on www.socialistworld.ru in Russian.
Please send immediate protests to the Embassies in your own country and to the Kazakhstan Foreign Ministry email: mid@mid.kz and message of support to: Otekeeva0103@mail.ru with copies to kazakhstansolidarity@gmail.com
Worldwide solidarity campaign means the Kazakhstan regime can no longer deny 16 December massacre
Yet another attack has been made against the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) in relation to the strike of oil workers in Zhanaozen, in West Kazakhstan.
In a remarkably badly informed article, Eric Lee, Founder and Editor of ‘Labour Start’, which describes itself as an ‘online news service for the international trade union movement’, reports that “members of the international trade union movement accuse one of the left groups of manipulating the strikers and led them into a hopeless confrontation”. He goes on, in a statement circulated on the Russian language ‘Unions today’ site and on some German language blogs, although not, it seems, in English, to make outrageous and false claims (The main English language Labour Start website chooses not to make the same baseless, scandalous allegations but just posts a general call for solidarity with the oil workers).
For simplicity’s sake, these will just be answered as they are made. According to Eric Lee, “activists of the Kazakh, Russian and international trade union movement criticize the CWI. They manipulated the strikers, provoked them from outside and this led to the tragic events, during which buildings were burnt down and violence was used on both sides.”
This has already been answered elsewhere (“In defense of the oil workers”) but to refute these baseless claims we will explain the position of the oil workers and the CWI again. Following the collapse of the government-initiated negotiations in November, during which the “activists of the Kazakh trade union movement” (specifically Sergei Belkin, who has signed a ‘no strike’ agreement with the authoritarian Kazakh government) were wheeled in by the government side to play a strike breaking role, strike activists warned and were very concerned that some of the youth in the city could, in desperation, turn to violence. It was therefore decided to cut across this mood by organizing a peaceful show of strength with a peaceful demonstration and strike on the 16th December. Members of the CWI who discussed with the organisers of these protests fully shared their concerns and much discussion took place over how to ensure that the demonstration would be peaceful. The appeal by the oil workers for a peaceful demonstration on the 16th December can be read in English here.
Police shot unarmed, peaceful crowd
Anyone watching the video footage from 16 December will clearly see that workers had indeed gathered in the square and were not armed — were not carrying sticks, stones, knives or weapons of any kind. Many eyewitnesses however tell how police shot into the unarmed and peaceful crowd killing and injuring not only strikers but many onlookers. In one video, a group of men are seen wrecking the stage for a concert by throwing the loudspeakers off. Strikers however say that these were probably state provocateurs, as the men had not been seen in the square during the seven month strike and they were all dressed in apparently new company jackets. But even the breaking of a couple of loudspeakers and the wrecking of a New Year fir tree is not a justification for shooting live rounds into peaceful protesters.
By claiming violence was used by both sides, without pointing out that one side was armed with no more than a few sticks and stones picked off the streets after they were brutally attacked, while the other side had automatic rifles, tear gas, armoured personnel carriers, helicopters and hundreds of US trained and equipped marines, Eric Lee is joining in the attempts to divert the blame for the events away from the Kazakhstan authorities. Incidentally, Eric Lee has on other occasions advocated the use of brutal, military methods against peaceful populations. In 2006, during Israel’s war against Gaza, Lee argued that the left should fully support the use, by Israel’s military, of “of all its power to defend the country and decisively defeat its enemies”.
Ludicrous allegations
According to Eric Lee, “the small group of left adventurists have joined up with the Kazakh oligarchs who are opposed to the current regime to lead the workers’ movement to inevitable defeat”.
Anyone who knows the CWI in Kazakhstan and the broad Socialist Movement Kazakhstan will find this allegation ludicrous. The CWI has been consistent in opposing the rule of the oligarchs — both pro and anti Nazarbayev oligarchs, arguing that the natural wealth of the country should be re-nationalized under workers’ control and management and that the workers need to establish their own independent trade unions and mass workers party in opposition to the policies of the oligarchs. This allegation is actually just a crude amalgam of that currently being used by the Nazarbayev regime against the oil strikers. To avoid taking full responsibility for the shootings, the regime is trying to create a smoke screen by saying the workers were provoked by the oligarch-sponsored Alga Party. But Alga were not involved in planning this peaceful protest.
Eric Lee claims that “the strike of the oil workers began in May of last year. To begin with they demanded increased pay, but not long ago they added the nationalization of the oil sector to their demands.”
The oil workers in West Kazakhstan first raised the demands for nationalization in 2009.
Eric Lee says that according to the "International Union of Foodworkers (IUF), the workers did not have any elected representatives who could conduct negotiations with the administration of the company and state”.
This has been answered in our article, ‘Defense of the oil workers’: “This statement echoes the arguments of the employers and government and is particularly disgraceful given that the workers, from the very beginning, elected their representatives for the conduct of negotiations and these representatives then met with severe repression — Natalia Sokolova has been jailed for 6 years, Akzhanat Aminov received a two year suspended sentence and a third has had his house burnt to the ground! It should be remembered that the oil workers’ hunger strike started last May after the members of the trade union at Karazhanbasmunai, in Aktau, demanded the return of trade union documents and stamps from the former president of their union, after he was removed from office by the votes of the membership. Through his actions, the former union leader collaborated with management to prevent meaningful negotiations over wages and conditions. He sent groups of armed thugs into the oil field to beat up his opponents”.
The position of the IUF
In June of 2011, Kirill Buketov, a representative of the IUF in Geneva, sent a whole series of bureaucratic questions to the strikers (the IUF chose to do so through the CWI, even though Buketov had been given all the contact details for the oil workers). The answers to this long questionnaire required 60 pages. In July, Kirill Buketov sent a letter with his conclusions. These were that:
1: The workers only had the right to change their trade union leaders once every 5 years;
2: The workers were wrong to argue that by law they were entitled to pay for working in dangerous and remote conditions;
3: There was not sufficient evidence to back up the claims of the use of thugs;
4: The workers lacked their own trade union with elected and legitimate leaders.
The formulations used by Kirill Buketov mirrored almost, word for word, the arguments used by the employers against the strikers. The employer’s arguments were listed and answered in full detail by Paul Murphy MEP in his reply to Mr Bobrov, a member of the Kazakhstan Parliament.
According to Eric Lee, the lack of unelected representatives “allowed groups from outside, such as the CWI, to take a leading position for themselves and speak in the name of the workers”.
Of course, why should the workers not ask the CWI to represent them, if they had wanted and democratically decided? But anyway this is not what happened. On the contrary, the position of the CWI throughout the strike has been that sanctions (including arrest and imprisonment) should be removed from those people who were elected by the workers as their representatives and that the management should start immediate and meaningful negotiations with the elected representatives of the workers.
Eric Lee goes further and alleges that “Paul Murphy from Ireland and a deputy in the European Parliament flew to the region, met with the strikers and conducted a press conference. The critics of the CWI say that Murphy raised the hopes of the strikers and led them to think that all they need is his support, and not their own organization”.
This is, of course, an utter lie. Throughout his visit, Paul Murphy and the other members of his delegation stressed to the workers that they could only spread solidarity support and raise the issue with other trade unions internationally, and that the strike could only be won through the organization of the workers themselves and their ability to receive solidarity support from other workers in Kazakhstan. Indeed, Paul’s press conference can be viewed here. He clearly states that the “main task for these workers [in Kazakhstan] is to build strong, independent fighting trade unions.”
One member of the delegation was Ainur Kurmanov, a member of the CWI from Kazakhstan. His speech to the strikers can be seen in full here. He said: “Thanks to the fact that your representatives flew to Moscow, the international press blockade has been broken. … Your fight is not just your fight, but that of the workers of all Kazakhstan. You are ahead of the whole working class in the country. If you manage to hold on now, defend your leaders, your rights, you can say that the working class for the first time in Kazakhstan has stood up in defense of its rights. This is not just a strike for wages, but for your organization, your trade union because you have the right, and only you have the right to set up your trade union. The trade union should belong to the workers, not the employers and authorities. The current trade union federation [the former soviet pro Nazarbayev trade union] has declared that your strike is illegal. But have they been anywhere near here? They are spreading disinformation in the international movement about your strike. They say that you are all extremists, not workers, that there are only two hundred of you. Do you need that sort of trade union? No. You need trade unions controlled by the rank and file …. You will succeed only if you are solid and organized!”
CWI supports oil workers’ rights
It is quite clear from these videos that the CWI has spent the whole strike supporting the right of the workers to select their own representatives and control their own trade unions.
According to Eric Lee, “Paul Murphy and his group played a leading role in the campaign not just against the authoritarian regime of Nursultan Nazarbayev but against the international trade union movement… for example, the international trade union federation for the oil sector ICEM was not keen to get involved in the conflict if it is permanently the subject of attack by the CWI. “
This is just laughable — members of the ICEM must feel bemused by Eric Lee’s insinuation, that the powerful ICEM is so sensitive, that it is prepared to ignore a strike by thousands of workers because of the alleged criticism of the CWI. If, of course, this was true. But the President of the ICEM was one of the first to send a serious protest to the Kazakhstan government over the way in which the strikers were being treated. You can find the ICEM mentioned about ten times on the website of the CWI in Kazakhstan in relation to the Zhenaozen strike and in not one of the instances is there any criticism of the ICEM. On the contrary, supporters of the CWI immediately translated the President’s letter and distributed it as widely as possible, precisely to demonstrate that such solidarity was beginning to happen.
Eric Lee should ask those who have given them this dis-information to prove their untrue allegations — which they will be unable to do.
The CWI did criticize the “shame on both your houses” approach used by International Trade Union Confederation General Secretary, Sharan Burrow, in his statement of 16th December. Eric Lee calls this a “balanced approach”. But the CWI does not believe it is correct for a trade union to offer the State a way out of taking responsibility when all the evidence points to a brutal and unprovoked attack by Kazakhstan police on a peaceful and unarmed protest.
Tarring reputation of oil strikers
In his willingness to try and blame the CWI for what happened in Zhanaozen, Eric Lee tries to tar the reputation of the oil strikers, who maintained a disciplined and peaceful protest throughout seven months, despite the attacks on their protests by riot police, the imprisonment of their leaders and the murder of strikers and relatives.
Lee published his libelous attack just a day before the prosecutor general of Kazakhstan published his report.
In his report, the Prosecutor tries to blame ‘hooligans’ for starting the disorder on 16th December and ignores the responsibility of the national government for the massacre (the troops and police were after all moved into the city on top level orders and the order to fire was given by the Ministry of the Interior). Nevertheless, the Prosecutor states that “in some cases use of weapons and special devices by the police was of disproportional character, reaction to the acts of the attackers was unequal to the threat thus leading to the death and injures of people” and that therefore criminal charges are to be lodged against:
* the deputy head of the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) of Mangystau province, who was in charge of the police squad;
* the head of the anti-extremist division of the DIA of Mangystau province;
* the first deputy head of the Office of the Internal Affairs of the town of Zhanaozen.
Further, the Head of the Temporary Detention Facility of the Office of the Internal Affairs of Zhanaozen is to be charged with the death, following torture in custody, of Kenzhebaev Bazarbai.
The Prosecutors have confirmed what the strikers have claimed from the beginning. The company accountants were fiddling the wage books, claiming to the government that they were paying one rate while the workers received lower wages. As a result, the former and current mayors are to be charged with stealing public funds. A number of senior managers at ‘KazMunaiGaz’ are also being charged with the theft of millions of euros from company accounts.
International solidarity campaign
These people are being charged for one reason only. While people such as Eric Lee and Kirill Buketov have been echoing the arguments of the employers, the strikers have maintained a firm stand. They, with the support of many trade unions and socialist activists in an international campaign co-ordinated by the CWI, and due to the Campaign Kazakhstan’s work, as well, have managed to get the truth of what has happened out into the public domain. The Kazakh regime originally expected to be able to carry out its massacre, hoping, in the week before the western world’s Christmas, that no-one would notice. But the regime was shaken by the worldwide reaction to the shootings. Within hours, pickets and protests were organized outside embassies throughout the world. When videos of the shootings, including one made by police, appeared on the internet, showed that police were shooting unarmed people in the back and then beating them on the ground, the Kazakhstan government could no longer deny the massacre. So it has had to find scapegoats. Under torture, the regime gained “confessions” from a handful of people that they “organized a riot”. But significantly, it has had to promise to take criminal action against several representatives of the company and regime on very specific charges.
Despite the outrageous and entirely false claims of Eric Lee and sections of the international union bureaucracy, rank and file trade union activists, socialists, human rights activists and workers and youth everywhere will keep up pressure on this brutal regime, to ensure that those who organized the 16th December massacre, including the Minister of the Interior, who by his own admission gave the order to shoot, are brought to justice.
