Kazakh clashes 'under control' amid blockade

Authorities in Kazakhstan declared Saturday that clashes between police and striking oil workers in Zhanaozen are under control as information from the region slowed to a trickle due to an apparent blockade.

"The riots in Zhanaozen have been suppressed, the situation in the town is calm," Interior Minister Kalmukhanbet Kasymov said in televised remarks the day after violence engulfed the city on the Caspian sea, killing at least 10 and injuring 75 people.

Police detained about 70 people in connection with the clashes, Interfax reported. On Friday they stormed a stage set up on the main square for Independence Day celebrations, burning a Christmas tree and a bus.

Kasymov said the perpetrators were oil workers fired from the Kazmunaigaz company several months before.

But opposition Kyrgyzstan-based Kazakh channel K-plus quoted workers Friday as saying that police were the first to open fire on the crowd and the real death toll was much higher.

On Saturday the channel was quiet on the riots, while many sites, including Twitter, RIA Novosti news agency, and regional agency Lada.kz were blocked.

Cell phones of journalists in Aktau, the regional centre about 120 kilometres from Zhanaozen, were also blocked.

Meanwhile a socialist website, Socialismkz.info, said shooting continued through the night in the town as authorities sent in thousands of interior ministry troops, blocked the transportation routes and raided homes.

News agencies quoted a statement by Uzenmunaigaz, the local subsidiary of Kazmunaigaz, as saying that some workers did not show up for work during the night shift. The company had to relocate offices after its building was set on fire, the statement said.

Workers in Zhanaozen and other cities in the Mangistau region have been striking for months for higher wages, in a highly unusual dispute for the resource-rich Central Asian state which prides itself on its ability to attract foreign investors.

Kazakhstan was the last of 15 Soviet republics to declare its independence from the fading Soviet Union, on December 16, 1991.

Its vast energy reserves are hugely attractive for neighbouring energy-hungry China as well as for the West, which is keen to reduce Europe's dependence on Russia's hydrocarbons.

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