>Tesi Vladimir Socor (Jamestown Foundation, linea
atlantista, anti-Russia):
Kazakistan in Asia
Centrale è rimasto unico Stato con buoni rapporti con USA,
con economia aperta ai capitali
internazionali,
e sulla strada della democrazia.
Sotto l’URSS il Kaz. era landa per deportati, con
fallimento esperimento di collettivizzazione agricoltura, grosse perdite
demografiche, disastri ecologici per follout esplosioni nucleari e basi
missilistiche,
Mosca si prendeva tutto il reddito della produzione
petrolifera, anche se era solo in grado di grattare la superficie.
Ora Kaz. attrae più investimenti esteri di ogni altro Stato
ex-URSS, accetta senza problemi che gruppi occidentali acquistino la
proprietà dei giacimenti minerari: un’eccezione, insieme all’Azerbaijan,
tra i paesi petroliferi.
Anche il suo sistema di banche private è un modello
nell’area.
Kaz. è modello di tolleranza etnica e religiosa; per la prima
volta in due generazioni i kazaki sono tornati maggioranza [nelnord prevalgono
i russi –ndr] e prende forma un modello multipartitico, con libertà di stampa
(TV resta statale).
A sud Turkmenistan, dietro pressioni russe, sbarra
l’accesso alle sue enormi riserve di gas ai capitali occidentali,
Uzbekistan, perno strategico della regione, ha
cacciato i militari USA e firmato da un giorno all’altro un trattato di
alleanza con Russia,
mentre l’abortita “rivoluzione colorata” in Kirghizistan ha
rafforzato l’influenza russa, riducendo quella americana.
La Russia torna a premere, la Cina sta
conducendo un’ “aggressiva concorrenza per l’accesso diretto ai campi
petroliferi in Kaz., cercando di deviarne la produzione lontano dai mercati
internazionali [curiosa definizione di oleodotto per approvvigionare il mercato
cinese … –ndr].
Il Kazakistan intende “mantenere buone relazioni con
entrambi i grandi vicini, ma guarda agli USA per bilanciarli, e si
rivolge alle compagnie USA e dell’Europa Occidentale per lo sviluppo di oil e
gas per l’export sui mercati int’li”.
Attualmente produce 50 mt petrolio l’anno, per il 2010
previsti 100mt, dal 2025 150 mt [circa 3 m barili/giorno], permettedo all’EU di
ridurre dipendenza da MO e Russia.
Bush ha inviato una calorosa lettera al P Nazarbayev
[appoggiandolo in vista delle imminenti elezioni]
By VLADIMIR SOCOR
December 2, 2005
Kazakhstan’s president, strongman Nursultan
Nazarbayev, will almost certainly be returned to power on Sunday, when the
country heads to the polls. His rule of this vast Central Asian country, held
since the fall of the former Soviet Union, has prioritized stability. But
thankfully, Mr. Nazarbayev is driven by economic incentives that will
hopefully move the country along a democratic path in coming years.
To understand Kazakhstan’s trajectory, it is
essential to place the country’s elections in a historical and regional
context. Prior to 1991, Kazakhstan was a vast repository of deported people
and home to a massive collapse of a continental-scale experiment in
collectivized agriculture. She suffered huge demographic losses to her
indigenous population and endured ecological disasters caused by fallout from
Moscow’s nuclear blasts and missile flights at Kazakh testing ranges. Moscow
seized all income from Kazakhstan’s oil and gas production; but, fortunately,
it was barely able to scratch the surface of her immense energy reserves.
Fortunately, Kazakhstan is now on the road
to prosperity from extreme poverty, thanks to the development of those
reserves by Western consortiums. Kazakhstan attracts more foreign direct
investment per capita than any other former Soviet-ruled country. Kazakhstan
readily agrees to Western ownership of mineral deposits, which makes it
(along with Azerbaijan) an exception among oil-rich states. Kazakhstan’s private
banking system is also regarded as a regional example for Central Asia and
beyond
Kazakhstan is also — remarkably, after the
Soviet oppression of ethnicity and faith — an Asian model of ethnic and
religious tolerance, with various groups, houses of worship, and languages
mingling without incident. For the first time in two generations, Kazakhs
are now again in the majority. Mr. Nazarbayev is promoting an overarching,
civic-secular identity for all ethnicities and denominations to guarantee
long-term stability. While democratic institutions are in an early stage of
development, a multi-party system has taken shape, and the print media
offer differing interpretations of events, though television is
state-dominated. As in most countries with no prior concept of democracy,
opposition parties are pressing for a faster opening of the political system
than the authorities deem prudent.
In many ways, Kazakhstan looks like a success
compared to its neighbors. To its south, Turkmenistan — under
Russian pressure — has shut out the West from access to the country’s
world-class reserves of natural gas, while Uzbekistan, the region’s
strategic linchpin, has just evicted the U.S. military from the country and
signed (almost overnight) an alliance treaty with Russia. On Kazakhstan’s
southeastern border, the unreformed Kyrgyzstan has been thrown into
violent chaos by a botched "color revolution" that reduced U.S.
influence there, while increasing the Kremlin’s.
To Kazakhstan’s north, across the world’s
longest land border, Russia is returning to political autocracy and projecting
its influence into Central Asia. To the east, China is
aggressively competing for direct access to oilfields in Kazakhstan, seeking to
divert those fields’ output away from the global market. Kazakhstan is
keen to maintain good relations with both of these great-power neighbors, but
looks to the United States to balance them. And it looks to American and
West European companies to develop Kazakhstan’s oil and gas reserves for export
to international markets.
That’s no small deal. Kazakhstan currently
produces some 50 million tons of oil annually, but its richest fields
are yet to come fully on stream. Oil output is projected at approximately
100 million tons by 2010 and at least 150 million tons annually by 2015 and
thereafter. Volumes of such magnitude can restrain prices on international
energy markets and simultaneously help reduce Europe’s excessive dependence
on Middle Eastern and Russian supplies. Moreover, Kazakhstan’s large
potential as a natural gas exporter is only now beginning to attract serious
attention.
In sum, Kazakhstan is now the only country in
Central Asia that advances — in its own national interest — all three basic
goals of U.S. and allied policies toward Central Asian countries: access to
energy supplies, cooperation against terrorism and related threats, and
economic and political reforms in its incremental, but eventual — transition
to democracy. U.S. President George Bush acknowledged Kazakhstan’s
progress in an unusually warm letter to Mr. Nazarbayev recently, after
two years of spotty attention to Kazakhstan in Washington and in the wake of
policy setbacks in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Mr. Bush encouraged a clean
presidential election, in the interest of advancing the development of
democratic institutions, while boosting the authorities’ legitimacy and
international credibility.
Sunday’s presidential election will be
intensely scrutinized by international observers. U.S. and European
expectations are high. But regardless of the outcome, foreigners should view
this election as a stage in a continuing learning process and acknowledge the
likely improvements in comparison to past elections. Western acknowledgment of
such improvements provides a strong incentive — and failure to recognize, a
disincentive — to continuing advances on a long and unfamiliar road to
democracy for this Western-friendly country of strategic import.
Mr. Socor is a senior fellow at the
Washington-based Jamestown Foundation, publishers of the Eurasia Daily Monitor.