Tajikistan’s Troublesome East

In September, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon made a rare visit to the country’s eastern Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region (GBAO). The visit, which coincided with the 27th anniversary of Tajikistan’s independence, marked a revived campaign by Dushanbe to bring the vast, mountainous east under control of the capital.

During the visit, Rahmon lambasted local authorities in Khorog, the region’s capital, for their inability to crack down on crime in the region. Rahmon set a timetable of one month for local authorities to settle the perceived lawlessness issue.

“If you cannot cope with three or four criminals in the city, if you find it difficult to set the order of traffic in the city, I can engage the Armed Forces,” Rahmon threatened. He added, “There are 2,000 government employees in Khorog, and you cannot even deal with five or six criminals? I will take responsibility for this myself – if you need, use live arms.”

The tirade was followed by the shuffling of officials. The mayor of Khorog was fired and the region’s governor, Shodihon Jamshed, appointed three new deputies, including Alisher Mirzonabotov who had previously served as deputy head of the regional branch of the State Committee for National Security, or GKNB. Then, in early October, Jamshed was replaced with Yodgor Fayzov. Fayzov has served as head of the Aga Khan Fund office in Tajikistan, and as Bruce Pannier noted in an article after his appointment, “follows several Ismailis who were previously in charge of Gorno-Badakhshan.”

While officials were shuffled around, ongoing drives to encourage GBAO residents to surrender weapons churned out occasional updates. On the day Rahmon arrived in the region, for example, Asia-Plus cited the GKNB as stating that locals voluntarily surrendered a number of illegally stored weapons: 39 firearms, including 11 Makarov pistols, eight Kalashnikov rifles, and one machine gun. Rahmon’s visit, and criticisms, sparked additional drives to encourage the population to give up their guns.

Rahmon’s visit also featured the opening of several security-related centers: a GKNB border guard training center, the garrison of which can accomodate 480 people; a new border guard recruits training center, which can accommodate 800; and a new building for the military prosecutor's office. There was also a military parade in Khorog for Rahmon, featuring 3,500 troops.

A new body – the Inter-Ministerial Staff for Security in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region – was created to take charge of the region’s security matters.

In mid-October, as Rahmon’s previous deadline passed to bring order to GBAO, Fayzov, the new regional governor, urged the people of GBAO to not interfere with government operations in the region. “Let’s surrender our weapons. Live a peaceful life in Tajikistan, in your Homeland,” he said.

The Last Civil War Thorn

In some ways, GBAO remains the last civil war thorn stuck in Rahmon’s side. The Founder of Peace and National Unity, Leader of the Nation, President of the Republic of Tajikistan, His Excellency Emomali Rahmon – as a 2017 decree mandated Rahmon be called in all state media broadcasts, in every instance – has never quite had a firm hand on the east. When the civil war broke out in 1992, the GBAO local government declared independence from Tajikistan and served as a stronghold for the opposition forces. The 1997 peace accord that ended the civil war was underpinned in GBAO by the appointment of former opposition and local Pamiri leaders to government positions.

One such local leader, often described as a warlord, was Tolib Ayombekov. Ayombekov was handed control of a post on the Afghan border. With smuggling a lucrative business to be in, Ayombekov settled into a position of regional power while Dushanbe focused its attention anywhere but the east.

While the majority of Tajikistan’s population practice Sunni Islam, GBAO is different in that its population are mostly Ismaili, a branch of Shia Islam. The region, which makes up 45 percent of Tajikistan’s territory, only holds 3 percent of the country’s population. As Joshua Kucera noted in a 2013 article for The Atlantic, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) – a network of development agencies founded by the Aga Khan, the spiritual lead of Ismailis, including the Pamiris – took over developing GBAO’s economy as best it could.

“Pretty much anything that has been built in Badakhshan in the last 20 years has been the product of AKDN largesse,” Kucera wrote, “and the group is the region's largest employer.”

For a time, the situation stalled quietly. Dushanbe paid little attention to GBAO, and GBAO minded its own business as Rahmon concentrated elsewhere on consolidating control.

The Ghosts of 2012

The events of 2012 provided an opportunity for Dushanbe to assert control over GBAO.

On July 21, 2012 the local GKNB head, Abdullo Nazarov, was shot and killed, reportedly over a dispute about contraband that had come through Ayombekov's border post. The central government used the killing – which according to some sources was an accident – as a pretext to dispatch troops to the region. On July 23, Khorog residents staged a protest. Estimates at the time claimed about 100 protestors. As Kucera described it:

At 4 the next morning, residents awoke to the sound of gunfire. During the night, snipers had climbed up and taken positions on the steep mountains that enclose Khorog. While the exact order of events remains murky, what seems to have happened is that government soldiers initially focused their fire on the homes of the “commanders.” But they faced unexpectedly strong resistance from fighters loyal to the commanders, and in response began to target civilians as well, which in turn prompted ordinary residents to take up whatever arms they had or could find.

Ayombekov stood down, but a negotiated ceasefire broke after a month when a different local commander was killed. Thousands protested. The government cut communications to the region, blaming severed telephone, mobile, and internet connections to the region on a now-infamous “stray bullet.”

Dushanbe soon withdrew its troops and the people of GBAO celebrated the turn of events as something like a victory.

History’s Echo?

A little before midnight on November 4, 2018 an OMON riot police commander reportedly fired a traumatic pistol – a firearm that discharges nonlethal rounds – at a group of young men in Khorog from the window of a Mercedes. Three of the men were reportedly injured.

The Inter-Ministerial Staff for Security in the GBAO put out a statement that the five young men had attacked a traffic-police car first. A spokesman for the regional governor told RFE/RL that the officer fired after the group of young men fought with police, demanding the removal of police checkpoints in Khorog.

Two days later, as many as a few hundred people staged a protest in Khorog. Meanwhile, reports have surfaced of blocked news websites and the cutting of internet connections for all of GBAO.

Contemporary events are an echo of 2012 in some ways. Though so far the situation has not escalated into serious violence, such a turn of events would not be a surprise.

Why has Dushanbe decided to press GBAO now? There are several possible explanations but paramount among them is the fact that GBAO remains the last region not entirely under state control. Some regional watchers believe Rahmon is preparing the state for a power transition,  possibly as early as 2020 and in the view of some likely to his son, Rustam – leashing GBAO before then may be the aim. Another factor to consider is that Tajikistan’s only land border with China is in GBAO. With Tajik-Chinese trade and military cooperation growing and given Beijing’s increasing interests in Afghanistan, GBAO’s position and powerbrokers have become commensurately more important.