Kazakhstan: who of the elite should be wary of European sanctions?

The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, Mukhtar Tleuberdi, said that Kazakhstan wants to become a member of the UN Human Rights Council for 2022-2024. The diplomat has promised that, if elected, Kazakhstan will assume obligations for the effective implementation of all political, economic, civil, social and cultural rights.

Such a statement, against the background of criticism by the European Parliament concerning the human rights situation in Kazakhstan and threats to impose sanctions on individuals of the state, looks, to put it mildly, arrogant.

The resolution of the European Parliament “On the situation with human rights in Kazakhstan” made a lot of noise; first of all, in Kazakhstan. It even went so far that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had to make excuses, which it had not done before (during the previous similar resolutions). Apparently, the trigger was the statement of the MEP Viola von Cramon-Taubadel, that “it’s time to bring the leadership of Kazakhstan to justice” with the help of “the global sanctions regime in the field of human rights”.

What are these sanctions?

As TASS reported, the global sanctions framework for human rights violations was approved by the EU Council and came into force on December 10, 2020. The mechanism doesn’t have an extraterritorial effect (as, for example, the Magnitsky Act), that is, all restrictions will apply only in the EU. The sanctions regime provides for the creation of a global black list of people who are prohibited from entering the EU territory and access to the EU financial system. All their assets (if found) in European banks are subject to freezing, and the EU residents are not allowed to provide these persons with any financial services.

On December 4, at the briefing in Brussels, the representatives of the EU’s foreign policy service explained that “the new mechanism is no different from the current restrictive community measures in the field of human rights violations against individual states, such as Belarus, Myanmar, Iran.” The only difference is that with its help, restrictions can be imposed on a citizen of any country in the world, if Brussels suspects him of violating human rights at home, regardless of whether there is the EU sanctions regime against this state.

It turns out that even if the European Union doesn’t apply sanctions against Kazakhstan as a whole, restrictions may be imposed on some of its officials, because the violation of human rights in the country has been confirmed by a majority of the European Parliament.

Consequently, all representatives of the Kazakh elite, who have assets in the European Union, are now under close surveillance.

Who exactly?

Let’s start with the head of state – Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev. Naturally, the President himself has no assets in Europe; officially, anyway. However, his family has them. For example, Tokayev’s niece Dana Izbastina – the daughter of the President’s sister Karlyga Izbastina and the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Kazakhstan to Bulgaria Temirtai Izbastin. Dana Izbastina, who now has the surname Medeuova, according to information from the Trade Register of the Open Data Portal of the government of Bulgaria, has three companies in Bulgaria: SD Property Investments, Dami International and Sole Capital Owner.

The relatives of the first President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbaev, also have financial interests in Europe. This is the deputy of the Parliament – the eldest daughter Dariga Nazarbaeva, and the youngest daughter Dinara Kulibayeva with her billionaire husband Timur Kulibayev, who have business and real estate in Europe, for example, the Swiss company “Fondation Montes Alti”. Also, Timur Kulibayev’s brother, Beksultan, and their father Askar Kulibayev, who own several companies in the Czech Republic; and the former father-in-law of the late grandson of Nazarbaev, Aisultan, Kairat Boranbajev, who owns Czech firms “Mignon II”, “BALMA sro” (the original name is Boranbajev sro) and mansions in the elite regions of the Czech Republic.

Among the owners of Czech firms and companies is also Marat Mamin, the brother of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Askar Mamin. Askar Uzakbayevich’s son, Daniyar Uzakbay, also took a fancy to Europe for doing business. In 2019, he founded the company “Standard Trade Solutions SA” in Geneva, which trades oilseeds and grains, including with the EU countries. And although Switzerland is not a member of the European Union, it has bilateral treaties with it.

The relatives of other major and small officials of Kazakhstan also run their business in Europe. There is not enough space to list everyone. All information is in the public domain; you just have to dig …

That is, almost each of them has their own window through on Europe. And if the European Parliament wants to squeeze Kazakhstan, these windows can quickly be slammed. The only question is, “Will the MEPs have enough courage for this?”

The head of Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights Yevgeny Zhovtis believes that there will be enough courage.

“The EU sanctions, primarily, concern business interests or financial movements within the EU for citizens of other states. And this mechanism, of course, works on the territory of the countries of the European Union,” Zhovtis explained in an interview with ACCA. “It’s obvious that the sanctions will be personal and will concern specific people – specific violators of human rights. Moreover, they will have to establish in a certain way that all these people are correctly and legally included in this list.

It’s clear that this mechanism is not just legal, but political and legal. That is, inclusion in this list is not the result of some kind of legal proceedings. It’s political and legal; and political component in it is more than a legal one. Nevertheless, it’s impressive and effective enough. We see this from the precedents in Russia and Belarus – our colleagues in the Eurasian Union.

As for Kazakh officials or oligarchs, it’s clear that this is a new stage in the development of our relations with the European Union. The fact, that sanctions have already been applied against Russian and Belarusian citizens, has long been known, but Kazakhstan has not yet been mentioned in this context. There have already been more than a dozen resolutions regarding Kazakhstan, but they didn’t mention sanctions.

Whom it may concern? – There are several key points. They are all reflected in the resolution.

– And whom?

– There are three points of reference on which the application of personal sanctions is possible. These are the events in Zhanaozen, the persecution of political prisoners, and the use of torture. These are the key moments that can lead to the fact that against our officials, associated with these events (judges, prosecutors, investigators or those, who made political decisions, the heads of some departments, as well as officials of the highest ranks), the sanctions will be applied. This will become clear in the next few months. Now, this’s a demonstration of possibilities, which should become a motivating factor for correcting the situation.

– That is, it will not go further than threats, will it?

– It’s difficult to say. For now, it may not work. The nuance is that the number of people, subject to political persecution and facing long prison terms, is steadily growing. And if this trend continues, it’s possible that it will end with sanctions.

– Do the relatives and children of high-ranking officials run the risk of being sanctioned, given that they personally, it seems, are not involved in human rights violations?

– Quite rarely, the sanctions are applied to former or current leaders of states. This, if it happens, is rather an exception to the rule.

On the other hand, the sanctions can be imposed on specific officials who are directly related to human rights violations and persons close to them. Another problem is that the European Union began to observe more closely business, business interests and property in the territory of the European Union by representatives of states such as ours, which are considered corrupt. Moreover, this is happening not even in connection with human rights, but with money laundering, the possible seizure of property, the use of illegally obtained funds. Therefore, in this context, this resolution of the European Parliament creates a certain background for carrying out various kinds of checks, investigations in order to ensure transparency and to establish where what came from and how it came. Previously, this kind of investigation was not conducted, but such resolutions are like an indirect signal to the country’s regime. This signal is already ricocheting, including on the immediate environment and their business partners. How and in what kind of form is difficult to say. But in general, as we have observed over the past few years, the Western legal and political systems are drifting more and more towards what is called business as usual, when human rights are not respected, there is a high level of corruption. And then, how it will rebound and to whom is a matter of time and situation. However, this resolution slightly catalyzes this process.