A message below from an activist call out in solidarity with Kazakh oil workers and communities:
Demonstration:
Wednesday, 21st December 2011, 12 noon
Kazakh-British Chamber of Commerce
62 South Audley Street
Mayfair
London
W1K 2QR
On Friday 17 December, the security forces violently attacked oil workers demanding better living standards in Zhanaozen, Kazakhstan. Ten people were shot dead, more than 70 wounded, and 70 arrested, according to the government. Opposition activists and Russian media say that the number of victims could be much higher.
In spite of the massacre, the protests continued on 18 December. There were further clashes in nearby Aktau and Shetpe, and a 20-day state of emergency has been declared.
The Zhanaozen protests are part of a campaign for better pay and conditions by workers in the western Kazakhstan oilfield that started in May, grew in a strike of about 16,000 people in June, and continued through the year. (The Kazakh elite has become rich, thanks to oil – but in Mangistau, the largest oil-producing province, one third of the
population are below the poverty line.)
Just like anti-capitalist protesters in Wall Street, the City of London and elsewhere, the Kazakh oil field workers established a “tent city”, in Zhanaozen’s main square, in June. When police tried to break it up in July, 60 of them covered themselves with petrol and threatened to set themselves on fire. Friday’s massacre took place in the same
square.
Kazakh oil workers’ communities – we are with you!
Kazakhstan, oil and the City:
— The companies where most of the protesting oil workers work are
partly owned by Kazmunaigaz Exploration and Production, which is listed
on the London stock exchange and has often raised loans from
London-based institutions;
— The UK is the third largest direct investor in Kazakhstan (after the
USA and China);
— Tony Blair, the former prime minister, is being paid millions of
pounds to lobby in the Kazakh government’s interests. Many other
British businessmen and politicians help, too. Richard Evans, the
former chairman of British Aerospace, is chairman of Samruk-Kazyna, a
state-owned holding company that controls a big chunk of the Kazakh
economy.
— The oil produced in Kazakhstan is traded in the offices of big oil
trading companies and international oil companies in their London
offices.
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