The Fault Lines of Violent Conflict in Tajikistan A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University. August 2011 Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (The Middle East and Central Asia) College of Arts and Social Sciences The Australian National University Christian Mark Bleuer 2 Declaration Except where otherwise acknowledged in the text, this thesis is based upon my own original research. The work contained in this thesis has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other university or institute. _________________________ 12 August 2011 3 Acknowledgements First of all I would like to thank my dissertation committee: Professor Amin Saikal, Dr. Kirill Nourzhanov and Dr. Robert L. Canfield. I am extremely grateful to have had the benefit of this high level of expertise on Central Asia while a PhD candidate at The Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (The Middle East and Central Asia). Professor Saikal provided the firm guidance that kept me on track and reasonably on time with my work. His knowledge of Central Asian culture, history and politics was invaluable. Dr. Nourzhanov’s deep understanding of Tajikistan and Central Asia is what allowed me to produce this dissertation. He never failed to guide me towards the best sources, and the feedback he provided on my numerous drafts enabled me to vastly improve on the work that I had produced. I am also very grateful to Dr. Canfield who, despite being far away at Washington University in St. Louis, graciously agreed to be on my dissertation committee. His comments and criticism were valuable in refining my dissertation into the state that it is now in. Additionally, I would like to thank Professor Saikal and Dr. Nourzhanov for working to secure a scholarship that allowed me to come to The Australian National University for my studies. I am indebted to the government and tax-payers of Australia for funding my scholarships (the ANU PhD scholarship and the Endeavour International Research Scholarship). And for helping me through the bureaucratic and administrative processes here at the ANU I would also like to express my gratitude to Carol Laslett, Anita Mack and Leila Kouatly. Outside of university, I would like to thank my parents for supporting my education. I would also like to thank my numerous friends who encouraged me at every step of my time in university. 4 Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..8 1. Conceptual Model for Violent Conflict in Tajikistan …………………………16 2. Historical Background and Social Context……………………………………..28 1. Identity in Southern Tajikistan 2. Power and Governance in Southern Tajikistan 3. Population Dynamics in Southern Tajikistan 3. Transition from Political Competition to Violent Conflict………………………96 1. Political Competition and Regionalism 2. Political Parties and Opposition Movements 3. Street Demonstrations – February 1990 to Spring 1992 4. The Civil War of 1992…………………………………………………………….169 5. Mobilisation, Islam, Ethnicity and the Regionalisation of Forces…..…………219 1. Recruitment and Mobilisation 2. Patterns of Violent Conflict 6. Conclusion: The Outbreak, Spread and Eventual Decline of Conflict………...291 Appendix ……………………………………………………………………………..304 Bibliography…………………………………………………………...……………..306 5 Tables and Maps Tables No. 1 – Political Party Support in Tajikistan in 1991 and 1992…………………...…112 Maps No. 1 – Map of Tajikistan with Major Cities………………………………..….……….7 No. 2 – Satellite View of Tajikistan with the Vakhsh Valley Circled……..…..………10 No. 3 – Original Provinces of Tajikistan 1924-1929……………...….………………..54 No. 4 – Districts of Tajikistan………………………………………………………...304 6 Transliteration The basic purpose for choosing the transliteration system that I have is to avoid any special characters that are not on a standard keyboard (with some further simplifications). For transliterating/Romanising Tajik names, places and concepts from the Tajik Cyrillic alphabet, I will avoid all systems of transliteration that use special characters or diacritics. 1 Instead, I will use the unnamed system that has become the standard commonly used in Tajikistan. Basically, it is the BGN/PCGN system (see above footnote) with some small alterations. The alterations: ‘ и’ and ‘ ӣ’ will both be transliterated as ‘i’ (e.g., the first and second ‘i’ in Hisori are different letters in Tajik Cyrillic); ‘ ъ’ will be omitted (e.g., tarikh , not ta’rikh ) in the main text (with one exception for the La’li Badakhshon movement) but not in the bibliography and footnotes; both ‘ӯ’ and ‘у’ will be transliterated as ‘u’; while ‘ э’ and ‘ е’ will both be rendered as ‘e’. This system may be jarring for those familiar with common transliterations of Dari, Farsi, Urdu and Arabic due to name transliterations such as Abdullo and Rahmon instead of Abdullah and Rahman. To minimise confusion, the new trend of constructing names with an ezafe 2 will be avoided. Variants on place and people names from Tajikistan that have become commonly accepted in English will not be put through the same strict transliteration (e.g., Tajikistan, Uzbek and Pamir; not Tojikiston, Uzbak and Pomir). What will be completely avoided in the main text is transliterating Tajik via Russian (e.g., Kulob, Qurghonteppa, and Rahmon; not Kulyab, Kurgan-Tyube, and Rakhmon). An exception will be made when I directly quote an author. Bibliography entries and citations in Russian that include Tajik places or people will be transliterated using a Russian Romanisation system. The system of Russian transliteration for Slavic names in the main text will be the diacritics-free standard introduced in 1997 by the Russian government for use in passports, 3 with some further simplifications for commonly known names (e.g., Dmitry, not Dmitriy). The bibliography and footnote references will follow the above-cited transliteration system, with an exception for when I repeat another author’s citation in the footnotes. 1 These include transliteration standards known as ISO 9, KNAB, WWS, ALA-LC, Allworth and BGN/PCGN. See here for these systems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Tajik 2 Example: President Emomali Rahmon’s son Rustam is often referred to as Rustami Emomali (i.e., Rustam-i Emomali, or Rustam [son] of Emomali). 3 See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Russian#Passport_1997 . The only alteration I add is that I will omit any transliteration of the Russian hard sign. 7 Map No. 1 Map of Tajikistan with major cities 4 4 Map adapted from: UNEP/GRID-Arendal, ‘Tajikistan, topographic map’, accessed online (May 2011): http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/tajikistan_topographic_map 8 Introduction The focus of this dissertation is the civil war in Tajikistan, in particular the massive street demonstrations in the capital city of Dushanbe that preceded the war and the devastating fighting in the Vakhsh Valley south of the capital. Generally referred to as the ‘Tajik Civil War,’ the violent conflict in southern Tajikistan lasted from spring 1992 until its official end in June 1997 with the signing of a peace agreement and power-sharing arrangement. Narrowing the analysis further, the focus will be on the first phase of conflict that finished at the end of 1992. During this early period the vast majority of fatalities occurred. Early estimates (that went mostly unchallenged 5) for the conflict as a whole cited the number of deaths as high as 100,000. A later study put the number at 23,500, with 20,000 of these deaths occurring in 1992. 6 This should in no way lessen the emphasis on the level of suffering during the war. Aside from the deaths of combatants and numerous unarmed civilians, the conflict generated a massive number of refugees and internally displaced persons, led to large-scale destruction and looting of property, resulted in the rape and torture of many, and further harmed the already fragile economy. At the end of 1992 the armed opposition suffered a heavy defeat and fled to mountainous areas of eastern Tajikistan and, importantly, to a safe haven in Afghanistan where the ‘Islamic’ opposition attempted to regroup. The character of the war from this point was more that of a counter-insurgency with sporadic guerrilla warfare, as well as smaller operations against opposition strongholds in the mountains of the east, rather than what was seen during the first year: a complete collapse of the state and a fight that was roughly equal until October 1992. Despite the current popularity of studies on counter-insurgencies and asymmetric warfare in general, this dissertation will instead analyse the outbreak of conflict and the initial mobilisation of fighters as this process provides the clearest view of Tajikistan’s social and political cleavages. 5 This general assessment of problematic estimates for war fatalities matches Tajikistan quite well: “For many conflicts, commonly cited estimates employed in media and NGO reports are repeated so frequently as to become unquestioningly accepted as truth. […] In many cases, the origin of these estimates is unknown or one of the warring parties; even where this information is available, the methodology and definitional guidelines used in generating the estimates are rarely transparent.” See: Kristine Eck and Lisa Hultman, ‘One-Sided Violence Against Civilians in War: Insights from New Fatality Data’, Journal of Peace Research , Vol. 44, No. 2 (2007) 237. 6 Vladimir Mukomel’, ‘Demographic Consequences of Ethnic and Regional Conflicts in the CIS’, Russian Social Science Review , Vol. 42, No. 3 (2001) 23-4, table 1; Vladimir Mukomel’, ‘Demograficheskie Posledstviya etnicheskikh i religional’nykh konfliktov v SNG’, Naselenie & Obshchestvo , No. 27 (April 1997) table 1. Online: http://demoscope.ru/acrobat/ps27.pdf . In the second article, Mukomel points to his longer format study that includes full references: Vladimir Mukomel’, ‘Vooruzhennye mezhnatsional’nye i regional’nye konflikty: lyudskie poteri, ekonomicheskiy ushcherb i sotsial’nye posledstviya’, in Identichnost’ i konflikt v postsovetskikh gosudarstvakh (Moscow: Karnegi, 1997). 9 This dissertation is not intended to challenge what has become a consensus view within the scholarship in regards to how to most accurately describe the Tajik Civil War.