Werner Linden Open Letter to the I.O.C. Regarding Almaty’s renewed candidature for Olympic Winter Games in 2022. Highly estimated president, and highly estimated members of the International Olympic Committee, We take the desparate courage to write to you on behalf of the citizens of Almaty, Kazakhstan, and the nature surrounding this impressing town. We ask you to decline Almaty’s candidature for the Olympic Winter Games in 2022. Several reasons lead us to take this severe step. 1.) As you will have in your records, this is Almaty’s second candidature for the Olympic Winter Games: the first one had been declined, favoring the city of Sochi. As a consequence of that first candidature, some construction companies, and some investors had started projecting a large-scale facility for winter sport activities, with accommodation. This facility had been planned to be constructed on the grounds of an area known as “Kök Jailyau”, which is not only a local recreation area for the citizens of Almaty, but part of an officially denominated natural reserve. When the decision had been found against Almaty, those investors changed the project, and local politicians supported it, spending the tax payers money for furnishing the necessary infrastructure for what was now planned as an international ski resort for large scale tourism. This has caused some brave Almaty citizens to organize resistance against the disintegration of the natural reserve area. Today we are facing a fierce and unfair debate process in which the lobbyists are trying to create facts: They even started digging excavation pits without being officially entitled to do so, as the entire cause is still at Almaty city courts for negotiation. We are sure that the renewed candidature is mainly submitted to stifle the opponents of the ski resort project at Kök Jailyau. 2.) In connection to this procedure we must state that civil rights in Kazakhstan are subject to bribery, and brute force. Activists of the environmental movement “Save Kök Jailyau” are being threatened, and charged with “creating social unrest”, which is, according to Kazakhstan law, a severe crime punishable with 5 years labor camp. At this occasion we wish to remind you of the events of Dec. 16th, 2011, when police forces were shooting with combat ammunition after fleeing demonstrators in West Kazakhstan, when oil laborers were asking for their wages. This is to show you that any opposition off the regulated political system is subject to repression. 3.) Furthermore, the Republic of Kazakhstan has signed the Aarhus Convention, but does everything possible not to fulfill the binding regulations of that convention. 4.) The topic of environment and energy must raise disgust. While the state and the international companies make good profits with Kazakh natural gas and oil, the population is forced to pay incredible prices to be connected to supply with natural gas for heating, and the locally available motor spirit of of low quality. This is the cause for another situation that causes us to ask you for declining Almaty’s candidature: Heavy city smog, notably in Winter. 5.) The athletes coming to Almaty, and of course the crowds who wish to attend the games, will be exposed to that smog whenever the activities take place within the city’s borders. You might ask for those athletes who join in the competition of the Nordic combination, being held in Almaty every second weekend of February, they will be able to confirm what we are stating here. This makes us decided to ask you to take your decision against Almaty. The natural reserve can be protected, the people of Almaty can enjoy that great place of nature as a refuge from the suffocating city smog, and the health of the athletes and visitors will be protected. You might argue that by accepting Almatys new candidature the government and the local authorities will be motivated to improve the circumstances regarding civil rights and environment. However, we do not share that faint hope. It is just the recent horrifying example of Russia after the Sochi games that wipes away every reason to be optimistic. The people currently in power in Kazakhstan have undergone the same terrible soviet education, as did those in Russia. If you intend to enhance the situation in Almaty and in Kazakhstan in general by granting the Olympic Winter Games to the city, you would have to demand binding conditions: 1.) Qualitative changes in civil rights situation: A) Freedom of speech and press without any binding to national politics and economy B) Relentless fight of corruption on all levels of administration. 2.) Only the already exsisting sites may be developed to olympic sport venues - and NO new buildings. The existing ones are Chimbulak, and Tabargan (in the high mountains of beautiful Ile Alatau), the Ice skating stadium at Medeo with further installations for winter sport competitions, and, newly accomplished, the ski jumping area in the southern part of the city, where one of the competitions for the Nordic Combination takes place. 3.) Enhancing the environmental situation by A) Free acces to natural gas supply for private, and comnercial housings. B) Reduction of individual motorized travel, furnishing all vehicles powered by combustion engines with catalytic converters, and widening the offer of public transport. Only in case that Kazakhstan prooves to have fully met those conditions, only then it might be granted to host any Olympic Games. Since it seems obvious that the country is not able to fulfill those conditions until 2022, the new candidature of Almaty and any new one after that date should be declined, until Kazakhstan prooves worth such a mission. We ask you to publish your declination soon, as with every day the excavations for the resort are proceeding, causing damage to the grounds of the natural reserve area. You might wish to inform yourselves about the activities of our movement “Protect Kök Jailyau” by checking the following links: k-zh.kz/ https://facebook/groups/kokzhaylyau/ We are hoping that our plea will be accepted by your highly estimated gremium. Faithfully
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 19:22:06 +0000
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