Temur Varky

High treason, tons of heroin or saling the Pamir regions to China?

While the eyes of the public are riveted to the situation around Ukraine and the world, according to political scientists, may be on the brink of war between Russia and NATO, the Tajik dictator Emomali Rahmon meantime is blowing up the situation in Asia, at the other end of the post-Soviet space, on the border with China and Afghanistan.

Rahmon drove thousands of chasteners to the Pamirs, including SWATs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the State Committee for National Security, the Ministry of Defense, and even the Belarusian SWAT was hired. Armored personnel carriers and cannons were concentrated in Khorog to kill peaceful citizens.

What does the dictatorial regime of Rahmon demand? The regime,created lawlessly, with impunity of it’s officials and ruling since the criminal 90s, committing crimes against humanity for 30 years? It demands from the Khorog city to extradite the participants and activists of the protest rally against police brutality.

On November 25, 2021, special services detained a public activist on charges of beating a prosecutor’s office employee. After multiple tortures seven bullets were fired at him. He was being killed slowly, with pleasure. This is how Gulbiddin Ziyobekov was killed, who stood up for the honor of a local woman subjected to telephone harassment, persistent dirty proposals and threats from the seconded prosecutor of the Roshtkala district.

The rally in Khorog demanded an investigation into the crime and punishment for the killers.

But weapons were used against the protesters, two more were killed, and ten citizens were injured. The regime is now demanding that the city’s community hand over the opinion leader and six other activists.

I do not find it economically feasible for the Rahmon regime to spend huge budgetary funds to arrest one of the leaders of public opinion in Gorno-Badakhshan, retired colonel of the border troops Mamadbokir Mamadbokirov. There are several more or less logical explanations for the crazy moves of the dictator.

This is either hype, a distraction and a cover for the delivery of a large cargo of heroin, or, as Tajik and Russian experts suppose — for the sale of Badakhshan to China to cover increased obligations under the contracts.

If this is the latter, then Rahmon does bad service to China. I do not think that China may profit from the growth of anti-Chinese sentiment in Tajikistan and throughout Central Asia.

China is not interested in gaining the image of an enemy in the region and in nourishing the fear of the Chinese threat. China is investing too much effort and hope in its projects to calmly watch how a temporary dictator undermines them.

But let’s analyze the versions one by one.

The suspicion about Taliban’s delivery of heroin to Rahmon under the guise of an armed police operation in Badakhshan receives new proof. In 2021 Rahmon donated more than half a billion kWh of electricity to the Taliban to the detriment of his own citizens and the Tajik economy. Of the 1.2 billion kWh, the Afghan company “Breshno» paid less than a half and still owes $33 million, citing a freeze on funds and paralysis of the banking system.

In addition, various sources reported that Rahmon who publicly poses himself as a fighter against the Taliban and the defender of the Panjshir, resells to the Taliban not only fuel, but also weapons .Would you ask if Rahmon knows that the accounts of the Afghan government are frozen and that the Taliban has no money to pay salaries to employees?

Earlier, various sources have already reported that the State Committee for National Security of Tajikistan, under the leadership of Saimum Yatimov and the Taliban, are jointly transporting a large supply of several tons of heroin through Badakhshan as payment for some services of Emomali Rahmon to the Taliban. How can one not recall here, by the way, a recent request from Yatimov in negotiations with his Kyrgyz colleague Tashiev to cover him and help him in one matter. Either Tashiev should let this cargo pass without hindrance, having received his share, or set fire to the border in time for a diversionary maneuver.

Taliban the day before called on Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to resolve disputes on the border through dialogue.

In the meantime, residents of Khorog have recently reported suspicious vehicles carrying people dressed in Afghan clothing that traveled at night between Tajik intelligence agencies in Khorog and the border. The city of Khorog was taken under blockade, entangled with barbed wire. Residents are advised not to leave their homes.

I personally have no doubt that power in Tajikistan belongs to an organized criminal group, practically a drug cartel. But heroin is by far not the only sector of the national economy belonging to the Emomali Rahmon’s family.

Neglecting the country’s economy, territorial integrity, the strengthening of statehood, the life and health of citizens and future generations, modern high-quality education and non-emergency heated schools, modern healthcare is characteristic of an organized crime group that seized and occupied Tajikistan.

You don’t have to break the minister’s jaw because of the death of a member of the Rahmon family, since you yourself are selling to ignoramuses a diploma of a medical institute, no doubt. Who is to blame for the death of Rakhmon’s sister, Kurbonbi Rakhmonova from improper treatment of covid? They breed sheep themselves in order to sell diplomas of higher education to the sheep. Sheep cannot heal, so the sheep’s jaws are broken, and then, as if for special merits, they are given awards for a broken jaw.

Just as they sell fuel and electricity in exchange for heroin, they sold all of us, citizens of Tajikistan, wholesale along with land, water, mountains and subsoil for the sake of fat offshore accounts in Switzerland. They sold not only us, but also our grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, who are already born debtors and slaves.

One can not fail to recall the words of Mamadbokir Mamadbokirov that, being the commander of the border detachment in Murghab, he detained 736 kg of heroin, which belonged to the then head of GBAO. And that the system — Rahmon’s organized criminal group — cannot forgive him this. 736 kg of heroin, just for the head of the region, a one-time batch.

But it is quite possible that other goals have been set up for the punitive operation against the people of Badakhshan.

Among political scientists and analysts, along with the heroin version, the version of Rahmon’s sale of Badakhshan to China sounds no less convincing. The point is in Murgab.

This is a huge alpine plateau on the ”roof of the world” with a lunar landscape and numerous reserves explored by Soviet geologists,spreading from the border with China to the Rushan.

My friends, journalists and geologists of the Soviet period, said that we in Tajikistan and the Pamirs possess not only gold and silver, but the entire list of chemical elements hidden under the soil of the Tajik Badakhshan, the untouchable reserve of the former USSR. Who does not know that the first Soviet nuclear bomb, the cornerstone of the nuclear deterrence system, was stuffed with Tajik uranium.

Now, this territory, the territory of Badakhshan, is allegedly leased to the Chinese neighbor for a period of 100 years. Earlier a document appeared in the press stating that to prevent Taliban’s capture of the Pamir border area,Emomali Rahmon himself offered to transfer to China the land whereupon the Chinese military base was settled in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of the Tajik Pamir.

Everyone in Tajikistan remembers that Rahmon earlier in 2011 already transferred to China a part of the territory of Badakhshan, more than one thousand square kilometers. This happened criminally, covertly and stealthily, quietly in violation of Article 7 of the Constitution on the territorial indivisibility and inviolability of Tajikistan, without any referendum and bypassing the Regional Council of GBAO.

For better understanding of the nuances of the situation let us dwell on what Badakhshan or otherwise Pamir is, who inhabits it and why it is unique. This is a mountain system that occupies half of the territory of Tajikistan. Here are the highest mountains in the former USSR. 7 thousand 500 meters, 2 times higher than Mont Blanc. Only Everest is higher.

Small Indo-European communities have been living here for three thousand years, speaking to this day the ancient East Persian dialects, related to the languages of the Scythians, Sarmatians and Alans. The population of this unique ethno-linguistic community ranges from 300 to 500 thousand people, along with those who live outside the mountain region.

For thousands of years this community has survived in harsh mountainous conditions, where in winter the temperature falls to -50 in some places and the snow cover is up to two meters high. They climbed high into the mountains into isolated mountain valleys to maintain their identity. They are very sensitive to the dictates of foreign power and encroachment on their land and their freedom.In general, I believe that what is happening today in Badakhshan should be a cause for serious concern in UNESCO. The issue of the integrity and safety of this global diamond should be considered extremely seriously.

In addition, it is obvious that Rahmon, standing as high as the peak of Ismoil Somoni in the Pamirs, cannot understand the uniqueness, fragility and immeasurable value for Tajikistan and the Tajik people of the culture and the very existence of the ancient small Pamir sub-ethnic groups and languages. It is incomprehensible to him that the language of machine guns and cannons against a small people in the Pamirs is inapplicable, unacceptable and inadmissible . This could turn into a tragedy for the whole of Tajikistan.

This is capable of causing great trouble throughout our sensitive region.

Why is Rahmon doing this now?

He hopes that the whole world today is busy with the tense situation around Ukraine, that the world is unaware of the Pamirs, the roof of the world. Rahmon, according to analysts, is also in a hurry to finish eliminating the dissenters before the transition of power by inheritance to his son Rustam.

In 1992, Rahmon and his gangs, having entered Dushanbe, unleashed a massacre against the Badakhshans and then pursued the refugees to the Pamirs. But he did not imagine that the reverse wave of resistance would begin from the Pamirs and that in five years the opposition troops already armed and trained in the Afghanistan war would occupy the hills above the presidential palace.

Emomali Rahmon should know that no one has repealed the boomerang law and that shots in the holy places of Badakhshan will echo with thunder.

Emomali Rahmon should also know that if he wants to unleash a new civil war in Tajikistan, then this is not the best gift for his heir. Rustam was not messed up in the civil war of 1992-1997. If Emomali Rahmon wants to shift all his guilt and his blood onto Rustam, he is making a fatal mistake. The people will not forget that for the sake of the well-being and power of one son of the pharaoh, thousands of babies were killed in the cradles of Khorog and thousands died in the de-energized villages and hospitals.

If Rahmon uses force against the people of Khorog, this could have the most dire consequences for the stability in Tajikistan and the entire region. Military aggravation together with the statements of full-time propaganda clowns is already very similar to the announcement of the second civil war.

Forceful bloody suppression of peaceful civil disobedience of the inhabitants of Badakhshan can launch processes dangerous for the authorities and peace in Tajikistan.

Consolidation of anti-dictatorial protest moods is the least that has already happened. Blood in Khorog will trigger the mechanisms of revenge and guerrilla warfare. The border with Afghanistan in these places for most of the year is very conditional. Instead of getting the support of the local population in defending the borders, the Rahmon regime is creating a hotbed of guerrilla warfare inside the country with its own hands.

Against the background of the obvious growth of protest moods caused by a drop in the standards of living in Tajikistan,not just in some aspects, but a general drop in the standard of living in Tajikistan down to the African jungle standards, even one match will be enough to raise the fire throughout the country. After all, they have exposed other areas by concentrating forces in Badakhshan.

At the same time, Rahmon will become, and has already become, a state traitor who, for the sake of his own profit and the profit of his family, to cover the debts of his family, betrayed the territorial integrity and state independence of Tajikistan. At the same time, there will be an increase in radical and anti-Chinese sentiment, which is not at all in China’s interests.

Beijing is unlikely to be happy to learn that the inadequate and disproportionate actions of Rahmon and his power ministers in Badakhshan are fueling alarmist sentiments about the Chinese threat and expansion.

Russia will get a new serious hotbed of instability in the region formerly crucial for itself.

Badakhshan, as a historically pro-Russian region, can be a stone the removal of which from the established system of balances will lead to the collapse of centuries-old structures.

I doubt very much that this is in the interests of Russia, China, the EU or the US.

This area, this cornerstone of security in Asia, this heart of Asia, which feeds all the lower reaches of the Caspian Sea with water, this focus and crossroad of interests, this innervation center on the border with China, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, is too sensitive to allow an ass on the roof of the world with an extramural agrarian education to bring the world down.

Temur Varki

14/02/2022

Paris