Feud in Kazakh President’s Family Spills Into U.S.
Four years ago, Kazakhstan’s foreign minister summoned the United States ambassador to a meeting in Astana, the capital of his oil-rich nation, to warn that a family squabble between the country’s president and his son-in-law — two of the country’s most powerful men — had boiled over. Government authorities had charged Rakhat Aliyev, the son-in-law, with kidnapping executives from a prominent bank. Mr. Aliyev, in turn, had accused President Nursultan Nazarbayev of rolling back the clock to the country’s dictatorial Soviet days. “Mr. President for life,” he labeled his father-in-law.
That call to the United States Embassy was the start of what has become an extraordinary lobbying and public relations war here in Washington, a still-unfolding fight that one State Department official has called a “blood feud to the death.” With billions of dollars at stake, plenty of people here have been willing to play bit roles in the Nazarbayev family drama, including teams of corporate lawyers, Capitol Hill lobbyists, a former American ambassador to Kazakhstan and the sister of a lawmaker.
The dueling lobbyists have appealed to more than three dozen members of Congress, either to condemn the Kazakh government or help form pro-Kazakhstan caucuses. (One congressman even nominated the president for the Nobel Peace Prize.) Prominent Washington research institutes have issued glowing reports about the country — after being paid by the government. And there have been charges and countercharges of illegal payments to unidentified members of Congress.