The Jobless of Zhanaozen Are Still Demanding Justice in Kazakhstan – The Diplomat

ZHANAOZEN, KAZAKHSTAN — On March 4, for the thirty fourth consecutive day, a bunch of residents of the windswept oil city of Zhanaozen gathered outdoors metropolis corridor with one easy demand: They need jobs within the extractive sector, as they have been promised by the Kazakhstani authorities.

Zhanaozen was the preliminary theater of large-scale protests in January, when residents rallied within the central sq. towards a pointy improve in gas costs. The federal government has basically phased out subsidies to the businesses buying and selling liquefied petroleum fuel (LPG) within the western Mangistau area, which allowed locals to have entry to among the most cost-effective gas on the planet. The “transition to market” — because the authorities referred to as the top of subsidies — lifted the cap and allowed corporations to cost greater than double on the pump.

The gas protest in Zhanaozen shortly unfold across the area and throughout the nation, as individuals demanded higher dwelling circumstances and a extra consultant authorities, issues President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev had promised since his coming to energy in 2019. Clashes between the safety forces, varied felony teams, and protesters brought about large city violence in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest metropolis, 1,200 miles to the east of Zhanaozen. The official tally of 240 useless and hundreds injured throughout the nation might properly be an underestimation.

Additionally underestimated was the physique depend of the clashes that occurred in Zhanaozen in December 2011, when the authorities violently quashed an oil employee strike that had lasted for eight months. Earlier than this yr’s “Bloody January,” mentioning the title Zhanaozen was a reminder of the 2011 nationwide tragedy.

It’s inside this context that the oil city continues to attempt to make its voice heard within the capital, Nur-Sultan, renamed thus in March 2019 after former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who dominated the nation for 3 many years and whose household nonetheless is in agency management of the oil business.

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“We aren’t asking for the not possible, we ask for what’s attainable, what’s concrete,” Berik, a former oil employee stated on the margins of the protest that the group of unemployed residents staged in entrance of metropolis corridor. “There are sufficient jobs within the oil business, we request secure jobs.”

The Rise and Fall of a Monotown

Zhanaozen, previously generally known as Novyi Uzen, in a typical Soviet mixture of Russian (Novyi, “new”) and Kazakh (Uzen, “river”), turned an city settlement after the invention of oil within the space within the Sixties. Like many different industrial cities throughout the previous Soviet Union, it was a monotown, basically thriving on a single vertically-integrated enterprise, now generally known as Ozenmunaigas. Initially, the city grew exponentially, attracting staff from throughout Central Asia and the remainder of the Soviet Union, however independence in 1991 had a adverse impact on the once-planned financial system of the area. Very like Kazakhstan itself, Zhanaozen suffered a tough interval of disaster within the Nineteen Nineties.

Within the early 2000s, nevertheless, Kazakhstan’s management consolidated the oil business underneath the Kazmunaigas umbrella, whereas on the similar time spinning off into non-public fingers the businesses offering companies to the oil fields. Alongside the over 10,000 staff for Ozenmunaigas, at this level a subsidiary of a semi-privatized subsidiary of Kazmunaigas, the city of Zhanaozen hosted hundreds of staff whose jobs had grow to be extra precarious and featured worse circumstances. Sporadic strikes at service corporations, nevertheless, did not make as a lot noise because the eight-month strike of 2011, which resulted in hundreds being fired and in the end led to a bloody repression. Many of the staff that have been fired have been later reintegrated into the oil business in development and restore enterprises particularly established for them. In apply, the nationwide firm and the federal government acted collectively to keep up employment ranges artificially excessive in an effort to quell social tensions.

Employee disputes and calls for for truthful employment insurance policies have continued since 2011. In 2012, the regional authorities established a hiring freeze in state-owned corporations within the oil sector; it basically put a halt on the hopes of the native youth of changing into oilmen, a degree of pleasure and an emblem of success on this nook of Kazakhstan. Nonetheless, at Yessenov College in Aktau, the regional capital on the Caspian Sea shore, round one-fifth of graduates studied oil and fuel topics. There may be little indication that the socioeconomic texture of the area might diversify away from its dependence on oil extraction.

In addition to the hiring freeze, the federal government and Kazmunaigas subsidiaries drafted a program to speed up employees turnover. The so-called “5/50 program” permits staff to voluntarily go away their jobs at sure state-owned corporations and obtain a compensation equal to 50 p.c of their wage for 5 years. As a result of salaries at Kazmunaigas-affiliated corporations are larger than common within the area, the proposal was thought of handy by many who accepted the compensation and left the corporate.

The state of affairs within the area, in addition to the oil sector, nevertheless, introduced few prospects to those staff, principally males, who have been capable of repay their money owed and purchase homes, however couldn’t discover a passable job outdoors the extractive market, already clogged by the overstaffing on the nationwide corporations and the worsening circumstances on the non-public service enterprises. Not lengthy after its execution, the 5/50 program turned deeply unpopular. In response to native activist Mukhtar Umbetov, former staff quickly realized that the compensation they obtained wouldn’t make up for the excessive value of dwelling and the lack to search out one other passable job.

“In some cases, former staff introduced the cash again to the corporate and requested to be reinstated and return to work. The corporate, naturally, refused — they signed a contract in spite of everything,” Umbetov stated in an interview in Aktau.

After the occasions of 2011 and the following lengthy disaster of oil worth instability and consequent macroeconomic difficulties within the capital, the state-owned corporations additional tightened the belt and tried to slash prices.

“Firms in the reduction of on prices and variety of staff, arguing that the privatization of the late ‘90s supplied aggressive choices. However what sort of market relations can there be in a monotown like Zhanaozen, if every little thing comes from one supply?” requested Umbetov.

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A Roll Name to Survive

For Aslan, a younger man with a big black jacket to fend off the chilly wind outdoors Zhanaozen’s metropolis corridor, the arithmetic of the native job market is easy: inflation disproportionately impacts the unemployed like him.

“Zhanaozen is named a metropolis of oil staff. These employed by the nationwide firm generally go on strikes and their calls for are typically met. When their salaries are elevated, nevertheless, costs within the metropolis go up and this impacts the remainder of us. We can’t deal with this example,” Aslan stated.

In February 2019, teams of unemployed residents of Zhanaozen first got here to protest outdoors metropolis corridor. On the time, Nazarbayev was nonetheless in energy, and the oil sector was having fun with a interval of rising commodity costs. The authorities responded by organizing a job truthful, which left many residents dissatisfied. Native corporations would solely supply month-to-month salaries of round 70,000 tenge (round $190 on the time). Sporadic protests continued for weeks, highlighting social inequality within the oil city.

A month later, on March 24, one of many activists who participated within the protests was arrested. Yerzhan Yelshibayev, 31, was accused of beginning a battle within the metropolis heart in 2017, which allegedly brought about accidents to an nameless sufferer. Yelshibayev was later sentenced to 5 years in jail for this crime, which human rights organizations contemplate a pretext. The native Bureau of Human Rights added him to the checklist of political prisoners within the nation, a registry that grew within the tense months that noticed Nazarbayev hand over energy to Tokayev.

Yelshibayev’s arrest was a sign from the federal government that protests would not be accepted. Alternatively, the authorities threw a bone to the unemployed, because the native authorities drafted “the checklist” — a roll name of native residents for brand new job openings within the oil sector that might be assigned in keeping with social wants. The group of unemployed protesting outdoors metropolis corridor, nevertheless, detest the checklist.

“With out our protests, corporations would have much less strain to rent and the individuals on the checklist would stay idle,” Marat stated.

When a video of the March 4 protest appeared on Vlast.kz’s social channels, Zhanabai Aimaganbetov, the vice mayor of Zhanaozen, reached us by telephone to make clear the place of the authorities.

“Greater than 1,500 residents have been employed by the checklist since 2019. Because the starting of the yr alone, 190 have been employed. The individuals which might be protesting are nonetheless very far down the checklist. Their flip will come,” Aimaganbetov stated throughout our telephone name.

The query, nevertheless, is who will get employed. In response to those that protest each day outdoors metropolis corridor, oilmen’s relations, policemen’s kids, and individuals who pay underneath the desk get preferential remedy.

“There are people who find themselves outdoors the checklist that get the roles that we’re ready for. These jobs have been purported to be for us, who’ve been ready for a very long time,” Marat stated.

“I do know of people that have been behind me on the checklist who obtained a job. They paid a bribe,” Kuanysh added.

Whereas the promise is for a long-term, secure job, among the positions which might be supplied, particularly at service corporations, unexpectedly terminate after a couple of months. The businesses, normally, blame monetary losses or a drop in commissions from Ozenmunaigas. As soon as the employee is fired, he might solely re-enter the dreaded checklist from the underside.

“We’re supplied vacancies, however a few of them are in non-public enterprises which might be both in dangerous form or getting ready to chapter. After which they inform us: ‘Effectively, we supplied you’re employed — why are you standing right here?’” Aslan stated.

Whereas we speak to the group of unemployed outdoors metropolis corridor, they present us a video that Yelshibayev, the imprisoned activist, managed to ship from his cell in Kyzylorda, some 500 miles to the east. Within the video, he introduced he would attempt to kill himself, as he couldn’t stand the torture any longer.

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The next day, the jail director confirmed to the press that Yelshibayev was taken to pressing care. For the previous three years, the activist tried to carry consideration to his remedy in jail by acts of self mutilation, by stitching his lips or slicing his arms.

He definitely has the eye of the individuals outdoors metropolis corridor, who accompany their request for secure jobs with calls for for Yelshibayev’s launch. In any case, they are saying, he was simply one of many many voices that referred to as for justice.

Like Yelshibayev, they’re asking for secure jobs so as to survive in their very own metropolis.

“We deserve secure jobs. We’re residents of Zhanaozen, we grew up right here,” Marat stated.

Throughout an analogous protest in February, one other resident advised the native correspondent of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that they need to be a part of Zhanaozen’s oil dream so long as it lasts.

“They advised us that our oil will quickly run out, we then say ‘let’s end it collectively,’” Meribek stated.

In mid-March, the protesters introduced a starvation strike. They lamented that the native police have been pressuring them into giving up their battle.

Kazakhstan’s authorities have already had to deal with in style unrest attributable to socioeconomic inequality in January and protests in Zhanaozen have grow to be ever extra frequent because the first picketing of unemployed in 2019.

If a secure resolution throughout the oil sector’s job market isn’t possible, the federal government ought to embark on a radical reform of the financial cloth of the area, taking into consideration in style calls for. In any other case, if left unresolved, the stress will proceed to develop.