Tajikistan

Country in central Asia, bounded north by Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, east by China, and south by Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Government

Under its 1999 constitution, Tajikistan has a directly elected executive president and a two-chamber parliament, the Supreme Assembly. The president is popularly elected for a seven-year term, with a limit of two terms, and appoints a prime minister and a council of ministers, approved by the Supreme Assembly. The legislature comprises a 63-member Assembly of Representatives and a 33-member National Assembly. The former comprises 41 members elected in single-seat constituencies for five-year terms and 22 members elected by proportional representation. The latter has eight members appointed by the president and 25 elected for five years by local assembly deputies.

History

The Tajiks are descended from the Mongol invaders who swept across Asia from the 13th century. Its people speak an Indo-Iranian language. Arabs brought Islam to the area from the 7th century. Tajikistan was conquered by Tsarist Russia 1877–1900. After the overthrow of the Tsar in 1917, Basmachi guerrillas fought for four years against communist Bolsheviks in central Asia. But the communists prevailed and launched a secularization campaign, closing mosques and persecuting Muslims and Jews. In 1924, an autonomous soviet socialist republic was created from the Tajik areas of Bokhara and Turkestan and it became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union (USSR) in 1929.

Growth of nationalism

Tajikistan remained a relatively backward part of the Soviet Union, with limited economic development. But from the late 1980s there was a resurgence in Tajik consciousness. In 1989 a Rastakhiz (‘Revival’) Popular Front was established and during 1990 there were serious interethnic clashes in Dushanbe, resulting in a state of emergency and curfew temporarily being imposed.

Independence declared

The Communist Party of Tajikistan (CPT), led by the conservative Kakhar Makhkamov, initially supported the August 1991 attempted coup in Moscow by conservative communists against the reform communist leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. However, after pro-democracy demonstrations in Dushanbe and a vote of no confidence, Makhkamov resigned on 31 August 1991. Acting president Kadreddin Aslonov declared the country's independence on 9 September 1991, and the CPT was renamed the Socialist Party of Tajikistan (SPT). Rakhman Nabiyev, a former Brezhnev-appointed CPT leader who had been removed by Gorbachev in 1985 became president and imposed a state of emergency. He was forced to stand down within a week following civil unrest, and he agreed to suspend the SPT, lift the state of emergency, and legalize opposition parties. He won the direct presidential election in November 1991, but the opposition and outside observers claimed that voting had been rigged.

Tajikistan joined the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in December 1991 and in 1998 joined the CIS Customs Union, which already comprised the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. In 1992 it became a member of the United Nations and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) (later the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)). It also joined the Economic Cooperation Organization, founded by Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey in 1975, and received US diplomatic recognition. Tajikistan became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ‘Partnership for Peace’ programme in May 2001. It was one of the last OSCE members to join.

Civil war

Soon after independence, the country fell into a civil war, based around clan fighting and factions backed by Russian and Iran, which continued until 1997. All but 25,000 of the over 400,000 ethnic Russians in the country, mainly based in towns and employed in industry, fled to Russia, and the economy deteriorated.

President Nabiyev, who enjoyed support in rural areas, especially the Kuylab region, was opposed by Islamic and pro-democracy groups based in the east and south. From spring 1992, there were violent anti-Nabiyev demonstrations in the capital, Dushanbe, and in the south, and in September 1992 Nabiyev resigned. Supreme Soviet (legislature) chairman, Akbasho Iskandrov, who enjoyed the support of rebel groups, took over as interim head of state.

Fighting escalated, with the pro-Nabiyev Tajik People's Front (TPF), under Sangak Saparov, battling a Popular Democratic Army (PDA) coalition of Islamic and pro-democracy groups. Iskandrov resigned in November 1992, the office of president was abolished, and Imamali Rakhmanov became head of state (chairman of the Supreme Soviet). He established an authoritarian regime, with human rights routinely violated.

By January 1993 government forces, aided by the TPF, controlled most of the country. Russia, wanting to curb the spread of Islamic fundamentalism from neighbouring Afghanistan, sent 20,000 troops to prop up the regime and provided half the state's budget. CIS peacekeeping forces patrolled the Tajik–Afghan border and in September 1994 a ceasefire was announced. Rakhmanov was elected president under a new constitution and his supporters won the February–March 1995 parliamentary elections. But fighting resumed along the Tajik–Afghan border in 1995. Pro-Islamic forces captured the southwestern towns of Tursunzoda and Qurghonteppa in January 1996.

A UN-sponsored ceasefire between the government of President Rakhmanov and pro-Islamic rebel forces came into force in mid-December 1996. It involved the establishment of a 27-member National Reconciliation Commission (NRC), headed by an opposition representative, to amend the constitution and provide for an exchange of prisoners, a general amnesty, and the repatriation of 900,000 displaced refugees, after a conflict in which over 30,000 people had died. In March 1997, the government and the Islamist rebels, led by Said Abdullo Nuri, formally signed the peace plan, which provided for a merging of their armed forces and sharing of seats on the NRC. In April 1997, President Rakhmanov survived a grenade attack on him in the northern city of Kokand.

Renewed fighting

There was a breakdown in the ceasefire in November 1998, with more than 200 being killed in clashes in the northern region of Leninabad between the army and rebel forces loyal to the renegade Tajik army commander Col Makhmud Khudoberdiyev. But in November 1998, the deputy leader of the Islamic-led United Tajik Opposition (UTO), Ali Akbar Turadzhonzada, became first deputy prime minister, as the 1997 peace agreement continued to be implemented.

Constitutional change

In September 1999, in a nationwide referendum, voters overwhelmingly approved changes to the constitution to create a two-chamber legislature, to allow the formation of religious-based political parties, and to extend the presidential term to seven years. Peaceful elections were held in November 1999 and President Rakhmanov was re-elected by a landslide margin. His People's Democratic Party of Tajikistan also won a clear victory in the 2005 parliamentary elections, the opposition parties claiming that there had been vote rigging on both occasions.

International cooperation

In July 2000, the presidents of Tajikistan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia met in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, to pledge cooperation in fighting terrorism, religious extremism, and drug trafficking. Russian troops were stationed in southern Tajikistan to guard the border with Afghanistan until 2005 and in October 2001, the government sealed the country's borders to keep out refugees fleeing from US-led military action in Afghanistan. Since the 11 September 2001 al-Qaeda attacks in the US, American and French troops have been stationed in the country to help protect it against Islamic extremist incursions.

Tajikistan (redirected from Tadjikistan)