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- ‘The Western world is in danger’: Argentina’s Milei, a self-described ‘anarcho-capitalist,’ urges Davos elite to reject socialism CNBC
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Tag Archives: Elites
Putin Touts ‘Futuristic’ Weapons, Chides Exiled Elites in Far East Forum Address – The Moscow Times
- Putin Touts ‘Futuristic’ Weapons, Chides Exiled Elites in Far East Forum Address The Moscow Times
- Putin Wants Russia To Follow India’s Footsteps; ‘Modi Is Right To Promote Make-In-India’ Hindustan Times
- Vladimir Putin hails India’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, urges Russian officials to use domestic cars Times of India
- Putin On Modi: Vladimir Putin Praises PM Modi’s ‘Made In India’ Efforts | Putin On Make In India The Indian Express
- Doing right thing in promoting Make in India programme: Putin praises PM Modis policies Firstpost
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Republican Jewish Coalition: GOP elites weigh Trump — and the alternatives — at high-profile Vegas gathering
CNN
—
Former President Donald Trump is set to address the influential Republican Jewish Coalition on Saturday, days after becoming the first declared GOP candidate of the 2024 presidential campaign.
But the chandeliered ballroom at the opulent Venetian resort hotel in Las Vegas will teem with his rivals – including potential chief nemesis Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – as some of the party’s most influential donors weigh alternatives to the divisive former president.
Trump still retains a “following” within the party, Mel Sembler, a Florida real-estate developer and GOP donor who sits on the coalition’s board, told CNN this week. But, he said, “I think people are getting tired of his controversies all the time.”
“What concerns me is if he wins the primary and loses the general,” added Sembler, who has not endorsed a 2024 candidate.
The annual leadership conference of prominent Jewish conservatives marks the first major gathering of GOP establishment forces since this month’s midterm letdown for the party, which saw Democrats retain their hold on the Senate and make inroads in state governments around the country.
Republicans did flip the House but will hold a slim majority in January after the “red wave” their party envisioned all year failed to materialize.
Leading Republican figures in Washington and elsewhere are casting blame on Trump for his role in boosting far-right Senate candidates who faltered in the general election – and for continuing to publicly nurse his own grievances about the 2020 election and his ongoing legal troubles. During his campaign kickoff Tuesday, he called himself a “victim” of a federal law enforcement system that he has spent years politicizing.
Trump’s legal difficulties appeared to deepen Friday when Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to oversee the criminal investigations into the retention of national defense information at his Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
Rather than seeing the party unify behind his third presidential bid, Trump faced immediate blowback. Minutes after his announcement, daughter and former senior White House adviser Ivanka Trump distanced herself from her father’s campaign, saying she does “not plan to be involved in politics.”
His announcement also overlapped with a high-profile book tour by his own former vice president – and potential 2024 rival – Mike Pence, who has spent the past several days reminding Americans of Trump’s role in the violent US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
Perhaps the biggest blow to Trump’s campaign infrastructure was the swift and public defection of several billionaire GOP donors – including a close ally, Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman – who said the country needed leaders “rooted in today and tomorrow, not today and yesterday.”
Others are hedging their bets.
Among those playing the field is Miriam Adelson, the billionaire widow of Las Vegas casino magnate and RJC benefactor Sheldon Adelson. The Adelsons have donated nearly a half-billion dollars to Republican groups and candidates in the last four election cycles – including tens of millions to boost Trump’s presidential ambitions, federal records show.
Trump in 2018 bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom – the nation’s highest civilian honor – on Miriam Adelson, citing her philanthropy.
Despite that relationship, Adelson intends to remain neutral in the GOP presidential primaries, an aide confirmed to CNN this week. Adelson, whose political contributions have slowed some since her husband’s death in January 2021, has indicated that she will financially support the eventual GOP nominee, whether that be Trump or someone else.
RJC executive director Matt Brooks said Trump has won plaudits from coalition members for his stalwart support of Israel during his presidency and unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Still, Brooks said, “people are window-shopping right now. There are people who are asking if we need a new direction and a new face.”
Even as Trump prepares to make his pitch to the RJC, his allies and aides have sought to position him as the outsider in the 2024 contest, despite his recent White House occupancy.
“President Trump is running a campaign that represents everyday Americans who love their country,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement to CNN. “There are others who will answer to the political establishment, be beholden to corporations, and drag the United States into more unnecessary wars.”
And his allies note that Trump’s fundraising operation largely relies on a small-dollar donor base, reducing his reliance on the party’s elite and giving him a potential edge over opponents who do not boast the same small-donation game.
He enters the 2024 campaign with more than $100 million in cash reserves across a sprawling network of political committees – although federal law could constrain his ability to fully tap those funds for his campaign.
“He has proven he can raise a lot of money on his own,” Michael Caputo, a former Trump administration official who remains close to the former president, recently told CNN.
Trump is not making the trek to Las Vegas but is scheduled to address the gathering live via satellite Saturday as part of a morning lineup that will feature several other potential rivals for the GOP nomination, including South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, newly reelected New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Trump’s remote appearance was announced on Thursday, after it became clear that several of his potential 2024 rivals were scheduled to deliver their own remarks.
DeSantis – fresh off the momentum of his double-digit reelection victory in Florida – is slated to address the group Saturday night during its gala dinner.
Trump recently has stepped up attacks on DeSantis, and another potential 2024 challenger, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Two sources familiar with Trump’s thinking said part of the reason he has lashed out is because he believes both governors are actively soliciting support from “his donors.” Trump has told aides and allies that DeSantis especially is trying to pitch himself to deep-pocketed Republicans who helped bankroll Trump’s reelection campaign.
A Republican fundraiser in Florida with knowledge of DeSantis’ political operation said, “Of course he’s talking to those people. They’re fair game and every Republican is going to go after those donors because that’s the smart thing to do, it’s not with the mindset, ‘Let’s screw Trump.’”
The conservative Club for Growth, one of the biggest outside spenders in politics, already has broken with Trump and earlier this week circulated internal polling that suggested DeSantis could mount a serious challenge to the former president in early voting states and Florida, where both reside. The group plowed $2 million into DeSantis’ reelection efforts this election cycle, according to Florida campaign filings.
David McIntosh, the former Indiana congressman who runs the group, declined a CNN interview request through a spokesman.
This week, as the contours of the new GOP majority in the House became clear – DeSantis won praise from national Republicans for injecting himself into congressional map-making this year. In a rare move for a governor, DeSantis pushed state lawmakers to adopt his map, which controversially eliminated two districts represented by Black Democrats and gave the GOP the advantage in as many as 20 of 28 districts.
“That map created four new Republican wins,” said a GOP consultant who has been close to Trump and asked not to be named to speak candidly about the 2024 race. “That’s the practical reality of a conservative governor standing up to his own party and saying. ‘We’re not going to cut deals and do things the old way.’”
DeSantis this week sought to sidestep questions about the growing rivalry with Trump, urging people “to chill out a little bit” – even as he touted his 19-point margin of victory in his reelection. CNN has previously reported that those close to DeSantis believe he does not intend to announce his plans before May.
“The smartest thing DeSantis could do is stay out of the fray for as long as possible,” said the Republican consultant. “Don’t stick your face in the frying pan too early.”
Many of Trump’s potential 2024 rivals spoke at the conference in Las Vegas, offering post-midterm assessments and making their pitch for how the party should move forward.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, an early ally of Trump, issued a long and passionate indictment of the former president on Saturday, casting Trump as a cancer on the Republican Party and the sole responsible figure for its recent election losses.
“We keep losing and losing and losing,” Christie said. “The reason we’re losing is because Donald Trump has put himself before everybody else.”
Christie slammed Trump for recruiting candidates under the singular qualification that they deny the results of the 2020 election.
“That’s not what this party stands for,” the former governor said. “It’s not what it should stand for in the future, and we’ve got to stop it now.”
Christie pointed to midterm GOP defeats in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and warned that without a resurgence in those states – especially in the suburbs – Republicans held no hope of winning back the White House in 2024.
Echoing those fears, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said that “candidate quality matters,” while adding, “I got a great policy for the Republican Party: Let’s stop supporting crazy, unelectable candidates in our primaries and start getting behind winners that can close the deal in November.”
Sununu was initially courted to run for US Senate, but ultimately decided to run for reelection. The GOP nominee, retired Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who has pushed falsehoods about the 2020 election, went on to lose to Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan earlier this month.
Meanwhile, Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who headed the Senate GOP’s campaign arm this election cycle, said Republicans’ midterm hopes for a “red wave” did not materialize because the party focused too much on “how bad the Democrats are” and did not offer voters its own policy vision.
“The current strategy of most Republicans in Washington is to only be against the crazy Democrats – and they’re crazy – and never outline any plan what we are for and what we will do. That is a mistake,” the senator said.
Scott’s comments come days after his failed bid to oust Mitch McConnell as the party’s Senate leader.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who unsuccessfully ran for president against Trump in 2016, urged the GOP to try to broaden its appeal outside the party’s base.
“We spend far too much time preaching to the choir; talking to the same 2.6 million people watching Fox News every night,” Cruz said.
Cruz also said he had spoken at Senate Republicans’ leadership election this week to urge the party to take a harder line against Democratic policies.
“Republicans in the Senate don’t fight,” he said Saturday.
Cruz said he urged GOP leaders to “pick two or three or four things that matter and say, ‘We believe in it.’”
Outgoing Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan took a hard stance against the former president Friday night, saying in Las Vegas that the Republican Party was “desperately in need of a course correction.”
“Trump was saying that we’d be winning so much we get tired of winning. Well, I’m sick and tired of our party losing. And after this election last week, I’m even more sick and tired than I was before,” Hogan said.
“Look, this is the third election in a row that we lost and should have won. I say three strikes and you’re out. If you repeatedly lose to a really bad team, it’s time for new leadership,” he added.
This story has been updated with more information.
INS Vikrant: India’s first homegrown aircraft carrier puts it among world’s naval elites
With the $3 billion Vikrant, India will join only a small number of nations with more than one aircraft carrier or helicopter carrier in service and become only the third country, after the UK and China, to have commissioned a domestically built aircraft carrier in the past three years.
The carrier has filled the nation with “new confidence,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at a ceremony marked by fanfare at the Cochin Shipyard in India’s southern Kerala state.
“The goal may be difficult. The challenges may be big. But when India makes up its mind, no goal is impossible,” Modi said, before boarding the carrier and unfurling the country’s new naval flag.
“Till now, this type of aircraft carrier was made only by developed countries. Today, India by entering this league has taken one more step towards becoming a developed nation,” Modi said, adding the Indo-Pacific region remained “a major security priority” for India.
John Bradford, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said India’s commitment to the ship reflected its “long-term vision to maintaining a world-class naval force.”
“There are looming questions about the survivability of any carrier in the missile age, but major navies — including those of the US, Japan, China and the UK — are doubling down on their carrier investments. In this sense India is keeping in the race,” Bradford said.
Vikrant joins the carrier INS Vikramaditya, a refurbished Soviet-era carrier bought from Russia in 2004, in India’s fleet.
With a displacement of around 40,000 tons, the Vikrant is slightly smaller than the Vikramaditya and the carriers of the US, China and UK though it is larger than Japan’s.
But analysts praised its potential firepower.
When its air wing becomes fully operational over the next few years, Vikrant will carry up to 30 aircraft, including MiG-29K fighter jets — to be launched from its ski-ramp style deck — and helicopters as well as defensive systems including surface-to-air missiles.
Powered by four gas turbine engines, its top speed is estimated at 32 mph (52 kph) with a range of 8,600 miles (13,890 kilometers).
“India is sending out the message that it has the power, it has the aircraft carriers and therefore the air power to dominate the distant reaches of the Indian Ocean,” said Ajai Shukla, a former Indian military officer turned defense analyst.
Analysts said the new carrier, and the destroyers and frigates that will eventually make up its strike group, gives India options further afield, too.
“India can both influence and coordinate potential security solutions to regional concerns. Having an open ocean capability naval task group to contribute adds to India’s clout and options. It needn’t join in a multilateral response but can do so, or establish a separate independent presence, if it chooses,” said Carl Schuster, a former US Navy captain who now teaches at Hawaii Pacific University.
The new carrier will enable India to take a bigger role in military exercises by the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or “Quad,” an informal alliance of the United States, Japan, Australia and India.
For instance, the US and Japanese carriers have taken part in the annual Malabar exercises attended by Quad members.
Building Vikrant hasn’t been easy for India.
The government signed off on its design and construction in 2003 and the keel was laid in February 2009. The ship was christened Vikrant — which means “courageous” or “victorious” in Sanskrit — and launched in August 2013.
But then delays set in: features needed to be redesigned, there was trouble securing aviation equipment from Russia, and then there was the Covid-19 pandemic.
Still, experts say India will be able to enhance its domestic shipbuilding capacity and learn from the experience.
“They now have the expertise to build the next carrier more quickly and probably with a better design,” Schuster said.
The Indian Navy is considering building a second indigenous carrier. This remains in the concept phase but there has been speculation that any new carrier could be in the 65,000-ton range, about the size of the UK’s HMS Queen Elizabeth or China’s second carrier, the Shandong.
China is seen as India’s main naval competitor in the region. With two carriers in service and a third far more advanced carrier launched in the past year, China is ahead of India both numerically and technologically, but analysts give India the edge in operational carrier experience.
The Indian Navy began operating aircraft carriers in 1961. Its first carrier, which it acquired from the UK, was also called Vikrant. The first Vikrant was retired in 1997. A second British-built carrier, INS Viraat, served in the Indian Navy for 30 years before its decommissioning in 2017.
China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was an unfinished Soviet-era vessel that Beijing bought from Ukraine in 1998, updated and finally commissioned in 2012. Its first domestically built carrier, the Shandong, entered service in 2019 and in June 2022 it launched its third carrier, Fujian — an advanced carrier with electromagnetic catapult-assisted launch systems, similar to those used by the US.
“On paper, China’s new carriers have more capabilities in terms of payload and technology than Vikrant. However, India has decades of experience operating carrier aviation forces while China is still learning,” said Bradford, the Singapore analyst.
Even with that experience it could take a year or much longer for Vikrant to get fully up to speed as a fighting force. That’s typical for aircraft carriers. America’s newest carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, was commissioned in 2017 and is only expected to have its first deployment later this year.
Sanction shockwaves: Russian oligarchs and elites scramble to move, sell assets to get ahead of international penalties
The calls came from New York and Miami, two hot spots popular with wealthy Russians, a possible sign of what may become the rapid sale of luxury homes, beachfront properties and apartments in the cities’ skylines as Russians scramble to get ahead of international sanctions.
“People like that have their handlers call,” Elliott said of the Russian owners. They asked, “‘If I was to sell, how fast could you sell this and how fast could you sell that?'”
“It’s interesting how the feelers are going out,” he noted. “Maybe that’s the beginning of the scramble.”
The impact of coordinated sanctions from the US, United Kingdom and European Union has sent shockwaves through the Russian elite as oligarchs, some targeted and others taking steps in anticipation of what could come, look to move yachts, shed assets and adapt to a wave of sanctions that have come swifter than usual, and are more expansive than before.
Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who has not been sanctioned, announced Wednesday that he will sell the Chelsea Football Club as it is “in the best interest of the Club, the fans, the employees, as well as the Club’s sponsors and partners.” He said net proceeds from the sale would go to a foundation established to help “victims of the war in Ukraine.”
Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Oleg Deripaska have broken ranks with the Kremlin and called for an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. The EU announced sanctions against Fridman this past week and Deripaska has been on the US sanction list since 2018.
“This is a very worrying moment if you’re a Russian billionaire,” said former State Department official Max Bergmann. “Lawyers are busy right now, trying to figure out how to expunge oligarchs from various company boards and how to divest assets in the United States.”
“We’re getting a new inquiry every hour,” said Erich Ferrari, a lawyer who represents foreign companies and individuals in navigating sanctions. “The phone has been ringing off the hook with people all around the world who have been sanctioned or their parent company has been sanctioned.”
Financial institutions in jurisdictions where there are no sanctions, such as United Arab Emirates, are following the lead of the US and European Union and freezing accounts held by Russians, Ferrari said. Some Caribbean countries — where Russian-controlled entities have domiciled offshore businesses for secrecy — will no longer serve as corporate secretaries for such entities, leaving many of them unable to operate, Ferrari added.
“I don’t recall a program” of international sanctions, Ferrari said, that “has sent everybody scrambling.”
The scramble comes as the White House announced full blocking sanctions Thursday on eight Russian elites, plus their family members and associates. They will all be blocked off from the US financial system, meaning their assets in the United States will be frozen and their property will be blocked from use.
“This caused a sudden panic,” Bergmann noted, “because the old guard class, I think, interestingly enough, didn’t know that this [invasion] was coming, and I think they were surprised that (Russian President) Vladimir Putin ultimately decided to invade.”
Bergmann explained that an oligarch can ultimately sue to try to stop the sanctions, but in the short term, these Russian billionaires are selling off and shipping out.
“What you’re seeing already are oligarchs freaking out about this and moving their yachts to places where they can’t be extradited,” Bergmann said. “We’ve seen yachts start to sail for Montenegro, where there’s no extradition treaty.”
On Wednesday, French officials seized a yacht that they said was linked to Igor Sechin, a sanctioned Russian oil executive and close associate of Putin, as it was preparing to flee a port. But the company that manages the ship denied Sechin was the owner.
In New York, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine is calling for more sanctions on Russians and the seizure of their properties, tweeting Thursday, “We’re still waiting for the U.S. gov’t to place the broad circle of oligarchs connected to Putin on the sanctions list. This is the prerequisite to seizing the ultra luxury homes many hold in Manhattan. We need action on this NOW.”
The Biden administration isn’t just levying sanctions. On Wednesday, the Justice Department unveiled a new task force: KleptoCapture. The task force will team up prosecutors with experts in sanctions, money laundering and national security to investigate possible criminal activity from the ultra-rich Russians who the U.S. government believes are propping up Putin.
“We will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to investigate, arrest and prosecute those whose criminal acts enable the Russian government to continue this unjust war,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said when announcing the new task force.
Experts watching the effort unfold across multiple government agencies — the Treasury and Justice departments at the forefront — believe the amount of coordination is unprecedented and signals a determination to go after these oligarchs and any illegal activities with renewed force.
“It can take quite a bit of prosecutorial and regulatory heft to enforce sanctions on extraordinarily wealthy individuals who have a lot of resources,” said Edward Fishman, a former State Department Russia sanctions lead. “By putting together this high-level task force that clearly has oversight by some of the most senior officials in the Biden administration, I think it signals they are going to enforce these sanctions quite aggressively.”
Many oligarchs use shell companies that shield their ownership, leaving authorities to untangle a layer of companies before discovering the true owner.
“Part of the reason why we haven’t seen a lot of legal action is because these oligarchs are extremely rich and even though many are committing white-collar crime, they hire really high-priced lawyers to do things correctly,” said Bergmann, the former State Department official.
“What oligarchs have done is just make it not worth law enforcement’s time to pursue them,” Bergmann said. “And what Biden has said is no, no, no, we’re going to make time and we’re going to devote the assets, and we’re going to devote the people to really start opening up the books, knocking on doors, and seeing what we find.”
This crackdown could ultimately cause upheaval within Russia, experts warn. “One problem for Putin is that he has a very angry class of people who are very rich and powerful that are all returning to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and they don’t want to be there,” Bergmann said.
One possible area of vulnerability for Russians in the US is the millions of dollars Russian oligarchs have poured into property in New York, Miami, and elsewhere.
Elliott, of Nest Seekers International, said wealthy Russians are savvy and he predicted, “There’s going to be liquidation from these guys because they’re smart. They’ll put it at least 20% below market price because at the end of the day 80% of something is better than … nothing.”
Time is of the essence for some Russians who are not currently sanctioned but may be worried that they’re next.
“As of today, there’s nothing illegal about liquidating your assets,” Elliott said.
Bill Maher on Canada’s ‘Freedom Convoy’: They’re ‘not wrong’ to be ‘p—ed off’ at elites
“Real Time” host Bill Maher kicked off his panel discussion Friday night on the ongoing Canadian Freedom Convoy protest that has garnered international attention.
“What’s happening this week, it looks like, is people are understanding this is about something more than just the vaccine mandate,” Maher said. “It’s becoming a big thing. It’s happening all over the world now. They’re thinking it might happen here in Washington on Super Bowl Sunday.”
“People are understanding this is about something more than just the vaccine mandate.”
ONTARIO, CANADA LEADER DOUG FORD DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY OVER TRUCKER PROTESTS
“Woke, Inc.” author Vivek Ramaswamy agreed, telling Maher it’s about the “uprising of everyday citizens” against “the rise of this managerial class in democracies around the world.”
“These are the unelected class leaders that ultimately, I think, are using the bureaucratic power to supplant the will of everyday – not only Americans but Canadians and Western Europeans too – and that’s why we’re seeing a fusion of both the left and the right here saying that, ‘Actually we want our voices heard. We want to be able to speak without fear of putting food on the dinner table,’” Ramaswamy said.
A girl and her family walk through a line of truckers, handing out thank-you notes
(Lisa Bennatan/Fox News Digital)
Maher asked himself “why truckers” specifically were organizing such a protest and went on to answer his own question by pointing out they were the ones making the deliveries to the people working from home during the pandemic.
“You didn’t use that word ‘elitist’ in your whole speech, but, like, that’s the word I think is on people’s tongues and minds,” Maher told Ramaswamy. “There is this idea, and it’s not wrong, that some people are staying home in their Lululemons and other people can afford to, like, wait out and get a free vacation and money from the government, and other people can’t. And they’re p—ed off- the people who can’t.”
BILL MAHER SLAMS CANCEL CULTURE AFTER WHOOPI GOLDBERG, JEFF ZUCKER SCANDALS
Trudeau sounds ‘like Hitler’
The HBO star then took aim at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who he initially thought was a “cool guy,” for his vicious attacks toward the unvaccinated throughout the pandemic and his smearing of the trucker protesters.
“He was talking about people who are not vaccinated. He said, ‘They don’t believe in science. They’re often misogynistic, often racist,'” Maher said, quoting Trudeau.
“No, they’re not,” Maher reacted. “He said, ‘But they take up space. And with that we have to make a choice in terms of a leader as a country. Do we tolerate these people?’
“‘Tolerate these people’? Now you do sound like Hitler,” Maher said.
“And recently, he talked about them holding unacceptable views… I mean, c’mon!” Maher exclaimed. “I think that’s what get under people’s skin.”
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said that he had tested positive for coronavirus, speaks during a media availability held at an undisclosed location, near Ottawa, Canada, Jan. 31, 2022. (Reuters)
Maher went on to cite a New York Times report about the $800 billion in COVID relief that was spent and how “72% of it “ended up in the households with income in the top 20%.”
“I think this is what the truckers are mad at … all that money went up to the people who are in the top 20%?” Maher asked.
MAHER PANICS ABOUT DEM PROSPECTS IN 2024: ‘AMERICA HAS LOST ITS FAITH IN JOE’ AND ‘THEIR BENCH IS SO THIN!’
‘The system is so corrupt’
“This is what people are angry at because the system is so corrupt. The system is so corrupt, and it’s not just corporate elites, it’s the corporate elites who are corrupting the system because of the money that corporation, their undue influence on a very, very corrupt government. This corruption is so baked into the cake and, of course, people are angry, people are enraged and they are legitimately enraged,” former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson said.
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“The Small Business Administration tried to keep it secret. They said because of privacy, they didn’t want to let out the numbers. And the judge said, ‘Oh no, the people need to know this’ and made those numbers public. So what’s happening is the people are getting receipts for what we have been feeling for so long. This kind of economic injustice, this type of structural rigging so that whenever there’s a problem, take care of the people who already have, and then the rest of the people who don’t have — well, good luck. We’ll drop a few crumbs to you. It’s been going on for decades, people have felt it, they acted on it, and now we are getting the receipts,” Williamson added.
In Kazakhstan’s Street Battles, Signs of Elites Fighting Each Other
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — It came as no big surprise when a crumbling oil town in western Kazakhstan stirred in protest last Sunday, 10 years after security forces there killed more than a dozen workers who had gone on strike over pay and poor conditions.
But it remains a mystery how peaceful protests over a rise in fuel prices last weekend in Zhanaozen, a grimy, Soviet-era settlement near the Caspian Sea, suddenly spread more than a thousand miles across the full length of Central Asia’s largest country, turning the biggest and most prosperous Kazakh city into a war zone littered with dead bodies, burned buildings and incinerated cars.
The violence this week in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s former capital and still its business and cultural hub, shocked just about everyone — not only its leader, who, fortified by Russian troops, on Friday ordered security forces to “fire without warning” to restore order, but also government critics who have long bridled at repression and rampant corruption in the oil-rich nation.
The crisis coincided with a power struggle within the government, fueling talk that the people fighting in the streets were proxies for feuding factions of the political elite. There is also feverish speculation about Kremlin meddling and a host of other murky possible causes. About the only thing that is clear is that the country’s convulsions involve more than a straightforward clash between protesters expressing discontent and the heavy-handed security apparatus of an authoritarian regime.
With Kazakhstan now largely sealed off from the outside world — its main airports are closed or commandeered by Russian troops, while internet services and phone lines are mostly down — information is scarce.
Echoing the refrain of repressive leaders around the world confronted with protests, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Friday lashed out at liberals and human rights defenders, lamenting that the authorities had been too lax.
Not many people are buying that, particularly as it is a message endorsed by Russia, which on Thursday sent in troops to help Mr. Tokayev regain control and has a long record of construing all expressions of discontent at home and in other former Soviet territory as the work of disgruntled liberal troublemakers.
But there is growing evidence that the mayhem in Almaty, the epicenter of this week’s turmoil, was more than just people power run amok.
President Tokayev, in an address to the nation on Friday, alluded to that, claiming that the violence was the work of some 20,000 “bandits” who he said were organized from “a single command post.” Calls for negotiations with such people, he added, were “nonsense” because “they need to be destroyed and this will be done.”
Danil Kislov, a Russian expert on Central Asia who runs Fergana, a news portal focused on the region, speculated that the chaos was the result of “a desperate struggle for power” between feuding political clans, namely people loyal to President Tokayev, 68, and those beholden to his 81-year-old predecessor, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
At the height of the tumult on Wednesday, the president announced that he had taken over as head of the security council, a job held until then by Mr. Nazarbayev, who stepped down as president in 2019 but retained wide powers and was given the honorary title of Elbasy, or leader of the nation. President Tokayev also fired Mr. Nazarbayev’s nephew Samat Abish as deputy head of the main security service and purged several others close to the former president.
The riots in Almaty, Mr. Kislov said, appeared to be an attempt by members of Mr. Nazarbeyev’s political clan to reverse their eclipse.
“This was all artificially organized by people who really had power in their hands,” he said, adding that Mr. Nazarbayev’s ousted nephew seems to have played a major role in organizing the unrest.
Galym Ageleulov, a human-rights activist in Almaty who took part in what began as a peaceful demonstration on Wednesday, said police officers monitoring the protest suddenly vanished around lunchtime. And “then this crowd came,” he said, an unruly mob of what seemed more like thugs than the kind of people — students, bookish dissidents and middle-class malcontents — who usually turn out for protests in Kazakhstan.
He said the mob was “clearly organized by crime group marauders” and surged down main streets toward Akimat, the City Hall, setting cars on fire and storming government offices.
Among those who urged the crowd on was Arman Dzhumageldiev, known as “Arman the Wild,” by reputation one of the country’s most powerful gangsters, who witnesses said provoked much of the violence. He gave frantic speeches on Almaty’s central square as government buildings blazed behind him, calling for people to press the government to make concessions and mocking as a “coward” Mukhtar Ablyazov, an exiled tycoon who is a bitter personal enemy of Kazakhstan’s longtime former president, Mr. Nazarbayev.
On Friday, the interior ministry said that its special forces unit had arrested Mr. Dzhumageldiev, together with five accomplices. Mr. Dzhumageldiev was the leader of an organized criminal gang, the ministry said.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters in Washington on Friday that the United States still has questions about Mr. Tokayev’s request for military reinforcements from a Russian-led alliance. “It’s not clear why they feel the need for any outside assistance, so we’re trying to learn more about it,” he said.
“One lesson in recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it’s sometimes very difficult to get them to leave,” Mr. Blinken added.
Understand the Protests in Kazakhstan
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Later on Friday, the State Department said it was allowing nonemergency personnel at its consulate general in Almaty to leave voluntarily, citing the potential for sudden eruptions of violence.
That a possible power struggle could have morphed so quickly into mayhem on the streets is a measure of how brittle Kazakhstan is beneath the shiny surface of wealthy, cosmopolitan cities like Almaty.
Discontent, even if exploited by political elites, is very real. The country is less repressive than most in a region dominated by brutal strongmen — the former dictator of neighboring Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, was accused of boiling his critics in vats of oil and having hundreds of protesters massacred in the town of Andijan in 2005.
But whatever the relative tolerance of their leaders, many Kazakhs still resent a kleptocratic elite that has poured billions into showcase projects like the construction of a new capital, named Nursultan in honor of the former president, while neglecting the well-being of many ordinary people.
The roots of that discontent are in places like Zhanaozen, the western oil town where this week’s protests began — and where security forces in December 2011 opened fire on a group of striking workers. Unlike protests in Almaty, those in Zhanaozen and other western towns along the Caspian Sea, the center of the Kazakh oil industry, have been peaceful throughout the week.
The region’s senior official, Zhanarbek Baktybaev, said on Friday that there had been no violence, lamenting that “as you know, in some region of our country there have been riots and looting by terrorist elements.” Vital services, he said, were all working normally.
Mukhtar Umbetov, a lawyer for the independent trade union in Aktau, next to Zhanaozen, said by telephone that protests had continued with no violence in the west of the country, and expressed the anger of ordinary workers over rising inflation and stagnant salaries.
“Kazakhstan is a rich country,” Mr. Umbetov said, “but these resources do not work in the interests of the people, they work in the interests of the elites. There is a huge stratification of society.”
Shocked by violence a decade ago in western Kazakhstan, a country that Washington regarded as a stable and dependable partner, the Senate and House held a joint hearing attended by experts on the country, including a former U.S. ambassador there, William B. Courtney.
Mr. Courtney described the December 2011 bloodshed “as an aberration” but “symptomatic of the wide gap between rulers and ruled, between reality and expectations, between those who live honestly and those who do not.” Kazakhstan’s political development, he added, “is stunted by 20 years of authoritarian rule.”
The title of the hearing: “Kazakhstan: As Stable as its Government Claims?” If nothing else, the events of the past week have at least answered that question.
Ivan Nechepurenko reported from Bishkek, and Andrew Higgins from Warsaw. Reporting was contributed by Valerie Hopkins in Moscow, Marc Santora in London and Michael Crowley in Washington.