#11
Transitions Online
www.tol.cz
September 17, 2001
Running A Huge Risk
If the United States enlists Central Asian states in likely strikes against
Afghanistan, then a whole region could end up in chaos.
As the United States still reels from the last week's attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, in the former Soviet republics of Central
Asia, anxiety is increasing. In the long term, a new U.S.-led military
campaign could only further increase the contradictions within these
societies--eventually leading to their breakdown.
But if the United States does decide to attack Afghanistan it is possible
that its forces--land or air--could use the former Soviet bases that
facilitated the invasion of Afghanistan two decades ago, which are located in
Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Most of these bases, such as the air bases in
Tashkent, Termez, Khojand, and Dushanbe, are already operational.
If Central Asian states did rapidly develop into military stations for a new
Afghan war, that would likely bring deep instability to the region,
especially to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Tajikistan--a close ally of Russia--has around 10,000 Russian troops on its
territory guarding the border on Penj river with Afghanistan. The Russian
military is also active in supplying arms and ammunition to the northern
Afghan alliance--which has been fighting the Taliban-- through air fields in
Kulyab, to the alliance-controlled air field in Bagram.
Tajikistan is a country that is still emerging from the collapse of the
Soviet Union and a devastating civil war--with difficulties. Like in its
neighbor, Afghanistan, drought for the second consecutive year has brought
nearly one million people close to famine. On the political level, the
conservative government and the Islamist-dominated opposition signed a peace
agreement in 1997, and in 1999 the opposition took part in parliamentary
elections. A third of governmental positions are attributed to the former
opposition as part of the peace agreement.
But the peace is fragile. A group of the opposition field commanders have
refused to respect the peace agreement, and are still active in the Karategin
Valley in the center of the country. There are numerous press reports
speculating on their relationship with the extremist Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan (IMU) which has close relations with the Taliban. The country is
witnessing a new wave of Islamic radicalization by the spread of the group
Hizb ul-Tahrir. Although this group rejects armed struggle, its program calls
for the creation of a vast Islamic state by unification of all Muslim lands.
The situation in Uzbekistan is even more delicate. A country of 23 million
inhabitants, it is ruled by the iron fist of President Islam Karimov, where
no public criticism to his rule is tolerated. Since 1997, thousands of Muslim
believers have been imprisoned and hundreds of mosques closed down. This wave
of repression has increased popular support for the IMU, and other radical
Islamic movements. The IMU operates out of bases in Afghanistan and
Tajikistan, and has showed its military capabilities by launching massive
cross border raids on several targets in Uzbekistan and in Kyrgyzstan. The
attacks of the last year led to the death of up to 200 Uzbek army soldiers,
and an unidentified number of guerrilla fighters and civilians.
Post-Soviet Central Asian states are fragile constructions: ruling elites
have little experience in governance, are seen as corrupt and increasingly
illegitimate by their own populations, and are unable to lead their countries
into economic reconstruction and out of deepening poverty. Any U.S. (and
possibly Russian) intervention in the region might boost these Central Asian
regimes in the short term (by justifying and possibly increasing mass
repression against religious groups) but the long-term impacts on their
societies would be difficult to bear.
It's also unclear quite what the Russians make of all of this as signals have
been mixed. Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, in a 15 September declaration to
Itar-TASS from Yerevan, has already dismissed the possibility of a NATO
country deploying forces in ex-Soviet Central Asia. But on the same day, the
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov declared in Moscow that the use of force
could not be ruled out in the fight against terrorism, the Russian news
agency Interfax reported.
Russian hesitation is linked not so much to Cold-War reflexes, but instead to
fear of U.S. forces spreading out into regions formerly under Soviet control.
In 1994, Washington gave the green light to the NATO expansion to former
Soviet satellite countries in Central Europe and still remains vague about
plans for incorporating former Soviet republics such as the Baltic states and
Ukraine into the alliance.
Moscow is also angry about U.S. efforts to decrease Russian influence over
the former Soviet republics in Transcaucasus and Central Asia. The United
States has tried to use financial, economic, and military means, such as
investments in oil projects, new pipeline routes, financial aid, to dampen
Russian presence in the region. Many in Moscow fear that the introduction of
U.S. troops into Central Asia will further decrease its influence there.
The problems of the Middle East is haunting Central Asia today. The risk is
that Washington could repeat the same mistakes there: collaborate with
tyranny and unpopular regimes for short-term gains--thus creating long-term
catastrophes.
