The Collapse of Tajikistan

By Michael Collins Dunn

The tragedies of Bosnia and Somalia have led some Muslims to wonder if the West simply doesn't care when a Muslim country is destroyed. But at least the searing images of Bosnia and Somalia on television are burning into the West's consciousness. Although Afghanistan is less frequently pictured, it too is on Western minds as the tragic legacy of the last direct confrontation of the Cold War. But another Muslim country that has collapsed into starvation and civil war does not appear on television and is mentioned only rarely in the press.

As part of the Soviet Union until last year, Tajikistan is one of the former Soviet states that are not really part of the world's consciousness. They still are considered "ax-Soviet republics" rather than independent nation-states. Tajikistan, the poorest of these 15 ex-Soviet republics, has collapsed into civil war. Numbers are unreliable, but there are estimates of tens of thousands of refugees and perhaps hundreds of thousands of people underfed and in danger of starvation, in a country of only some five million people. Bloody fighting continues and government has succeeded government amid threats of "ethnic cleansing" and conflicts between religious revivalism, democracy and what some have called "neo-Communism," meaning old Communist leaders justifying their retention of power on the grounds that they are the only alternative to chaos.

Although, as this was written, a fourth interim president in a little over a year was named, some people still recognize one or more of the earlier ones.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind?

So why have Americans read little about Tajikistan, other than as an example cited in the previous issue of the Washington Report of the old Communists' use of Islamic fundamentalism as a bogeyman? One reason is its inaccessibility to television crews. Dushanbe, the Tajik capital, is far away, and because of the insecurity U.S. diplomats have been pulled out.

Kulyab and Kurgan-Tyube, scenes of the heaviest fighting and the greatest starvation, are so remote that even Russian television does not have regular access. And, in the second half of the 20th century, tragedies remain non-events in the absence of reporters and television cameras. Starvation in southern Sudan does not attract the same attention as starvation in Somalia, because the United Nations presence makes its easier to reach Mogadishu. The same is true of Sarajevo. This is not to denigrate the enormous scale of the tragedies of Somalia and Bosnia. But they are not the only countries bleeding to death in the Muslim world.

The Tajik civil war is hard to characterize. The American press, when it recognizes the place exists, and the Russian press, which so influences American attitudes toward countries within the former Soviet empire, both tend to depict the struggle as ex-Communists versus Islamic fundamentalists. That is oversimplification. But it is equally wrong to see the fighting as purely ideological, or purely ethnic.

When some ax-Soviets call it "tribal," they do not mean a clash of blood kinship groups, but of local provincial loyalties. In the mountains of Tajikistan, every valley has achieved its own little sovereignty, and every town has sent its own clique to fight for domination.

Islamic revivalism plays a role, as do both democratization and Communism in its surviving form. The Afghan civil war also has flowed back into Tajikistan because ethnic Tajiks play a dominant role in current Afghan leadership. Some Afghan mujahidin fighters have turned up in Tajikistan.

It is pointless to offer much further detail because things are changing too rapidly. Between Oct. 24 and Nov. 15 the situation took three or perhaps four major turns, each reversing the previous one.

To illustrate how bizarre the situation has become, between Nov. 6 and 10 the deputy chairman of the Provisional Ruling Council in Dushanbe, thus the number two man in the government, was a Russian general. No Russian general holds so high a governmental post in Russia. But his 201st Motorized Rifle Division was the only armed force able to keep the rebels (or loyalists, depending on your point of view) out of the Tajik capital. And who invited a Russian general to help run a non-Russian country? Why, the side characterized as "Islamic fundamentalists" by their opponents. The war in Tajikistan has become so confused that there is nothing surprising' about "Islamic fundamentalists" looking to Russian generals for salvation.

Some Lessons of the War

If the history of the war thus far is confusing, some of its lessons are clear. The first lesson is that Islamic revivalism, or even just an Islamic identity in politics, is easily used by the ex-Communists as a bogeyman to rally support.

A second lesson is that regionalism and local warlordism are the real threats, not Islamic " fundamentalism" or " tribalism." The local militias in Kulyab and Khodzhent have been strong supporters of the ax-Communists. The local leadership in Dushanbe has backed the Islamist/democratic side. And Kurgan-Tyube has been the battleground where they fought it out—the Beirut, Sarajevo or Mogadishu of the Tajik war.

A third lesson is that, so far, "ethnic cleansing" has been more a rumor than a reality. There is a recurring worry that the war will lead to attacks on Uzbeks, who make up about 23 percent of the population. So far it is hard to prove that Uzbeks have suffered more than their Tajik neighbors. This is an explosive issue, however, since Uzbekistan is next door, much bigger, and has its own claims on Tajikistan. Uzbekistan is also still under old, hard-line Communist rule (though the party has changed its name), and its president, Islam Karimov, argues that the democratic/Islamist alliance in Dushanbe will persecute Russians, Uzbeks, and other non-Tajiks. (Why Islamists would persecute other Muslims for their ethnic origin is never explained.)

A fourth lesson is that the end of the Soviet Union did not end Russian involvement in the former Russian empire. The Russian army division still in Tajikistan helped save the day when the government was almost overthrown by the rebels (or loyalists) on Oct. 24-25. That led to the anomaly of Muslim Russian General Mukhriddin Ashurov becoming number two man in the government for four days before he prudently resigned.

If, in Russia proper, hard-line Russian nationalists like Russian Vice President Alexander Rutskoy increase their power in the December session of the Congress of People's Deputies in Moscow, or if Boris Yeltsin is deposed or loses his decree powers, independent nations like Tajikistan may have much to worry about. The Rutskoys of Russia are already talking about a ''Monroe Doctrine" under which they can intervene anywhere in the former U. S. S. R. (presumably including the Baltics) and they will intervene to prevent any other country from gaining influence there.

Another lesson is the reminder that Central Asian boundaries are recent. Afghanistan and Tajikistan have more in common in some respects than Tajikistan and Russia, despite Russian rule in Tajikistan since the early 19th century, and Soviet rule there for the past 74 years. The Tajik and Afghan civil wars could become, if they have not already, a single broad ethnic and regional conflict. Leonid Brezhnev's most ironic legacy may be that he did not succeed in bringing Communism permanently to Afghanistan, but he may have brought Afghan localism and warlordism to Central Asia.

Finally, no one should make too much of ethnic or linguistic stereotypes. It is often said that since the Tajiks speak a Persian language—in fact Tajik is really just a dialect of Farsi—then Iran will have undue influence. And that the other five Muslim ax-republics speak Turkic languages, so they will fall into Turkey's orbit.

But language is not everything. Tajiks are Sunnis; Iranians Shi'i. Azerbaijan speaks a Turkic language closer to that of Turkey than any Central Asian state, but it is heavily Shi'i, not Sunni like Turkey. As it happens, Azerbaijan is right now very pro-Turkish, because of other factors, but Tajikistan is not notably pro-Iranian. Tajikistan has not become the next Iran, but the next Afghanistan, and that may be even more tragic. At least for the Tajiks.

Michael Collins Dunn, Ph. D., is senior analyst of the International Estimate, Inc., a Washington-based consultancy, and editor of its biweekly newsletter, The Estimate.