Land Privatisation Law causes unrest in Kazakhstan
ASTANA, Kazakhstan: Land Privatisation Law causes unrest in Kazakhstan and has created trust deficit among people for government although Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev has postponed implementation of legislation for privatization of land till year 2017.
Kazakh government announced its plan to sell agricultural land on March 30, 2016 and said that implementation would start from July 1, 2016. However, unexpected reaction from farmers apparently compelled President Nursultan Nazarbaev to postpone implementation. Nevertheless, farmers continued their protests and Agriculture Minister Asylzhan Mamytbekov resigned on May 6. Kazakh Economy Minister Erbolat Dosaev resigned on May 5 along with his deputy minister on same day when President Nazarbaev announced postponement of implementation on Land Privatisation Law.
According to new legislation, Kazakh government can take land away from farmers who are doing farming since long on state land and now this state land can be sold in open market or can be leased out to foreigners on long-lease basis. Farmers believe that auctioning of the land would not be done in a transparent way and land would be sold at lowest rate to friends of people in power.
Meanwhile, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev feels that protests over Land Privatization have political motives to destabilize Kazakhstan on the same patron that was used in Maidan Euro Kiev that resulted regime change with the alleged support of western powers in year 2014.
In his May 1 speech on the occasion of National Unity Day holiday, President Nazarbaev indicated that protests could harm national unity and cited example of economic turbulence of Ukraine.
“Ukraine, the second-biggest ex-Soviet state, today has an economy which is half the size of because there is no unity, no sense of purpose, no tasks are being solved and people are busy with other things: fighting, killing, brawling,” mentioned Nazarbaev.
When President Nazarbaev was delivering his speech, protesters were busy in staging rallies in the cities of Kyzylorda and Zhanaozen. It may be mentioned Zhanaozen is the same city where police allegedly shot dead at least 16 people and injured more than 100 others during a crackdown on demonstrators during December 2011 when police cracked down on oil workers on strike.
It is pertinent to mentioned that several protest rallies had been held in different cities of Kazakhstan since April 24 despite the statement of President Nazarbaev to “punish provocateurs” who are disrupting social. President released this statement on April 26.
Western media claims that President Nazarbaev has always strict and harsh against protests and does not allow freedom of expression in his country. Western media further claims that Kazakh authorities are harassing activists to control expected planned nationwide protests.
Meanwhile, the government has established a commission and people had been invited to express their view points and grievances over Land Privatization legislation.
Political analysts believe that Kazakh government planed the Land Privatisation Law to accommodate Chinese and Russian investors who are interested to buy agriculture lands for wheat and cotton production.
