Tajikistan Civil War

A civil war erupted in Tajikistan in May 1992 and lasted until December 1997, when the winning faction, called the Kulabis, succeeded, after bloody clashes, in expelling the bulk of the opposition forces, known as Gharmis, along with tens of thousands of civilians, who took refuge in Afghanistan.

When the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of August 1991, Tajikistan was the only former Soviet Muslim republic in which the Communist Party immediately lost power, although during the presidential elections of November 1991, the former head of the Communist Party, Rahman Nabiev, was elected president. His victory, however, exacerbated political factionalism. Two coalitions fought each other, with different regional identities and ideological alignments. The conservative or neo-Communist faction was composed of two regional groups: the Leninabadis, originating in the northern province of Leninabad, which had provided all the first secretaries of the Communist Party since 1949, including Nabiev; and the Kulabis, from the province of Kulab in southern Tajikistan. The opposition coalition brought together four groups: the Democratic Party, headed by Shadman Youssof; the Rastakhiz (Resurrection) Movement; the Pamiris (Ismaeli people, from the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region; Ismaili is a heterodox branch of Shiʿa Islam); and the Islamic Renaissance Party, headed by Mohammed Sharif Himmatzade; the latter is an Islamic fundamentalist party whose constituency is almost exclusively people originating from the Gharm Valley in southern Tajikistan.

Fighting erupted in Dushambe, the capital, in early May, due to a clash between Kenjaiev, the chairman of the parliament, who was supported by the Kulabis, and Naujavanov, the minister of the interior, a Pamiri who was supported by the Gharmis. The conflict extended throughout the south of the country, with the opposing forces mainly Kulabis and Gharmis, who provided the leadership and the bulk of the fighters on each side. In May 1992, the Gharmis succeeded in expelling the Kulabis from Dushambe. They established a coalition government, but kept Nabiev as president until his forced resignation in September. The Kulabis, entrenched in their province, undertook an offensive toward Dushambe beginning in September 1992, with the covert support of Russian troops. After months of fighting and massacres of civilians, the opposition coalition was driven out of Dushambe in December and fled to Afghanistan.

The victorious Kulabis chose Imamali Rahmanov as president. His government included some Leninabadis, but clearly expressed the Kulabi monopoly in the state. Nevertheless in 1993, a process of negotiation brought together the Kulabis, supported by Moscow, and the Gharmis, supported by Tehran, under United Nations auspices. In June 1997, a peace settlement established a coalition government, headed by Rahmanov, with one-third of cabinet appointments allocated to the Gharmis. The settlement ended the civil war and ensured the supremacy of southern Tajikistan. The civil war in Tajikistan indicates the prevailing role of regional identities in ideological commitments in the former Soviet Central Asia.

Djalil, Mohammed Reza, Frédéric Grare, and Shirin Akiner, eds. (1998) Tajikistan, the Trials of Independence. Richmond, U.K.: Curzon.

Roy, Olivier. (2000) The New Central Asia, the Creation of Nations. London: I. B. Tauris.