Afghans fleeing Taliban are flooding Tajikistan

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By Isabel Gorst
Thursday, December 17, 2009; A21

DUSHANBE, TAJIKISTAN -- The night his 11-year-old son escaped from kidnappers, Abdul Aziz bundled a few belongings into a car and drove his family 18 miles north across the Afghan border into Tajikistan. "It is too frightening to live in Afghanistan anymore," he said, standing in the bare, unlit room he now rents outside Dushanbe, the Tajik capital. "We are never going back."

A growing number of refugees are fleeing escalating violence and lawlessness in Afghanistan for safety in Tajikistan, the most visible sign yet that the fallout from the Taliban insurgency is threatening to undermine Central Asia's security, too.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says that more than 3,600 Afghans have fled to Tajikistan since January 2008.

Until recently, Tajikistan, Central Asia's poorest country, attracted little international attention. A violent, six-year civil war after the Soviet Union's demise stymied development. Unlike its post-Soviet peers, Tajikistan has insufficient oil resources to attract major investors. Its economy is kept afloat by aluminum and cotton exports and remittances from migrants working abroad that account for about 40 percent of its gross domestic product.

But as the Taliban has advanced north this year into the previously peaceful Afghan province of Kunduz, Tajikistan has become the front line between the insurgency and Central Asia.

In Dushanbe, a sleepy city built as the last outpost of the Soviet empire in Central Asia, the only obvious reminder of the conflict a few hundred miles away is the sight of European soldiers relaxing in hotel lobbies en route to and from Afghanistan.

But, as even profiting hotel managers admit, cooperation with NATO forces carries risks. After Central Asian countries agreed this year to allow the U.S. military use of roads to transport non-lethal supplies to Afghanistan as an alternative to routes from troubled Pakistan, the Taliban warned of reprisal.

Meanwhile, military experts have said that the security crackdown in Pakistan is forcing members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a terrorist group with links to al-Qaeda, to return to their homelands in Central Asia, heightening the risk of regional instability.

Security forces in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have reported clashes this year with Islamist terrorists, opposition warlords and drug traffickers from Afghanistan.

But human rights organizations and some analysts say dictatorial governments in the region exaggerate the threat of Islamist unrest to justify harsh treatment of opponents.

Close links between terrorists and increasingly violent drug trafficking gangs pose a greater threat to central Asian security than the Taliban, said Rashid Abdullo, an independent analyst in Dushanbe. "The Taliban would want to create a stable state with good neighborly relations," Abdullo said. "They don't need to build an empire."

All Central Asian countries are officially secular, but poverty and the spiritual vacuum left by the collapse of communism have created fertile ground for the growth of religious fundamentalism.

In Tajikistan, a law adopted in the summer allocates a special role for Hanafi, the moderate Sunni school of Islam, in the nation's religious life. "It's a more cultured, intellectual way of dealing with extremism than violence," said Davlatali Nazriev, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry. "We have to change the image of Islam as the religion of terror."

After a campaign to close unauthorized mosques, Tajikistan accepted an offer this year from Qatar to build a new mosque in Dushanbe. With room for 150,000 worshipers, it will be the biggest mosque in central Asia and, Nazriev said, will help bring religious practices into the open.

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The Tajik Solution

Image by Brian Harrington Spier via Flickr

A Model for Fixing Afghanistan

George Gavrilis
GEORGE GAVRILIS is Assistant Professor of International Relations in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin and an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

As the Obama administration and the rest of the international community grapple with the challenge of stabilizing Afghanistan, analogies have proliferated as fast as insurgents. Policymakers should learn from experiences in Iraq, one hears -- or Vietnam, or Malaya, and so on. Ironically, the best analogy may lie right next door in Tajikistan.

Soon after gaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Tajikistan collapsed into a devastating civil war. Government forces, Islamists, and local warlords battled one another across its wildly remote and mountainous territory in a prolonged conflict that killed thousands of people, displaced half a million residents, and stranded 80 percent of the population in grinding poverty. Many of the combatants sustained their efforts by taking part in a multibillion-dollar drug trade, while extremists based in lawless frontier provinces launched terror attacks on neighboring states.

Today, Tajikistan is still corrupt and authoritarian, but it is also tolerably stable -- stable enough for the international community to forget about it, which is a striking mark of success. The turnaround was due largely to an intelligently conceived and successfully implemented intervention by a small UN mission and a core of unlikely bedfellows that included Iran and Russia. Rather than forcing free and fair elections, throwing out warlords, and flooding the country with foreign peacekeepers, the intervening parties opted for a more limited and realistic set of goals. They brokered deals across political factions, tolerated warlords where necessary, and kept the number of outside peacekeeping troops to a minimum. The result has been the emergence of a relatively stable balance of power inside the country, the dissuasion of former combatants from renewed hostilities, and the opportunity for state building to develop organically. The Tajik case suggests that in trying to rebuild a failed state, less may be more.

Tajikistan's civil war ended in June 1997, when the various government and opposition factions signed a peace accord. The accord recognized the government's leader, Emomali Rakhmonov, as interim president but mandated elections and key concessions to opposition groups. Thirty percent of political appointments were reserved for the United Tajik Opposition, a loose grouping of opposition figures, Islamists, and local strongmen united only by the fact that each had independently fought against Rakhmonov and his factions. The accord required combatants to demobilize and disarm in exchange for amnesty and salaried positions in the Interior, Defense, and Emergency Situations ministries and the Tajik Border Forces.

The accord was the result of a three-year effort by the United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan (UNMOT) and nearby states such as Iran, Russia, and Uzbekistan. These outside players hosted eight rounds of peace talks, restored multiple failed cease-fires, mediated on behalf of various factions, drafted vital sections of the peace agreement, and formed a Contact Group to monitor and troubleshoot implementation. The United States and European Union remained outside the group but occasionally offered input and assistance.

The members of the Contact Group had different interests, yet, at least with respect to Tajikistan, they also had one thing in common: a desire to prevent a resumption of civil war without spending much money. UNMOT's first operating budget was a paltry $1.9 million. International aid to Tajikistan actually declined the year after the accord. Iran was willing to sponsor cultural and economic exchange but was too strapped to give major grants. The peacekeeping force Russia offered was small. The Contact Group, in short, could afford to give Tajikistan only a basic makeover, and so it set its sights low, not wanting to let the ideal be the enemy of the acceptable. It concentrated on striking a balance across the country's varied political factions and dissuading them from restarting the war.

One thing that went by the wayside was democratic purity. By conventional standards, Tajikistan's first postwar presidential elections, on November 6, 1999, were a disaster. Rakhmonov blocked opposition hopefuls from gathering enough petitions to run. To create the appearance of competition, Tajikistan's Supreme Court ruled that Davlat Usmon, a popular opposition Islamist, must stand for election. On election day, pro-Rakhmonov officials pretended to count ballots, police escorted voters into booths, and ghost polling stations with no registered voters reported landslide results. Rakhmonov won handily.

The peace accord was on the verge of being derailed. Disaffected members of the opposition and warlords in the provinces threatened to take up arms, while the United States and Europe blasted the flawed elections and demanded the government enact democratic reforms. At this point, however, the story took an interesting turn. Rather than focus on procedural fairness, the Contact Group scrambled to ease tensions across the factions and help the opposition. The group brokered dozens of negotiations and cajoled the government to sign a protocol benefiting future opposition candidates. UNMOT refrained from publicly condemning Rakhmonov in exchange for assurances that he would quickly appoint opposition figures to key national and provincial posts. These behind-the-scenes measures saved the peace accord and compelled a government that had stolen elections to be more inclusive.

Warlords are an enduring feature of Tajikistan's political landscape. During the Soviet period, much of rural Tajikistan remained under their influence, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, they -- like other political challengers -- raced to grab abandoned weapons caches and smuggle arms from neighboring states. In the course of the civil war, many warlords fielded substantial security forces, created autonomous hamlets, and bankrolled their authority by taxing farmers, collecting tolls, and trading illicit goods. The strongmen often harassed UNMOT military observers who traveled around the country to monitor the peace accord, and sometimes even took them hostage.

These experiences convinced the Contact Group that the warlords could not be controlled and would pose serious political obstacles if challenged. So it opted for a laissez-faire approach instead, nominally integrating warlords into the political structure while allowing them to retain substantial autonomy. Some received key positions in district and provincial governments, while others were given command of provincial police and military units with formal titles and negligible salaries. A high-level fact-finding mission from UN headquarters blasted UNMOT's arrangement and noted that warlord "units continue to exist separately from governmental units, fully preserving their command structures." Nevertheless, the arrangement has kept warlords happy and the government stable. It has done little to curb corruption, drug trafficking, or abuses of authority but much to reduce the probability of renewed civil war.

The Contact Group also recognized that peacekeepers could help stabilize the situation on the ground but had no interest in, or resources for, a major commitment. So Russia took the lead in organizing a small CIS contingent of peacekeeping troops in and around the Tajik capital of Dushanbe. They were touted as impartial peacekeepers but really provided a secure cordon around the pro-Moscow Rakhmonov government. The Russian military mission was strong enough to prevent opposition groups from seizing Dushanbe but light enough to avoid being seen as an occupation. It provided the Contact Group with essential intelligence and had a pacifying effect on the country.

Russian soldiers were also stationed at strategic points along the Tajik-Afghan border in the south. Evidence surfaced in 2001 that some of these units were trafficking in Afghan opiates, but they still provided Tajikistan with a fairly effective buffer against an estimated 6,000 extremists who had earlier fled to Afghanistan and were now eager to return and derail the accord.

Tajikistan today is hardly a model of democracy or development. Elections are stacked, positions in the government bought and sold, and crucial public goods and services doled out to regime cronies. The country remains an economic basket case dependent on foreign aid, worker remittances, hundreds of UN Development Program projects, and proceeds from an estimated $2-3 billion annual drug trade. Yet Tajikistan has attained a level of political stability such that a return to civil war, extremism, and chaos seems unlikely.

Privately, many U.S. and UN officials in Kabul concede that the best-case scenario for Afghanistan is that in two or three decades it will arrive at the place where Tajikistan and its other Central Asian neighbors are today. Yet in spite of such realistic judgments, the international community has publicly committed itself to a much more ambitious agenda: the transformation of Afghanistan into a prosperous democratic country where rule of law prevails. The problem with this lofty vision is not only that it is unattainable but that in pursuing it, chances to achieve more practical outcomes will be squandered.

How can the Tajik playbook be adapted to Afghanistan? First, policymakers in Washington, Brussels, and Kabul should develop a coordinated backroom strategy to ensure that the opposition is included in key government decisions and positions even after incumbents such as Karzai steal elections.

Second, the International Security Assistance Force should redeploy troops away from the interior to key positions along Afghanistan's international boundaries in order to police the borders against incoming insurgents and arms smugglers.

Third, the international community should give warlords much freer rein so long as they do not take up arms against the government or international forces. However repugnant the warlords may be, the central government simply does not have the ability to displace them, and trying to do so can lead to unpleasant consequences. Until recently, for example, Ismail Khan was a powerful warlord in the Afghan west. He declined a political appointment in Kabul under President Hamid Karzai, refused to disarm his foot soldiers, and withheld millions of dollars in customs revenue from the central treasury. Yet he ran his region with an iron fist, dispersed sorely needed public services, and served as a bulwark against the Taliban and rival warlords. His forced departure in 2004, together with his replacement by inept central government officials, enabled a resurgence of Taliban activities and an expansion of the drug trade in the area.

Fourth, the United States should seriously engage on Afghanistan with Russia and Iran. Given Russia's stinging history in the country, it cannot offer to send troops. But Russian political advisers can transfer valuable insights on the conduct of border-control missions and lessons learned about the corrupting effects of trafficking on soldiers. Iran's role is perhaps even more sensitive, yet Washington and Tehran share interests in defeating the insurgency, suppressing trafficking, and fostering political stability in the Afghan west. And Iranian experience in mediating the Tajik conflict might usefully inform similar initiatives in Afghanistan.

Applying the Tajik model to Afghanistan will not give the United States and its partners the outcome that they want. But if they try it, they just might find they get what they need.

EurasiaNet - Afghanistan: Balkh Governor Trumpets Security Warning for Northern Afghanistan

Aunohita Mojumdar: 9/23/09

When Afghan President Hamid Karzai appointed General Atta Mohammad Noor as governor of the northern province of Balkh in 2004, the move seemed motivated by a presidential desire to curb the influence of Abdul Rashid Dostum, then the most powerful warlord in Northern Afghanistan.

Now, the situation in the North is reversed: Dostum, as seen during the Afghan presidential election campaign, has developed into a Karzai proxy, while Atta is generally viewed as a force to be reckoned with in the North. Atta also has emerged as an outspoken critic of the Karzai administration. Underscoring the distance between the two, the Balkh governor is an unabashed backer of Karzai's main presidential rival, Abdullah Abdullah. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Atta's political shift doesn't just reflect altered personal preferences, it is symbolic of some unsettling changes that have taken place in Northern Afghanistan of late, many of which have escaped the international community's attention.

By far the most significant development has been the deterioration of security conditions. For years Northern Afghanistan was considered to be the safest, most stable part of the country. And under Atta - who is widely viewed as an able, if autocratic administrator -- the province began enjoying some benefits of low-level economic development, becoming one of the first provinces in Afghanistan to eradicate poppy cultivation. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

In recent months, however, the tenuous gains achieved in Balkh have come under threat. While Balkh itself remains relatively peaceful, violence is on the rise in surrounding areas, especially in Kunduz Province. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

In an interview with EurasiaNet at his office in Mazar-e-Sharif, Atta asserted that the central government has been slow to respond to growing threat. "I have been warning the central government and the international community for the past three years" he said. "There is insecurity in Kunduz, especially Chahar Dara, and in Baghlan. For three years I have been telling the government about the Taliban there but they don't listen. It has spread to Bala Murghab [a district in Badghis province] and in Faryab. It is now a big problem for security. The government did not do anything."

Atta alleged that his domestic political opponents, especially supporters of the group Hizb e Islami, have been collaborating with the Taliban, making weapons available to the Islamic militants with the intention of weakening the governor's hold in Balkh. "In Chahar Bolak, Chimtal and Sholgara they have provided weapons" Atta alleged. While some independent security experts say they have not found evidence that could substantiate Atta's claim, they all agree that the security situation in the North has deteriorated due to a combination of factors. Much of the recent violence in the North, some experts contend, is linked to revenge for past grievances. Specifically, Pashtuns who suffered reprisals at the hands of Tajik, Uzbek and other ethnically oriented militias following to 2001 collapse of Taliban rule are now seeking retribution.

Insurgents with the reconstituted Taliban, which over the past year has grown increasingly bold in carrying out operations inside Afghanistan, are finding that aggrieved members of the Pashtun community in the North are receptive to the militants' message. Unlike in the South, where the anti-government insurgency is pitting Pashtun against Pashtun, the violence in the North is largely between Pashtuns and Tajiks, the predominant ethnic group in the region. Experts believe this inter-ethnic element makes the brewing violence in the North extremely destabilizing. "Local grievances [can] spiral upward indefinitely," said one analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Non-Pashtun groups in the North are now growing increasingly disenchanted with the Afghan government's and international community's tendency to devote a disproportionate share of attention and resources to southern areas. Atta bemoaned the lack of investment in his province. Other local political leaders likewise caution that continued inattention could cause serious strategic consequences.

"The government should make some arrangement for economic help for the youth to prevent them from joining the anti-government groups," said Nasruddin Mohseni, a senior leader of Hizb e Wahadat e Islami, the party of the minority Shi'a Hazara community. Mohseni's party supported Karzai in the election, mainly because party supremo, Karim Khalili, is a vice president. Even so, Mohseni described Atta as a "good governor."

The violence in the North is likely to escalate in the coming months as the region's strategic importance for US and NATO forces grows. Pentagon planners are transforming the region into a major transport artery for the delivery of military supplies, shipped to Afghanistan via Central Asia. This so-called Northern Distribution Network has already attracted the attention of the Taliban. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. It seems likely that the supply line will come under intensifying attacks in the coming months, just as the main existing re-supply route via Pakistan has been subjected to repeated ambushes. One of the major transit arteries into Northern Afghanistan passes through Balkh Province, where a narrow gorge in the Kholm District could become a Taliban target.

As he confronts uncertainty in his own region, Atta is keeping his options open with Karzai. Of late, he has softened his criticism of the president on a personal level, even as he continues to lambaste administration policies. "I respect him," Atta said, referring to Karzai. "But there are weaknesses all around him, in his team. They have been unsuccessful in preventing corruption, they could not fight opium. ?They could not get the necessary support from the international community."

Senior figures in Afghanistan's security establishment are said to be working on bringing about a rapprochement between Atta and Karzai. The ability of Northern Afghanistan to handle the upsurge in Taliban violence would be greatly enhanced if Atta and Karzai could terminate their feud. "No one burns bridges in Afghanistan" said a Western diplomat wryly. "It will depend on what is on offer."

Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 18 years.

Long-Oppressed Hazara Minority May Play Key Role in Afghan Elections

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 26, 2009

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 25 -- For generations, Afghanistan's Hazara minority has occupied the humblest niche in the country's complex ethnic mosaic. The political power structure has been dominated by the large southern Pashtun tribes, followed by the slightly less numerous northern Tajiks.

During various periods in history, the Shiite Hazaras have been forced from their lands and slaughtered in bouts of ethnic or religious "cleansing." In more recent times, they have often been relegated to lowly jobs as cart-pullers or domestic servants. The abused boy in the novel and movie "The Kite Runner," which generated much controversy here, came from a family of Hazara servants.

But the group now stands poised to play a decisive role in the Aug. 20 presidential and provincial council elections. It has produced a popular presidential candidate, independent Ramazan Bashardost, who is an extremely long shot but has been traveling the country nonstop, preaching a message of government reform and social justice.

Meanwhile, President Hamid Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun who is seeking reelection, and his major challengers are aggressively courting the Hazara vote. The group makes up as much as 20 percent of the country's electorate and had high voter-registration and turnout rates in the last presidential election, in 2004.

"We have become kingmakers," said Mohammed Mohaqeq, a leader of the main Hazara political party, Wahdat-e-Islami, who agreed to support Karzai in return for pledges that Hazaras would be given control of several ministries and possibly a newly created province. "I cannot get elected, because my Pashtun brothers might not support me, but our people can make a big difference in deciding who wins," he said.

Mohaqeq has been campaigning in various provinces for Karzai, who has remained largely invisible during the run-up to the elections. Mohaqeq's party has organized an army of campaign workers and has fielded a slate of 14 candidates for the upper house of parliament and provincial councils, including one young man whose posters depict an old Hazara cart-puller bent under a load of goods.

Karzai, whose second vice presidential pick is a Hazara, took pains to appease conservative Hazara leaders in March by approving a controversial Shiite family law, even though it outraged human rights groups because it subjected Hazara women to the absolute control of their fathers and husbands.

Yet the political emancipation of Afghanistan's Hazaras, whose children are flocking to universities and office jobs, has created a generational and political split in a community that long fell in lockstep behind ethnic militia or religious leaders such as Mohaqeq as a matter of survival.

Many older or less educated Hazaras still express strong loyalty to such leaders and say they intend to follow their political instructions on voting day. But many others, including students and former refugees who have returned after years in Iran, said they value their political independence.

"I am Hazara, but we have rights now, and no one can tell me how to vote," said Farahmuz, 33, a laborer who joins dozens of men each morning at a traffic circle, hoping to obtain a few hours of work. "I don't want ethnic issues to come up in these elections, because they can destroy the country again," he said.

Many Hazaras said their sentimental favorite for president is Bashardost, 44, a reformist legislator and former planning minister whose office is in a tent across the street from parliament. He has been campaigning in much the same style, accepting government-provided planes to reach distant provinces but then mingling with voters in parks and markets.

"I like Mr. Bashardost because he understands our problems," said Jawad, 25, a Kabul resident who grew up in exile in Iran and now supports his elderly parents as a construction worker. "He doesn't campaign in luxury vehicles like the others. He came to Shar-i-Nau Park on foot and sat there in a tent and listened to the people."

Reached on his cellphone Saturday in a noisy market in Khost province, Bashardost said he had discovered "a big distance between the ordinary people and the politicians in Kabul," adding: "I am sure we are going to see a revolution on August 20." He also said he had received a surprisingly large amount of support from Pashtuns at home and abroad. "This is something very new for Afghanistan," he said.

As a minority group that has long faced economic exploitation and social oppression, Hazaras seem to be taking particular advantage of political freedoms that have opened up since the fall of extremist Sunni Taliban rule in late 2001.

At a new private Shiite college in Kabul, teachers and students said the elections are important for their community, no matter who wins, because they represent a step toward modern, democratic practices that can help overcome Afghan traditions of ethnic and tribal competition.

"We need to develop the values and practices of democracy," said Amin Ahmadi, the college director. "Unfortunately, ethnic issues still play a large role in our country, and people don't trust leaders from other ethnic groups. But if we can have fair, transparent and peaceful elections, that will matter more than if we get a good or a bad president."

In West Kabul, the rundown but bustling heart of the capital's Hazara community, every public surface is papered with campaign posters. Yet many cart-pullers, mechanics and other workers said they are fed up with both national and ethnic politics. They said that their community suffers from widespread unemployment and poverty, but that no one in power has done anything to help.

"We are not happy with our government, and we are not happy with our own leaders," said Imam Ali Rahmat, 61, who sells firewood. "To them, we are just made of grime and dust. To us, they are just made of false promises. We need a change and we need new leaders, because we have lost our way."