I'm dismayed to discover there isn't yet a statement on Zhanaozen from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. There is no formal statement from one of the mandates like extrajudicial executions (i.e. killings by police of demonstrators); nothing from the High Commissioner herself.
In the place of a definitive statement, what we have is something else, very troubling -- regional press taking up the mindshare on this, and printing misleading statements that somehow UN experts have been "invited" and "are coming" to investigate: UN Experts Will Take Part in Investigation of Zhanaozen Clashes, says tengrinews.kz -- and that was on December 22 and now it's January 7. On December 29, the Foreign Ministry said they "plan to invite" the UN experts, trend.az said.
The BBC repeated that the UN experts were invited on January 4.
I don't see evident that they really have been. There isn't an investigation underway yet, and that needs to be pointed out.
What has happened is a deputy of the high commissioner has visited Kazakhstan and expressed "warm regards" from being allowed in for talks, not an investigation. In these talks, some discussion was had about having the experts coming in, i.e. special rapporteurs or independent investigators with mandates on topics like torture and extrajudicial executions and such who investigate killings such as these.
The rather calcultated and manipulated "invitation" enabled the official press and even many independent outlets to say that "experts were invited" and made it appear as if the UN was "on the case" -- but it isn't, at least yet. To be sure, it's the holidays; to be sure, the UN capacity is stretched thin (i.e. the torture rapporteur just went to Kyrgyzstan -- there are many other situations consuming UN attention like Syria and Yemen).
But, you know how it is at the UN -- if it were happening in Israel, there'd be a dozen people speaking out on it and commissions and committees formed in a heartbeat. And there isn't, for Kazakhstan.
On December 28, the opposition newspaper Respublika has come to grips with this and researched it -- they've made the excellent point that an actual invitation for a UN rapporteur to visit would have to come in a diplomatic note from the Kazakh Foreign Ministry to the UN offices in Genera -- and that hasn't happened. Instead, the Interior Minister has said he has invited UN experts -- although he's not the one formally who should do this -- and with each passing day, he could be wiping out clues and silencing witnesses and victims because they aren't really coming -- yet -- even as he looks good for seeming to be willing to share information with them.
Interfax actually reported this most accurately by saying that Kazakhstan is considering the invitation. If you read the English version of the MFA site, here is what it says:
Kazakhstan is taking steps to ensure complete and objective investigation into all circumstances of the December 16 mass disturbances in Zhanaozen, and also considers the possibility of inviting independent foreign experts to join the process
I hope they do come, but I see a lot of manipulation here. Countries can gain a lot of credit merely for meeting with UN bureaucrats and seeming to make invitations that they don't have happen (Kyrgyzstan took an awfully long time to schedule the visit of rapporteur Juan Mendez, formerly of Human Rights Watch).
The headlines are wrong; the MFA didn't invite the experts -- not yet. They are considering doing this. Those saying that whatever the responsibility for authorities for striking workers and the shootings in Zhanaozen, the authorities are at least handling the investigation correctly are misled - the authorities are stalling.
