Kazakh leader rejects talks, tells forces to ‘shoot to kill’

ALMATY, January 7: Kazakhstan s president on Friday rejected calls for talks with protesters after days of unprecedented unrest, vowing to destroy “armed bandits” and authorising his forces to shoot to kill without warning.
In a hardline address to the nation, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev also gave “special thanks” to Russian President Vladimir Putin after a Moscow-led military alliance sent troops to Kazakhstan to help quell the unrest.
Security forces had blocked off strategic areas of Almaty — the country s largest city and epicentre of the recent violence — and were firing into the air if anyone approached, an AFP correspondent said.
Elsewhere the city was like a ghost town, with banks, supermarkets and restaurants closed. The few small shops that remained open were quickly running out of food.
Tokayev said order had mostly been restored across the country, after protests this week over fuel prices escalated into widespread violence. “Terrorists continue to damage property… and use weapons against civilians. I have given the order to law enforcement to shoot to kill without warning,” Tokayev said in his third televised address to the nation this week. He ridiculed calls from abroad for negotiations as “nonsense”. “We are dealing with armed and trained bandits, both local and foreign. With bandits and terrorists. So they must be destroyed. This will be done shortly.” Long seen as one of the most stable of the ex-Soviet republics of Central Asia, energy-rich Kazakhstan is facing its biggest crisis in decades. Protesters stormed government buildings in Almaty on Wednesday and fought running battles with police and the military. The interior ministry said 26 “armed criminals” had been killed in the unrest, after earlier reporting “dozens” dead. It said 18 security officers had been killed and more than 740 wounded, and more than 3,800 people detained. Agencies