As of now, HIV/AIDS is virtually nonexistent in Tajikistan. The World Health Organization and UNAIDS reported under 400 cases at the end of 2003. However, given the amount of intravenous drug use in the region, the US State Department describes Tajikistan as “fertile ground” for an outbreak, and an increased number of cases are already being reported.

Tajikistan seems to be aware of the problem, and determined to stop the problem before it gets out of hand as it did in Africa. Last Wednesday President Rakhmonov requested $13 billion dollars to meet the Millennium Development Goals, one of which is to halt the spread of AIDS.

The Asian Development Bank is committing some money toward just this purpose. One of the primary disadvantages of the current regional road projects is that increased regional movement will also increase the spread of diseases and the likelihood of an AIDS outbreak. For this reason, the ADB will commit $500,000 to prevent the spread of AIDS in Tajikistan communities during and after the construction project.

Obviously this is nowhere near the requested amount, but it is a start, and a lot of that money would have gone toward the other MDGs anyway.

The Asian Development Bank is loaning $29.5 million US dollars to Tajikistan for the construction of a highway that will link Dushanbe with Kyrgyzstan. The Tajikistan government will fund the remaining $9.5 million for the road project. This construction is part of a larger plan that will ultimately link to China, Russia, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan as well.

Combined with the notional free trade zone, this project could actually do a lot to help trade and prosperity in a region where road quality is a very real impediment to trade. It should also have the added effect of linking families and clans split by national borders.

On the other hand, Tajiks and Kyrgyz don’t always play nicely together. The Kyrgyz News Agency reported today that Tajiks are illegally seizing property in the border region of Batken (although it would be interesting to hear the Tajik side of it). Too bad too, because the region was only just declared landmine-free a few weeks ago. Tajikistan had mined the border between 1999 and 2000 “to stave off incursions by Islamic militants who reportedly wanted to penetrate the country,” according to a Reuters article.

Petty border disputes notwithstanding, it appears that significant improvements are being made to facilitate free trade and movements of people in the region. Assuming progress keeps being made, this can only be beneficial for Tajikistan.

Sobaka (which I learned of from ComingAnarchy) has a very interesting article on the Hizb ut-Tahrir in Tajikistan, although it is two years old. Basically, two Russian reporters take to the streets to find out more about the shadowy Central Asian Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

In the beginning of the article, the Tajik being interviewed debunks some common notions about the origin of the Tajik civil war:

The civil war, which was fought here between 1992 and 1995, was not between Mujahedin and Communists, he told us. You cannot understand what has happened in Tajikistan without thinking of the ethnic problems. It’s true that I usually call these people “Tajiks,” but this is a generic word, more like calling all the Slav people of my country Russian.

Our friend had worked in the army before the wars. In those days, he told us, Klyabs (that is, the Tajiks who live mostly in the area where Dushanbe, the capital, is) controlled most of the army among Tajiks in the officer corps. The Khojas up north in the Ferghana Valley controlled the Party positions, and the Pamiris out in the rugged east controlled the state jobs. Except for a few cases, he said to us, the civil war was mostly between Klyabs and Khojas, with the Klyabs trying to take over the party and the Khojas defending this. So when the Union broke apart, the peoples were already divided.

The Tajik the reporters are interviewing also says about the Russian base, “The Russians would do better to leave Tajikistan and defend their own border, because they have done nothing to defend Tajikistan.”

Misha Pozhininsky, the author of this piece, also notes that many members of Hizb ut-Tahrir originate from Uzbekistan.

He has taken in many people, Hizb members or just others, who have been exiled to Tajikistan by Karimov. There are thousands of them now, who abandon Uzbekistan, which is much richer than Tajikistan. If the Hizb turns into a war party, he says, it will be the enemies of Karimov, the ones from Uzbekistan, who will be the soldiers.

“Enemies of Karimov”. So according to Pozhininsky, the enemies of Hizb ut-Tahrir are not westerners, but their own governments.

Unlike some other groups, in Palestine or in Afghanistan, Hizb ut-Tahrir does not seem to be based around hatred of outsiders, “crusaders” or invaders, but improvement of life on the village level, which they see as being possible only when the national secular leaders, corrupt and vicious all of them, are destroyed.

Al Qaeda started as a reaction to the excesses of Middle Eastern rulers as well, but the Saudi monarchs were savvy enough to direct the radicals’ energy against the Soviets in Afghanistan. This is by no means to suggest that the same will be true of Hizb ut-Tahrir, but it is an interesting parallel.

The last couple weeks have not been good for Tajik journalists. The government is cracking down on independent media, requiring increasingly stringent qualifications to register new broadcast channels and journals. Like most authoritarian governments, Tajikistan employs the favored method of control: ridiculous regulations and forms that one must fill out just right to be approved.

Seeing success in controlling the press, Rakhmonov is getting ambitious. On November 16, Rakhmonov gave a speech in which he outlined a plan to increase technology, but increase his control of the internet resources because “they can be dangerous when used by terrorists.”

Understanding that this knowledge and technologies can fall in the hands of destructive forces that can harm our collective security and basis of modern society, we find necessary to work over providing security to the internet, strengthening users’ trust and improvement of security level of data and networks themselves.

Ah, terrorism. Every Central Asian and Middle Eastern ruler’s favorite excuse to tighten their grip on civil society. Good luck doing that with the internet.

Though it hasn’t gotten much press, it appears that Tajikistan and Iran are about to ink a deal that would establish a regional free trade zone along with Turkey, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Iran sees its fellow Farsi-speaking neighbor as kindred, and the most natural inroad to Central Asia, and has been pursuing inroads to Tajikistan for some years now.

And does Russia see a problem with Iran making overtures to a country clearly in Russia’s sphere of influence? Of course not, so long as Iran’s ambitions are not problematic. Russia has long been a supporter of Iran, even if Iran’s belligerence on the nuclear reactor issue is beginning to annoy Putin. Instead, Russia and Iran are cooperating in expanding their influence to Tajikistan, and have been for years.

It is no wonder then, as Eurasianet reports, that Tajikistan’s media has avoided mentioning the US for quite some time now. After all, what could Rice offer the impoverished Central Asian country during her recent visit? Its human rights and democracy record makes it a weak contender for most forms of international aid, and its business environment is not exactly inviting.

Consequently, Tajikistan has every reason to accept the overtures of its more proximate neighbors. Iran and Russia are putting their money where their mouths are, and actually investing in the country where it matters. In January, Iran and agreed to build two hydro-electric power stations in the Sangtuda project, promising the expansion of much-needed power infrastructure in the country.

The supposed free trade zone will probably be beneficial for Tajikistan as well, allowing for cheaper imports from Turkey, though not much else; no one else in that trade deal has much of an economy (or at least one that is subject to tariffs). Tajikistan is taking the friends it can get- the ones next door.

This news is already a little bit old, but it is important, so is worth mentioning. As mentioned in the previous post, Russia sustained a military presence in Tajikistan after the fall of the Soviet Union. One might expect plans for a gradual withdrawl now that the civil war is long over, but the reality is quite the opposite. Instead, Russia just signed into law the presence of their military base.

The Kremlin website says:

The Agreement establishes the structure of the Russian military base in the Republic of Tajikistan and lays out the legal framework for the organization and establishment structures of Russian military units and divisions in this territory.

The Agreement will serve to guarantee peace and stability in Central Asia and the long-term strategic interests of the Russian Federation.

Interestingly, Russia has seen no need for a law to justify their presence in the region until now. I’m not really a fan of references to the “Great Game,” because I don’t think today’s intrigue is really all that analogous to the nineteenth century struggle, but is tempting to make such a comparison sometimes…

If one were to put all of the countries in the world in order by obscurity (at least to the West), Tajikistan would probably rank among the most obscure. As a small, land-locked nation in the middle of Central Asia, it gains far less media attention than its neighbors, who are themselves not well known. Uzbekistan has come on the radar recently because of the Andijan affair, Kazakhstan because of Rice’s and Ali G/Borat’s attention, and Kyrgyzstan because of the revolution. Turkmenistan, while arguably somewhat obscure as well, at the very least qualifies as notorious for its insane ruler who has a golden statue of himself and gives city-wide morality sermons.

But what about Tajikistan?

For this inaugural post in the Neweurasia Tajikistan Blog, I decided to list some reasons why this country does warrant closer attention.

• Tajikistan shares the largest border with Afghanistan of any of the Central Asian republics. This means that the country feels the effects of the war with the Taliban much more strongly than its neighbors.
• It is the poorest country in Central Asia, and one of the poorest in the world. It’s per capita GDP (PPP) is $1,106. Compare that to the second poorest Central Asian country, Uzbekistan ($1,744), as well as Chad ($1,210), Haiti ($1,742), Democratic Republic of the Congo ($697), and Sudan ($1,910). Incredibly, of these countries, only Congo is poorer.
• Tajikistan is not leaning west, as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan seem to be (or are at least striking a balance). Future posts and news will likely emphasize this point and look at who Tajikistan is courting instead.
• Tajikistan is the only Central Asian republic with a sustained and significant Russian military presence. These troops show no sign of leaving any time soon, and in 2004 were increased and reaffirmed.
• Tajikistan is the only Central Asian Republic to suffer a significant civil war. The war was fought between 1992 and 1997 between a broad coalition of interests called the United Tajik Opposition, and Emomali Rakhmanov’s Moscow-backed Russia-leaning old guard. Rakhmanov ultimately prevailed, and rules to the present day.
• The Soviet Union created Tajikistan later than the other Central Asian Republics. It was designated as its own constituent republic from what is now Uzbekistan in 1929. It is common for authors to write that the Soviet republics were arbitrarily divided up by Russia from what had previously been little more than a collection of tribes with no national identity. New research suggests that this is not the case at all, and the partition was a much more complex issue that involved input from developing national groups in the region itself. That being said, of all the republics, Tajikistan’s division had the least correlation with existing national identities, and therefore comes across as the most “arbitrary.” This division is a root cause of conflict to the present day.

Where will Tajikistan go from here? Stay tuned.