Author	Randa M. Slim & Faredun Hodizoda
Publication	Searching for Peace in Europe and Eurasia - 2002,Searching for Peace in Central and South Asia
Year	2002

Summary

Tajikistan, along with other former Soviet republics, declared its independence in September 1991. With a weak state structure, independence engendered a struggle for power and national identity resulting in civil war and the installation of an authoritarian regime run by former members of the Communist Party of Tajikistan. This war has resulted in thousands of deaths and thousands of refugees who have fled their country to neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Russia. In the conflict, the government and its allies were confronted by a loosely united Tajik opposition including Islamists, democrats, and nationalists. In April 1994, a United Nations mediation effort was launched for the purpose of bringing a lasting peaceful settlement to the conflict. This mediation effort lasted three years and ended on 27 June 1997 with the signing in Moscow of the General Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and National Accord in Tajikistan. Tajikistan is now in the midst of a postconflict peacebuilding phase that will determine the future sustainability of the 1997 general agreement.

The causes of the Tajik civil war are many. Some are rooted in the history of Tajikistan, some in the breakdown of the Soviet Union, some in regional politics, and some in the historical events that led to the establishment of today's Tajikistan. As Olivier Roy puts it, "Most of the difficulties of present-day Tajikistan are linked to the very definitions of what is Tajikistan and what is a Tajik."¹ Tajikistan appeared on the map in the mid-1920s, along with the other countries of Central Asia, when the Soviets territorially divided Turkestan, which they inherited from the tsars and the Emirates of Bukhara and Kokand. The present Tajik republic was first divided between the Soviet Republic of Turkestan (created in 1918) and the People's Republic of Bukhara (1920). Later, it became an autonomous region of the new Republic of Uzbekistan, then an autonomous republic in Uzbekistan (1925), and in 1929, a full Soviet Socialist Republic.

The 1920s division was not fair to Tajikistan. Only a small portion of the total Tajik population lived in the newly established state, and the Tajik's two most important intellectual and cultural centers, Bukhara and Samarkand, were placed within the borders of Uzbekistan. Instead, the small city of Dushanbe became the capital of the new republic. Stripping Tajikistan of its cultural centers undermined the formation of a Tajik intelligentsia and deprived Tajikistan of critical human resources for state building. It also hindered the development of a strong ethnic Tajik identity and strengthened the influence of local and regional affiliations on political loyalties, a phenomenon referred to by the Tajiks as mahalgerai ("localism"). Furthermore, a poorly developed transportation infrastructure reinforced the isolation of the different Tajik regions, impeding the establishment of relations among them.

Tajikistan was the center of the Basmachi resistance movement against the Bolsheviks and Soviet control of Central Asia in 1918–1928. A period of repression and collectivization followed that led to the depopulation and forced resettlement of certain groups in the republic. Stalin further insisted on staffing the Communist Party and the state apparatus with ethnic Tajiks. Thousands of Tajiks with limited Marxist education were enlisted in the party apparatus. The traditional regional networks of authority, power, and benefits soon infiltrated the Soviet power machinery in Tajikistan. The primary base of power for the new regime in the 1940s became the district of Khujand, renamed Leninabad. Though part of Tajikistan, the region had always been more closely linked by geography and trade to Uzbekistan than to the rest of Tajikistan. Throughout Soviet rule, the north was the economic powerhouse of Tajikistan, and the home of all republican Communist Party first secretaries from 1943 until independence in 1991. The Khujandis endorsed localism as the basis of their policy in Tajikistan and channeled the majority of their allocations from the central budget to industrial development in their province. During Soviet rule, northern Tajikistan prospered in comparison to the south, a tendency reinforced by a large-scale Soviet resettlement policy imposed to meet labor needs. Following World War II, many people from the Karategin Valley and Gorno-Badakhshan were moved into the southwestern province of Qurghan-Teppa, leading to tension and resentment on the part of the locals, mainly Kölabis, toward the newly settled groups. In the 1970s, the Communist Party leaders sought to broaden their political base and started involving people from the southern conservative district of Kölab, motivated, quite probably, by a desire to broaden their political base and forge an alliance with the south. Following the invasion of Afghanistan, elites from Gorno-Badakhshan were promoted by the Russian KGB in the ranks of the local KGB. Few political elites were recruited from other regions of Tajikistan.

The monopoly on political power exercised by the Khujand-Kölab alliance created much resentment among the intelligentsia of the other regions and led, with the advent of perestroika, to the formation of opposition movements. In 1991, these opposition forces included the Islamic Renaissance Party, the Democratic Party of Tajikistan, the La'li Badakhshon and Nosiri Khusraw societies, as well as forces loyal to the republic's official Islamic clergy. In 1991, they formed an opposition coalition with the aim of rooting out localism, uniting the nation, and building an independent democratic nation. With the exception of La'li Badakhshon and Nosiri Khusraw, which were regionally based nonpolitical associations, all other opposition forces operated as national parties.

Officially registered in December 1991, the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) called for the revival of the role of Islam in both political and everyday life. It declared Islam the guiding principle of the party while its immediate tasks involved establishing a legal and democratic state. Two other opposition parties were the nationalist Rastokhez Popular Movement and the Democratic Party of Tajikistan, an anti-Marxist reformist party calling for an end to totalitarianism and localism, and supporting democracy, a market economy, and a more equitable distribution of power.

In addition to these local actors, Russia and Uzbekistan played crucial roles in the developing conflict by taking sides with the governing coalition against the opposition. As Sergei Gretsky puts it, "It was outside interference that turned civic strife in Tajikistan into civil war." Russia's "Near Abroad Policy" aimed to (1) protect the interests of Russians living in those areas, (2) stop migration to Russia from those areas, and (3) maintain stability in neighboring regions, especially on Russia's southern borders. A variety of Russian interest groups, including officers in the Russian 201st Motorized Rifle Division based in Tajikistan, were able to make the argument inside the Kremlin that Russia must support the government coalition to prevent the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in Central Asia and an exodus of Russians from Tajikistan.

Two factors prompted Uzbekistan's leader, Islam Karimov, to back the Tajik government. Perestroika brought a revival of age-old rivalries between the Tajiks and Uzbeks, and with glasnost came demands in Tajikistan, Bukhara, and Samarkand for the return of these two intellectual and cultural centers to Tajikistan and for the protection of the rights of the Tajik population living in Uzbekistan. At the same time, Karimov faced domestic opposition and feared that any opposition success in Tajikistan might send the wrong message to the Uzbek opposition.

Conflict Dynamics

In February 1990, two weeks prior to Tajikistan's first parliamentary elections, violent riots erupted in Dushanbe, sparked by public anger in response to rumors that large numbers of refugees from the Armenian earthquake were to be rehoused in the capital. Blaming the Rastokhez Popular Movement for instigating the riots, the government banned opposition parties from the upcoming elections. In March 1990, those elections produced a Communist Party–dominated parliament. In December 1990, a multiparty system was adopted, and new political parties and movements were subsequently established, including the Democratic Party of Tajikistan and the IRP. In August 1991, after president Quahhar Mahkamov backed the coup attempt in Moscow, angry protesters in Dushanbe demanded his resignation. On 9 September 1991, the Tajik Supreme Soviet declared Tajikistan's independence and Mahkamov immediately resigned. He was replaced by Kadreddin Aslonov, who suspended Communist Party activities and froze its assets, but Aslonov was then ousted by parliament and replaced by former party first secretary Rahmon Nabiev.

However, after fourteen days of street protests, Nabiev stepped down and called for presidential elections. During the November 1991 elections, opposition parties including the Democratic Party and IRP, and the Rastokhez Popular Movement united and presented an opposition candidate, Davlat Khudonazarov, who was defeated in what most observers considered to be seriously flawed elections. Former communists from the Khujand and Kölab regions were overrepresented in the new regime under the leadership of Nabiev. Soon after, a series of repressive measures was implemented preventing opposition forces from assuming any role in the governing structure. In March 1992, opposition followers began a fifty-two-day rally in Shahidon Square. Pro-government forces responded with their own demonstrations and in May 1992, opposition and pro-government forces clashed violently, with the Russian military, still present in the country, supplying arms to the government. In an attempt to prevent further escalation of the conflict, President Nabiev put together a coalition government, the Government of National Reconciliation (GNR), with a third of the ministerial posts allocated to the opposition. But hard-line elements, primarily from Kölab and Khujand, opposed the move and declared the new government to be invalid because it had not been approved by parliament. In mid-May 1992, the armed conflict shifted to the south, and by June fierce fighting had broken out across the country between the supporters of the coalition government and forces loyal to the old Soviet order. In September 1992, Popular Front militiamen broke through the blockade of Kölab and killed a large number of opposition supporters in the Qurghan-Teppa region, causing hundreds of thousands to flee to neighboring countries.

There followed a period of instability, during which President Nabiev was forced to resign. A government of "national reconciliation" was formed under parliament chairman Akbarsho Iskandarov, and the government survived a coup attempt. A the end of 1992, Iskandarov resigned and a new government was formed, headed by the chairman of the parliament, the Kölabi Imomali Rahmonov. With no representation from the opposition, this government was comprised almost exclusively of Kölabis and Leninabadi Communist Party members. It soon repealed all previous GNR legislation, banned opposition parties and newspapers, and merged Qurghan-Teppa and Kölab into the newly created Khatlon Province.

The Uzbek and Russian governments decided that their national interests were being jeopardized by the chaotic situation in Tajikistan, and agreed, along with the governments of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, to intervene with peacekeeping forces from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). These forces included troops from the Russian 201st Motorized Rifle Division and additional troops from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. In early December 1992, after days of brutal fighting, the Kölabi Popular Front troops, supported by Russian and Uzbek troops, entered Dushanbe. When Rahmonov was named head of state, a Kölabi headed Tajikistan for the first time in modern history. Kölabi troops conducted a campaign of murder and terror against the pro-opposition Pamiris and Karateginis. This resulted in mass displacement of refugees into Afghanistan. Arrest warrants and death sentences were issued for the opposition leaders, who were blamed for the war. The opposition leadership fled to Moscow, Iran, and Afghanistan. During the period of March through August 1993, the government consolidated its power throughout the country. Opposition groups, now stationed in Afghanistan, launched an offensive across the Panj River from Afghanistan into southern Tajikistan, targeting both Russian and pro-government forces.

Between 1993 and the signing of the peace accords in June 1997, the opposition forces constantly skirmished with Russian border guards and pro-government forces. A number of cease-fire agreements were signed following the launch of UN-mediated negotiations in April 1994. During this period, the pro-government bloc was wracked by dissension, with a split between the Kölabi governing leadership and what came to be called the new or third force, the Khujandis, and a further split within the Kölabi camp itself. Although the Democratic Party of Tajikistan also splintered and differences emerged between the political and military wings of the opposition, overall relations within the opposition forces remained cooperative and civil.

The governing coalition was first forged in 1992 when the Khujandis, seeking military support, invited economic leaders and crime bosses from Kölab to join a coalition against the Islamic-democratic opposition. The Kölabis were rewarded when Rahmonov was named head of state in December 1992 and in the new government, the Kölabis were a majority. The Khujandis, who still maintained control over the important economic and security posts, assumed that once the opposition was taken care of, they could reinstate a Khujandi as head of state. But regional factors including a shift in Russia's policy toward Uzbekistan and its allies in the region disrupted their political calculations. Russia threw its support to Rahmonov and in 1993 Abdulmajid Dostiev, Rahmonov's first deputy, formed a pro-Kölab People's Party of Tajikistan. Rahmonov eventually forced the dismissal of his prime minister, Abdumalik Abdullajanov, a powerful Khujandi political leader. Most political and security officials in the province of Leninabad were sacked and replaced by Kölabis.

In November 1994, Rahmonov defeated his opponent, Abdumalik Abdullajanov, in a presidential election, and in February 1995 his supporters won an overwhelming victory in parliamentary elections. But because of both fraud and legislative restrictions, these elections were widely condemned by outside observers.

In May 1996, in the first significant sign of northern concern about the Kölabi-dominated government, there was serious unrest, including riots, in Khujand and Öra-Teppe, followed by the arrest and imprisonment without trial of hundreds of demonstrators. The riots were sparked by the murder of a prominent Leninabadi businessman, but soon developed into political protests over the disproportionate influence of Kölabis in Leninabad. In July 1996, Abdumalik Abdullojanov and two other prime ministers from northern Tajikistan, Abdujalil Samadov and Jamshed Karimov, formed the National Revival Movement, which constituted a "third force" in Tajik politics. In mid-April 1997, a protest in the Khujand prison involving the jailed leaders of the May 1996 riots was violently suppressed and it is estimated that more than 150 inmates died. These events culminated on 30 April 1997 in an assassination attempt on Rahmonov. Two people died in a grenade attack and seventy-three were injured, including the president. Using the attack as an excuse, the Tajik government immediately initiated a widespread crackdown on the "new" opposition in the Leninabad region, including arrests, beatings, and disappearances.

A similar split occurred within the Kölabi camp. The Kölabi militia, the Popular Front of Tajikistan, consisted of two major factions: Kölabi and Hisari. The Hisari group included units from districts with a substantial ethnic Uzbek population, where the communists had always enjoyed support. In 1993, the relations between the two factions turned sour when the government of Tajikistan declared its intention to form the armed forces of Tajikistan out of Kölabi units only. In May 1994, Kölabis and Hisaris battled each other just outside Dushanbe—an indication that localism prevailed not only at the regional level, but had also permeated the lower administrative echelons of the society to the district level.

The exiled opposition forces concentrated themselves in Afghanistan, Moscow, and Gorno-Badakhshan, with some troops operating in the Karategin Valley. The Islamic military forces, headed by Said Abdullah Nurwere, were located in Afghanistan, and consisted of forces loyal to the Muslim cleric Qazi Kalan A. Turajonzoda and IRP supporters. The political/secular opposition was based in Moscow. Now called the Coordinating Center of Tajik Democratic forces in the CIS, it united members of the Democratic Party, Rastokhez, different Pamiri groups, and other activists and intellectuals. Otakhon Latifi, former deputy prime minister of Tajikistan, headed the center. In July 1995, the various groups forming the opposition created the United Tajik Opposition, headed by Said Abdullah Nuri. The United Tajik Opposition (UTO) then became the main interlocutor for the opposition during negotiations.

Official Conflict Management

UN involvement in the Tajikistan war was initiated in September 1992 by the address of Uzbek president Islam Karimov to the UN Secretary-General, supported by Finnish president Mauno Koivisto. A mission visited Tajikistan in October, and then in January 1993 a small United Nations unit of political, military, and humanitarian officers was dispatched to monitor the situation on the ground. Ismat Kittani was appointed special envoy to Tajikistan in April 1993, followed in January 1994 by Ramiro Pirez-Ballon. Their efforts at promoting peacemaking bore fruit when both sides to the conflict agreed to come to negotiations in Moscow in April 1994. The special envoy chaired three rounds of talks, leading to a temporary cease-fire and the establishment of a joint commission to oversee its implementation. In December, the Security Council established the United Nations Mission of Observers to Tajikistan to monitor the implementation of cease-fire, maintain contact with the conflicting parties, and support the efforts of the UN Secretary-General's special envoy.

In February 1994, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe also opened a permanent office in Tajikistan with a mandate to promote institution building, assist in establishing a constitution, organize democratic elections, and survey human-rights conditions. The mission was given the status of observer at ongoing UN-mediated talks.

The Inter-Tajik Dialogue on national reconciliation lasted until June 1997. From the beginning, they were held under the auspices of the United Nations. Representatives of Russia, Uzbekistan, Iran, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan, with the OSCE and the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) participating as observers. The venue of the talks shifted among the capitals of the observer countries. Having these countries as observers helped mitigate the potential negative influence of some of the neighboring countries' policies on the domestic actors. Both Russia and Iran played important roles at critical junctures by persuading their allies to make necessary compromises.

The General Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and National Accord in Tajikistan (hereafter, General Agreement) is the name given to a package of nine documents that were signed in the course of eight rounds of negotiations between the delegations of the government of Tajikistan and the UTO, and numerous other meetings. The General Agreement stipulated a transition period of twelve to eighteen months during which all the protocols of the agreement were to be implemented. During the transitional period, the following provisions would be implemented:

• 30 percent UTO representation in government executive structures
• Voluntary and safe return of all refugees and internally displaced people
• Disbanding, disarmament, and reintegration of opposition forces into government power structures
• Reform of government structures
• Constitutional amendments
• Amendments to the law on elections, the law on political parties legalizing banned opposition and other political parties and movements, and the law on mass media allowing the functioning of free and objective mass media
• Full exchange of prisoners of war and other forcibly detained people
• Adoption of an Amnesty Law and an Act on Mutual Forgiveness
• Establishment of a Central Electoral Commission for conducting elections and referenda, with 25 percent UTO representation in its composition
• Setting the date for new parliamentary elections

The principal mechanism for the implementation of the General Agreement was the Commission on National Reconciliation (CNR). The CNR was established with equal representation from both sides (thirteen members each). The CNR chairman was the UTO leader, Said Abdullah Nuri, with the first deputy speaker of parliament, Abdulmajid Dostiev, as deputy chairman. Following the first plenary meeting in Moscow in July 1997, the CNR's mandate went into full effect on 15 September 1997, with a working plan prepared by its four subcommissions to complete the schedule of implementation within twelve to eighteen months. The four subcommissions respectively dealt with the protocols concerning political, legal, military, and refugee issues. Two subcommissions were headed by government representatives and two by UTO representatives. An expert group was also established in September 1997 to administer the Amnesty Law. Each subcommission and the expert group consisted of six members, based on equal representation of the government and UTO.

The main monitoring entity of the implementation of the General Agreement was the Contact Group (CG), consisting of eight states (Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) and three international organizations (OIC, OSCE, and the UN) with the special representative of the UN Secretary-General serving as coordinator. In addition to its monitoring functions, CG provided expertise, advice, good offices, and recommendations on ways to ensure the parties' compliance with the General Agreement.

Multi Track Diplomacy

The Inter-Tajik Dialogue
The Inter-Tajik Dialogue, which first met in Moscow in March 1993, was established to provide a forum for pro-government and pro-opposition Tajikistani citizens to come together and discuss the root causes of the Tajik conflict. The objective then was to see whether a group could be formed from within the civil conflict to design a peace process for their own country. The dialogue was conducted under the auspices of the Dartmouth Conference Regional Conflicts Task Force² by a subgroup organized by the U.S.-based Kettering Foundation and the Russian Center for Strategic Research and International Studies of the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow. A third-party team that included three Americans and three Russians facilitated the Inter-Tajik Dialogue. The meetings were alternately chaired by the Russian and American cochairs. The dialogue involved a core of eight to ten citizens of Tajikistan divided between the pro-government and pro-opposition camps. When the dialogue began, the majority of the pro-opposition members were in exile in Moscow. Two members of the dialogue group eventually became formal delegates to the UN-mediated negotiations.

The cochairs and the rest of the team members facilitated the discussions by setting the agenda at the beginning of every meeting, raising questions at critical times during the discussions, asking for clarifications about certain ideas and proposals when needed, helping to put down on paper the ideas articulated during the meeting, and (when emotions flared up) trying to help the participants deal constructively with their anger. At the end of every meeting, the U.S. team drafted a report and shared it with UN agencies and other interested official bodies in the United States and Russia.

During meetings between March and August 1993, participants discussed the origins and conduct of the civil war. They concluded in August 1993 by agreeing on the need to start a negotiation between the government and the opposition about creating conditions for the safe return of refugees. In January 1994, opposition participants came to the dialogue with the new platform for a United Tajik Opposition. Pro-government participants grilled them for over two days. The pro-government participants left the meeting feeling that the basis for negotiations now existed and promised to report the meeting discussions to the government. One month later, the government of Tajikistan accepted the special envoy's invitation to join UN-mediated peace talks. A high-level Tajikistani official later said, "After six meetings of the Dialogue, it was no longer possible to argue credibly that negotiations between the government and the opposition were impossible."

During meetings in March 1994, the dialogue participants produced their first joint memorandum, which recommended the creation of four working groups to focus on refugee, political, military, and economic issues—an idea that became part of the General Agreement. When official negotiations started in April 1994, the dialogue redefined its objectives as "designing a political process of national reconciliation for the country." They also addressed issues that caused stalemate in the official negotiations. In March 1995, the dialogue began using the idea of "a transitional period." The General Agreement adopted that concept to describe the twelve-to-eighteen-month post-accord phase during which the CNR would try to implement the provisions of the General Agreement. In May 1996, the Inter-Tajik Dialogue stated in a joint memorandum: "Participants believe that the primary obstacle to peace in Tajikistan is the absence of an adequate understanding on sharing power among the regions, political parties and movements, and nationalities in Tajikistan." Beginning in the summer of 1995, the dialogue repeatedly recommended the creation of a Consultative Forum for the Peoples of Tajikistan as a mechanism for bringing together different regions and political forces for deliberations on the kind of country they envisioned. Although the forum has never come into being, it was agreed in 1996 in a memorandum signed by President Rahmonov and UTO leader Nuri that such a forum should be created.

When the CNR was formed, four participants in the dialogue were members. In March 1993, the dialogue provided the only channel of communication across factional lines and relations were acrimonious. At the end of 2000, after twenty-nine meetings, the Inter-Tajik Dialogue was still meeting and had become what we call "a mind at work in the midst of a country making itself." Through these eight years, dialogue participants have played significant roles at all levels in a multilevel peace process that includes government negotiators, highly informed citizens outside government, and grassroots organizations.

There can be no doubt that the Inter-Tajik Dialogue played a role in the peace process in Tajikistan, but determining exactly what that role was illustrates one of the continuing problems in assessing the impact of unofficial dialogues. One of the lessons learned from the Tajikistan peace process, observes Gerd Merrem, former special envoy to Tajikistan and the official mediator at the UN-mediated Inter-Tajik Dialogue, is that "in a two-track approach, an NGO-facilitated dialogue between Tajiks on existing political and socio-economic antagonisms enabled these personalities within the polarized conflict to look beyond what separates them. This exercise, facilitated by a former U.S. official with skill and perseverance, has clearly facilitated compromise at the negotiation table."³

International Nongovernmental Organizations
International nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) played an important role in the promotion and then implementation of the peace agreement. The main ones are as follows.

The Aga Khan Foundation. The Aga Khan Foundation has focused its efforts in the early stages of the war on providing humanitarian assistance to the Ismaili population in the Gorno-Badakhshan province. Throughout the official negotiations, UN special envoys consulted frequently with His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan on issues related to the peace process. The prince's visits to Tajikistan (in particular in May 1995) had a moderating influence on some of the negotiating parties. Since the signing of the peace accords, the foundation has launched an impressive array of long-term programs focusing on community-based economic development, a new humanities curriculum at Tajikistani universities, and support for civil society. They are also launching a Western-style Central Asian university with a main campus in Kharugh (Tajikistan) and satellite campuses in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

United States Institute of Peace. The United States Institute of Peace organized a number of forums and study groups on the prospects for negotiations to end the Tajikistan conflict. It also published a report on the prospects for conflict and opportunities for peacemaking in the southern tier of former Soviet republics. In June 1995 it organized a forum on the conflict with U.S. ambassador to Tajikistan Stanley T. Escudero and former OSCE head of mission in Tajikistan Olivier Roy, later publishing its findings, and in June 1996, it hosted a discussion involving the Inter-Tajik Dialogue participants. Its contribution to the peace process has been in providing analysis and a forum for ideas.

International Committee of the Red Cross. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) played a significant role in implementing the agreement on prisoner exchange, which served an important confidence-building function. These agreements were reached during the third and fourth rounds of the official negotiations in late 1994 and 1995. The ICRC could assume this task because of its vast experience with such exchanges, and the respect it enjoyed among all parties to the negotiations. Beyond this role, it was also involved informally throughout the negotiation process in discussions on humanitarian issues.

Local Nongovernmental Organizations
NGOs are a relatively new phenomenon in Tajikistan. Since 1994, there has been a rapid increase in their activity and 415 NGOs representing a wide variety of interests (e.g., youth, civil society, education, women, health, social protection and poverty elimination, environment, culture, business training, mass media, science) have been established in the past five years.

Historically, civil society in Tajikistan is rooted in local institutions. Each Tajik rural community or village has a council called mahalla council where all local problems were discussed and wherever possible, solved by the people themselves.⁴ The mahalla council is supplemented by informal meetings, forums, and small group conversations around common dinners held in a mosque where adult males gather, each bringing food.

Though useful in providing venues for people to get together and solve local problems, the mahallas could do little to bind the different regions of Tajikistan together. This local civic infrastructure reinforces the problem of localism by failing to provide sufficient incentives for common national or interregional collaboration and by shaping the average Tajikistani citizen's mind-set where the terms of reference are a narrow circle of relatives, neighbors and community members.

Many of Tajikistan's NGOs were established in 1997 following the signing of the General Agreement. Some of them, like the Oli Somon Cultural and Intellectual Foundation, were established during the war, but their effect on the course of events during the civil war was, in our opinion, minimal. They were hampered by fear of retaliation from the militia structures, lack of human and financial resources, lack of professional knowledge about the third sector and its role in a democratic society, and a weak legal framework to protect the integrity of their activities.

During the transition period (June 1997–February 2000), the local NGOs played a major role in the preelection process. In collaboration with the OSCE mission in Dushanbe, local NGOs trained by OSCE experts and staff organized hundreds of training seminars focusing on civic, gender, and human-rights topics. A network of thirteen local NGOs trained in the field of conflict resolution was organized by Counterpart Consortium, with financial assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development. In our opinion, these two programs, targeting the entire country and focused on promoting skills and knowledge critical to the establishment of a nonviolent civic culture, have played a supporting role in the grassroots consolidation of the official agreements.
But Tajikistan's NGOs still suffer from a number of weaknesses:

1. The majority of NGOs (at least the more professional ones) are still concentrated in the two largest cities in the country, Dushanbe and Khujand. Few are established in small towns and in rural areas. The weak transportation and communication infrastructure as well as lack of local funding sources present the major obstacles to the emergence and sustainability of NGOs in rural areas.
   
2. All local NGOs in Tajikistan are far from being self-sustaining. They are still dependent on outside funding and the funders' priority areas mostly drive their programs. As funders change their funding priorities (from gender issues, to drug prevention, to HIV/AIDS prevention), local NGOs follow suit. How to achieve local NGOs' long-term sustainability is one of the most challenging issues facing the donor community today.
   
3. Members of the intellectual and academic intelligentsia founded many of these organizations. The majority of their leaders are Russian-educated and lack real connections to the local strata of the society, especially to people living in rural areas. They have no close or ongoing relationship with the traditional civic networks and local mahalla councils. It is our opinion that the basis of civil society in Tajikistan are these mahalla councils, and unless NGOs shift their area of operation to these local units, their efforts at strengthening and building civil society will not be sustainable.

Prospects

The main task facing Tajikistan today is that of building a democratic civil society. The obstacles to this task lie in an unaccountable and centralized governing structure, unemployed ex-combatants, and the illegal drug trade.
According to the government of Tajikistan, the stipulations of the General Agreement have been implemented. In August 1999, the UTO announced that no further opposition military units existed—all had been disarmed and integrated into existing government units. That announcement led the government to lift the ban on opposition parties. On 26 September 1999, a referendum was held on constitutional amendments with about 73 percent supporting the proposed amendments. The constitutional amendments created a new two-chamber parliament where the parliamentarians would be no match for the executive branch since the presidential appointees in the upper chamber (eight members) and the members of the president's party in the lower chamber could effectively uphold any veto.

The presidential election was held on 6 November 1999. Though there was one other candidate on the ballot, President Rahmonov ran, in effect, unopposed, receiving close to 97 percent of the vote. Parliamentary elections followed in February 2000. Of the sixty-three seats in the lower chamber, the pro-presidential People's Democratic Party garnered thirty seats, the Communist Party thirteen, the Islamic Renaissance Party two, and a group of nonpartisan candidates believed to be pro-presidential garnered fifteen seats. Although the election process was not considered fair, it was the first multiparty election ever held in Tajikistan, with the Islamic Renaissance Party participating for the first time in the post-Soviet era. More importantly, the new parliament now includes some experts with strong intellectual and experiential credentials.

The CNR ended its work when the new parliament took office. However, international observers in Tajikistan judge that implementation of the General Agreement of 1997 has not really been completed despite a proclamation by the government to that effect. Most political observers do consider that the protocol on refugee issues has been successfully implemented. Both government and the UTO shared an interest, though for different reasons, in having the refugees return home.

Implementation of the military and political protocols has been less successful. The military protocol aimed both to integrate Tajikistan's many armed forces into a unified military and to promote decommissioning and demobilization. One could argue that the defeat of a November 1998 uprising in the Leninabad region was a test for the newly integrated armed forces. Nonetheless, former UTO commanders, though supportive of the peace process, are not satisfied with the current situation. Many of the integrated UTO units are poorly housed, clothed, and fed. An esprit de corps has failed to develop among the armed forces. Rank and file are still loyal to their former military commanders and many rank and file in the Tajik army did not even know the names of their formal commanding officers. A hostage-taking incident in June 2001, engineered by former Tajik opposition fighters, provides further support to this argument. Despite the progress made by the United Nations Mission of Observers to Tajikistan and United Nations Organization for Project Services in reintegrating ex-combatants, the government is now challenged to find salaried jobs for all ex-combatants.

The main task now facing Tajikistan is to build a democratic civil society. It must begin by building democratic institutions and democratizing the structures of power. Tajik political institutions are now more centralized than they were before. The president and his administration control the decisionmaking process with minimal influence from the legislative and judicial bodies. The decisionmaking process is far from transparent and is perceived to be corrupt. The president's party, People's Democratic Party (PDP), enjoys privileged access to government resources. In three recent by-elections, only PDP candidates were allowed to run, with opposition candidates barred on technicalities. The IRP is now suffering from a lack of resources. As one IRP senior official stated privately, "It is easier to fund the kalashnikov than to support political and social platforms." There is an ongoing internal debate between the hawks, who are still motivated by the jihad mentality, and the young Turks, who are calling for professionalization of IRP political activities. Today, three political parties dominate Tajikistan's political scene, though they do not enjoy equal stature and access to resources. The most prominent is the PDP. The two other parties with some support base are the Communist Party and the IRP. The Democratic Party is split into many factions, and many of its leading figures are now in government.

According to official statistics, the economy is on the road to recovery. According to the United Nations Development Program 2000 Human Development Report, "Since 1997, the government has managed to achieve positive economic growth and an improvement in the well-being of the population." Yet Tajikistan still remains the poorest country in the CIS, with the lowest income per capita and more than 80 percent of the population living in poverty.

The illegal drug trade is undermining Tajikistan's moral fabric, pushing its youth into criminal activities, and infiltrating its governing and judicial bodies. Tajikistan is a major conduit for narcotics produced in Afghanistan. According to UN estimates, Afghanistan's poppy harvest in 2000 was about 3,000 metric tons, making the country the largest producer of heroin in the world. Despite official efforts to stop the flow of narcotics into Tajikistan, drug trafficking has been increasing, and Russian Federal Border Service guards patrolling part of the Tajik-Afghan border confiscated more than 1,300 kilograms of drugs, including 970 kilograms of heroin, in the first half of 2001. This amount exceeds the amount seized during all of 2000. A similar trend is seen in drug-related criminal activities, with major increases in the cultivation, use, and sale of narcotics. According to official statistics, 135,000 people are estimated to be drug addicts, representing about 2.3 percent of Tajikistan's population.

The process of nation building is just now beginning again after an abortive start in the nineteenth century. This process will be affected by regional events including military and political developments in Afghanistan and the ongoing power struggle in Uzbekistan. Following the 11 September 2001 events, and with the launching of the antiterrorism war in Afghanistan, the future of Tajikistan is likely to be affected by the new realities in the region. Following the assassination of the Northern Alliance's commander Ahmad Shah Masoud and the launching of the U.S.-led antiterrorism war, there were widespread fears in Tajikistan of a potential massive influx of refugees into the country. Such fears have so far proven to be unfounded. However, such fears are not completely eliminated. If, in the future, UN efforts to promote a multiethnic governing process in Afghanistan fail and the country once again plunges into interethnic and interfactional fighting, Afghan refugees might again head toward the Afghan-Tajik border. Any influx of refugees in Tajikistan in the short- to long-term future will threaten the fragile economic and political infrastructure of the country.

In October 2001, during a visit to the region by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Tajikistan agreed to grant basing rights to the U.S. military and to provide assistance to the U.S.-led coalition in intelligence gathering and various types of military-to-military cooperation. In return, Tajikistan's leadership was promised increased U.S. economic assistance, and now expects Washington's help in using its influence to help them to gain access to development aid offered by international financial institutions. However, unless the United States and other donor agencies tie future economic assistance to improved social and economic conditions, additional development funds might instead end up exacerbating popular frustrations. On the security front, destruction of the Al-Qaida network by the U.S.-led coalition eliminated a major source of logistic and economic assistance for Central Asia's Islamic militants, including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Hizb ut-Tahrir; both movements have been active in Tajikistan. Without such support, it is still too early to say how these movements will react in the long term. In the short term, it is fair to say that they will cease their military and recruiting activities and wait to see how these events in Afghanistan shape up.

It is certain that the United States will expect from any future Afghan government, in exchange for its military support, an elimination of Afghanistan's drug industry. Ending Afghanistan's drug industry will have a dual impact on Tajikistan. On the one hand, Tajikistani youths who have in the past engaged in drug trafficking will now find themselves unemployed. Many of these young people are also drug addicts. Unless these young people are provided jobs and drug rehabilitation facilities, they can be a source of major trouble, including being recruits for Islamic militant groups in the future. On the other hand, this will assist ongoing efforts to put an end to the corruption and criminal activities that have infiltrated Tajikistan's society and leadership structures as a result of drug money. Well before 11 September, Russia has been reasserting its power in Central Asia. A Russian threat assessment in 1999 identified Central Asia as of vital importance for its security and economic well-being, and it is now seizing the initiative. Most importantly, until recently Moscow has seen the region as a bulwark against radical Islamic movements emanating from Afghanistan and Pakistan, and is, therefore, willing to commit considerable resources to securing the southern border. The Central Asian leaders agree with Russian president Putin on the need to stop the rise of militant Islam in the region. At a meeting of the Shanghai Five (Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan) in June 2001, all leaders, plus the Uzbek president, adopted a framework for cooperation in battling Islamic insurgency. The organization was then transformed into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with the addition of Uzbekistan. One of the major aims of the SCO is to improve the regional response to different problems connected with radical Islam. Such concerns have been heightened in the wake of 11 September. However, anti-insurgency efforts in the region have so far been hampered by a lack of coordination among the countries' security forces and by disputes among the members over borders and resources. It is safe to say that the course of future events in Tajikistan will be significantly influenced by the actions of these regional players. It is hoped that with increased attention focused on the region, more aid will flow into drug prevention programs and projects to create alternative sources of employment for the Ferghana Valley's unemployed youth.

Recommendations

The period between now and the next round of elections in 2004–2005 can be viewed as a new transition period for Tajikistan. As Tajikistan moves into this new transition phase, the following are priority tasks.

• Strengthening the continuing peace process and the public involvement in it. In particular, attention must now be paid to broaden the political base of the government both in terms of regional representation and opposition forces. The recent forays made by Hizb ut-Tahrir in Khujand attest to the feelings of marginalization that this region still feels. The regime has strengthened its position in the north and the secession scenario is less applicable today than it was in 1997. Any negative developments in north Tajikistan will in the future have an immediate and severe impact on border countries. The international community must convince the Tajik government, through the use of carrots and sticks, to truly implement a policy of inclusion embracing all political forces and movements in the decisionmaking processes. Laws on elections and political parties must be revised in order to enable wider participation.
• Strengthening the capacities of the parliament to perform its legislative duties well by establishing a training academy for the parliamentarians and their staff.
• Widening and deepening the process of democratization in the society by promoting democratic self-governing institutions via legislation to protect the role and function of entities such as mahallas.
• Facilitating development of a free and independent press by continuing to expand access to alternative sources of information through the granting of licenses for private radio and TV broadcasting stations.
• Encouraging professionalization of political parties. Parties also need to extend their reach beyond Dushanbe. Only the People's Democratic Party and the Islamic Renaissance Party have branches outside Dushanbe. Other parties must be encouraged to do so through adequate training and availability of resources, both of which could be provided by the international community.
• Advancing economic reform by broadening involvement of citizens in the economic life of the country.
• Military reform and preservation of the security of citizens with particular attention to integrating former soldiers into the economy. Close to 1,500 former UTO armed fighters are still in the Karategin Valley, unemployed and marginalized.
• Professionalization, with encouragement of the donor community, of the NGO sector. We estimate that less than 10 percent of the NGOs currently registered in Tajikistan have the necessary skills to engage in strategic planning and project design, and few of them are sustainable financially in the long term. It is time for the donors to recognize that quality and not quantity should be the rule of thumb in the development of a healthy civil-society sector. NGOs are not necessarily the best elements of a strong civil society. Community-based organizations, especially the ones developed and promoted by local mahallas, might be a more sustainable element in Tajikistan's civil society.
• The establishment of closer connections between citizens and government, that is, the building of "some sort of bridge" that government must not fear as a rival. Both government and NGOs must be involved in the building of a new national identity. Localism and regionalism are still prevalent in Tajikistani political life. Now might be the time to reintroduce the idea of a Consultative Forum of the Peoples of Tajikistan as a parallel power structure to involve representatives from all regions of Tajikistan, all ethnic groups, and representatives of civil society and of government.
• A whole array of activities must be promoted to deal with the growing drug problem and HIV/AIDS crisis.
• Lastly, the international community must send a strong message about its low tolerance for the criminalization of Tajikistani society through drug money. Different layers of Tajikistan's political, security, and economic structures are now involved in the narco-trafficking business. The international community could link future loans and economic assistance to the willingness of the government to rid its structures of elements that are known to be involved in the drug business.

Miscellaneous

1. Olivier Roy, The Civil War in Tajikistan: Causes and Implications. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1993, p. 13.
   
2. The Dartmouth Conference, which began in 1960, is the longest continuous bilateral dialogue between Soviet (now Russian) and U.S. citizens. The regional conflicts task force was formed in 1981 to probe the dynamics of Soviet-U.S. interactions in such regional conflicts as those in southern Africa, the Middle East, and Afghanistan. It was cochaired until 1988 by Yevgeny Primakov and Harold Saunders. Gennady Chufrin succeeded Primakov in 1989. The task force has met every six months since August 1982. In 1992, the task force decided to conceptualize the process of dialogue that it learned through more than twenty meetings and to apply that process to one of the conflicts that had broken out on the territory of the former Soviet Union.
   
3. Gerd Merrem, "The Tajikistan Peace Process: UN Achievements to Date and Challenges Ahead," unpublished document, March 1999, p. 14.
   
4. Parviz Mullojanov, "Civil Society and Peacebuilding," in Conciliation Resources: The Tajikistan Peace Process, Accord, issue 10, 2001, pp. 60–63.

Service Information

NEWSLETTERS AND PERIODICALS:	Central Asia and the Caucasus, Journal of Social and Political Studies, Information and Analytical Center, Sweden. Central Asia--Caucasus Analyst, the Central Asia–Caucasus Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Central Asia Monitor. Current History, some of its issues focused on Central Asia. Turkistan Newsletter, Research Center for Turkistan, Azerbaijan, Crimea, Caucasus and Siberia, the Netherlands.
REPORTS:	Conciliation Resources, The Tajikistan Peace Process, Accord, issue 10, 2001. Human Rights Watch, Conflict in the Soviet Union: Tadzhikistan, July 1991. International Crisis Group: Incubators of Conflict: Central Asia's Localised Poverty and Social Unrest," in Central Asia: Fault Lines in the New Security Map, July 2001. Tajikistan: An Uncertain Peace. Asia Report no. 30, 24 December 2001. The Civil War in Tajikistan: Causes and Implications, by Olivier Roy, December 1993. The War in Tajikistan Three Years On, Special Report, November 1995. United Nations Development Program, Tajikistan Human Development Reports, 1998, 1999, 2000. United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan, General Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and National Accord in Tajikistan—What Does It Say? September 1997.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS:	A Public Peace Process, by Harold H. Saunders. New York, St. Martin's Press, 1999. Central Asia and the Transcaucasia: Ethnicity and Conflict, edited by Vitaly V. Naumkin. Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, May 1994. Central Asia: Conflict, Resolution, and Change, edited by Roald Sagdeev and Susan Eisenhower. Chevy Chase, MD, Center for Post-Soviet Studies, January 1995. Central Asia's New States: Independence, Foreign Policy, and Regional Security, by Martha Brill Olcott. Washington, DC, United States Institute for Peace, October 1997. Civil Society in Central Asia, edited by M. Holt Ruffin and Daniel Waugh. Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1999. Islam and Central Asia, edited by Susan Eisenhower and Roald Sagdeev. Washington, DC, Center for Political and Strategic Studies, June 2000. "Managing Conflict in Divided Societies: Lessons from Tajikistan," by Randa M. Slim and Harold H. Saunders. Negotiation Journal 12, no. 1, January 1996. Tajikistan: Disintegration or Reconciliation? by Shirin Akiner, London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2001. The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations, by Olivier Roy. New York: New York University Press, May 2000. The Resurgence of Central Asia: Islam or Nationalism? by Ahmad Rashid. Karachi, Oxford University Press, May 1999. The Subtlest Battle: Islam in Soviet Tajikistan, by Muriel Atkin. Philadelphia, Foreign Policy Research Institute, 1989. The Tajik War: A Challenge to Russian Policy, by Lena Jonson. London, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1998.
SELECTED INTERNET SITES:	www.angelfire.com/sd/tajikistanupdate (The Tajikistan update includes sections on news, culture, discussion, analytical articles, and a message board) www.crisisweb.org (International Crisis Group with reports on Central Asia online) www.eurasianet.org/ (An Open Society Institute site that provides an independent source of news and analysis about Tajikistan) www.fas.harvard.edu/~centasia (Perhaps the richest and most concentrated source of information on Central Asian studies worldwide) www.friends-partners.org/~ccsi/nisorgs/tajik/taj (List of organizations in Tajikistan) www.icarp.com/tajik.html/ (An online resource for original reference and curricular materials, analytical materials, and annotated links to Tajikistan and Central Asia) www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/cds/countries/tajik.html (INCORE guide to internet sources on conflict and ethnicity in Tajikistan) www.internews.ru/ASIA-PLUS (An independent news service in Tajikistan) www.iwpr.net (Institute for War and Peace Reporting) www.reliefweb.int/ (Reports from WHO, OCHA, IFRC, and other agencies on humanitarian disasters in Tajikistan from 1997 to the present) www.rferl.org/bd/ta/index.html (Daily news, analysis and real audio broadcasts covering the developments in Tajikistan) www.times.kg (Online version of the weekly English-language newspaper covering Central Asia) www.un.org/dept/dpko/missions/unmot.html (Information on the United Mission of Observers in Tajikistan)
RESOURCE CONTACTS:	Abdelaziz Abdelaziz, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Dusti field office, e-mail: azizaziz@mail.com Zuhra Halimova, Tajik Branch of Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation, e-mail: zhalimov@osi.tajik.net Mirza Jahani, Agha Khan Foundation, e-mail: mirzajahani@atge.automail.com Ibodullo Kalonov, Khujand Madreseh, tel: 3422 65236, 3422 64457 Shamsiddin Karimov, Global Training for Development Project, e-mail: shams@tajnet.com Christine Kiernan, Internews, e-mail: kiernan@internews.ru Abdugani Mamadazimov, National Association of Political Scientists of Tajikistan, e-mail: abdu@napst.td.silk.org Parviz Mullajanov, Public Committee for the Promotion of Democratic Processes, e-mail: okpdv@tajik.net Stephane Nicolas, ACTED, e-mail: stephane.nicolas@acted.org Muzaffar Olimov, Sharq Center, e-mail: olimov@tajik.net Randall Olson, Counterpart Consortium, e-mail: rolson@counterpart-tj.org John Schoeberlein, Forum for Central Asian Studies, Harvard University, e-mail: schoeber@fas.harvard.edu Akbar Usmani, United Nations Development Program, e-mail: akbar.usmani@undp.org Daniel Zust, Swiss Coordination Office, Dushanbe, e-mail: zud@sdc.tojikiston.com
ORGANIZATIONS:	DATA ON THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS CAN BE FOUND IN THE DIRECTORY SECTION: Asia Plus; Centre for Conflict Studies and Regional Research; Centre for Social Technologies ; Fidokor; Foundation to Support Civil Initiatives; Manizha Information and Education Centre; National Association of Political Scientists of Tajikistan; Public Committee for the Promotion of Democratic Processes; Sharq Reserach and Analysis Center; Silk Road—Road of Consolidation; Sudmand; Tajikistan Center for Citizenship Education; Traditions and Modernity;

About the author

Randa M. Slim (of Dayton, Ohio, USA) focuses on consulting and training in the fields of conflict management and public participation. Since 1993, Slim has been a member of the Inter-Tajik Dialogue, an unofficial dialogue focusing on the conflict in Tajikistan. She is currently the principal consultant for the Inter-Tajik Dialogue civic initiative, a three-year project funded by a consortium of U.S. foundations. She is also a consultant for the Peace Promotion Project in the Ferghana Valley, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Faredun Hodizoda is currently the national coordinator of the Goodwill Ambassadors project, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. He holds a doctorate from the Rudaki Institute of Language and Literature of the Tajikistan Academy of Sciences. Randa Slim can be reached at