STRANGE INITIATIVE

Abdulla Duduev

“The Chechens nominated Nazarbayev for the Nobel Peace Prize” - messages under such an unexpected headline appeared on the pages of some Internet media on the days of the 65th anniversary of the deportation of the Chechens. This initiative was put forward by a certain regional public organization “Children of Kazakhstan”, registered... in Chechnya. As the head of this organization, Aslan Aiskhanov, explained to our correspondent, people who were once born in exile and united in this organization several years ago decided in this way “65 years later to thank the people of Kazakhstan for the help provided in difficult times.” According to Aiskhanov, initially they had hesitations whether to nominate the famous poet Olzhas Suleimenov or Nazarbayev for the Peace Prize, but since the former is in France as the ambassador of Kazakhstan to this country, they considered it correct to nominate the Kazakh president. When asked whether such an initiative is supported by the official authorities, other public organizations of the Chechen Republic and, most importantly, the Chechens now living in Kazakhstan, the interlocutor replied: “During a personal conversation, some officials called this a child’s idea. But we sent letters asking to support our initiative to the parliament and the administration of the President of Chechnya. There is no official answer yet. We have already received support from a large number of organizations from Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria. The Chechen diaspora of Kazakhstan, represented by Akhmad Muradov, also supported the initiative.”

We asked Mr. Aiskhanov if he was aware that two years ago mass pogroms of Chechens took place in Kazakhstan with the murder of three people from the Makhmakhanov family, and since then, at least ten more Chechens have been killed in the republic? The interlocutor rather puzzled us with his answer: he objected that compared to the two wars in Chechnya, the number of their victims and the amount of destruction, all of these are only insignificant episodes. You might think that unknown forces with a knife to their throats forced the “Children of Kazakhstan” to nominate either Putin or Nazarbayev for the Nobel Peace Prize; a third (including Olzhas Suleimenov) was not given, and the possibility of simply not nominating anyone for it is also excluded.
No, justice in Kazakhstan is at a high level, in his policies President Nazarbayev puts human values at the forefront, Aiskhanov assured us, claiming that he knows this first-hand, having himself visited this republic three times in recent years.
However, we also traveled to Kazakhstan, visited different regions, districts, talked a lot with people who were born and raised there, who lived for decades: Chechens, Kazakhs, Russians, Uyghurs, Kurds, Turks...
These impressions are the best way to understand what the real situation is in this country.
Everyone who is bursting with a feeling of gratitude to Mr. Nazarbayev should pay attention to the fact that not a single Chechen, even if he was seven spans in his forehead, could and can occupy any more or less significant position in Kazakhstan in any whatever the sphere. Look for one like this! You won't find it. And not only in state authorities, but also at the local level, and what’s more - you won’t meet a single Chechen district police officer in the entire republic. Ask those who live there, and they will tell you about the Chechens who, in order to move up the career ladder, were forced to change the fifth column in their passport. They will also tell about those who were offered this, but people refused. And in the present, already Nazarbayev times, in addition to all the pogroms and murders, it is becoming commonplace even that bandits show up to Chechen farmers after harvesting and rob what they have grown with hard work, and not just simply, but accompanying their actions with patriotic slogans: “So what?” , if you grew it with your own hands? The land of Kazakhstan gave all this to you!”
This is the atmosphere that is developing, and not without the help of the authorities.
Not only that: here they will tell you how Chechen refugees who fled from the second Chechen war from relatives and friends in Kazakhstan were arrested by the law enforcement agencies of this republic, as if envying the methods of their Russian colleagues, planted with weapons and drugs, tried and imprisoned on trumped-up criminal cases. And here, of course, bargaining was appropriate: those who had something were given a bath, those who did not have such opportunities were imprisoned for a long time.
It seems that it is not customary in Kazakhstan to treat representatives of the “titular nation” in this manner - well, this is, of course, better than if the arbitrariness were total. And there are probably countries in the post-Soviet space where things are worse with interethnic relations than in Kazakhstan. But such a modest achievement somehow does not qualify for a Nobel Prize. And it is even more ridiculous for the Chechens to bother about it, because the humanist president, this outstanding champion of human values, did not find a single word of sympathy either for those whose relatives were killed by the pogromists, or for those who suffered from robbery. Instead, the potential nominee for the Peace Prize still managed to reproach the victims for allegedly being ungrateful, because the Kazakh people had not once generously accepted the exiled Caucasians... Nazarbayev himself was 4 years old in 1944, so there were no personal merits in that there could not have been a terrible hour for the Chechens. But he chose this unusually opportune moment for reproach himself. And here we will hasten to thank him!...