The theory about “terrorist attacks” on Kazakhstan and “foreign interference” was finally made official at the highest level. And while the reality might be quite different, the CSTO has absolutely no interest in the reality now. The verdict has been passed, the new CSTO mission has been assigned—the matter is settled.
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev promised to present “additional evidence of the preparation and implementation of terrorist aggression against our country” to the world community. Vladimir Putin said, “we will not allow the boat to be rocked in our home, we will not allow so-called ‘color revolutions’ to take place”, and this is the main point that will now determine the organization’s efforts in the post-Soviet space.
The real mission of the CSTO is now to suppress mass protests and keep in power the current leadership of this organization, the elites who now rule in the member states. Speaking out against them is a heinous crime, act of international terrorism, and high treason overall.
Very few people were bothered by the fact that Tokayev himself just a few hours ago deleted his tweet claiming that the total number of attackers was 20,000, that they were well-organized, and that some of them spoke a foreign language.
He also said in that tweet that the terrorists had tried to attack Almaty at least six times, beating and killing police officers and young soldiers, setting administrative buildings on fire, looting private homes and stores, killing citizens, and raping young women.
“In my basic view: no talks with the terrorists, we must kill them,” he tweeted just two days ago. Now these words have been erased. But who cares, right?
Remarkably, this session was rather uncomfortable for some of the participants. Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, who had come to power on a wave of popular protests and a coup d’état, refrained from attending the session altogether, sending the country’s prime minister in his place.
His colleague who had used the same method of climbing to the top, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, was afforded no such opportunity by protocol but felt uncomfortable, so he limited himself to general statements; in other words, he talked aimlessly, doing his best to avoid concrete statements.
The other leaders, however, indulged themselves. President Rahmon complained traditionally that life was hard and that Afghan fighters were amassing on Tajikistan’s borders. He did it convincingly enough to get a complete understanding from the Belarusian leader. “For years the President of Tajikistan has been asking us for material support, first of all, military equipment. And we should do it. So that it doesn’t cost us more in the future,” he said.
Just as traditionally, Vladimir Putin spoke about Maidan technologies and color revolutions, which the Kremlin somehow sees everywhere and in everything. Meanwhile, the court propagandists in these days have been fully focused on the “foreign trace” in the Kazakhstan tragedy.
For example, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov linked the events in Kazakhstan with the “American escape from Afghanistan”, no less. A typical move that looks completely unconvincing. I am not ruling out that a certain group of radicals, a very small one, could have gone through Afghanistan. But it is unlikely that they learned there how to plan complex operations in an urban environment, or that hundreds of them armed themselves right under the noses of the local intelligence agencies.
The real reason for such political statements is that the politicians are ashamed to admit that most of the radicals are local and their ideological base is also local. And it is absolutely unbearable to voice the obvious: the main reason for the outbursts of protests is their incompetence and greed, their absolute disdain for the population of their countries.
It is much easier to birth the CSTO for a second time—in the form of a repressive police authority of the post-Soviet space, to turn it into a Collective Security Treaty Organization for the ruling elites. Which is exactly what happened yesterday.
Dmitriy Roy
Translated from Haqqin.az
Aze.Media
