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History : The
Tajiks come from an ancient stock - the inhabitants of the Pamir
Mountains claim to be the only pure descendants of the Aryan tribes
who invaded India over 4000 years ago, and that the Saxon tribes of
Western Europe also originated there. Tajikistan’s inaccessibility has
protected it from most invaders, although Alexander the Great founded
a city on the site of modern-day Khojand, calling it Alexandria Eskate
(Alexandria the Furthest). However, the mountains effectively spared
it from the Mongols, although it was under their aegis.
After the dissolution of the Mongol Empire, Tajikistan was
successively ruled by the emirs of Samarkand, Bukhara, and finally,
Kokhand. It was eventually ceded to the Russian sphere of influence in
the dying days of the ‘Great Game’ of political intrigue between the
Russian Empire and the British in India at the end of the 19th
century. The Bolsheviks were not made welcome and the Basmachi
movement continued to resist them until the early-1930s. Enver Pasha
(d. 1924) and Ibraghim Beg (d. 1931) both came to their end in
Tajikistan. During the fighting, some 200,000 Tajiks fled to
Afghanistan. Tajikistan’s distance and remoteness again saved it
during the Soviet era, when it escaped more lightly than other
republics did.
Russian immigration was encouraged and many inhabitants of the Garm
valley and the Pamirs were forcibly moved to the southwest in the
1950s, to help with the cotton-growing, and replacing those who had
escaped into Afghanistan. From 1983 until 1991 - the closing stages of
Soviet rule - the Tajik republic was run by Kakhar Makhkamov.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the establishment of
Tajikistan as a sovereign state, the former leader of the Tajik
Communist Party, Rakhman Nabiyev, returned to power in November 1991,
after 8 years out of office.
The main opposition to the Nabiyev government came from the
inhabitants of the Garm and Pamir regions, who felt excluded from
national politics. In 1992, the Garmis united under the flag of the
opposition Islamic Revival Party and the Pamiris under that of the
Democratic Party. The pair soon formed a strategic alliance, the
United Tajik Opposition (UTO). With neither side willing to
compromise, the stage was thus set for a civil war, which lasted for 5
years and reduced the already impoverished country to penury. The
Tajik war had some of the characteristics of the recent civil wars in
the Balkans and has certainly matched them for savagery and loss of
life. The conflict was watched with great concern by Tajikistan’s
neighbours. All were aware that the strife there could easily erupt in
their own territories, as the three main political forces in the
region - Islam, communism and liberal democracy - contend for
influence. In 1994, Russian troops were brought in at the request of
the beleaguered regime. Moscow also brokered negotiations between the
government and the UTO. By 1997, the government and opposition had
gradually put together a workable deal, under which the UTO accepted a
30 per cent share of administrative responsibilities and integrated
some of its units into the army. The government would, for its part,
legalise the main opposition political parties that were previously
banned.
Nevertheless, the presidential election of November 1999 was a
one-sided affair, with the government candidate, Imomali Rakhmonov,
attracting 97 per cent of the vote against a nominal opponent.
Assembly elections in March 2000 returned the ruling People’s
Democratic Party of Tajikistan.
Post-Soviet developments in the former Central Asian republics, the ‘Stans’,
had barely registered in the West. That changed after the terrorist
attacks of 11 September 2001. Keen to prosecute its war against the
al-Qaeda ‘network’ and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, Washington
started to canvas neighbouring countries for facilities and military
bases. Tajikistan, which shares a 1000-mile border with Afghanistan,
was a prime candidate and much of the subsequent fighting in northern
Afghanistan relied on US supplies and personnel moved in from
Tajikistan. There were also valuable ethnic links between the Tajiks
and parts of the Northern Alliance (see Afghanistan) - descendants of
those who fled Tajikistan in the 1930s - and that ultimately took care
of the bulk of the fighting on the ground. The Americans made little
secret of the fact that they intended to stay, despite the
reservations of the other two main regional powers, China and the
Russian Federation (which increased its troop deployment in 2003 to
19,000). For their part, the Tajiks were mainly concerned with the
economic potential of the arrangement. The economy is in poor shape
and many regions of the country have suffered food shortages following
years of drought and economic dislocation caused by the civil war.
Government : Under the new constitution agreed between the
government and the UTO (see History above), Tajikistan has an
executive president who appoints a prime minister to lead a Council of
Ministers. The legislature is the bicameral Majlisi Oli, which
comprises the 63-member Assembly of Representatives elected by popular
vote and the 33-member National Assembly, with 25 members elected by
majlis deputies and 8 presidential appointees. Both houses serve a
5-year term. |
