U.S. policy vexes Kazakh dissidents

Since Cheney's May 5 visit with Nazarbayev, opposition leaders pushing for democratic change in Kazakhstan are beginning to wonder about the Bush administration's commitment to the president's inauguration rhetoric. With Nazarbayev at his side during a media briefing, Cheney hailed Kazakhstan as a "strategic partner" and praised the Kazakh leader for fostering 15 years of political and economic reform.

"I think the record speaks for itself," Cheney said.

In reality, most analysts agree Kazakhstan remains an authoritarian regime where opposition parties are banned without cause, independent media outlets are routinely shut down and corruption is rife throughout the government. In recent months, merely belonging to the opposition movement has become dangerous. Two prominent critics of the Kazakh government have been found shot to death since last fall. The death of one of those men, Zamanbek Nurkadilov, was ruled a suicide even though he had been shot three times, twice in the chest and once in the head.

What made Cheney's praise for Nazarbayev particularly unnerving, opposition leaders say, was that it came just days after he delivered a blistering condemnation of Russian government behavior, accusing the Kremlin of trampling on human rights and using its energy resources to blackmail its neighbors. Kazakhstan is widely perceived to be further behind in forging democracy than Russia.