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World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Kazakhstan : Overview

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Environment

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The Republic of Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country in the world. It borders Russia to the north, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to the south and the People's Republic of China to the east, and it shares the Aral Sea with Uzbekistan. One third of the country is dry steppe, and as such was a major transit route for nomadic peoples throughout history.

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Peoples

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Main languages: Kazakh, Russian, Uzbek

Main religions: Sunni Islam, Orthodox Christianity

Minority groups include Russians (4,479,618; 30%), Ukrainians (547,052; 3.7%), Uzbeks (370,663; 2.5%), Germans (353,441; 2.4%), Tatars (248,952; 1.7%), Uighurs (210,339; 1.4%), Belarusians (111,926; 0.7%), Koreans (99,657; 0.7%). (Source: Kazakhstan National Census, 1999)

Kazakhstan's unusually diverse ethnic makeup (there are according to some official documents 106 'nationalities') was partially due to it being a historical transit point for Central Asian groups moving west. More recently it was used by Tsarist Russia and then by the Soviet Union as an area of Russian colonisation, but also as a kind of 'dumping ground' for dissidents and ethnic groups, especially though not exclusively on orders by Stalin which saw huge population transfers in the Soviet Union from the 1930s until the 1950s.

The impact of these policies means that though they are now the largest ethnic group within Kazakhstan, the Kazakhs were a minority at the time of independence in 1991. They now constitute a majority after millions, mainly Russians and other minorities, left after independence.

There are unfortunately no reliable figures after 1999 for Kazakhstan's population or for a breakdown of its ethnic composition. The census in that year saw Kazakhs attain a majority with 53.4 percent of the population, with the Russian minority falling to 29.9 percent. While some estimates suggest as many as 2 million Russians may have left between 1989 and 2005, most observers are of the view that they remain the largest minority group in the country with a population of perhaps 4 million, mainly concentrated in the northern and eastern parts of the country. The numbers of other Slavs, as well as Germans, Jews and other minorities have also shrunk dramatically. Though unverifiable, more recent figures suggest that while this out-migration movement has not stopped, it has slowed down, with 16,000 Russians and other Slavs returning to Kazakhstan in 2003-2004, ostensibly attracted among others by the country's relative economic prosperity (Source: Kazakhstan Migration Agency, 2005).

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History

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Occupied from an early period by nomadic populations using its vast steppes for pastoralism, the Kazakhs and many of the Turkic minorities still present in Kazakhstan (Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Uighur, Turkmen) emerged as distinct ethnic groups after the Mongolian invasion of the 13th Century.

The country's ethnic mosaic – especially the significant presence of those of non-Turkic background such as the Slavs, Germans, Volga Tatars – is for the most part intrinsically linked to the incorporation of most of this region into the Russian Empire in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Slavic and Cossack settlers came to Kazakhstan from this period onwards, especially after the abolition of serfdom which saw a large number of Ukrainian and Russian settlers arrive, attracted by the possibility of receiving land from Tsarist authorities. During Soviet times, they came to participate in various development undertakings, beside those resettled from labour camps. So-called 'punished peoples' were deported to Kazakhstan before and during the Second World War. These groups include Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars, Koreans, Poles, Greeks, Chechens, Ingush and others believed at the time to be unreliable or accused of collaboration with the enemy. Some, such as Chechens and Ingush, returned in large numbers to their homelands at the earliest opportunity, in the late 1950s. Among these were also some 500,000 Poles deported to Kazakhstan in 1939-1941, mainly because of Stalin's fear of their opposition to the Soviet take-over of eastern Poland. The second wave of deportation started in 1944 and finished with Stalin's death. Poles deported at that time were suspected of participating in the anti-communist Polish resistance. Their ethnic identity was nationalistic and Roman Catholic, which made them unreliable in the eyes of the Soviet authorities.

A campaign against Greeks in the Soviet Union began in 1937-1939, and Pontic (or Black Sea) Greeks were deported to Kazakhstan from border zones in Georgia and Ukraine. A second wave of deportations came in 1944, after the liberation of Crimea from Nazi occupation, when the entire Crimean Greek population was transferred to Kazakhstan. In 1949 Greeks from Ukraine, southern Russia and the Caucasus were sent to Central Asia and Siberia as a part of Stalin's anti-Tito drive. Later that year about 10,000 members of the Democratic Army of Greece, the Greek Communist Party and their supporters became political refugees in the Soviet Union. They were initially settled in Odessa but soon were sent to Central Asia. After 1956 Greeks who wished to return to the Black Sea coast, with the exception of Crimean Greeks, were allowed to do so. The right to return was later granted to Crimean Greeks. After 1956 Greeks were allowed to emigrate to Greece in limited numbers, especially political refugees and their families. The desire to return to Greece was widespread among the civil war refugees and their descendants. Greece recognized the right of all people of Greek descent to return. Not all of the influx of European settlers in more recent years to Kazakhstan occurred as a form of exile: under Nikita Khruschev's 'Virgin Lands Campaign' of 1954-56, more than 600,000 Slavic and Baltic settlers migrated into Kazakhstan to increase agricultural production.

For their part Meskhetian Turks underwent a deportation from Uzbekistan in June 1989, when they became the victims of pogroms in the Ferghana valley. Up to 6,000 were resettled in Kazakhstan, where they were unwelcome. Many Meskhetians sought to emigrate to Georgia and Turkey.

Many of these European minorities were to increasingly leave Kazakhstan as the Soviet Union started to disintegrate. Kazakhstan gained independence in 1991 and has remained firmly under the control of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had initially come to power in 1989 as the head of the Kazakh Communist Party. While large numbers of minorities such as the Germans, Greeks and others have left the country since independence, the relatively high economic growth rates since 2000 due to its large oil, gas and mineral reserves and the long-standing presence of some of the Slavic and Turkic minorities – especially the Russian minority who are a majority in the northern part of the country – suggests that there are factors which might lead many to remain.

At the same time, minorities have not always felt welcome. The government of Kazakhstan has since 1991-1992 embarked on a programme of 'Kazakhization' of the country which highlights the prominence of the Kazakh language and increasing the presence and even domination of ethnic Kazakhs in the government bureaucracy. In addition to language laws which have been seen as disadvantaging and even discriminating against minorities (and in particular the Russian-speakers), another government policy to reverse the previous domination of ethnic Slavs has been a transmigration programme of Kazakhs into Slav-dominated territories.

While the influence and pre-eminence of the Russian language in the business and political fields have not been supplanted by the initial language laws (naming Kazakh as the state language and Russian as an 'official' language), more recent legislative moves may exacerbate the fears and grievances which have in the last decade continued to be raised, mainly though not exclusively by members of the Russian and other Slavic minorities, especially those who consider themselves 'indigenous', as their families have lived in Kazakhstan for generations. It is for this reason that some amongst the Russian minority have demanded autonomy for the parts of the country where they constitute a relatively large majority, with some elements even proposing outright reunification with Russia – and the government claiming to have uncovered a plot by Russian groups to seize power in 2001.

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Governance

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Though nominally a democracy, Kazakhstan is generally perceived as having increasingly moved towards a more authoritarian regime in recent years under the full control of President Nursultan Nazarbayev. In elections in August 2007, Mr Nazarbayev's party won 88% of the vote and all the seats in parliament. Serious concerns continue to be expressed in regards to weak human rights compliance and the rule of law in the country.

While it appears that President Nazarbayev was seen by many minority group members as a guarantor of inter-ethnic harmony in the early stages of his rule after 1991 at a time where non-Kazakhs were an overall majority in the country, this support may have become more lukewarm as Kazakh emigration (from other parts of the former Soviet Union, Mongolia, Turkey and China) in combination with the emigration of non-Kazakhs not only led to a Kazakh majority in the 1996 elections to Parliament, but also laws and policies which have increasingly disadvantaged minorities in terms of language and employment opportunities. This in a sense was confirmed by President Nazarbayev himself in 2000 when, despite still referring to Kazakhstan as the home to Slavic and European ethnic groups, he stated that it was a 'Turkophone state'.

However, President Nazarbayev's tight control over the manifestation of opposition and the growing identification of the Kazakh cultural identity with the apparatus of the state has in practice meant an increase in the restrictions of non-Kazakh identity in a number of areas of public life, with even in some cases the wearing of traditional Cossack dress (which is a form of military uniform) as an offence of 'disturbing the peace' in 1996. The protection of rights under the Constitution and legislation is deeply flawed in Kazakhstan in the absence of an independent judiciary (judges are appointed and dismissed by the President). On a positive side, a consultative 'Assembly of Peoples of Kazakhstan' was established by the President in 1995 to represent the interests of the country's various minorities.

Language and other requirements have created public and political institutions where there remain relatively few members of ethnic minorities in elected office and civil service (with Russians, for example, only occupying in 2000 perhaps 8% of all civil service jobs). While by no means actively encouraging emigration of the non-Kazakh population, the legal and political systems of governance clearly favour ethnic Kazakhs over other ethnic groups, including in granting special privileges and in some cases land to ethnic Kazakhs living outside the country. Even the establishment of a new capital, Astana, in a region with a majority of Russian-speakers, has been perceived as a step towards the authorities asserting greater control over this part of the country by eventually bringing in more and more ethnic Kazakhs and therefore weaken the presence of the Slav minorities in this part of the country.

Legislation requiring that at least 50% of all media broadcasts, including by independent private media, be in Kazakh has resulted in fines that have been heavy and, in some cases, even to some media being shut down for not complying with this language requirement. In addition, it is reported that state authorities consistently provide state subsidies, but to Kazakh-language media only. Despite this, Russian remains the dominant lingua franca in most day to day aspects, particularly in the country's cities.

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Current state of minorities and indigenous peoples

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Kazakhstan has seen dramatic emigration in the last decade: nearly 2 million people, mainly Russian (approximately 28 per cent of the population) and other non-Kazak minorities, are believed to have left the country.

Language legislation that privileges the Kazak language is increasingly perceived by non-Kazak minorities, especially those who are Russian-speaking, as discriminatory and exclusionary, and is often cited as one of the factors for this large-scale flow out of the country, in addition to better economic opportunities elsewhere. Though the Russian language is deemed 'equal' to Kazak under the constitution, legislation and programmes of 'Kazakhization' since 2001 is increasing the use of the Kazak language as the main language of government and is in fact an obstacle for access to education and employment in the civil service for a large part of the minority population.

Despite the Kazakhs only representing about 53 per cent of the population (according to some figures which may not be reliable), territorial gerrymandering has assured Kazakh majorities in the country's political divisions. Minorities have in recent years claimed to experience difficulty in establishing organizations at the political level. In practice, the 1997 Law on Languages and subsequent regulations and legislation have set into motion policies which not only favour the Kazakh language, but also effectively discriminate against and exclude members of the Russian, Uighur and other minorities from various economic, political and employment opportunities, as well as breaching their rights as minorities in areas of language use. Reactions from countries with an interest in the region's minorities, and especially Russia, have been relatively muted in the last few years, because of strategic and economic interests (linked to its significant oil and gas resources, a large part of which transits via Russia).

The current constitution prohibits the formation of associations or political parties that have ethnic, religious or nationalist identities. Some minorities are also specifically targeted in the fight against 'terrorism' and 'separatism'. A 1995 cooperation agreement with China included a clause about fighting separatism. Since then, some Uighur activists have been extradited to China and executed there. Some Uighur minority groups have claimed they face bureaucratic obstacles in their dealings with state authorities because of the stereotyping of Uighur activists as 'separatists'.

Religious minorities have been generally free to operate, and are not subject to any state-sanctioned harassment, though there are occasional problems reported with some local authorities. However, in July 2005, President Nursultan Nazarbaev signed amendments entitled 'On additions and amendments to laws of the Republic of Kazakhstan relating to national security' which may substantially restrict freedom of religion in the country, especially for non-traditional religious minorities, making it compulsory to register all religious communities and banning the activities of all religious organizations that have not been registered. Some reports suggest that the new legislation could be used to ban all unregistered religious activity, affecting particular religious minorities such as Baptists, other Protestants, Ahmadiya Muslims, and Hare Krishna devotees.

Despite President Nazarbayev regularly making public statements highlighting and praising the country's tradition of inter-ethnic and interfaith tolerance, Kazakhstan legislation renders it compulsory for all religious communities to register and the activities of unregistered religious organizations are banned.

In June 2007, 12 homes were forcibly demolished in a Hare Krishna community near Almaty and a Baptist pastor was jailed for three days in March for leading an unregistered congregation. A state crackdown on Baptist and Pentecostal Christians was described by police as 'the fight against terrorism and religious groups without registration'.

In April 2007 Kazakhstan's religious minorities expressed deep concern about a Justice Ministry booklet entitled How Not to Fall Under the Influence of Religious Sects. The Kazakhstan International Bureau of Human Rights and the Rule of Law said that the booklet provides 'the moral, or more accurately immoral, basis for officials to justify their negative attitudes towards non-traditional religions'. Among the booklet's claims is that 'transferring to other religious faiths represents treason to one's country and faith'.

Although the Russian language is deemed 'equal' to Kazakh under the constitution, legislation and programmes of 'Kazakhization' since 2001 are increasing the use of the Kazakh language as the main language of government. This is proving to be an obstacle to access to education and employment in the civil service for a large part of the Russian minority population.

On the positive side, Kazakhstan has ratified both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on 26 January 2006.

Topics: Minorities,