TAJIKISTAN: New Civil War?
By TJKNEWS.COM
TAJIKISTAN: New Civil War?
On the night of 22 to 23 August from the detention facility of National Security Committee ran 25 people convicted and serving sentences for various crimes. For example, one of them – Ibrokhim Nasreddin nicknamed Ibrokhim Cory, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, was convicted in Tajikistan to 23 years to be served in the colony.However, according to the development of the State Committee of National Security, he was transferred to a remand prison, where he was inexplicably been created privileged conditions.
Tajik journalists have found out interesting details.“Quarantine on the night guarding the only three soldiers, which is easily handled prisoners. Nasreddin and one prisoner, who allegedly grabbed his stomach, went on duty, was attacked and brutally killed him, broken arms and legs. Two other guards were badly beaten and handcuffed. Taking possession of the keys, the organizers opened the escape of all the cameras, but decided to join them, not all. “ According to some sources, refused to shoot more than 60 inmates and defendants.
In the remand was a lot of camouflage military uniforms and weapons and fugitives quietly for three hours, from 22:10 to 1:20 getting ready for departure. They brought myself up, shaved, dressed in military uniforms and captured weapons were loaded into two vehicles belonging to the National Security Committee. The only obstacle was in office when leaving, when on duty that night Ensign refused to pass the machine without checking, he was killed.
After a week in the second largest city in Tajikistan – Khujand in the police station was blown up by car GAZ-24 bomb. Police officer was killed and another 25 people were injured. Local journalists have argued that the death toll higher, but official confirmation of this information is not available. Three days later in the Tajik capital Dushanbe bomb exploded in a popular nightclub, near the residence of the President. Sought medical treatment 10 people, three of them were seriously wounded.
The first fight between the escapees from detention center and the Tajik army took place on September 7 in Romitskom Gorge, 70 kilometers from Dushanbe. By the time one of the 25 fugitives were arrested, the others with a large quantity of weapons was a break in the mountain areas, where they waited for former fighters and commanders of the Tajik opposition, participated in the Civil War 1992-1997.
Who escaped from the detention facility and why the authorities in Tajikistan have started this military operation? Excluding the 11 foreigners, among whom are citizens of Russia – the other – the citizens of Tajikistan. They were arrested last summer in the east, only 46 people. 36 of them, then let go – they first took up arms, they did not kill anyone, and they decided to take pity. But later – changed their minds and re-arrested. A year later, two days before the escape, they were all sentenced to long terms. 23 people have received 30 years imprisonment …. And 30 years – the average age of runaways.
September 19 during a military operation to capture fugitives, whose number has decreased by seven people were detained at various times and in different regions of Tajikistan, in the gorge Komarob attack occurred on a convoy of equipment of the Tajik army. Until now officially claimed that as a result of the execution of the column with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades killed 25 people, as many more were missing, that is captured. But Tajik journalists argue that the death toll was more than 40 people, and practically the whole column was destroyed.
In late September and early October, clashes continued. Fights have moved to those areas which, during the civil war in the mid-90′s were the center of the Tajik opposition, there were their bases and headquarters. There repeatedly during the war, sent columns of tanks and armored vehicles of the Tajik army or by destroying or seizing. Despite the support of Russian 201 th Division, stationed in Tajikistan, the opposition could not win, they better know their home area, they supported the population, they are constantly receiving reinforcements from the camps of Tajik refugees in Afghanistan.
Inter-Tajik negotiations under UN auspices, which lasted from 1994 to 1997, alternately in Moscow, Tehran, Islamabad, Kabul, Almaty and Ashgabat have led to general agreement. As a result, the United Tajik Opposition and the Tajik authorities declared an end to the war, the allocation of 30 per cent quota in government for the opposition. As a deterrence international organizations have developed programs to adapt the former opposition fighters by providing grants for small business development. Tajik authorities have begun to disarm the population, taking away or buying weapons, both carried out mine clearance hostilities.
Tajikistan’s civil war six years has killed about 150,000 people, although no one has calculated the exact number of victims. Emigration was more than a million people, most of the population was driven out by the Tajik army and its support of the Russian 201 st Division in Afghanistan, where he created the refugee camps. Quite quickly the refugees were structured: in the camps organized medical care, schools, worked the radio station Voice of Free Tajikistan, refugees replenish squads of armed resistance.In Afghanistan, the place had been training fighters and in many parts of the Tajik-Afghan border were equipped with secret passages, through which hundreds of trained young people poured into the “Islamic Army in Tajikistan.”
The former Soviet Union it was the first large-scale war that gripped much of the territory of Tajikistan.It began, as always, as a result of provocations in May 1992 when the former opposition party nomeklatury and nascent opposition reached its peak. That conflict began in September 1991, when supporters of the Democratic Party, People’s Movement “Rastokhez” (Revival) and is located in the underground Islamic Renaissance Party began its first meeting in the center of Dushanbe.
They were protesting against the communist parliament, which has remained from Soviet times and demand free elections. By the time the resignation has left the first president of Tajikistan Kahhor Makhkamov, who is also first secretary of the Communist Party of the republic. The confrontation escalated, the protesters dismantled the statue of Lenin, and then from Moscow, Mikhail Gorbachev was sent by Anatoly Sobchak and Academician Yevgeny Velikhov, who managed to convince the authorities in Tajikistan yet to begin preparations for the first free presidential elections.
Elections held in November 1991, but were nervous and with a large number of cases of fraud, depriving the opposition candidate filmmaker Davlat Hudonazarova opportunity to become the first post-Soviet space freely elected president. Large role in the falsification has played a big team from Moscow, which included and Russian generals. In the end, victory was awarded to Rakhmon Nabiyev, which earlier was also the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Tajik SSR.
The standoff resumed in March 1992 and in the center of Dushanbe at a square near the presidential palace was built tent city with its infrastructure – medical station, security service, cuisine and even its own radio station. The rally lasted for more than two months without a break, and a conservative estimate of opposition it was attended by several hundred people who came from all regions of Tajikistan.The city center was paralyzed, people are actively engaged in politics and at that time in Dushanbe were published more than 30 independent newspapers, which made it possible to learn not only about the news, but also different views on what is happening.
New president to negotiate did not want to go, he always consulted with Moscow and the May 11, 1992 first shots were fired on the outskirts of Dushanbe – it was absolutely an attack on the opposition. Then, in Tajikistan there was no army of its own, as there was no ministry of defense, but suddenly there was a lot of weapons. This charge is not only the Afghans, who allegedly supplied the opposition, but, above all, the Russian division, which not only supported in the civil war “legitimately elected president, but also participated actively in hostilities.
In response to the opposition, which became the nucleus of the Islamic Renaissance Party, began to form guerrilla groups that are already in the mid-90′s were assembled into a unified army with a unified leadership in the mountain area of Tavildara, where knock could not be any tanks of the Tajik army or the Russian aircraft. Gorno-Badakhshan (Pamir) is isolated and only the help of the Aga Khan IV, the spiritual head of the religious sect of the Ismaili Pamiris saved from starvation.
So far in the Russian press suggest a simple variant explanations of civil war in Tajikistan – Islamic war against the secular authorities, “while the” Islamists “- the same people of Tajikistan, brought 70 years of Soviet power, and the” secular arm “was a former Soviet Nomenclature. And the third president of Tajikistan – Rakhmonov, who replaced the name on the traditional manner – Rakhmonov, a former director of the most backward country farm named after Lenin. On the side of the opposition was part of the intelligentsia and the people who support democratic principles, and one of the warlords, the opposition was a former Soviet army colonel of militia Mirzohudzha Ahmad.
Restoration of peaceful life after the completion of negotiations in 1997, was tense, the authorities in Tajikistan to provide basically a single region – Kulyab that violate the regional balance of representation, to be observed even in Soviet times. Moscow to completely subjugate the Tajik leadership, but as it was traditionally assumed no economic projects and not to restore war-torn country did not participate.Growing labor emigration and is now variously estimated outside of Tajikistan is more than a million mostly young people looking for any job to feed their families.
The level of corruption in Tajikistan, has grown rapidly and economic indicators fell. President Rakhmonov was trying to create a secular ideology in pursuit of religious leaders that has caused the population of rejection of authority. Opponents Rahmon appear in different sections of the population and opposition continually threatens to turn into the second civil war. During the 13 years since the war 90 years, the Tajik authorities have not learned to peacemaking, so now in the mountains again going guerrilla, run by all tezhe warlords veterans – Mirzohudzha Akhmadov, Mullah Abdullah and Allovuddin Davlatov. And keep the world right now will be very difficult …
Oleg Panfilov
____________________
The author participated as an expert on human rights in the UN inter-Tajik talks in 1994-1997 (Moscow, Tehran, Islamabad, Kabul, Almaty, Ashgabat)
Source: Georgia Online
In Tajikistan, continue to block access to independent sites
