Tajikistan

Tajik Snub to Russia?

The former Soviet republic seems to be keen to dump Russia as its chief ally in favor of the United States

Sanobar Shermatova

If the reports about Tajikistan's change of heart are true, they may hint at a totally new setup emerging in the south of the CIS.

The first report said Dushanbe had been secretly negotiating with the United States joint patrolling of the Tajik-Afghan border. This is a serious allegation, that must be refuted if false. But official Dushanbe - despite its endless assurances of eternal friendship with Russia - has failed to respond to the report. It was U.S. Ambassador to Dushanbe Franklin Huddle who dismissed the report as fiction.

Speculation on that issue was fuelled by another conflict between Moscow and Dushanbe. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced that the seven portable Igla surface-to-air missile systems seized from Chechen gunmen had come from Tajikistan. He made that announcement at a session of defense ministers of the signatories to the Treaty on Collective Security, held in Moscow on November 20. How could the Chechens have got hold of the weapons, Mr. Ivanov asked his Tajik counterpart Sheral Khairullayev.

By way of a first warning, Moscow deported a group of Tajik migrant workers from Moscow region's construction sites.

According to unofficial figures, there are a million or so Tajiks working in Russian cities on whose remittances their families back home depend. One million is about a fifth of the entire population of Tajikistan. Should Russia shut off its labor market to that republic, the jobless migrant workers could destabilize the situation in their homeland. Moscow could establish quotas on workforce from the CIS countries as a means of putting pressure on the Tajik government.

The background for Moscow's move is events that Tajik politicians say point to a redivision of spheres of influence in the republic. After years of seeming tranquility, leaflets are appearing in which anonymous authors accuse the Tajik president, Emomali Rakhmonov, of having let his clan usurp power to the detriment of his associates. The president's "clan" are apparently people who hail from his native town of Dangara, plus his close relations, including his sons-in-law.

Some MN sources have confirmed that the republic's opposition forces are banding together. Thus, a month ago ex-Soviet government officials and KGB officers began to set up "discussion clubs" in Tajikistan's northern districts, which at one time formed part of the opposition to the present government. These meetings could hardly have escaped the notice of the republic's top politicians.

Against that complex political backdrop, Dushanbe has been trying to demonstrate that it is free to choose between Russia and the United States as an ally. Last year, when the war in Afghanistan was at its height, official Dushanbe negotiated with the U.S. the granting of Tajikistan's military airfields for use by American forces; the Russian forces were to be told to quit the airfields to make way for the Americans.

The airfields ultimately remained under Russian control - after Moscow made certain concessions to Dushabe. It is quite possible that Dushanbe - in the hope of making Moscow still more amenable - had deliberately leaked information about a joint border outpost with the U.S.

Thus, the Tajik regime is seeking to capitalize on the Russian-U.S. rivalry for spheres of influence in Central Asia.

http://www.mn.ru/english/issue.php?2002-46-7