On 10 March IWPR held an online panel dedicated to the developments in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan.
Called «The totality of problems in GBAO: is there a way out?», the event gathered renowned speakers from various parts of the globe. Tim Epkenhans professor at Albert-Ludwigs-Freiburg University, Subhiya Mastonshoeva, an independent expert based in Geneva, Bruce Pannier, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondent covering Central Asia and Parviz Mullojanov, Ph.D., political scientists and orientalist and independent researcher from Tajikistan.
The speakers’ reflection on current events in GBAO and followed discussion were moderated by Annette Bohr, Associate Fellow at Russian and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House.
Regional Director of IWPR Abakhon Sultonazarov provided opening remarks, highlighting the crucial importance of the topic, given the last stressful development in GBAO in last 7 months. He noted that the region experiences pressure, aggression an information blockade, including the spread of fake news and internet shutdown. All of this affects the attitudes of GBAO residents, leaving them in despair yet with hope for justice. From his point the purpose of such event is to better understand current developments in GBAO, look deeper into its conditions and relations with central authorities yet to discuss possible solutions that would lead the region out of the crisis.
The first speaker, Tim Epkenhans talked about the ambivalent identity of the GBAO region. In his intervention he emphasized that Pamiri community represents Ismaili religious identity which in its essence is transnational with representatives in all continents.
At the same time the population of GBAO shares the identity of «remoteness» and certain kind of isolation which stems from historic, geographic and ethnic perspectives. He then noted that the region of GBAO is facing a «western disengagement» as a part of overall disengagements with Central Asia in general in 2014 after the beginning of withdrawal of western forces from Afghanistan and reached the highest point in 2021. Later Epkenhans added that at the same time there is a growing engagement of Russia and China in Central Asia, in particular Tajikistan. He brings an example of Chinese security facility in one of the GBAO’s districts bordering Afghanistan which is a showcase of changing security trajectories in Central Asia.In the last part of his speech, Tim Epkenshans focused on GBAO’s relations with the central government in the context of today’s tensions in the region. He shared a photo of one of the billboards placed in Khorog saying that «Tajik language is the language of peace and culture» which indicate the exclusion of Pamiry community out of ethnic category as they were in the soviet times. Epkenhans then elaborates on the roots of current policy of Tajik government towards GBAO.
«We see increasing aggressive politics from Tajik government and it is also very much about identity politics… but I would say from my perspective it is also a kind of very clear idea that the Ismaili community is not a part of general Tajik muslim community as such», said Tim Epkenhans in his report for the event.
Violation of human rights, including policital and civil rights along with inequalities can serve as factors increasing the risk for internal clashes – coming from the second speaker Subhiya Mastonshoeva. In her notes she stressed that economic conditions in GBAO are utterly negative which epitomes in highest poverty rates (39%) compared to other regions of Tajikistan. GBAO also faces shortcomings in healthcare which is inaccessible because of undeveloped logistic channels inside the region and disadvantages in access to drinkable water.
GBAO is highly dependent financially on central government, however the region remains underinvested and therefore struggles to keep up with the rest of the country economically.«Up to 90% of the income of the population (in GBAO) goes to food and according to 2020 data over 16 thousand people are unemployed and the large number of these unemployed people are young people who are from 18 to 25 years old», a quote by Subhiya Mastonshoeva which was followed by indicating that such rates of unemployment may cause a risk of growing criminal activities, conflicts and clashes if they are not addressed.
She then talked about the aggressive instances that took place in GBAO from 2012 until today that involved military and police forces. Whenever the clashes occur, they result in casualties among local civilians for example during shellfire. The recent case was in December 2021 when one of the residents of Tavdem village GBAO’s Roshtkala district was killed during police operation which was not followed by an official investigation.
Mastonshoeva added that these occasions demonstrate the negligence of local population’s rights. On the background the population witness the continuing conviction of young people. According to her, after the occasion in last December up to 23 people were detained with criminal cases opened against them on dubious charges.
She connects the disparages experienced by the GBAO residents with the failure to preserve and protect human rights such as the right to healthcare, rights to adequate standards of living and in this regards the population of GBAO feel deliberately discriminated.
Lastly Mastonshoeva suggested launching an independent commission of inquiry to investigate the cases and grant better access for human rights organizations to the region. In her perspective it will make an important step towards building trust between people of GBAO and central and local governments.The next speaker Bruce Pannier dedicated his speech to a historical isolation of today’s GBAO territory. Difficulty to access the region was always a stumbling block for governments including Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union. During the 1970s the soviet authorities worked on establishing infrastructural channels to connect GBAO with the rest of the country.
He added that after the gaining independence which followed by the civil war Tajikistan the GBAO community was the easy target. The key factors were the ethnic distinction and anti-government attitudes that were expressed through participation of pamiri leaders in the United Tajik Opposition that confronted the central authorities during the civil war. According to Pannier, until today the central government has to ensure its control over GBAO, by conducting military operations and deploying forces.
Since then, Dushanbe has to deal with so-called «informal leaders» who are believed in the government circles to be engaged in organized criminal activities at the same time occupying posts in state institutions and de facto serving the government. Pannier pinpointed that after the civil war the government agreed on terms with these leaders leaving them with certain freedoms to control the region and according to him, they do in fact have a certain authority among the population.
«The local leaders have the authority there. It is a poor area. They are able to help local people solve immediate local problems», says Pannier.
He then immediately adds that whence informal leaders cross the line in the eyes of the government, the latter starts to get involved in the affairs of GBAO using military forces which invokes negative attitudes among local residents.
A roadmap to peaceful recovery from the crisis in GBAO was presented by the last speaker of the day, Parviz Mullojanov. However, he noted that due to the series of mistakes made by the central government of Tajikistan within the span of past 10 years the situation became extremely tense, thus the task to devise a reconciliation plan is a complicated one.
Mullojanov defined the situation in GBAO as a classic situation of «stalemate» in which any wrongly estimated action can lead to deterioration.
«Possible resolution is also complicated by factors of low level of mutual trust and increasing social tensions in GBAO», says Mullojanov.
A roadmap presented by Parviz Mullojanov contains two stages: «Short-term measures» and «Long-term measures».
Within the first stage Mullojanov proposes lifting the de facto martial law that has been active for the last 4 years in Khorog, the capital city of GBAO. He stressed that the road blocks should be removed and security agency headquarters that was established in 2018 should transfer their power to the civilian bodies. Such facilities according to Mullojanov stipulate a constant degree of public tension and can lead to a new round of conflict.
«Such measures are used to prevent riots, but given that population of Khorog is only 30 thousand these measures are rather counter-productive and irritates the population a lot», followed by Parviz Mullojanov.
He then continued with describing measure that could potentially rebuild the trust between the population of GBAO and the authorities. In order to achieve that, Mullojanov suggested transferring the reconciliation authority from security agencies to politicians.
In his opinion, the security agencies are not designed to run measures for conflict resolution or peaceful campaigns, while the politicians are more inclined and used to realize policies for settling conflicts. Not less important, he proposes to involve people originating from GABO in the peaceful process, so they can be trusted by the public.As one of the major factors impeding the resolution Mullojanov indicates government’s pressure towards protest movements. What could be done as he suggests is to heed to public demands and for example re-initiate the official investigation of the death of Gulbiddin Ziyobekov and revise criminal cases against of all people who were detained by the authorities on politically-motivated basis.
In the discussion that came after the panel reports the speakers shared their views on current crisis in Ukraine and its effects on the situation in GBAO. Put by the panel’s moderator Annette Bohr, the key question was whether driven by Russian aggression economic repercussions for Central Asia and Tajikistan in particular involving the devaluation of Russian ruble would change the attitudes of both government and GBAO’s population and leaders.
Tim Epkenhans responded that war in Ukraine can be used as a pretext for Tajikistan’s authorities to impose harsher restrictions in GBAO, especially given the government’s capacities to crackdown on civil society that grew dramatically over the years.
Bruce Pannier however shared an opposite view.
He believes that Tajikistan will not launch a full-fledged security operation as today they have to deal with various security issues. In particular given the inability to achieve results that would satisfy Tajik government during the operations they undertook until today Pannier contends that there is no point in doing so.
«Kyrgyz-Tajik border, this should be something that is much more oppressing for the government… And another problem on the border further in the west of GBAO as the Tajik government not being on good terms with Taliban… It seems to me that they have enough problems on the border both north and south and launching a security operation in Gorno-Badakhshan is the risk they certainly shouldn’t be taking», said Bruce Pannier.
Main photo: ozodi.org