Kazakhstan unrest: Troops ordered to fire without warning
bbc.com
bbc.com
Edit: Quoting the president according to a top comment on r/europe
> “Negotiations are nonsense stupidity, these protesters are criminals, terrorists with foreign backup”
Also a propaganda organ for the west?
"The militants have not laid down their arms, they continue to commit crimes or are preparing for them. The fight against them must be pursued to the end. Whoever does not surrender will be destroyed," President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said in a televised address.
"I have given the order to law enforcement agencies and the army to shoot to kill without warning."
Do you really believe that Western states would deal with this in any other way? Do you remember what happened after 2005 London bombings? Do you remember how the police in Brussels dealt with Paris attackers? Do you think 6th of Jan 2021 would look different if the mob opened fire at the police?
It's funny how people don't remember any of the history of the eastern bloc that's literally happened within my own adult life, and I'm in my 30s...
This is central Asia, islamic militants fighting for independence venn diagram is basically a circle. Kazakhstan is/wa remarkable for being an ostensibly "secular" state with variety of security arrangements to contain extremistism. But large groups in the country, from the disenfranchised to the elite have been looking towards Saudi wealth, Pakistani nukes, and Taliban victory in Afghanistan for another vision.
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia?
Until we have better data I think that it is entirely appropriate to treat all current data from KZ government as intentionally falsified and either apply a reasonable multiplier (historically from other similar cases, a 10x multiplier seems appropriate; certainly that would be a better estimate than accepting their reports at face value, in similar earlier situations the reports always have been intentionally adjusted) or treat the local estimates as the best estimates currently available.
Read the article, it's in there.
The whole point of HN is to comment on the article. BBC is obviously UK government propaganda, so the fact their headline is clickbait and the little data they do include doesn't support it is relevant.
Russia seems to be pretty run-down lately in the east. Especially with Chinese investments basically buying out the usual province robber barons and slowly replacing the owner-caste.
we would see some pictures of them, so far the only armed fighters Iv seen were in Russian uniforms shooting on a move in a column of Kamaz Typhoons
yeah. But if one disagrees with the policies, it makes a lot of difference if the system is authoritarian or not.
Reminds me of a report by Radio Yerevan: all free citizens questioned told the ministry of national security that they are happy with the government and agree with its policies. In other news a series of arrests have been made against dissident groups planing violence against nation and government.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
The world only looks more authoritarian because some of the largest countries (China and Russia) are. They thankfully are stable. In Africa and the Middle East, where there is a lot of authoritarianism, you also see a lot of civil unrest. But even though authoritarianism is highly correlated with civil unrest, it doesn't necessarily cause it (indeed, it can be caused by it).
> I don't think being democratic or authoritarian really matters much to most people, as long as they agree with the policies.
In one system, if you don't agree with policies, you can "vote the turkeys out", in the other system, if you don't agree...well, hopefully the authoritarians are receptive, because your only other option is violent revolution.
Authoritarian regimes are also very brittle, they break easily when enough pressure is applied (but "enough" is a higher threshold like concrete).
This caused a massive black market to emerge, so Kazakhstan raised prices closer to the market levels to curb the black market and the organized crime that comes with it.
That is why the protesters are so well organized, and why it is specifically violent in Almaty.
Remember also that Kazakhstan's largest city (and former capital in 2019), Almaty, is located by the Southern border. In an effort to curb this black market, the domestic price of gas raised much closer to the global market rate. Not surprisingly, the unrest was most violent and most well organized in Almaty.
There is also an undercurrent of ethnic conflict between the ethnic Kazakh people and the ethnic Russia population. The former government has been working to switch from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin one, sending out language police to ensure businesses don't do business in Russian, and probably most importantly, talking to the US to establish US air bases.
> talking to the US to establish US air bases
I haven't read about this anywhere, but it sounds highly important considering Russia just sent in their troops. Do you have sources for these two claims?
Also, I find it amusing that the West is always mentioned as potential factor, yet the bigger picture is rarely mentioned: Kazakhstan is a resource rich country with low population, sandwiched between two countries with huge ambition. China has much stake in Kazakhstan as any other countries, and probably more.