It is not the first time that Kazakhstan demonstrates to the outside world and its citizens its capability to respond to any foreign terrorist attack. Officials believe that Kazakhstan is the only haven of peace and stability in Central Asia left intact by ethnic, religious strife in a turbulent surrounding. This idea is hammered home in various ways. Right after the bomb blasts in Uzbekistan, the president of Kazakhstan sent a message of condolence to his Uzbek counterpart.

This was followed by a unanimous condemnation of the perpetrators of bomb attacks in Uzbekistan by prominent religious leaders of Kazakhstan. In their appeal to believers of all faiths, the clerics call for joint efforts in fighting terrorism and international extremism. Most notably, the message underlines, that “we thank the Supreme Being who endowed the leadership of Kazakhstan and people of Kazakhstan with a sagacity to live in harmony despite ethnic and religious differences”.

But public declarations, inherited from the practice of socialist propaganda work, fail short of diverting the threat of extremism. As was pointed out at the regional Conference held in Almaty under the aegis of the UN on March 16-18, arms trafficking in Central Asia has assumed unprecedented proportions. It was stated that people who deal in arms have direct links to drug dealers.

Police statistics cannot indicate even the approximate number of people who possess unlicensed firearms. Nevertheless, the seizure of Kalashnikov rifles, land mines and hand grenades from criminal elements has long become a part of the daily routine of the police. A few days ago a railway truck loaded with 26 tons of bombs was detected by policemen in Pavlodar. The deadly cargo, labeled as scrap metal, as subsequent investigations revealed, was sent from Shymkent in the South. This time police showed vigilance to prevent the arms from falling into the hands of criminals. But in the whole city, not a single bomb-disposal squad was to be found to defuse the bombs. Poorly guarded ammunitions depots and corruption in the army pose far more serious threat than imaginable terrorist infiltrations from neighboring countries.

Shymkent, located on the border with Uzbekistan, has long earned an unenviable reputation of hotbed for radical Islamists. On March 29 the Shymkent city court passed a verdict of four years imprisonment on a Hizb-ut-Tahrir activist, Mr. Baysalbayev. He was incriminated in distributing extremist leaflets and recruiting new members for Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Every court ruling on Islamic extremists provokes, however weak, protests from the Muslim population and acid comments from Kazakh-language papers. Tied to its obligations within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Collective Security Agreement and Western organizations, Kazakhstan has no other choice than to follow the international community in fighting terrorism. On March 31, the lower House of Parliament (majilis) ratified the border defense agreement earlier signed by the Eurasian Economic Community member-countries in Moscow.

The terrorist attacks in Uzbekistan may also have deep-running social implications for Kazakhstan. In their last session, parliament members raised voices to bring ethnic Kazakhs living in Uzbekistan back to the land of their ancestors. It is estimated that 1.5 million Kazakhs live in Uzbekistan. Their lives are endangered by growing extremism. The Migration Office has planned to resettle 6216 families this year, but given the highly explosive situation in Uzbekistan that number is likely to grow. The government allocated 4.6 billion tenge to provide repatriated Kazakhs with housing and livestock. Although the scheme of bringing in ethnic Kazakhs fits well into the demographic policy of the government which envisages the increase of the total population of Kazakhstan to 20 million by the year 2015 it is hardly feasible for financial reasons.

The Predominantly Kazakh-populated southern regions of Kazakhstan on the border with Uzbekistan are economically the most underdeveloped areas. The rate of unemployment among the local population is the highest in the country. The gap between a handful of nouveau-riches and the impoverished masses is extremely wide. People without work and low income easily embrace the promises of Islamic extremists.

Dosym Satpayev from the Center for Fighting Terrorism notes that for the first time, Islamic suicide-bombers in Uzbekistan targeted not the civilian population, but the official elite. That is a timely reminder for the leadership of Kazakhstan, which limits its anti-terrorist efforts purely to militarized security measures. If the government fails to respond to the situation adequately by raising living standards in the southern are to the levels of the North, analysts warn, the unrest in Uzbekistan may spill over into South Kazakhstan. And that is the worst outcome the further aggravation of the social and political problems can produce.