Squatters in Kazakhstan: Bakai in Flames!

international | racism & migration related issues | news report Monday June 05, 2006 19:07 by zhanara - Libcom.org

5 homes in Bakai squatters' community demolished without warning, residents caught by surprise. Rumors of a child killed by the police as residents clashed with the authorities on June 1, 2006.

This is a follow-up on these stories:

Bakai squatter community eviction: Almaty, Kazakhstan
http://colorado.indymedia.org/newswire/display/13000/in...x.php

Small victory for squatters Bakai community, Almaty, Kazakhstan
http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/112783.php

Shanty town Residents repel police and bulldozers - Kazakhstan
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75370

Bakai In Flames!
by Ainur Kurmanov
Russian original here: http://www.zonakz.net/articles/14710

On 1 June, 2006 this article's author visited this suburban shantytown community of so called "samozakhvatchiks" (squatters). Just one day ago this place was the scene of a massive confrontation between residents and numerous detachments of police. Anyone visiting Bakai would no doubt get the impression that they're in an urban combat zone as they would see demolished homes, broken pieces of lumber, people's household possessions, children's toys, an overturned baby carriage are scattered randomly throughout the area. Women with faces marred by grief and tears stand around the ruins of their homes. It's as if this place's just been bombed.

The new landowners' representatives arrive here right around 12 noon. I approach an important-lookig Korean gentleman and try to find out his job title and last name. I was able to ascertain that these folks represent one of the construction companies, whose exact name changed throughout the conversation from "Stroi Invest" to "Stroi Group." In the end, after a half-hour shouting match, the contruction group's boss boards his limousine and takes off to whereever he comes from.

I move on to trying to find out the consequences of yesterday's siege. Two activists from the Bakai initiative group, Venera Ismagulova and Aigul', recount the past day's tragedy with tears in their eyes. As it turns out "sobrovzcy" who operated the bulldozers instead of their regular drivers (who apparently refused to do this job) were able to demolish 5 homes belonging to the following citizens:

1. Mussa Sarybayev
2. Kairat Nurylbayev
3. Rozakun Tokhtakhunov
4. Zhanara Salimova
5. Aitkul' Zhaparkulova

Senior court executive Aisha Askarova and her assistant Edil' supervised the demolition process.

According to local residents the attack on their community began suddenly and unexpectedly. Earlier that morning the bakaizcy were celebrating Children's Day, treating their own kids as well as children from the nearby orphanage. Tents were set up on one of the local meadows, as clowns were invited for entertainment and free food offered to all spectators. In other words, a rather peaceful start to the day. The residents let down their guard, took down the barricades and look-out posts, counting on a timely and peaceful resolution of their conflict with city authorities through the representatives they've sent to the Majilis (lower chamber of Parliament)[1]. The court executive and the police snuck up to a smallravine on the edge of Bakai located close to the highway and proceeded to tear down nearby homes whose residents weren't home at the time. The cops surrounded each building, set up cordons around it, broked down the front door and threw the squatter families' personal things out onto the street outside.

Shortly past 9am someone gave a signal alerting the residents of the demolition that was taking place. All holiday preparations were immediately abandoned as the crowd of mostly women rushed back to their homes. The local activists weren't able to get in touch with other supportive activist groups like Socialist Resistance, Zher Ana (Mother Earth) [2] and others until around 10am. Some of the local leaders and activists from the Shanyrak and Bakai shantytown communities were away, in the Parliament building, as they were notified about what was happening.

Taking advantage of the element of surprise, the guardians of social order were able to rather quickly dispatch 5 local homes but as they attempted to proceed further into Bakai they met progressively stiffer resistance. By 10 o'clock police detachments broke through to a house that's been the center of attention and scheduled for demolition as early as May 12, but remained standing until today. This is where the massive scuffle between residents and the police took place, as locals hurled rocks and glass bottles towards the police. The oponovzcy (the riot police) used special tactics once again. According to those who participated in the clash with the police, nightstick beatings were meted out not only to the adult men but to the women and young teens as well.

Twenty-five-year-old Gulya Tazhbekova, a Bakai resident since 1997, has already experienced a stress-related stroke several years ago. Today she stood among the nursing mothers of this community, further away from the turmoil. Regardless of circumstances, the police didn't even stop here and violently dispersed this group of bystanders. Accorging to Gulya, as the young people began throwing rocks at the bulldozer the women holding their small kids stood aside away from the main conflict, watching what was happening. Shortly after, apparently as an act of revenge, the OPON troops (riot police) charged into the crowd of women and children and proceeded to kick and billy club anyone they could reach as a means of dispersal. Panicked women ran in all directions as a baby carriage carrying 1.5-year-old Ismail flipped over and the child ended up on the ground. The kid survived and got off with a few bruises only because of the help of an unknown young person.

Gulya Tazhbekova herself's been beaten by the police on 12 May, 2006 receiving a concussion of the brain and a neck scar that hasn't healed yet. She showed me doctors' notes from the local clinics which she claims refused to treat Bakai residents and their children until this resulted in a death of a child from appendicitis. In this author's view, even if the alleged child's death is the result of an inflamed state of awareness, the high child mortality rate at Bakai is no fairy tale. A few days ago, thirty-year-old Aigul', a leader of the local initiative group, attended the funeral of her 5-year-old son, while two other women suffered miscarriages shortly after May 12.

One more female resident of Bakai was seriously injured during the police attack on women the bystanders. Her name is Ziyada Abdjamilova and she's the only local "oralmanka."[3] This forty-year-old woman lost consciousness and a lot of blood after she was hit in the head from behind. After the cops left, local residents picked Ziyada up from the ground and carried her over to a nearby ambulence. She doesn't remember who hit her. According to her hospital release certificate she has a "laceration and bruise wound to the right side of her forehead" and a concussion of the brain. Ziyada's came to Bakai from Karakalpakiya (Uzbekistan) to reunite with her husband and has been waiting to receive her documents back from the authorities for about a year now. She's been unable to find work because her legalization procedure's been stuck in the local beaurocratic process.

The men got theirs as well. Broken noses and bruised arms, legs, heads and lacerations on almost all of the direct participants of that day's events. Our local guide was a man named Suileman-anga, an elderly head of Upper Bakai (the community has their own elections-based system of self management). He showed us his back, covered with bruises from police battons. Since the clashes began he's been wanted by the police and is often forced to sleep at various neighbors' homes to avoid capture.

I'm still trying to find out what exactly happened with stories involving injured children which was first heard by locals in the heat of battle. The residents insist that they saw a young couple carrying one unconscious kid towards the hiway earlier that day. Allegedly this family arrived in Bakai rather recently and was staying in the ruins of what used to be one of the local homes. Activists from the local initiative group say that they sent 2 cars to look for the young parents in the Kaskelen neighborhood where they have relatives. The Bakai locals are convinced that they must find the child's body before the police do, since it's quite likely that the latter will try to cover their tracks.

The alleged story about a child's death is given further weight by the fact that the police packed up and left without any explanation within 10 minutes of hearing about the purported deadly incident, even though the clock hasn't yet reached 12 noon. We can't rule out that such a rumor first circulated during the scuffle with police, especially the one involving the large group of mothers. At this point, the kid's body hasn't been found and the last names of the parents aren't known.

The rumors of a child's death in Bakai brought a large number of journalists and representatives from various community organizations. They also brought ZSK [4] leaders Zharmakhan Tuyakbai and Bulat Abilov and activists from NP Alga who brought promises of help and support to the residents.

Representatives from political movements Zher Ana (Mother Earth) and Kazak Memlekety (Kazakh Nationhood) [5] as well as activists from Shanyrak and Bakai residents' initiative groups arrived from Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan) at the Sayakhat bus station in Almaty. According to Zher Ana leader Salim Orazaliyev, Aron Atabek and Mr. Orazaliyev testified before Majilis deputies, explaining the situation in Bakai and the outskirts of Almaty, the southern capital. He claims to have personally given the relevant phone numbers to the parliamentarians so that they could check for themselves. Naturally, at that moment Almaty mayor Imangali Tasmagambetov and the Interior Minister were unavailable, considering the deputies' invitation to talk unnecessary. Mr. Orazaliyev also added that the strongest and most fiery speaches in defense of the squatters came from Tokhtar Aubakirov and Serik Abdrakhmanov, along with a whole group of deputies. In the end, close to forty people's representatives signed a letter demanding a temporary postponement of the house demolitions.

Furthermore, representatives of the afore-mentioned activist organizations claim that Parlaimentarians have recently passed a draft law aimed at the "Legalization of property" which would leave the actual residents of the squatter communities on the outskirts of cities with absolutely nothing. Certain unclear phrases and formulas exist to legalize the property, specifically in real estate, of well-to-do citizens, but no such luxuries exist for the coutry's poor. In this case, the utterances of individual Aimak group deputies regarding the necessity for first legalizing the living spaces of dispossessed citizens are mere window dressing serving to cover up the lawmakers' real aims.

In the end, many people are coming to the conclusion that a toothless Parliament and a series of halfhearted deputies are simply incapable of defending the interests of ordinary citizens, while the Akims (provincial/regional governors) simply thumb their noses at elected representatives and public opinion. Afterall, the interests of construction companies, as well as laws tailored to benefit the owners of large sums of money, naturally take precedence over any moral considerations! Today, Bakai and Shanyrak residents can depend only on their own strength and the support of community and activist organizations, resolving to defend their homes untill victory or death. Even if casualties've been avoided for today, it's likely that this state of affairs won't last. Blood is likely to be spilled except that by then, when the outskirts of cities are engulfed in the flames of class war, it'll be too late to talk of "stability."

1. Majilis - lower house of the Kazakh parliament
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majilis

2. Zher Ana - "Mother Earth," a Kazakh activist group
http://www.iwpr.net/?apc_state=henirca200604&l=ru&s=f&o...61085

3. Oralmans - Ethnic Kazakh immigrants; diaspara Kazakhs who came back to Kazakhstan after independence in 1991

"Round Table on problems of Oralman integration in the Republic of Kazakhstan"
April 1, 2005"
http://www.iom.kz/index.php?lang=eng&news_theme=16

"ETHNIC KAZAKHS FIND TITULAR HOMELAND TO BE ECONOMIC HAVEN"
by AlfredKueppers, 4/22/03
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/culture/articles/...shtml

4. ZSK - Za Spravedliviy Kazakhstan (Coalition for a Just Kazakhstan); a political party;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_for_a_Just_Kazak...hstan

"Profile: Zharmakhan Tuyakbai"
Saturday 03 December 2005, 17:58 Makka Time, 14:58 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C2EB6C28-7E72-44...5.htm

5. Kazak Memlekety - (Kazakh Nationhood)
"Kazakstan: Trouble in Suburbia"
By Gulmira Arbabaeva in Almaty (RCA No. 443, 14-Apr-06)
http://www.iwpr.net/?p=rca&s=f&o=261085&apc_state=henprca