Tajik regime challenged by
rogue province By Roman
Muzalevsky
Fifteen years has passed since
the end of the civil war in Tajikistan, but
stability remains tenuous despite efforts by
President Emomalii Rahmon to consolidate power,
co-opt remnants of opposition, and impose control
over Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province (GBAP).
Recent turbulent events in the province,
which served as a rebel stronghold during the
civil war, reveal the challenges facing the
central government in preserving the regime,
asserting control,
and building a national
identity in the country that borders war-torn
Afghanistan and serves as a transit point for
narco-traffickers and militants throughout the
broader region.
GBAP is situated in the
east, in the Pamir Mountains, occupying about half
of the country's land area. It is home to about
250,000 people, or 4% of the total, predominantly
Sunni, population of Tajikistan of about 7.7
million. The main ethnic group in GBAP is Pamiris,
who speak a distinct language and profess a
Shi'ite Ismaili branch of Islam and follow the Aga
Khan as their spiritual leader.
The
province was the stronghold of the United Tajik
Opposition forces battling government troops
during the civil war that claimed thousands of
lives. The parties signed a peace accord in 1997,
with Rahmon's government welcoming some members of
the opposition into its ranks. Despite the peace
deal, many in GBAP, including former field
commanders, resent the central authorities and
blame them for widespread poverty and lack of
development.
On August 22, the province
saw a standoff between authorities and about 3,000
protesters who gathered in provincial capital,
Khorog. They were demanding that the government
investigate the killing earlier in the day of a
local leader and former rebel, Imomnazar
Imomnazarov, and withdraw troops from the province
in line with a peace agreement reached between the
government and local strongmen led by former rebel
Tolib Ayombekov. The protesters also called for
the resignation of the heads of local and
provincial administrations. Police reportedly
fired on the demonstrators, wounding two people.
The incident follows a military
confrontation in the province between government
troops and local strongmen in July.
Authorities deployed forces to the
province to capture Ayombekov and his loyalists,
whom they suspected, along with Imomnazar, of
killing the regional head of the State Committee
for National Security (SCNS), Abdullo Nazarov, on
July 21. Before the killing, Ayombekov served as a
commander of border-guard directorate of the SCNS
under Nazarov.
The ensuing clashes near
the border with Afghanistan left scores killed.
Ayombekov and Imomnazarov, both former field
commanders accused of drug and gem smuggling,
eventually surrendered to authorities in exchange
for amnesty as part of the deal brokered by
representatives of the Aga Khan Foundation. The
surrender of the suspects was a condition for
withdrawal of troops from Khorog.
The
government has denied involvement in Imomnazarov's
killing, with some politicians saying that a third
force attempted to disturb peace, as the killing
occurred after the peace talks favoring both
parties were already finished.
"This was
all organized by external forces - likely
militants from Afghanistan - and it's they who are
very skillfully prolonging the chaos," said
Saifullo Safarov, deputy director of the
Presidential Centre for Strategic Studies.
Mukhiddin Kabiri, the leader of the
marginalized opposition Islamic Renaissance Party,
too excluded the possibility of the death having
been at the hands of authorities. A member of this
party was reportedly killed in July. Some say many
of these killings resemble the murders of
individuals that took place in the prelude to the
civil war, raising fears of destabilization of the
country.
After the protest on August 23
and negotiations involving central authorities,
the Khorog administration, and members of an
intermediary group, the parties reportedly agreed
that protesters would disperse and the government
would withdraw troops from the city and the rest
of the province within 20 days. The troops
reportedly started leaving Khorog on August 24.
According to some media reports, in the
past two years Tajik authorities have stepped up
efforts at eliminating military elements of
opposition across the country. There are about 300
militants reportedly operating in the Pamir today.
The security situation in Tajikistan is complex,
with drug wars, paramilitary groups, criminality,
terrorism, crackdowns by the regime on opposition,
poor economic conditions, and separatist trends
all working together to undermine the fragile
authority of the central government and the peace
in the country at large.
Narco-trafficking
is an especially acute security issue. The
economic conditions in GBAP are depressing, with
smuggling of drugs considered a good source of
revenue for locals. According to the The World
Factbook of the US Central Intelligence
Agency, about 80% of all narcotics intercepted in
Central Asia are captured in Tajikistan. A good
proportion of the drugs gets through. Tolib
Ayombekov, whom authorities accuse of drug
smuggling, is the brother of Abdulamon Ayombekov,
a major drug dealer killed in 1994.
The
shaky security situation in GBAP ahead of next
year's presidential elections and the planned
withdrawal of North Atlantic Treaty Organization
forces from Afghanistan in 2014 evoke internal and
external sources of threat to the regime in
Dushanbe. The former can yet serve as a point of
consolidation of remaining opposition forces
against the Rahmon regime. The latter can lead to
expanded flows of narcotics, militants, and
potentially even refugees if the situation in
Afghanistan destabilizes further after the pullout
of coalition forces.
In its fight for
power and stability, Rahmon's regime would not
discount the use of an external support base,
provided it is available when needed during a
major crisis or serious destabilization.
Tajikistan is a member of the Russia-led
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and
is home to Russia's second-largest overseas
contingent of troops. Recently, Dushanbe and
Moscow have moved closer to finalizing the deal to
extend the lease for the Russian military base.
At this stage, the secretary general of
the CSTO, Nikolai Borduja, considers the
developments in Khorog an internal matter not
requiring military intervention. The charter of
the CSTO mandates interventions only in cases of
external aggression. This same point is often
mentioned when explaining the alleged failure of
the CSTO to intervene in Kyrgyzstan in 2010, when
clashes erupted between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in the
southern city of Osh.
Tajikistan is
further a member of the China- and Russia-led
Shanghai Cooperation Organization, whose members
cooperate in anti-terrorism and counter-narcotics
activities, among others. It also cooperates with
Washington, which will reportedly increase
military funding to the country from this year's
US$800,000 to $1.5 million in 2013. Dushanbe,
however, has denied reports that it has negotiated
with Washington on establishing a US military base
in Tajikistan.
Domestically, the
government's heavy-handed approach to the task of
regime preservation and nation-building has a dual
potential: it can either subdue restive tendencies
for the near term or foster destabilization for
the long haul. This in part explains why the
government agreed to pull its forces out of Khorog
after the popular protest.
There is now
hope that the developments in the province will
also prompt authorities to undertake effective
nationwide economic-development programs. These
initiatives should start before the 2013
presidential elections and the 2014 withdrawal of
troops from Afghanistan - a crucial period that
will shape security dynamics in both Tajikistan
and the broader Central Asian region for years to
come.
Roman Muzalevsky works for
iJet Intelligent Risk Systems Inc, focusing on
global and regional security analysis. He is also
a contributing analyst on Eurasian affairs and
security at Jamestown Foundation and a
contributing an alyst on the North America, Russia
and Central Asia, and Globalization desks at the
geopolitical and security consultancy
Wikistrat.
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