Today Kazakhstan marks its Remembrance Day of Victims of Political Repression and Famine with the aim of honouring the innocent lives destroyed by the Soviet Totalitarian regime in the first half of the previous century, during which over 4 million Kazakhs suffered as a result of the starvation policy and repressions executed by the Soviet Communist Party.

Kazakhstan, the cradle of the Turkic world, has been exposed to a great terror and slaughter that has never been seen before in the history of humanity.  At this period when the most tragic events of the 20th century occured, more than 2 million innocent people lost their lives, thus the Kazakh nation lost half of its population.  No modern nation in the world has experienced such a tragic fate.

The mass famine was followed by political repression and assassinations of the Kazakh elite and intellectuals.  Thousands of people were imprisoned for political reasons, and many were sentenced to death.  During this period, about 20 camps were established in Kazakhstan to detain victims of oppression and their families in the most gruesome conditions.

As a result of this Stalinist policy of ethnic cleansing, more than 1 million people were forced to leave their homeland.

Today, the people of Kazakhstan mourn and bow respectfully before the cherished memory of all innocent people who were victims of this terrible period.

On this important day, we join our Kazakh brothers and sisters to respectfully commemorate all the victims of this humanitarian disaster in recent history.

We take this opportunity to reiterate that we must all do our best to prevent tragic events such as mass famines and terrible practices such as mass political murders, and to ensure the peaceful and stable development of our countries and peoples and the entire world.

Baghdad Amreyev
Secretary General of the Organization of Turkic States