Nursultan Nazarbayev’s regime in Kazakhstan, a recipient of U.S. foreign-aid funds, is cracking down on religious groups it disapproves of, as the congregations associated with Grace Presbyterian Church discovered firsthand this past August, when the KNB (the Kazakh successor to the Soviet-era KGB) raided churches in Karaganda and Oskemen.  Since then, raids, detentions of church members, fines, property confiscations, and other forms of official harassment have mounted, particularly against Protestant congregations across the country, while Grace Senior Pastor Igor Kim, his sister, and the church administrator, as well as the pastor of a Grace-affiliated congregation, face unspecified charges of high treason and possible prison sentences of 10 to 15 years.

Kazakh President-for-life Nazarbayev rules a vast territory (the world’s ninth-largest state) rich in oil, natural gas, and uranium.  The Nazarbayev clan has ruled this former Soviet republic since the clan’s patriarch, a former blast-furnace operator turned Communist Party functionary, took over in 1990, securing his post-Soviet power in a series of rigged elections.  Nazarbayev is in a complex balancing act with Russia (ethnic Russians make up 30 percent of the country’s population), China, and the United States.  All of them want access to Kazakh resources, while Washington in particular hopes to involve the Nazarbayev regime in Washington’s Bypass Russia Project, the Baku-Ceyhan Trans-Caucasus oil pipeline.  Kazakhstan exports one million barrels of oil per day and plans to increase that output to three-and-a-half million by 2015, rivaling Iran in oil production.  Thus, Central Asia is a strategically important crossroads in a new Great Game.  With U.S. troops in Afghanistan and a base in Kyrgyzstan, Washington is looking to expand its presence in the region.

Kazakhstan has displayed tendencies common in the states of the former Soviet Union, forcing religious groups to register (and often refusing or revoking registration) with the state, while casting a suspicious eye on non-Orthodox Christians, especially evangelicals who are not part of the state-approved, politically reliable religious hierarchy.  (The Grace Church ministry, for example, is 250 congregations strong, with reportedly 13,000 members in a country with a population of 15 million.)  The regime expects religious affiliation to follow nationality, with Russians being nominally Orthodox and Kazakhs and other Central Asian nationalities part of the officially controlled Muslim body, an important part of the regime’s plan to maintain its hold on the country.  At the same time, the state is wary of Islam breaking free of official channels and becoming a threat to the Nazarbayev regime.  So the crackdown on evangelical Christians—with particular emphasis on the harassment of converts from segments of the population that are traditionally Muslim—could also be part of an effort to appease Muslims.

The Bush administration has turned a blind eye to the repression of non-Orthodox Christians in Kazakhstan.  Just last year, when Nazarbayev visited Washington at the White House’s invitation (a privilege that was, at the time, denied Chinese leaders on “human rights” grounds), President Bush proclaimed him the ruler of a “free nation.”  Nazarbayev continued his U.S. tour by visiting his friend George H.W. Bush in Maine.  Vice President Cheney had issued the invitation during a trip to Kazakhstan, in which he praised Nazarbayev’s record on democracy.  Cheney, whose attacks on Russia for being insufficiently democratic are well known, told reporters, “I think the [Kazakh] record speaks for itself.”

Indeed, it does.  Ominously for Kazakhstan’s evangelicals, the KNB has leaked claims that “psychotropic drugs” were found during a search at Grace Church, a move that smacks of Soviet-era KGB smear tactics.  All of those who are not affiliated with the official church are feeling the heat and being treated as enemies of the regime, despite the fact that they have not been especially active in politics.  They have cause to worry: Two prominent leaders of the political opposition were found gunned down in 2005.  The death of one of those critics, Zamanbek Nukadilov, was ruled a suicide, even though he had been shot three times—twice in the chest, and once in the head.  These are not the only Nazarbayev opponents who have turned up dead in recent years.

Kazakhstan is a sovereign state and can regulate her internal affairs as she wishes.  But Americans, particularly those evangelical Christians who have fervently backed the Bush administration, should take note of the White House’s record when it comes to defending Christians in lands it has chosen to invade or otherwise become entangled with.  Chronicles readers are well aware of the White House’s indifference to the fate of Iraq’s Christians.  One of the world’s oldest Christian communities is being destroyed, while the Bush administration collectively yawns, focusing on its apparent schemes to make war on Iran.  In Central Asia, pipeline politics trump any sympathies the Bushies can muster for the likes of Pastor Kim and his flock, as well as the fates of thousands of other Christians who are being arrested, harassed, and dispossessed.