Tajikistani Civil War

The Tajikistani Civil War, also known as the Tajik Civil War, began in May 1992 and ended in June 1997. Regional groups from the Garm and Gorno-Badakhshan regions of Tajikistan rose up against the newly formed government of President Rahmon Nabiyev, which was dominated by people from the Khujand and Kulob regions. The rebel groups were led by a combination of liberal democratic reformers and Islamists, who would later organize under the banner of the United Tajik Opposition. The government was supported by Russian military and border guards.

Tajikistani Civil War
Part of the post-Soviet conflicts and spillover of the Afghan Civil War (1992–1996)
Spetsnaz soldiers of the 15th Independent Special Forces Brigade during the Civil War
Date 5 May 1992 – 27 June 1997 (5 years, 1 month, 3 weeks and 1 day) Location Tajikistan Result Ceasefire
Belligerents
Tajikistan Popular Front of Tajikistan Communist Party of Tajikistan Socialist Party of Tajikistan Russia Uzbekistan Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Supported by: Belarus (weapons supplies) UNMOT Austria Bangladesh Bulgaria Czech Republic Denmark Ghana Hungary Indonesia Jordan Nepal Nigeria Poland Switzerland Ukraine Uruguay	United Tajik Opposition Islamic Renaissance Party Tajik Democratic Party Party of People's Unity Rastokhez Popular Movement Lali Badakhshan Afghanistan (until 1996) Jamiat-e Islami (until 1996) Supported by: al-Qaeda Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan Iran (alleged, denied by Iran)
Commanders and leaders
Rahmon Nabiyev Akbarsho Iskandrov Emomali Rahmon Islam Karimov Boris Yeltsin Nursultan Nazarbayev Askar Akayev Hassan Abaza	Sayid Abdulloh Nuri (UTO) Mohammed Sharif Himmatzade (IRP) Ibn al-Khattab Shadman Youssof (Democratic Party)
Strength
42,000–45,000 5,000–15,000 border troops 20,600 10,300 278	Estimated around 50,000–70,000
Casualties and losses
302 killed, 1583 wounded (only Russian casualties)	Unknown
20,000–150,000 killed 1.2 million displaced

The main zone of conflict was in the country's south, although disturbances occurred nationwide. The civil war was at its peak during its first year and continued for five years, devastating the country. An estimated 20,000 to 150,000 people were killed in the conflict, and about 10 to 20 percent of the population of Tajikistan were internally displaced. On 27 June 1997, Tajikistan president Emomali Rahmon, United Tajik Opposition (UTO) leader Sayid Abdulloh Nuri and Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General Gerd Merrem signed the General Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and National Accord in Tajikistan and the Moscow Protocol in Moscow, Russia, ending the war.

History

Background

1990 Dushanbe riots

See also: History of Tajikistan

There were numerous causes of civil war in Tajikistan, such as economic hardship, communal way of life of Tajiki people and their high religiosity. Under Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's 'Perestroika' policies, a Muslim-Democratic movement began to emerge in Tajiki SSR. The backbone of opposition were Party of Tajikistan Muslim Resurrection, Democratic party of Tajikistan and some other movements. The fight between the former communist elite and opposition shifted from the political sphere to an ethnic and clan based one.

Tensions began in the spring of 1992 after opposition members took to the streets in demonstrations against the results of the 1991 presidential election. President Rahmon Nabiyev and Speaker of the Supreme Soviet Safarali Kenjayev orchestrated the dispersal of weapons to pro-government militias, while the opposition turned to mujahideen in Afghanistan for military aid.

Conflict (1992–1993)

Fighting broke out on 5 May 1992 between old-guard supporters of the government and a loosely organized opposition composed of ethnic and regional groups from the Gharm and Gorno-Badakhshan areas (the latter were also known as Pamiris). Ideologically, the opposition included democratic liberal reformists and Islamists. The government, on the other hand, was dominated by people from the Leninabadi region, which had also made up most of the ruling elite during the entire Soviet period. It was also supported by people from the Kulob and Regar (Tursunzoda) region, who had held high posts in the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Soviet times. After many clashes, the Leninabadis were forced to accept a compromise and a new coalition government was formed, incorporating members of the opposition and eventually dominated by them. On 7 September 1992, Nabiyev was captured by opposition protesters and forced at gunpoint to resign his presidency. Chaos and fighting between the opposing factions reigned outside of the capital Dushanbe.

With the aid of the Russian military and Uzbekistan, the Regari-Kulobi Popular Front forces routed the opposition in early and late 1992. The coalition government in the capital was forced to resign. On 12 December 1992 the Supreme Soviet (parliament), where the coalition faction between Khujand and Kulob had held the majority of seats all along, convened and elected a new government under the leadership of Emomali Rahmon, representing a shift in power from the old power based in Leninabad to the militias from Kulob, from which Rahmon came.

The height of hostilities occurred from 1992 to 1993 and pitted Kulobi militias against an array of groups, including militants from the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRP) and ethnic minority Pamiris from Gorno-Badakhshan. In large part due to the foreign support they received, the Regari-Kulobi militias were able to soundly defeat opposition forces and went on what has been described by Human Rights Watch as an ethnic cleansing campaign against Pamiris and Garmis. The campaign was concentrated in areas south of the capital and included the murder of prominent individuals, mass killings, the burning of villages and the expulsion of the Pamiri and Garmi population into Afghanistan. The violence was particularly concentrated in Qurghonteppa, the power base of the IRP and home to many Garmis. Tens of thousands were killed or fled to Afghanistan.

Ibodullo Boimatov and his units in coalition with Kulobi forces also played a crucial, decisive role to the victory against the opposition. Starting off with a few hundred men in Regar with support from Uzbekistan against the local oppositional juntas - who were discriminatively targeting Uzbeks of the region, too soon Boimatovs militia grew to few thousand units and aided heavily the Kulobi coalition against the opposition. His men seized the control of capital Dushanbe twice during the course of war from the opposition forces.

Continued conflict (1993–1997)

In Afghanistan, the opposition reorganized and rearmed with the aid of the Jamiat-i-Islami. The group's leader Ahmad Shah Masoud became a benefactor of the Tajik opposition. Later in the war the opposition organized under an umbrella group called the United Tajik Opposition, or UTO. Elements of the UTO, especially in the Tavildara region, became the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, while the leadership of the UTO was opposed to the formation of the organization.

Other combatants and armed bands that flourished in this civil chaos simply reflected the breakdown of central authority rather than loyalty to a political faction. In response to the violence the United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan was deployed. Most fighting in the early part of the war occurred in the southern part of the country, but by 1996 the rebels were battling Russian troops in the capital city of Dushanbe.

Armistice and aftermath

Holiday flags in Khujand in 2007 in honour of 'Day of National Unity', declared a work-free holiday in 1998.

A United Nations-sponsored armistice finally ended the war in 1997. This was in part fostered by the Inter-Tajik Dialogue, a Track II diplomacy initiative in which the main players were brought together by international actors, namely the United States and Russia. The peace agreement eliminated the Leninabad region (Khujand) from power. Presidential elections were held on 6 November 1999.

The UTO warned in letters to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon on 23 June 1997 that it would not sign the proposed peace agreement on 27 June if prisoner exchanges and the allocation of jobs in the coalition government were not outlined in the agreement. Akbar Turajonzoda, second-in-command of the UTO, repeated this warning on 26 June, but said both sides were negotiating. President Rahmon, UTO leader Sayid Abdulloh Nuri and Russian President Boris Yeltsin met in the Kremlin in Moscow on 26 June to finish negotiating the peace agreement. The Tajik government had previously pushed for settling these issues after the two sides signed the agreement, with the posts in the coalition government decided by a joint commission for national reconciliation and prisoner exchanges by a future set of negotiations. Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov met with the Foreign Ministers of Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to discuss the proposed peace accord.

By the end of the war, Tajikistan was in a state of complete devastation. Around 1.2 million people were refugees inside and outside the country. Tajikistan's physical infrastructure, government services and economy were in disarray and much of the population was surviving on subsistence handouts from international aid organizations. The United Nations established a Mission of Observers in December 1994, maintaining peace negotiations until the warring sides signed a comprehensive peace agreement in 1997.

Targeting of journalists

See also: List of journalists killed in Tajikistan

Journalists were particularly targeted for assassination and at least 40 Tajik journalists were killed. Many more fled the country, leading to a brain drain. Notable individuals murdered include journalist and politician Otakhon Latifi, journalist and Jewish leader Meirkhaim Gavrielov, politician Safarali Kenjayev and four members of the United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan: Yutaka Akino, a noted Japanese scholar of Central Asian history; Maj. Ryszard Szewczyk from Poland; Maj. Adolfo Scharpegge from Uruguay; and Jourajon Mahramov from Tajikistan; and documentary filmmaker Arcady Ruderman, from Belarus.

Gallery

• 
  Satellite photograph of Tajikistan
• 
  Destroyed turret of a T-72
• 
  Tajikistan factions in civil war: Leading clans: Northern Sughd Region (red), Southern Khatlon Region (blue), Pamir (Gorno-Badakhshan) (green)
• 
  The most important cities involved in the conflict. 1) Khujand 2) Dushanbe 3) Gharm 4) Qurghonteppa 5) Kulob

See also

• Tajikistan-Uzbekistan relations
• United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan
• 1992 Tajikistan protests
• Post-Soviet conflicts
• List of civil wars

Further reading

• Akiner, Shirin (2001). Tajikistan: disintegration or reconciliation?. Central Asian and Caucasian prospects. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs. ISBN 978-1-86203-061-9.
• Akbarzadeh, Shahram (1996). "Why did nationalism fail in Tajikistan?". Europe-Asia Studies. 48 (7): 1105–1129. doi:10.1080/09668139608412402. ISSN 0966-8136.
• Djalili, Mohammad-Reza; Grare, Frédéric; Akiner, Shirin (1997). Djalili, Mohammad-Reza (ed.). Tajikistan: the trials of independence (1. publ ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-16143-9.
• Mullojonov, Parviz (2022). The history of the Tajik civil war, 1992-1997. Contemporary Central Asia. Lanham (Md.): Lexington books. ISBN 978-1-7936-1286-1.
• Rashid, Ahmed (2002). Jihad: the rise of militant Islam in Central Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-09345-2.
• Roy, Olivier; Roy, Olivier (2000). The new Central Asia: the creation of nations. The library of international relations. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-86064-279-1.
• Whitlock, Monica (2003). Land beyond the river: the untold story of Central Asia (1st U.S. ed.). New York: Thomas Dunne Books. ISBN 978-0-312-27727-7. OCLC 53180954.
• Таҷрибаи таърихии сулҳи Тоҷикистон. Маҷмӯи тезисҳои Симпозиуми байналмиллалӣ. Душанбе, 26-27 апрели соли 2001 (in Tajik). Душ. 2001.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Усмон И. (2001). Сулҳнома (in Tajik). Dushanbe.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Нури С. А. (2001). Оштинома (in Tajik). Dushanbe. p. 360.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Саъдиев Ш. С. (2002). Тоҷикистон: роҳи сулҳ ва ризоияти милли (in Tajik). Dushanbe.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Перепелиця Г. М. [in Ukrainian] (2004). "Громадянська війна в Таджикистані". In Hubersʹkyj, Leonid Vasylʹovyč (ed.). Українська дипломатична енциклопедія (in Ukrainian). Vol. 1. Kyïv: Znannja Ukraïny. p. 760. ISBN 978-966-316-039-9.
• Krivosheev, Grigori (2001). Россия и СССР в войнах XX столетия. Потери вооружённых сил [Russia and the USSR in the wars of the XX century. Losses of the armed forces] (in Russian).

External links

• (in Russian and English) Key texts and agreements in the Tajikistan peace process Archived 18 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine
• Tajikistan: Opposition criticizes Dushanbe's plan for Commission
• Tajikistan: Two Russian military personnel killed
• Tajikistan: Secular – not Shari'a – law prevails in eastern mountains
• Tajikistan Civil War 1992–1994