Kazakhstan is the largest and most stable of the former Soviet domains of the Asian steppe. Independent Kazakhstan has a steady income from oil, (now topping $75 per barrel) and sits on 20 percent of the world's known uranium deposits. Its size is roughly four times that of Texas, and its population of 15 million is evenly made up of Muslims and Russian Orthodox Christians.

At a time when pro-Islamist sentiments are on the rise in neighboring countries, such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan has granted the U.S. rights to military bases and it remains the most pro-American country in the area. Highly influential government officials are not timid of voicing their opinions.

"The United States is a really great nation," said Dariga Nazarbayeva in her closing statement at the end of a three-day Eurasian Media Forum in Almaty Saturday, much to the chagrin of a Russian panelist who would have made Stalin's revisionist historians proud.

Part of the U.S.-Kazakh love affair stems from the fact that Kazakhstan agreed to give up its nuclear weapons shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Under the Threat Reduction program, the United States spent $240 million to assist Kazakhstan in eliminating weapons of mass destruction and related infrastructures.

Yet despite newly found freedoms that came about in the post-Gorbachev era, not all is rosy in this former communist country still struggling with the concepts of democracy. A somewhat disorganized opposition accuses the "clannish regime" of conducting a campaign of political assassinations, and Dariga of "monopolizing the media market."

"Ask yourself where the line between politics and political murder (might be)," Rysbek Sarsenbayev, the brother of assassinated politician Altynbek Sarsenbayev told a group of visiting observers last week.

Sarsenbayev said the government was using its special service "to suppress the citizens." He claims officers of an elite unit of the KNB, (the former KGB) were involved in his brother's death, on Feb. 11.

Sarsenbayev and other opposition members blame the "political system" for the deaths of Ashkat Sharipzhanov, a well-known journalist, Oxana Nikitina, the daughter of an opposition activist and for the "suicide" of Zamanbek Nurkadilov, who was found with two bullet wounds in his chest and one in his head.

Foreign diplomats in Kazakhstan suspect that Dariga was being groomed as a possible successor to her father, but interpret recent signs as an indication that not all is well in the father-daughter relationship. One such sign was the noticeable absence of President Nazarbayev at the Media Forum's opening session. It was break with past tradition, particularly given that the Forum is Dariga's pet project. No explanation -- or excuse -- was given for the president's absence.

Some Western diplomats in Almaty speculate that disagreements may have arisen over recent political differences, with Dariga favoring more openness. One example is the case of Sacha Baron Cohen, a British comedian better known as Ali G who portrays a Kazakh character named Borak. The comedian's act has angered many Kazakhs, including government officials who threatened to sue him. Borak's character is a Kazakh who consumes large amounts of red wine made from fermented horse urine.

Dariga defended the British comedian in her closing remarks Saturday in what some observers feel was a jab at her father and some of his colleagues: "We should not be afraid of humor and we shouldn't try to control everything. Those who felt offended by his humor suffer from a concealed complex of inferiority."

Sergey Duvanov, a journalist commenting on the Media Forum told visiting journalists: "You have learned about one side of journalism in Kazakhstan. There is another."

The opposition labels the government "a mild autocracy" whom it accuses of "eliminating those they find bothersome," said Rysbek Sarsenbayev.

"In Kazakhstan it is common when an innocent man is thrown in jail. When they cannot make you obey, they simply kill you. The regime uses medieval methods in governing the country," said Duvanov.

Rysbek Sarsenbayev cited as examples the deaths of his brother, Altynbek, and his two aides, Vasili Zhuravlev and Baurzhan Baibosyn. When asked who killed his brother, he replies without hesitation, "My brother was killed by the political regime."

Richard Perle, a former U.S. Defense Department official and one of the keynote speakers at the Almaty Forum, said he met with opposition members but felt they did not offer a clear alternative to Nazarbayev. Opposition parties won a single seat in the last round of voting, an election the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said, "fell short of international standards."

The opposition said Kazakhstan was becoming a "closed corporation, one totally controlled by one family."

One question left unanswered by the Media Forum is what role daughter Dariga plays in all this? Some, as mentioned earlier, believe she is being groomed to replace her father when the time comes. Others disagree on the grounds that Kazakhs are not yet ready for a woman at the head of their country. Some Western diplomats believe Dariga is in favor of promoting democracy, and that she sees the Eurasian Media Forum as a vehicle allowing her to accomplish just that.

Opposition members however, accuse her of monopolizing the country's media. Indeed, several opposition newspapers have been closed and television stations taken off the air. And, according to opposition sources, Dariga's 21-year-old son was recently given the management of a television station.

The opposition laments that one family controls practically all the media in Kazakhstan, where any criticism of the president is excluded. "It is the zombification of Kazakhstan. It is flagrant hypocrisy," Duvanoc told united Press International.

Opposition leaders fear that "the country is going back to the cruel 1930 (days) of the Soviet Union."

But perhaps a more accurate statement may be that democracy in Kazakhstan is still very much in its infancy. And like an infant, it remains most fragile and must be nurtured.

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