Akezhan Kazhegeldin addresses to the nation of Kazakhstan and answers question regarding the trial 
Akezhan Kazhegeldin's answer to Gulzhah Yergaliyeva, author and anchor on the 31st Channel's 'Public Accord' program, Almaty television Dear Gulzhan Khamitovna! Thank you for your question regarding the so-called 'trial' in Astana. I hope you will manage to air my reply. Though the 31 Channel's audience is not nationwide, the reputation of you 'Public Concord' program allows me to address all my compatriots in Kazakhstan. First, a little digression. These days I recall the summer of 1997 that was declared the 'Year of Nationwide Accord and Reconciliation.' A memorial ceremony was held at one of the places on the outskirts of Almaty where victims of oppression were secretly buried in the 30's. Speaking at a public rally, President Nazarbayev vowed to never permit violation of human rights and legal outrage in the independent Kazakhstan. It's bitter to admit that he's failed to keep his word. Rights of every citizen are violated in Kazakhstan. Including my right to a fair trial. Everyone has the right to an independent and fair trial, where the law is equally applied to everyone. But President Nursultan Nazarbayev controls the courts, the judges, laws are written and rewritten under his orders. How can we trust the decision of such a court? Who can hope to receive a fair and independent trial? Such a trial is impossible in Kazakhstan, and it's not we who are to blame for that. For this reason I've suggested many times that I stand trial in any independent court abroad. However, no real court would ever start a hearing on the merits, it would close the case instead. Because the charges that for three years have been invented first by the Tax Police, by the National Security Committee, General Prosecutor's Office, and now by the Interior Ministry, are conflicting, they surface and disappear in turn. Two years ago they accused me of having a castle in Belgium. A year ago some person who said he was 'adviser to President Nazarbayev' insisted that he had brought $100 mln in cash for me. Earlier they had say that I owned Shymkent oil refinery. Where're all those charges now? Today is the turn of allegations involving the apartments, Mercedes cars, firearms, and power plant privatization process. Almost any person can be forced to give false testimony at court. There are individuals who are able to resist the pressure and hold their own. I do not blame those who are terrified and repeat someone other's lies on oath, I feel sorry for them instead. Time will come, and they will say they were forced and harassed into doing saying that. They will apologize. Some of them have already offered their apologies. God himself will judge them! Just recall the movie 'The Cold Summer of 1953,' where Anatoliy Papanov introduces himself to another prisoner: 'Skorobogatov, an English spy. Glad to meet you.' My trial in absentia is a noteworthy fact in Kazakhstan's modern history. It speaks for the forceless hysteria of the authorities. President Nazarbayev has lost his courage and guts that we have valued so high once. The reason is that he himself is under investigation abroad, being involved in receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes from oil companies. Please note the issue of payments from construction or metallurgical companies haven't been considered at all yet. However, the situation regarding those millions for sold for lower prices oil is more or less clear already. The President will have to stand trial and fight to have his multimillion Swiss bank accounts unfreezed. He thinks that the case against me will detract attention from the accusations leveled at him. He underestimates the political maturity of Kazakhstan's nation. My trial is a signal. However, it's addressed not to me, but to every each of you. I've made my choice, and no staged events like this would ever stop me. President Nazarbayev knows that the nation is disappointed with him. This is the form he threatens Kazakhstan: Don't speak your mind! Keep silent! Abide and obey! Put up with the hereditary dictatorship that I'm preparing for you! The power does not realize that there is no room for hereditary dictatorship in modern world. One by one nations overthrow such regimes. Not an heir manages to hold on to power. There is no place in the world where one family can for a long time control the nation's entire economy – from oil derricks to kiosks. This simply can't happen, and this won't happen in Kazakhstan! That's what I told the President from the very beginning. That's the core of out conflict. If Nazarbayev does not agree, if he's ready to prove that the power in Kazakhstan has never been monopolized by him and his relatives and the Kazakhstan's riches - by his cronies, he can still agree to my proposal to hold a TV debate. I'm ready to take part in it. However, Nazarbayev prefers to crackdown on me with the help of the puppet and dependent court instead. I won't assist him in that. Let him play those games on his own. Dear compatriots! I am happy I can openly tell you: neither me nor my relatives have villas and limousines in Kazakhstan or abroad, we have no planes, companies, or secret accounts. All I have I give to my struggle for Kazakhstan's freedom, for freeing my nation from the heel of the 'Big Family.' It seems that President Nazarbayev wishes he could say the same openly and simply. But nobody would ever believe him. That's why he should immediately resign and begin preparing for his own defense. Should President Nazarbayev manages to prove he has nothing to do with the rampant corruption that has drained the country of all its vitality, he will be able to return to the political arena. However, it would be another Kazakhstan then. I thank everybody who believes in me, who supports opposition and whose sympathies are with opposition. I also thank those who just honestly live and work, and hope for better days. They will come soon. I promise that to you. Akezhan KAZHEGELDIN
Almaty, 18 August 2001 |
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