From: Justin Burke (JBurke@sorosny.org)
Date: Tue Nov 30 2004 - 09:50:12 EST
Kazakh MPs, politicians voice various scenarios of blasts
Members of the Otan Party's parliamentary faction and other politicians
have voiced different opinions about the blasts that took place at
Otan's Almaty office. The opinions voiced today by party members as to
the forces behind the blasts ranged from an unbalanced person and
politically motivated hooliganism to terrorism. The following is an
excerpt from reports by Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency on 29 November
Astana, 29 November: Investigations into the blasts that took place at
the Almaty office of the Otan Party believe that hooliganism is a more
likely scenario.
"Terrorism is not being considered as a scenario of the investigations,"
says a press release circulated by the Almaty police department today.
[Passage omitted: two explosions took place in the Almaty office of the
Otan Party yesterday]
Serik Abdrakhmanov, the head of the (Majlis) committee on international
issues, defence and security, also said the country's law-enforcement
bodies thought the explosions that had taken place in Almaty was
hooliganism.
"The law-enforcement bodies assess (the blasts in Almaty -
Interfax-Kazakhstan) as hooliganism. I think this was hooliganism with a
sort of [political] nature and underlying motive since it had taken
place nowhere else but in the headquarters of the Otan Party," Serik
Abdrakhmanov said at a briefing today.
Abdrakhmanov said that having heard of the incident, he first perceived
it as an act of terrorism. However, having learnt "more precise
information from official bodies later on, he understood that it was
more likely hooliganism".
"These explosives were not stuffed with fragmentation material, so this
means it was obvious that they did not bear any signs of terrorism. They
were not aimed at exterminating some people and at inflicting
large-scale damage which would have involved human casualties," he said,
adding that "this might have been hooliganism of a political nature or
just ordinary hooliganism".
"A person who committed this simply might not have known that it was the
headquarters of the Otan Party," Abdrakhmanov concluded.
The following report by the same agency at 0509 gmt said: The
parliamentary faction of the ruling Otan Party have different opinions
as to the circumstances and the motives behind the blasts in the Almaty
office of the party.
The leader of the faction and a deputy chairman of the Majlis (lower
house) of the Kazakh parliament, Amangeldi Taspikhov, thinks that
"protest sentiments" among the people are not so strong that they would
have pushed mentally healthy people into carrying out these explosions.
"I cannot even imagine that someone could have committed this type of
act. Maybe, only a mentally ill person... [ellipsis as published] I do
not think that "protest sentiments among the electorate" are that high,
he said today commenting on the situation to the Interfax-Kazakhstan
news agency.
The deputy also emphasized that during the elections to the new Majlis
held in September-October people had backed the Otan party's election
manifesto, which mainly dealt with tackling social problems in society,
and emphasized that the party "has already started to honour its
promises to the people".
Taspikhov did not make guesses about the possible motives and the goals
of the organizers of the explosion and only noted that it was an
"unexpected" incident for him and he did not know "whom we could have
harmed so much that they wanted to blow up" the party's office.
"We are at a loss," he summed up.
[Passage omitted: background on explosions]
Meanwhile, a member of the parliamentary faction of Otan and a deputy of
the Majlis, Tanirbergen Berdongarov, thinks forces dissatisfied with the
results of the last parliamentary elections might be involved in these
blasts.
"It seems to me that there are certain forces that are making attempts
to destabilize the situation in the country. Well, elections were held
and they were not satisfied with the results of the elections. One can
judge by their behaviour, specifically, by yesterday's blasts how they
conducted their election campaign, their election fight," Berdongarov
said today commenting on yesterday's events to Interfax-Kazakhstan.
He also said that one might think of the involvement of any kind of
forces in the explosions, unless there is official information on the
results of the investigation. Specifically, he said "the guesses might
include hooliganism to a certain extent, too".
"However, as history shows, previously hooliganism did not go beyond
broken showcases and windows. Today we can speak of the equivalent of
200-400 g of TNT," he said, adding that he thinks that "hooligans could
not easily have got hold of" that much TNT.
He also did not rule out the involvement of extremist forces in the
blasts.
[Passage omitted: the Otan Party won the majority of seats in elections
to the Majlis]
A separate Interfax-Kazakhstan report at 1130 said: The participants of
the news conference, deputy chairmen of the Otan Party, Amangeldi
Yermegiyayev and Aleksandr Pavlov, noting the provocative nature of the
blasts, said they could not tell the news conference who was the direct
perpetrator of the incident.
"This is a provocation. We do not know who is behind that, we do not
know who carried that out. Maybe, an individual carried it out alone,
may be some groups, maybe someone in our state or beyond its borders is
behind this," Yermegiyayev said.
As he said he does not share the opinion of the head of the Otan Party's
parliamentary faction leader, Amangeldi Taspikhov, that a mentally ill
person might have carried out the blasts.
"We do not think that this hooliganism was an activity carried out by,
maybe, an unbalanced person," he said.
The fact that the blasts took place in different places in the building
and at some interval is indirect confirmation that it was the "work of
specialists", Pavlov added.
Pavlov also said that they had received no warning on the phone or
anonymous threats addressed to the party.
[Passage omitted: the Otan Party has issued a statement on the incident]
Sources: Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency, Almaty, in Russian 0445 gmt,
0509 gmt and 1130 gmt 29 Nov 04
BBC Mon CAU 291104 ag/ta/qu
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