By IPS Correspondents
MOSCOW, Feb 8 1996 (IPS)

The spectre of a new civil war which could affect the balance of power in post-Soviet Central Asia looms large over Tajikistan.

Imomali Rakhmonov, embattled president of the former Soviet republic, this week yielded to the demands of two rebellious warlords and sacked top officials – a gesture of desperation aimed at securing the lifting of a blockade of the capital, Dushanbe.

The dismissals of first vice-premier Makhmadsayed Ubaydulloev, chief of presidential administration Izatullo Khaeyev and governor of the Khatlon region Abdujallo Salimov, announced Sunday, were aimed at mollifying a “second front” that made the Moscow-backed government appear extremely vulnerable.

Already embroiled in protracted conflict with a Muslim-led armed opposition, the Rakhmonov regime was stunned when Makhmud Khudoyberdyev, commander of the elite First armored brigade of the Tajik army, broke ranks last week and seized the town of Kurgan Tyube.

At the same time another important town, Tursunzade, was occupied by forces loyal to Tajik MP Ibod Boymatov. Both warlords then blocked critical southern and south-eastern approaches to Dushanbe.

Khudoyberdyev is a former Soviet Army officer. He spent three years fighting in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation of that country. Three years ago, he played a vital role in defeating Muslim rebels and was decorated for bravery by the Tajik and Russian governments.

Monday, after Tajik defence minister Sherali Khayrullayev and parliament deputy speaker flew to Kurgan Tyube to settle the conflict “peacefully and in accordance with the Constitution”, Khudoyberdyev agreed to withdraw his troops to barracks.

That eased the situation a bit. But rebel warlords are still making demands that affect the entire power structure of Tajikistan. Their appetites may be whetted by Dushanbe’s compliance.

The Muslim opposition, driven out of the country in the 1992 civil war with the loss of at least 50,000 lives, is now operating out of bases in neighbouring Afghanistan. The United Nations has attempted, without much success, to sponsor peace talks between the government and the Muslims. The fifth round of these talks began in Ashkhabad, capital of Turkmenistan, on Jan. 30.

“We do not intend to suffer the infamy anymore,” Khudoyberdyev told ‘Izvestia’, the Moscow daily. “All ‘power’ ministries and the media as well as cotton and aluminum trade are in the hands of Rakhmonov’s cronies. They have stolen and squandered all the republic’s riches”.

Although the rebel commander is anti-islamist, his warnings of the possibility of “popular mutiny against the government” echo those of the Muslim opposition.

While to some observers the mutiny seems to be about redistribution of political and economic power between Tajikistan’s several traditional family clans under anti- corruption slogans – Khudoyberdyev and Rakhmonov come from different clans – others see wider regional implications.

“Behind the rebel warlords there is a hand of the neighbouring Uzbekistan’s president Islam Karimov, who is dissatisfied with Rakhmonov for the latter’s apparent disability to contain the Muslim opposition by coming to terms with it and to stabilize Tajikistan,” says Azer Mursaliyev, a political analyst with “Moscow News”.

“Afraid of fundamentalism, Uzbekistan thinks that with the impending fall of the Afghan capital Kabul to Taliban guerillas, Afghan field commanders like Massoud (a Tajik) an dDustum (an Uzbek), supporting the present Kabul government, will move up North and transfer their operations to Central Asian states,” he told IPS.

“And with Massoud nurturing ideas of a “greater Tajikistan” inclusive of some Uzbek territories, Karimov wants a stronger leader in Dushanbe now.”

Another reason was the Tajik government’s policy of suppressing the country’s Uzbek minority numbering 20 percent of the population. One of the rebels – Boymatov – is a native Uzbek.

President Rakhmonov himself has several times denounced unnamed “foreign forces” for trying to subvert his government. After the uprisings, he told parliament that “in no circumstances I will become a toy in anyone’s hands and would not violate laws and the constitution under anyone’s pressure”.

Whatever the reasons for the warlords’ mutiny, it would certainly weaken Dushanbe’s stance at the Ashkhabad peace talks with the exiled Muslim opposition. The opposition now gets another chance to critisize the 1994 Constitution, which it deems invalid and upon which the regime is basing its legality.

The opposition wants Dushanbe to dissolve the current pro- Rakhmonov parliament and form a coalition government as a condition for convening the Forum, which the government rejects as “unconstitutional”.

Although the government in Dushanbe seems resolved not to give up in the face of inside and outside opposition, its ability to defend itself is further put in doubt by armed clashes in Tavil Dari district, 200 kilometres east of the capital where a group of Muslim guerrillas has been engaging government troops since Jan. 31.

Moscow still enjoys considerable influence among ex-Soviet republics as the head of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The Russian 201st division is stationed in Tajikistan as part of a CIS peacekeeping force. Russian frontier troops daily fight on the Afghanistan border with infiltrating Tajik and Afghan guerrillas. The Kremlin is also the country’s chief financial donor.

According to Dododjoni Atovullo, Dushanbe owes Russia around 600 million dollars. Russian President Boris Yeltsin, speaking at the January CIS summit in Moscow, said: “We cannot endlessly nurse Tajikistan – our people are dying there”. He reportedly critisized Rakhmonov for inflexibility in talks with the Muslim opposition. Yeltsin’s aide Dmitry Ruyrikov, meeting Tajik opposition leaders, admitted that “we have made put our bet on the wrong man”.

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