Ah, the compassionate left

Kanye’s $3M Kazakh cash-in

$3 million payday from brutal dictator

• By JENNIFER GOULD KEIL
• 
  
• Kanye West is the latest celeb to make millions in blood money from entertaining the families and pals of vicious Central Asian dictators who torture, kill and steal from their citizens.

West, who just celebrated the June birth of baby North with Kim Kardashian, earned more than $3 million by singing for his supper at Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev’s grandson’s wedding over Labor Day weekend.

Two years ago, Sting refused to perform on Labor Day in Kazakhstan after Nazarbayev’s thugs killed 17 oil workers and injured more than 100 during a seven- month strike.

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BAD RAP: Kanye West performs over the weekend at the wedding of notorious Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev’s grandson.

The US government’s Web site describes Kazakhstan’s dismal human-rights record, including state-sanctioned torture, the muzzling of political opposition and religious freedom along with arbitrary arrests and heavy media censorship. The State Department also said Nazarbayev’s 2011 “election” — he received 95 percent of the vote — “fell short” of international standards.

Nazarbayev has been the “president” of Kazakhstan since the oil-rich ex-Soviet republic declared independence in 1991.

West appears to be taking a page from Jennifer Lopez’s pay-for-play-for-tyrants book.

The Bronx-born bombshell earned more than $9 million from fees earned entertaining “crooks and dictators from Eastern Europe and Russia,” according to a scathing report from the Human Rights Foundation.

For $2,5 million, J.Lo sang “Happy Birthday Mr. President” to Turkmenistan dictator Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov this summer.

Once outed, she apologized, but did not give money back or hand it over to nonprofit groups that help victims of the rights-abusing regimes.

Nazarbayev is widely viewed as a corrupt dictator who has siphoned off much of his nation’s oil wealth for himself and his regime-propping, human-rights-abusing cronies.

West performed at the Hotel Royal Tulip in Almaty, a picturesque city featured in Sacha Baron Cohen’s 2006 political satire, “Borat.” Almaty is a former provincial capital that is now filled with representatives from multinational companies in the oil and gas business.

The 23-year-old groom, Aysultan Nazarbayev, is a graduate of Britain’s Sandhurst Academy and now works for his grandpa’s Ministry of Defense while his 20-year-old bride, Alima Boranbayeva, is the daughter of the chairman of the powerful Russian-Kazakh state oil venture, KazRosGas.

A wedding guest posted part of West’s performance on Instagram, featuring the rapper belting out, “Can’t Tell Me Nothing.”

America’s relationship with Kazakhstan is complex. Kazakhstan is a partner in the US war on terror, and in July, Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov flew to the United States to meet with top US officials.

Still, according to the US State Department’s 2012 human rights report on Kazakhstan: “The most significant human rights problems were severe limits on citizens’ rights to change their government; restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion, and association; and lack of an independent judiciary and due process, especially in dealing with pervasive corruption and law enforcement and judicial abuse.”