text: What started as a protest over socioeconomic issues has escalated into a battle among oligarchs.
  Updated at : January 9, 2022 20:49
  For starters, the authorities clearly panicked when the protests erupted. How else to explain Tokayev's frantic call for foreign troops to enter the country to impose order? Instead of recognising that the protests are an angry—and predictable—response to the government's own policies, he has conjured the spectre of an external aggressor.
  Tokayev claims that the rioters received extensive training abroad. In his appeal to the members of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), he insisted that his government needed help to overcome a "terrorist threat." But the rationale for appealing to the CSTO remains in question: Why would any other country bother to offer "serious training" to "bandit formations" to disrupt Kazakhstan's regional centres?
  Although the protests and rallies initially were relatively peaceful, comprising mostly young men and women, organised groups showed up on January 4 and started seizing warehouses and weapons. The government's official line is that these groups are foreign mercenaries; but that claim does not withstand scrutiny. Since Kazakhstan neighbours my own country, I know first-hand that it has an effective border service. The idea that several thousand foreigners could suddenly appear in the country, undetected, is nonsense.
  It is far more likely that these quasi-military groups received special training and funding from local oligarchs who are seeking to influence events in their own favour. According to former Kazakhstani officials with whom I have communicated, some of this support has even come from officials who are currently in power. Yermukhamet Yertysbayev, a former minister of information and ex-adviser to Nazarbayev, recently acknowledged that, "The National Security Committee of Kazakhstan for years hid information about the training camps of militants in the country." There are well-founded rumours that the Nazarbayev family, which was ousted from power during the protests, is trying to use these military groups to regain influence.
  While these informal groups have been deepening their roots in Kazakhstan for many years, the current crisis seems to have brought them to the surface. Several organised-crime figures have "unexpectedly" returned to Kazakhstan from abroad. According to the Kazakh Interior Ministry, "Six members of the organised criminal group, led by Dikii [Wild] Arman [Dzhumageldiev], were detained during a special operation by the Almaty police department." We know that these "thieves in law"—a typical phenomenon in post-Soviet politics—hold real authority, especially among unemployed youth. The question, then, is whose interests they are serving.
  If the riots and more violent forms of protest really are being fuelled by these shadow groups, there simply are no legal grounds for introducing CSTO troops into Kazakhstan. What started as a protest over socioeconomic issues has quickly escalated into a chaotic battle among oligarchs for political influence. And, because the demonstrations were driven not by the organised opposition, but by ordinary citizens, the authorities can conveniently dismiss participants as opportunistic bandits, hooligans, and looters, rather than seeking a settlement through dialogue.