NCSJ - Tajikistan page

Population: 7.35 million

Ethnic Composition:
79.9% Takik, 15.3% Uzbek, 1.1% Russian, 1.1% Kyrgyz, 2.6% other

Religion: 85% Sunni Muslim, 5% Shia Muslim, 10% other

Jewish population: 100-350 (est.)
2009 Aliyah
(emigration to Israel): 20

Size: 143,100 sq km
Capital: Dushanbe
Major cities: Dushanbe, Kalininabad, Khudzhand, Kulyab

Freedom House Rating:
Not Free

Currency: 4.37 Somoni = $1

GDP: $5.135 billion (2008 est.)
GDP per capita: $1,800 (2008 est.)
GDP Growth: 7.9% (2008 est.)

Head of State: President Emomali Rahmon (formerly Rahmonov)

Head of Government:
Prime Minister Oqil Oqilov

Foreign Minister:
Khamrokhno Zarifi (formerly Zaripov)

Ambassador to United States:
Abdujabbor Shirinov

U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan:
Kenneth E. Gross, Jr.

Chronology of all U.S. envoys to Tajikistan

SUMMARY

Remote, mountainous Tajikistan has had perhaps the most difficult transition to independent statehood of all the former Soviet republics. Already the poorest of the Soviet successor states, it continues to recover from a bitter five-year civil war. The war, fought shortly after its 1991 independence, left the country politically and ethnically divided, devastated its underdeveloped economy, and impoverished its population. Although the central government has recovered most of its authority, it has not been able to end the transit of drugs and guns through its territory. Recruitment and propaganda efforts and attacks by radical Islamist groups in the region, and their reported alliance with regional narcotrafficking networks, continue to challenge Tajikistan’s government. The government has been confronted with the inflow of foreign jihadists fleeing repression by neighboring states in recent years, and the growth of its own domestic radical Islamist movement.

Tajikistan’s closest ties are with Russia, whose troops guarded the troubled Tajik-Afghan border until mid-2005, and which maintains a permanent military presence in Tajikistan. Relations with neighboring states are improving but remain complicated by cross-border security issues and disputes over border delineation and energy supplies. The human rights situation in Tajikistan is considered poor, though religious freedom is generally respected. Tajikistan continues to receive significant international assistance, including from the United States.

Bukharan Jews have lived in Tajikistan for over 1,000 years. They were joined by a small Ashkenazi community following World War II. Mass emigration has reduced the Jewish population to a small, largely elderly group centered on the capital Dushanbe. Ongoing government attempts since 2003 to raze the last remaining synagogue in Dushanbe in order to expand the presidential palace, and two firebomb and arson attacks on the synagogue in 2006 have raised foreign concerns over the fate of the country’s shrinking Jewish community.

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REPUBLIC OF TAJIKISTAN

INTRODUCTION
POLITICAL SITUATION
ECONOMIC SITUATION
JEWISH COMMUNAL LIFE & ANTI-SEMITISM
U.S. POLICY

Tajikistan is a landlocked, mountainous country slightly smaller than Wisconsin, bordered by Afghanistan, China, the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan; more than half of its area is over 10,000 feet above sea level. An ancient Eastern Iranian people, with later admixtures of Persians, Mongols, and Turks, the Tajiks once dominated much of Central Asia. They founded the now-Uzbek cities of Bukhara and Samarkand, leading to subsequent Tajik claims on modern Uzbek territory. Under Arab, Persian, and Mongol rule at other times, Tajikistan eventually came under Russian control in the later 19th century, although not without fierce resistance to the initial Tsarist conquest and to the Soviet re-conquest of the area. Soviet-era demarcation of Tajikistan’s current borders in the 1920s lent a superficial cohesion to an ethnically diverse populace, which included large Uzbek and Russian minorities, and planted the seeds of post-Soviet ethnic strife. Left largely underdeveloped by Soviet authorities, Tajikistan saw renewed
Islamic and nationalist movements in the 1970s and 1980s, and declared its independence from the Soviet Union on September 9, 1991.

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POLITICAL SITUATION

Tajikistan’s 1994 Constitution provides for a republican government with executive, legislative and judicial branches, but like its Central Asian neighbors, concentrates power in the President. The legislature is bicameral– a 63-seat lower house Assembly of Representatives (Majlis Namoyandogon) and a 34-seat upper house National Assembly (Majlisi Milliy). The President serves as Chairman of the Parliament and has wide discretion in appointing and dismissing officials, including the prime minister and the cabinet (Council of Ministers). The judicial branch consists of a Supreme Court, whose judges are appointed by the President.

Tajikistan’s post-Soviet history has been tumultuous. After its 1991 independence, the country quickly slid into a power struggle and then bitter civil war (1992-97) between Russian-backed, ex-Communist and old-guard ruling elites known as the Popular Front and a loose coalition of pro-democratic, Islamist, and historically disenfranchised minority forces under the banner of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO), with limited support from Iran and various Afghan factions. Although most factions in the conflict professed various ideologies, many in fact represented regional, clan or ethnic loyalties in a situation marked by the collapse of central authority. Prolonged fighting claimed tens of thousands of lives. Ethnic cleansing, largely by Popular Front forces, generated large refugee flows both internally and into nearby northern Afghanistan. Many non-Tajiks, including Russians and Jews, left Tajikistan at this time to escape the fighting, ethnic cleansing, and rising Tajik nationalism.

The UTO initially succeeded in capturing Dushanbe and ousting Tajikistan’s old-guard President Rakhmon Nabiyev in September 1992. However, military aid and assistance from Russia and Uzbekistan – both concerned by the prospect of an anti-Russian, pro-Islamic nationalist regime next door, with possible claims on Uzbek territory – allowed the Popular Front to retake the initiative and recapture the capital. A new, pro-Moscow government was formed in Dushanbe in December 1992 under the leadership of old-guard regional boss Emomali Rahmon (known as Imomali Rakhmonov before March 2007), who represented the Kulyab region. In heavy fighting during 1992 and 1993, pro-government forces defeated the opposition and launched ethnic cleansing campaigns against minority groups that had supported the UTO.

The remaining Tajik opposition reorganized and rearmed in Afghanistan, largely with the help of prominent Afghan Tajik leader and veteran of the Soviet war Ahmad Shah Masoud (assassinated by agents of Osama Bin Laden in 2001). UTO fighters periodically returned to Tajikistan to fight government forces in the mid-1990s. As the conflict dragged on, some UTO factions became aligned with regional Islamist groups, such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and various Afghans, who joined the fighting in Tajikistan. Russian troops stationed in the country also stayed involved in the fighting. Eventually, a United Nations Observer Mission was deployed in 1995 in an attempt to end the civil war. A UN-sponsored armistice in late 1996 led to a power-sharing peace accord between the government and the UTO that formally ended the war in mid-1997. Tajikistan’s civil war is estimated to have killed tens of thousands, created hundreds of thousands internal and external refugees, and devastated the economy.

In 2000, implementation of the 1997 government-UTO peace accords concluded with multi-party elections to both houses of parliament, giving a minority vote to opposition and independent candidates and a majority to the President’s ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). After the elections, the national reconciliation process formally ended and the UN observer mission withdrew. The 2000 elections saw the participation of Tajikistan’s Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), one of the leaders of the UTO and Central Asia’s only legal Islamic political party to date. The IRP continues to have representation in parliament, albeit in decreasing numbers since 2000, as do a handful of independent candidates.

Rahmon was popularly elected President in November 1994, and was re-elected in November 1999 to a seven-year term in a poll criticized for widespread irregularities. Rahmon’s term was set to expire in 2006, but a widely criticized June 2003 constitutional referendum allowed him to rule for two additional seven-year terms, subject to re-election, theoretically extending his rule until 2020. In November 2006, Rahmon won re-election with a reported 79 percent of the vote in a poll boycotted by the opposition and condemned by the OSCE. Likewise, parliamentary elections held in 2005 were judged to be flawed and unfair, producing an easy win for the government party and a handful of seats for the opposition.

Overall, neither the presidential polls of 1994 and 1999, nor the parliamentary elections of 1995, 2000, and 2005 were judged to be free and fair by foreign observers. Analysts have noted the recent rise in tensions between the government and the increasingly marginalized opposition, led by the IRP, who accuse Rahmon and his government of escalating repressive measures against them. They cite the dispersal by police of an opposition rally shortly before the November 2006 presidential election, the arrest or imprisonment of senior IRP and other opposition leaders in 2005 and 2006, and the shrinking percentage of opposition and independent candidates in parliament since 2000. However, most observers note the peaceful nature of Tajikistan’s elections following the end of the war despite their flawed character, and believe the general unwillingness to relive that recent conflict will likely prevent greater escalation of government-opposition tensions. Many also note the genuine public support enjoyed by President Rahmon, who, despite his growing intolerance of dissent, is credited by many Tajikistanis with helping to end the war and restore fragile economic growth.

In March 2007, President Rahmon announced that he was changing his “Slavicized” name (formerly Imomali Rakhmonov) to a more traditional Tajik version (given as Emomali Rahmon). The President also ordered local authorities to end the practice of adding Slavic suffixes “ov” and “ev” to names of newborns, as part of “a return to national roots.” He called on the country’s cultural and intellectual leaders to reexamine their own names and the names of Tajikistan’s leading historical and cultural sites. In April 2007, Tajikistan’s Foreign Minister announced he was changing his surname to “Zarifi” from the former “Zaripov,” in order to follow the President’s example in returning to his Tajik roots.

High levels of criminal and political corruption in the judiciary and in law enforcement continue to compromise public security and the rule of law. Criminal clan-based factions and networks compete to control markets and narcotics trafficking, and terrorism remains a threat. Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU, also known as the Islamic Movement of Turkestan, or IMT) fighters, seeking to overthrow Uzbek President Islam Karimov, continue to operate from Tajikistan despite vigorous countermeasures by Tajik security forces. Reports suggest that Islamic fighters from Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan also continue to seek refuge in Tajikistan, and that Islamic fighters based in Tajikistan have established strong connections with cross-border criminal networks in the area in order to traffic narcotics from Afghanistan through Tajikistan to Russia and Europe. In March 2007, a Tajik court sentenced a Tajik man, who was a former Guantanamo inmate and accused Al-Qaeda and Taliban member, to 23 years in prison for past terrorist activity, including military training in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In April 2007, Tajikistan’s Supreme Court sentenced a group of Uzbek and Tajik citizens to lengthy prison terms on murder and terrorism charges; the men were reportedly members of a criminal group that included former IMU activists who had turned to crime.

Tajikistan’s strategic location and weak government continue to attract the attention of its neighbors. Russia is Tajikistan’s most important ally: Russian troops have been present in Tajikistan since 1991, and since 2005 on a permanent basis; they proved essential to the government’s victory during the civil war, and have helped man the porous Tajik-Afghan border in the past. In return, Tajikistan continues to receive Russian military assistance, particularly in its counter-narcotics efforts; moreover, since 2002, it has had its massive debts to Russia forgiven, restored a former Soviet space monitoring center to Russian control, and welcomed Russian investment in key infrastructure projects. Tajikistan is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional group including Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, China, Russia, and Uzbekistan, which in 2006 provided substantial development credits for infrastructure improvements. Disputes continue with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan over the complicated borders shared by all three countries, and over Uzbek and Kyrgyz charges that Tajikistan tolerates the presence of Islamist training camps on its territory. Israel and Tajikistan have full diplomatic relations, and Israel is represented by its ambassador in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. In May 2007, Tajikistan and Iran signed a “protocol on military and technical cooperation” between their respective defense ministries during an official visit by the Iranian defense minister to Tajikistan. President Rahmon met with the Iranian minister during his visit and praised overall economic relations with Iran, especially Iranian investment in the construction of a transportation tunnel and a hydropower plant. Iran has provided over $6 million in direct military assistance and training to Tajikistan’s military since the 1990s.

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ECONOMIC SITUATION

Tajikistan is the poorest of the Soviet successor states, and continues to recover from the economic devastation caused by five years of civil war and the loss of former Soviet markets for its products in the 1990s. The Tajik economy—never heavily developed under Communism—remains largely agricultural with limited arable land, and a small, partly obsolete industrial sector. Energy supplies are mostly imported, and domestic reserves are minimal; however, the proposed construction of new hydropower facilities would, if realized, allow Tajikistan to export electricity for profit. Prospects for the construction of pipelines in the region remain contingent on greater political stability. Although Tajikistan’s economic growth resumed after 1997, and accelerated after 2002, its macroeconomic picture remains fragile and vulnerable to fluctuations in the world prices of aluminum and cotton, its chief export earners. Widespread poverty is the norm, with an estimated 60-80 percent of the population living below the poverty line. Unemployment and underemployment are estimated around 40 percent, and interruptions in the supply of electricity and clean water continue. Foreign trade is limited; principal partners are Uzbekistan, Russia, Turkey, Iran, and members of the European Union and the CIS.

Tajikistan remains dependent on foreign aid from Russia, Uzbekistan and the international community for many of its basic needs. Its infrastructure and health and education systems have been described as failing and tenuous. Tajikistan’s long border with Afghanistan, weak governance, and long history as a key narcotics transit country have contributed to a rise in domestic drug use and attendant problems of corruption, organized crime, smuggling, and the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Due to its high external debt, Tajikistan joined the CIS-7 initiative, created in 2001 by international lending organizations to reform the financial structure of new loans. In 2002 and 2003, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a total of over $100 million in aid to Tajikistan, over a three-year period, for poverty reduction and economic reform. The Asian Development Bank in 2002 approved loans to Tajikistan totaling $52 million. The World Bank has committed $182 million to its active programs in Tajikistan since 1996 with $59 million approved in FY2006. Tajikistan’s government has won the approval of international financial institutions for its pursuit of structural reforms and macroeconomic stabilization.

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JEWISH COMMUNAL LIFE & ANTI-SEMITISM

The small Jewish community in Tajikistan is comprised of Bukharan and Ashkenazi Jews. The Bukharan Jews have a long history in Central Asia, while many Ashkenazi Jews arrived during World War II to escape the Nazis. Starting shortly before independence, and accelerating during the Tajik civil war in the 1990s, many members of the local Jewish community—especially Russian-speaking Ashkenazi Jews—emigrated to escape the fighting, economic collapse, and threats against non-natives. In 1992, there was a little-known but successful airlift operation to bring Jews from war-torn Tajikistan to Israel, mirroring better known rescue lifts from Yemen and Ethiopia. The community has not recovered from the loss of about 10,000 Jews since 1989, and is now estimated at no more than several hundred largely elderly Jews residing mostly in the capital city of Dushanbe. Religious services were described as faltering in a 2006 newspaper article.

Neither official nor popular anti-Semitism has been apparent in past years, despite significant activity by radical Islamists in the region. However, since 2003, the government has sought to raze the last remaining synagogue in Dushanbe in order to build a new and much larger presidential palace downtown. When actual demolition began in early 2006, leading to the destruction of the synagogue’s mikvah, kosher butcher shop, and several classrooms, international protests led by UNESCO, Jewish organizations, and the U.S. government stopped further activity. Tajikistan President Rahmon reportedly met with Eurasian Jewish Congress head and wealthy Kazakh-Israeli businessman Alexander Mashkevich in May 2006. He allegedly promised to allocate a suitable site in central Dushanbe for a new synagogue, to be funded by Mashkevich’s organization, given that local Jews are unable to provide the funding themselves.

In August and September 2006, two firebomb and arson attacks on the synagogue occurred, again raising concerns over the fate of the country’s shrinking Jewish community. Following these incidents, the chief rabbi of Central Asia for Chabad-Lubavitch told the press that the Tajik authorities refused to provide protection for the synagogue and were asking the community to pay for security, which it could not afford.

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U.S. POLICY

Defense Department photo: R.D. Ward

November 2001: President Emomali Rahmonov welcoming U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Presidential Palace in Dushanbe