Drought Portends Famine for Tajikistan
October 3, 2000
Drought Portends Famine for Tajikistan
By PATRICK E. TYLER
James Hill for The New York Times
Women gathering dirty water at the bottom of a
dried-up pool in the village of Gazantarak in
northern Tajikistan. Drinking the water causes
health problems, villagers say, but they have little
choice.
Related Article
• In an Ex-Soviet Land, High Hopes are Ebbing (October 1,
2000)
UDAKI, Tajikistan — Standing on toasted earth where the wheat
crop failed this summer and no seeds are left for planting this
fall, Hokim Ulimov pointed to the scattered piles of stones that
are all that remains of his family home and said, "I don't
remember a time in my life when it was this bad."
In the Soviet era, Mr. Ulimov and thousands of other poor Tajiks
were transplanted from mountainous zones of the country to pick
cotton in the verdant valleys here near the border with
Afghanistan. Their output fed the empire's spinning mills.
In nearby Tursunzade, Soviet Socialist labor built the largest
aluminum smelter in Central Asia. And in the north near
Khudjand, uranium mines supplied a secret complex whose cascades
of machinery produced nuclear fuel for Soviet power plants and
bombs.
But there has been a decade of nearly total industrial collapse.
And after five years of brutal civil war between Islamic
militants and former Communist Party bosses that destroyed Mr.
Ulimov's village and killed tens of thousands of Tajiks, many in
Tajikistan thought the country had hit bottom.
Now, the worst drought in a half- century, stretching from Syria
to Mongolia, is threatening half of Tajikistan's population of
six million with famine this fall. Wells have gone dry, rivers
have ceased to flow and food supplies are disappearing.
"All I can say is that I am alive," said Mr. Ulimov, 70, who
stays nearby with relatives, his white beard radiant in the
midday sun. "I worked for the government for 45 years, my hands
are ruined from picking cotton, I don't get a pension and our
houses were destroyed in the war. We have nothing, and I cannot
see any future."
Tajikistan, the poorest of the newly independent states of the
former Soviet Union, is living a fragile peace that is
threatened by Islamic extremism and relentless drug trafficking
coursing out of Afghanistan, rampant corruption at home and now
a scourge of drought.
In September the United Nations urgently appealed to donor
nations to provide $77 million in food aid and seeds to farmers,
as a series of declining harvests in recent years has left the
country with nearly depleted stocks of grain.
But a similar appeal last year for $35 million in aid drew only
$4.2 million in pledges. Officials from international aid
organizations here, whose budgets now provide more direct
assistance to the population than the Tajik government does,
said in late September that they feared a catastrophe if help
was not mobilized within two months.
The world just does not care about Tajikistan, said Ross
Mountain, the assistant emergency relief coordinator for the
United Nations who accompanied journalists on a recent tour of
the country.
Mr. Mountain explained in an interview that donor fatigue was
part of the problem, along with the reticence of Western
governments to assist Tajikistan's authoritarian government,
whose security forces carried out brutal ethnic purges during
the civil war. But that does not alleviate the need to respond
to a crisis for the people here, he asserts.
"Drought does not automatically equal famine, but we think we
are very close here," Mr. Mountain said. "The people have
virtually nothing left to eat, just tea and bread. They just had
a failed harvest, and in a very short time they will have
nothing to eat."
Last May, when the spring rains failed to materialize after a
largely snowless winter, President Emomali Rakhmonov appealed to
the United States, Canada, Japan, the European Union and the
United Nations for several hundred thousand tons of grain to
prevent famine from developing by the end of the year.
Only the United States responded immediately, with a pledge of
65,000 tons of wheat, but delivery has been held up as American
and Tajik officials haggle over how much will be an outright
gift and how much will be sold off to pay for transport and
distribution costs.
Tajikistan also wants to tax the profits on any grain sold here,
a United Nations official familiar with the negotiations said.
The impact of the drought has been the worst for Afghanistan so
far, but the second-hardest-hit country is Tajikistan. A $67
million appeal for Afghanistan already has drawn $41 million in
pledges, largely from the Arab world, United Nations officials
said. Iran, also hard hit by drought, has allocated $300 million
of its own resources to meet emergency food requirements.
In Soviet times Moscow would have been responsible for rescuing
the Tajiks. And though Russia still is Tajikistan's closest
security partner, with its troops guarding Tajikistan's border
with Afghanistan, helping the people here is the least of
Russia's priorities as it struggles with its own economic woes.
"Tajikistan is kind of a forgotten country, and it is difficult
to find donors," said Charlotta Relander, director of the
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies. Speaking to reporters in Dushanbe, the capital, in
late September, she said the failed harvest this year had been
preceded by two years of bad harvests, compounded by "an
incredible rise in the level of poverty in the last 10 years."
"The situation was bad anyway, but the drought has made it even
2
worse," she said, adding that as many as two million people will
face starvation in two to three months as the last stocks of
grain and the summer fruit harvest run out.
In a town call Sovetski, 120 miles northwest of here, Mamlakat
Allamnova is the principal of Middle School No. 3, a three-story
building whose windows were all blown out or broken during the
civil war, which raged from 1992 to 1997. When winter winds
sweep into the classrooms later this year, the school will
close.
Ms. Allamnova said the school had lost half of its students in
the last decade. Of those who attended at the beginning of this
year, she said, a quarter dropped out as their families fled
villages scorched by drought.
In Soviet times Tajikistan boasted of a literacy rate of more
than 90 percent, but today the educational system has followed
all other institutions into a state of collapse.
"The children cannot sit for classes all day, because of
malnutrition," Ms. Allamnova said. "After the war everything
fell apart, and some children don't come to school because not
all of the children in the family have clothes, especially in
winter."
Even some of her teachers are deserting the filthy classrooms,
because they receive no salaries and must forage for food on
their own tiny plots of land.
"If our government doesn't help us and we don't get anything
from international organizations, I don't see how we will
survive," she said.
On the high slopes outside Sovetski, about 100 people a month
have been moving away from the village of Jorubkul, where 3,000
acres of wheat planted by the collective this spring came out of
the ground and then died because there has been no rain since
March.
Under Communism, Tajikistan was a lattice work of irrigation
canals, aqueducts and pumping stations that supported
collectivized cotton production and other agriculture, but what
the war did not destroy has fallen into disrepair.
The irrigation pipes and pumping station that used to supply
water to Jorubkul for small-scale crops and drinking water also
broke down this summer, and the 9,000 farmers and their families
now share the drinking water from two pipes that operate for an
hour a day.
"Agriculture is the only thing we have, and if there is no rain,
there is no life," said Amon Salimov, 72, who put the last of
his money into five acres of wheat seed in the spring only to
see it wither and die.
He has two sons, one of them unemployed and the other an unpaid
teacher, and seven daughters. But Mr. Salimov said he would stay
in the village rather than flee. "We are out of everything," he
said. "We have no wheat. We have no money. We have no fertilizer
or food. I don't have any options.
"If there is no rain, I am just going to stay here and die."
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Tajik Tangle: Odd Alliances Worry Neighbors
October 20, 2000
Tajik Tangle: Odd Alliances Worry Neighbors
By PATRICK E. TYLER
The New York Times
Travelers in the Kafirnigansky area risk kidnapping,
or worse.
The New York Times
AFIRNIGANSKY REGION, Tajikistan — The winding road from the
capital ends here, for anyone who would not like to risk
becoming the hostage of a warlord named Umar.
Barely 20 miles from Dushanbe, the capital, four young
mujahedeen fighters brandish Kalashnikov rifles at a checkpoint
a quarter-mile from Mr. Umar's base, in a former auto- repair
factory surrounded by cotton fields and persimmon orchards.
Umar, they say, is not receiving guests today. Besides, one
advised, he is an unpredictable man and it is "not recommended"
that visitors call on him lest he decide to rob them, or shoot
them, as one warlord is suspected of doing to four United
Nations workers killed on this road two years ago.
4
Umar's deployment of Islamic fighters on the only route out of
Dushanbe to the rebellious Karategin Valley underscores the
lawlessness in Tajikistan. Two years after a national
reconciliation that followed a devastating civil war, Tajikistan
is still a land of clan-based paramilitary forces, Islamic
revivalism and regional enmities.
The man standing astride the divided politics of the country is
President Emomali Rahmonov, a former collective-farm manager and
Communist Party apparatchik who rules with enduring support from
Russia and by sharing power and money with the enemies his army
could not defeat on the battlefield.
Through financial inducements, and sometimes just brute force,
Mr. Rahmonov is reconstructing central authority in Tajikistan
by deepening relations with Russia and the West, who have
pursued the closer ties with their own interests in mind.
Fighting Islamic extremism and drug trafficking has become the
highest priority for both Central Asian and Western governments.
In addition to asserting his authority against former enemies at
home, Mr. Rahmonov has tried to prevent Islamic militants based
in Afghanistan from expanding their guerrilla warfare and
terrorism across Tajikistan's frontiers to Kyrgyzstan and
Uzbekistan.
"Tajikistan is a key state," said Robert P. Finn, the United
States ambassador in Dushanbe. With Afghanistan to the south and
all of Central Asia to the north, a destabilized Tajikistan "is
a danger for all of its neighbors."
Such concern is well founded. The long and violent civil war
after the breakup of the Soviet Union has made Tajikistan unique
among Central Asian states.
"It was like a revolution in our country," said Hizomov
Mirzokhuzha, a deputy commander of Tajikistan's police force in
Soviet times. He took up arms against Mr. Rahmonov in 1992 as a
top military commander of the United Tajik Opposition, a loose
coalition of Islamic forces, democratic movements and regional
bosses long excluded from power who were seeking to overthrow
the post-Soviet hangers-on and the regional clans they served.
"During the time of the Soviet Union, I could never have
imagined that I would become a rebel," Mr. Mirzokhuzha said in
an interview at his home in Dushanbe. "No one wants to end up
fighting, but the life of a person is written — and sometimes,
if you don't fight, you are going to be killed."
And there was plenty of killing, with estimates of 30,000 to
50,000 dead and up to one million refugees.
Today Mr. Mirzokhuzha is minister for customs taxation in Mr.
Rahmonov's cabinet, a post that belies his real power as he
helps the government enforce the peace by advising how to
integrate rebellious warlords once under his command into the
armed forces, where the reward for peace is a paycheck.
"The republic is now democratic, and it is on that foundation
that we are working," Mr. Mirzokhuzha said.
But the process is anything but smooth, as Umar's roadblock
demonstrated. While the handful of mujahedeen controlled the
road here, Tajikistan's armed forces rumbled into the Karategin
Valley to suppress and disarm the last of the rebellious
warlords there, Mullo Abdullo, who fought as a field commander
with the opposition during the war. On Sept. 11, about 40 of his
estimated 100 Islamic fighters surrendered; others melted into
the mountains.
Mr. Abdullo's grievance was simple: He was not happy that his
forces were not offered jobs in Tajikstan's army, as required by
the peace protocols. Government officials were loath to offer
5
him and his men positions because they are suspected of the
execution-style killing of the United Nations workers in 1998.
But some compromise was reached in September. After Mr.
Abdullo's surrender, Mr. Rahmonov surprised many by touring
major cities in Karategin Valley, pressing the flesh in
town-hall-style meetings that received extensive television
coverage. The visit was his first to the heartland of
Tajikistan's Islamic revolt.
"The president's trip to the northeast shows that the situation
in the area is stable," said Amirkul H. Azimov, secretary of
Tajikistan's national security council, though he conceded that
"some people were very nervous" that an attempt would be made on
Mr. Rahmonov's life.
While Tajikistan may be more stable than ever before, the threat
from Islamic extremists seems to be increasing. For that reason,
some Western governments seem content to overlook Tajikistan's
dismal human rights record. Freedom of the press has ceased to
exist, with more than 30 journalists killed since 1992 and 150
or more forced into exile.
In September, Russian military officials who command 25,000
troops along the Tajik-Afghan border reinforced their positions
after fighters for the Taliban, the fundamentalist movement that
rules most of Afghanistan, scored fresh victories against the
"northern alliance" of Ahmed Shah Masoud. Russia and Tajikistan
provide rear-area support to Mr. Masoud's forces.
Neighboring Uzbekistan has also been a concern. The State
Department placed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan on the list
of terrorist organizations in September, asserting that its
leader, Juma Namangani, was receiving support from Osama bin
Laden, whose Afghanistan-based group is suspected in the
bombings of two American embassies in Africa.
Mr. Namangani fought alongside Tajikistan's Islamic rebels
during the civil war and has conducted guerrilla-style campaigns
against Kyrgyz and Uzbek Army forces for the past two summers.
Former colleagues here say Mr. Namangani has taken up arms in
response to the repressive, antireligious policies of the Uzbek
president, Islom Karimov.
"I know Juma Namangani very well," said Mr. Mirzokhuzha, the
former opposition leader. "The people where he is from
complained that the government came to their village and started
arresting those who were going to the mosque and praying. They
arrested his relatives, too, and that is why he founded this
group — to liberate them."
Mr. Namangani's support from Mr. bin Laden may include
helicopters that now transport Mr. Namangani's rebels across
Tajik territory, Western officials say, as well as financial aid
that has allowed Mr. Namagani to buy food from villagers when
his troops are in the field, a tactic that has improved his
support.
Tajikistan's neighbors have charged that President Rahmonov or
members of the Islamic opposition who now sit in his cabinet
provide bases for Islamic fighters attacking Kyrgyzstan and
Uzbekistan, but Mr. Rahmonov says his security forces have
worked to block attacks from Tajik territory.
"There were never such bases in Tajikistan and there are not
now," said Mr. Azimov, the security council adviser.
As other Central Asian leaders have formed security
arrangements, Mr. Rahmonov has tied his country's economic and
security interests most prominently to Russia's. When the
leaders of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan canceled
6
their trips to Yalta in August for a summit meeting with
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Rahmonov dutifully
showed up to discuss plans to establish a permanent Russian
military base in Tajikistan.
"Russia was, is and will be our main partner for the future,"
Mr. Azimov said.
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Islamic Revival Wears Many Faces in a Secular Asian Land
October 29, 2000
Islamic Revival Wears Many Faces in a Secular Asian Land
By PATRICK E. TYLER
Patrick E. Tyler/ The New York Times
For Hajji Saifudin Najimudinov, Islam is about
prayer, not war.
7
USHANBE, Tajikistan — Said Umar Husseinzoda has large, luminous
eyes that never seem to blink, eyes that lock on with the force
of tractor beams from the brow of a onetime warrior for God who
has turned politician — and missionary — for the Islamic Revival
Party of Tajikistan.
In recent weeks he has been out proselytizing, telling the
people that the reason the rains did not come to Tajikistan this
year, the reason crops have shriveled and meadows and mountains
have turned brown as toast is that God is visiting his wrath on
the six million Tajiks.
"God created these hardships and difficulties like a punishment
for the people who are not obeying the canons of Islam," he
said. "It is a direct punishment from God."
It seems a harsh sales pitch for recruiting believers, but as a
leading figure in Tajikistan's main religious party, Mr.
Husseinzoda presents the face of a new brand of Islamic politics
here. The party now has two members in Parliament and more than
50 representatives in local governments, a rarity in the newly
independent states of the former Soviet Union where Islamic
parties are outlawed or suppressed.
In a region where the threat of Islamic extremism has mobilized
military crackdowns and incited alarm in Russia and the West,
Mr. Husseinzoda and his party make it apparent that the Islamic
revival spreading through Central Asia has many faces.
The Islamic party that Mr. Husseinzoda represents has joined the
secular government of Tajikistan in condemning the Islamic
extremism practiced by the Taliban movement in neighboring
Afghanistan.
"War is not the main way for resolving all problems and war is
not the best means for creating an Islamic society," said Mr.
Husseinzoda, a former warrior.
"God instructed all Muslims that a person should try all
peaceful means to explain the goals of Islam to the people and
to invite the people to join Islam," he said. "But if someone
throws up obstacles to this appeal to the people to join Islam,
then this is a reason for war," he said, explaining why Muslims
in Tajikistan took up arms in their 1992-97 civil war.
Now that the obstacles to propagating Islam have been removed in
Tajikistan, he said, "we have the possibility to come to power,
and that is the big difference between Tajikistan and
neighboring countries."
Tajiks, however, with their 70-year Soviet indoctrination in
secular values, have been slow to embrace Islam, either as a
religion or a political ideology. Indeed, a Western diplomat
said that opinion surveys show that the Islamic party is
struggling. This proves, the diplomat added, that the "more
repressive the regime" in Central Asia, "the more popular
Islam," and vice versa.
Here, secularism and the Islamic revival coexist, though Islamic
leaders frequently complain that their efforts are thwarted by
President Emomali Rakhmonov. And it is difficult at times to
separate the goals of Islamic revivalism from those of Islamic
extremism.
"The dream of every Muslim is to live in a society in accordance
with the dictates of Islam," Mr. Husseinzoda conceded, "but the
main way for the establishment of an Islamic society is the
peaceful way."
Some who fought alongside the Islamic warriors during
Tajikistan's civil war disagree that an Islamic state is even
8
desirable.
"I was the chief military commander of the opposition during the
civil war, and at that time and until now there has never been
any discussion of creating an Islamic republic," said Hizomov
Mirzokhuzha, now a cabinet minister.
"When I was fighting," he continued, "I was fighting for justice
for the citizens, for the women and the children and for no
other purpose. Do we believe in God? Of course we believe in
God. We are the same as our ancestors, but as for Islam, I
probably know more about Marxism and Leninism and so no one
could call me an Islamic fundamentalist."
Far away from these political and military struggles, there is
yet another face of Islam here, that of Hajji Saifudin
Najimudinov, who at 62 leads a life devoted to good works,
prayer and making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, called the
hajj.
Mr. Najimudinov could be found recently sitting cross-legged on
a platform in a village outside Dushanbe at the home of a family
in which the father, a teacher, had died. The gathering was a
memorial on the 40th day after his death.
The raised platform, called a kat, sits under the grape arbors
in many courtyards here for communal dining, tea drinking,
praying and sleeping, and Mr. Najimudinov was perched there,
resplendent his pale blue robe, white beard and turban.
As the midday sun spackled light through the arbor, the women
laid out a feast of meat and rice and the men sat on padded
cushions, dipping their hands into the piles of food.
After leading a prayer from the Koran, one old man who had made
the pilgrimage reflected on how militancy had come to define
modern Islam. "They gave me this question when I was on the
hajj," he said. "And I asked them whom they were fighting in
Afghanistan." It seemed his way of pointing out the sin of
Muslims fighting Muslims.
"War is always for power," he said. "Those people fighting for
power are not considered Muslims — all they want is power." The
other men in the courtyard listened attentively, picking at the
grapes, almonds and slices of melon laid before them.
"It would be better not to waste time talking about this part of
history at all," the old man said after a long silence. "Because
we will give our grandchildren the sense that we were always at
war, and then they will always be at war with each other."
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