Tajikistan’s economic growth, hinging on remittances and public spending, is not sustainable without substantial private investment, but Dushanbe is doing too little to stimulate a friendly climate for investors, says a new report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
On paper, Tajikistan’s economy looks in decent shape. GDP grew by 7.4 percent in 2011, up from 6.5 percent in 2010, says the April report, “Outlook 2012: Confronting Rising Inequality in Asia.” The Bank expects 5.5 percent growth in 2012. “Agriculture grew by 7.9 percent, despite difficult climatic conditions. Cotton production shot up by 34 percent, reflecting a 30 percent rise in the area devoted to cotton, as high international prices encouraged additional planting. Other crops, particularly fruits and vegetables, also showed double-digit growth.”
But services -- fueled by rising remittances from labor migrants abroad -- were the main source of growth, expanding by 13.5 percent. Indeed, labor migrants, mostly in Russia, sent home the equivalent of 45 percent of GDP, making Tajikistan the most remittance-dependent country in the world, according to the World Bank.
Uzbekistan appears to be expanding its de facto economic blockade of Tajikistan, pushing the impoverished country further into Central Asia’s most remote corner.
Since a mysterious explosion at a bridge in Uzbekistan last November severed southern Tajikistan from rail traffic, the region’s 3.5 million residents have remained dependent on alternative, more expensive transport routes. Even humanitarian food aid has had trouble reaching the Tajiks.
Tashkent claimed the blast was the work of terrorists. But eyewitnesses discount that explanation, fostering speculation that the Uzbeks damaged the bridge on purpose to punish Tajikistan. The two countries have had a contentious relationship, particularly in terms of water resources.
Now Tajik authorities say that the Uzbeks, rather than repairing the bridge and reopening the line as promised, have found a new excuse for further delays. According to an official at Tajik Railroads, the Uzbeks have begun dismantling parts of the line to move a train station closer to the Tajik border.
On March 30, Vladimir Sobkalov, vice chairman of Tajik Railroads, told Radio Free Europe’s Tajik Service that Dushanbe, which jointly operates the railroad line, has not been informed about Tashkent’s intentions. Uzbek authorities have not commented.
Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad discuss railway projects in Dushanbe.
This week, Dushanbe hosted the fifth meeting of the Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan, and the U.S., as expected, used the occasion to promote its "New Silk Road" vision of a future in which Afghanistan is a hub of commerce between Central and South Asia. "The region’s wealth of natural resources, nascent trade agreements, and a burgeoning network of transport and energy connections underscore the great economic promise of a more integrated South and Central Asia," said Robert Blake, assistant secretary of State for Central and South Asia, the U.S.'s senior representative at the meeting. "ut achieving greater economic cooperation – the essence of the New Silk Road vision – will not be easy or happen overnight. It will require strong buy-in and coordination by governments in the region, its international partners, and investment from the private sector."
So when participants announced that they would "accelerate" plans for a railway from Kashgar (in far western China) and Herat (in western Afghanistan), you might assume the U.S. would be thrilled. It doesn't get much more Silk Road than Kashgar and Herat, and getting China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan on the same page for a regional project is no small feat.
The catch is that Iran is a driving force behind the Kashgar-Herat railway project. And the U.S. can't abide any cooperation with Iran, New Silk Road be damned. Blake was asked about this at a press conference after the meeting:
Question [BBC Persia]: Mr. Blake, we know that the United States and European countries likewise, you promote integration projects in the region between Central Asia and South Asia. How is it possible without Iran’s participation?
Relations between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are about to grow a little colder.
Tashkent has said that from April 1 it will cut all natural gas supply to Tajikistan, again. This time, the story is that Uzbekistan needs to reroute the gas to fulfill its obligations to China.
But under an agreement signed in January, Tashkent would send Dushanbe 200 million cubic meters of natural gas annually. To put this in perspective, Uzbekistan produces 200 million cubic meters of natural gas a day. So, Tajik authorities are suspicious that the threat is not so much about gas shortages as politics.
Tashkent has a record of withholding gas from Dushanbe. For example, on January 4, Uzbekistan cut all gas to Tajikistan. After a brief visit from the Tajik vice prime minister, the gas was turned back on.
Local news agencies in Dushanbe have speculated that Tashkent is attempting to punish its upstream neighbor. The two countries have long been at odds over hydropower projects in Tajikistan.
In November, an explosion at a bridge on the Galaba-Amuzang railroad, which routes supplies into southern Tajikistan, left the line inoperable. A few days later, the Uzbek government claimed the explosion was an act of terrorism and vowed it would repair the bridge. But the railroad remains closed. As of February, an official with Tajikistan’s state railroad company said that 298 wagons of material bound for southern Tajikistan have been marooned in Uzbekistan and that three and a half million residents of southern Tajikistan are living under an economic blockade.
Tajikistan has been added to a US government list of the world’s 16 worst abusers of religious freedom.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), funded by Congress, has censured Tajikistan for “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief,” naming the country one of it’s “countries of particular concern.” In a report released March 20, USCIRF says Dushanbe “suppresses and punishes all religious activity independent of state control, and imprisons individuals on unproven criminal allegations linked to religious activity or affiliation.”
Elsewhere in Central Asia, USCIRF has long classified Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan as “countries of particular concern” (CPC). The commission says it is closely monitoring Kazakhstan. Turkey also joined the CPC list this year.
The annual report offers recommendations to Congress, the secretary of state, and the president. The State Department issues its own yearly report on religious freedom, which takes into consideration the commission’s recommendations, but usually includes a shorter list of countries of particular concern and recommendations for sanctions. In the case of gas-rich Turkmenistan, though it has been on the commission’s CPC list since 2000, the State Department does not include it on its own list. The State Department has designated Uzbekistan, an essential ally in the Afghanistan war, as a CPC since 2006, but since 2009 has waved any punitive action.
This year, the commission graduated Tajikistan from its “watch list” partially because Dushanbe introduced harsh new legislation broadly affecting the country’s faithful, especially the Muslim majority. One new law “even limits parents’ choice of their children’s names.”
The two big post-Soviet military blocs, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, have announced their respective plans for large-scale exercises this year. The CSTO's will take place in September in Armenia, while the SCO's will happen in Tajikistan in June.
Last September's CSTO exercises were a pretty big deal, involving 24,000 troops and taking place amid a concerted Kremlin effort to gin up the threat from Afghanistan, prompting a lot of observers to speculate that Moscow was trying to use the CSTO as a means of exerting a heavier hand in Central Asia. This year's exercises were still months away, and there are few details available about them, so it's hard to compare yet. But the choice of location in Armenia is curious, given that last year so much of the rhetoric justifying the organization's existence related to Afghanistan. So now is the shift toward the Caucasus, or is it just Armenia's turn?
Meanwhile, the choice of Tajikistan for the SCO exercise, Peace Mission 2012, has prompted one dropout already: Uzbekistan won't be taking part in the exercise, Regnum reports (in Russian):
"During the exercises, a special anti-terror operation in a mountainous area will be worked on. New methods will be used to detect, block and destroy mock outlawed armed formations that have captured a mountain village, according to the legend," the [Tajikistan Ministry of Defense] press centre said.
One Tajikistan member of parliament interviewed by Regnum had harsh words for Uzbekistan's decision:
Many Tajiks will consider it a gut punch: At the end of another winter of power shortages, the impoverished country’s state electricity company has said it will raise prices 20 percent.
The announcement came as authorities further restricted electricity supplies in some rural regions to less than three hours a day, reports Asia-Plus. Tajikistan produces most of its electricity through a network of hydropower plants; in late winter, when rivers and reservoirs are low, the turbines are unable to generate nearly enough to meet demand.
In a March 12 statement, the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party (IRPT) slammed the tariff increase, which is scheduled to begin April 1, for hurting a population already in crisis, reports Avesta. The World Bank had long urged price increases to shore up the dilapidated energy sector, but the IRPT said government officials selectively implement foreign recommendations when they serve those in the highest places, but do not care for advice concerning other problems such as political reform.
"There is no doubt that in the course of reforms in this sector changes in electricity tariffs take place sometimes. However, the authorities must pursue a pricing policy that takes into account the conditions in which people live," said the statement.
"The implementation of these recommendations is unfounded, as numerous other recommendations of international organizations on holding transparent elections, protecting human rights and conducting political reforms go ignored for decades.”
Authorities in Tajikistan appear to have lifted their weeklong ban on the social networking site Facebook.
Users in Dushanbe say they have been able to access the site again on March 10. The Asia-Plus news agency reports that the government Communications Service verbally told Internet service providers (ISPs) they could restore access to the site late on March 9. Several news websites remain inaccessible.
Earlier in the week, Asia-Plus published a letter from the head of the Communications Service, Beg Zukhurov, ordering the blockage. Zukhurov denied the site was blocked, saying it was down for “prophylactic maintenance” and that access would be restored. But few believed him because he used the occasion to lash out at journalists who defame “the honor and dignity of the Tajik authorities,” and said authors of such content should be made “answerable.”
The kerfuffle over Facebook began late on March 2 when, apparently reacting to an article severely criticizing Tajikistan’s long-serving president, Emomali Rakhmon, authorities blocked the site where it originally appeared, Zvezda.ru, and three others, along with Facebook. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe criticized the “worrying development” and urged Dushanbe to restore access to the sites. “Despite occasional blocking of certain websites in Tajikistan, Internet has remained largely free,” the OSCE representative on freedom of the media, Dunja Mijatović, said.
Officials in Tajikistan are heaping new confusion onto the ongoing shutdown of Facebook. While users triumphantly explain to each other how to access the site through proxy servers, a group close to President Emomali Rakhmon has suggested that Tajikistan should build its own social network to promote “the ideals and national values of the Tajik people.”
The state agency in charge of IT and telecommunications has claimed the March 2-3 block – condemned by a Tajik Internet lobby and US-based Freedom House – is “temporary” and for “prophylactic maintenance.”
Internet service providers have said they were ordered to block Facebook last weekend, along with three or four news portals, by the state Communications Service, after one of the portals published an article severely criticizing Rakhmon and his government. When queried by news agency Asia-Plus, the head of the service, Beg Zukhurov, denied any order to block Facebook, but said the authors of offensive online content “defaming the honor and dignity of the Tajik authorities” should be made “answerable.” Tajikistan frequently uses libel cases and extremism charges to silence critical journalists.
Zukhurov promised to restore the Facebook connection “soon.” (Meanwhile, what seems to be a copy of his order is circulating on – you guessed it – Facebook.)
U.S. military cooperation with Tajikistan provides a necessary counterbalance to Russian influence, but also is helping authoritarian President Emomali Rahmon to cement his grip on power. That's the analysis of country's leading opposition politician, Muhiddin Kabiri, chairman of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan, who sat down for an interview last week with The Bug Pit on the topic of the increasing U.S. military cooperation with Tajikistan.
Kabiri is a unique figure: although his party promotes "Islamic Revival," he is also, in the words of local analyst Alexander Sodiqov, "a moderate and pragmatic politician with explicitly pro-Western views." And he is widely regarded as a singularly credible and authoritative voice in Tajikistan.
U.S. military cooperation with Tajikistan has been increasing over the last few years, as the U.S. has sought to build relationships with the countries involved in the Northern Distribution Network, and to help local security services protect the countries of Central Asia from threats out of Afghanistan. The cooperation has focused on border security, as well as training and equipping the myriad of special forces in Tajikistan's military, National Guard, border security and police. Kabiri said the government has a variety of interests in this cooperation:
First of all, we need this training. After these events in the east of Tajikistan, this showed us that we are not so ready for terrorist attacks, so Tajikistan needs these units to be stronger.
