WELCOME TO IWPR'S REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA, No. 474, 11 December, 2006 PILGRIMS PROTEST IN KYRGYZSTAN Claims and counter-claims of wrongdoing in the Muslim clerical establishment are a symptom of an organisation in need of change. By Tolkun Sagynova in Bishkek
TAJIK RESETTLEMENT PROJECT AIMS TO HELP POOREST Families hit by unemployment and flooding get a chance to start again, though some analysts suspect their relocation to a sensitive border area is a form of social engineering. By IWPR staff in Dushanbe **** NEW AT IWPR ****************************************************************** 2006 KURT SCHORK AWARDS IN INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISM For details about the winners as well as the awards ceremony held in London please go to: http://www.iwpr.net/index.php?apc_state=henh&s=o&o=top_ksa_2006.html IWPR LAUNCHES CENTRAL ASIAN NEWS AGENCY: News Briefing Central Asia is a new concept in regional reporting, comprising analysis and news behind the news in Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Available at: www.NBCentralAsia.net **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA RSS: http://www.iwpr.net/en/rca/rss.xml TURKMEN RADIO: INSIDE VIEW is an IWPR radio training and broadcast project for Turkmenistan. View at: http://www.iwpr.net/?p=trk&s=p&o=-&apc_state=henh RECEIVE FROM IWPR: Readers are urged to subscribe to IWPR's full range of free electronic publications at: http://www.iwpr.net/index.php?apc_state=henh&s=s&m=p GIVE TO IWPR: IWPR is wholly dependent upon grants and donations. For more information about how you can support IWPR go to: http://www.iwpr.net/donate.html **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** PILGRIMS PROTEST IN KYRGYZSTAN Claims and counter-claims of wrongdoing in the Muslim clerical establishment are a symptom of an organisation in need of change. By Tolkun Sagynova in Bishkek As Muslims in Kyrgyzstan prepare to set off on pilgrimage to Mecca later this month, there is mounting pressure on the countrys Islamic leaders, with allegations that the last Hajj was mismanaged. But as accusations of corruption and poor management fly around, commentators are saying the real problem is that the institution within which mainstream Islam is organised, a hierarchical directorate that is a holdover from Soviet times, is no longer capable of managing itself, let alone serving as interlocutor between secular state and the Muslim community. Demonstrations in the capital Bishkek and in Osh, the main city in southern Kyrgyzstan, were followed by the November 24 launch of a campaign to gather signatures in support of removing Murataly Ajy Jumanov as Chief Mufti of Kyrgyzstan. The first protest, on November 15, involved about 50 people who picketed the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Kyrgyzstan, the official governing body for Islamic affairs. The demonstration in Osh two days later was much larger, with 2,000 people calling for the resignations of both Jumanov and Jolbors Jorobekov, who heads the State Agency for Religious Affairs. In a statement addressed to President Kurmanbek Bakiev the following day, 200 Muslims from Osh and the other southern provinces - Jalalabad and Batken - said the problems that marred the last pilgrimage had still not been resolved. Late last year, as pilgrims prepared to set off on the journey to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj which took place in January 2006, about 2,000 found they were barred from going even though they had paid for their trips in advance. Some had sold their last cow just to get a chance to take part in what could be a once-in-a-lifetime spiritual experience. Most have not got their money back. Kyrgyzstan had been given a quota of 4,500 pilgrims by the Saudi authorities, and travel arrangements were managed under the Spiritual Directorate, of which the mufti is head. An investigation by the parliament and the security service subsequently established that many of those travelling to Mecca as part of the Kyrgyz contingent were people from neighbouring countries, using false passports. The suspicion was that Kyrgyz nationals who had prepaid for their trips were bumped off the list presumably after local Hajj organisers collected a bribe from the foreigners. Responding to calls for his removal, the mufti accepted that there had been some wrongdoing, but he said his office had looked into the matter and had dismissed a number of local officials. The accusations should be addressed to the Hajj organisation headquarters, he said. We only offer them guidance on Islamic principles. Jumanov defended his own position robustly, saying, As mufti and as the spiritual leader of the entire Muslim community, I categorically state that these demands are without foundation. I see no reason why I should resign. I have never striven to cling to this post. I came here to do good things, not to engage in intrigue. The campaign against Jumanov appears to be more complex than a straightforward campaign by disgruntled pilgrims against a clerical leadership they think has failed them. At least some of the muftis opponents are in fact insiders. The November 15 demonstration in Bishkek, for example, was led by Nematulla Jeenbekov, who lost his job as deputy mufti in February because of his alleged role in the Hajj debacle, and Abdumanap Masaliev, dismissed from the Muslim directorate in October after being accused of misusing money. Many commentators believe the Hajj issue masks a deeper power-struggle within the Muslim directorate, a powerful body that enjoys state backing and controls assets such as mosque buildings and Hajj finances. And although Kyrgyzstan has its share of radical groups such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir, this battle among the mainstream Muslim clergy appears to be about control, not theology. A faction within the 30-member Ulema Council, the assembly of religious scholars which steers the Muslim directorate, seems to lobbying against its own chairman, Jumanov. Some members have written to State Secretary Adakhan Madumarov asking him to press for the muftis dismissal. By law Kyrgyzstan is a secular state, and the government cannot interfere in religious affairs except when radicals break the law. But it is an open secret that the government has a strong interest in running of the muftis administration, its key interlocutor and its channel of communication to the devout in this majority-Muslim country. The deputy mufti, Rahmatulla Egemberdiev, says his boss will not be ousted in a coup, [He] can only be dismissed by a decision of the Ulema Council, and no less than 21 of its 30 members have to vote for this. Jumanovs opponents also want the removal of Jorobekov as the head of the government department concerned with religious affairs. He appears to have become a target because after last years fiasco, parliament insisted he take on the additional job of managing the Hajj organising committee. Jorobekov dismisses charges that corruption has taken place on his watch. In fact, he says, these attacks are coming from individuals who will no longer be able to make money on the side, because he has introduced new travel arrangements intended to eliminate corruption. This year is the first time all the pilgrims from Kyrgyzstan will be going by plane. To save money, they used to take a bus which took 15 days and cost them 1,800 to 2,000 [US] dollars a person. Its 1,500 dollars if they fly, he said. Why is all this even being raised? Most likely because people were profiteering on the back of the Hajj. Thats going to stop with the introduction of air travel [because] using buses allowed them to take extra passengers and transport goods. He concluded, Someones been making a profit here. Thats why 2,000 pilgrims were left stranded. >From now on, he said, travel arrangements were being carefully coordinated >with police and the consular service, I take great exception when people come >and threaten to hold demonstrations to get the mufti and me to resign. What >they want is to get visas and send people off to Saudi Arabia via their own >channels. Jorabekov said there was a force at work which reared its head last year as well, when attempts were made to take over the Muslim directorate and to disband his own government department. He indicated that Jumanovs position was safe, at least for the time being. It would get even worse if Murataly Ajy was sacked. Weve looked at all the pros and contras and decided to keep him, he said. There are several [other] candidates for the position, based in Jalalabad and in Bishkek. Theres a lot of intrigue. But its all under control now. Kadyr Malikov, an analyst with the Institute for Strategic Analysis and Forecasting, said the reason why the Muslim directorate found itself in a state of perpetual discord and tension was not just the personalities involved, but the way the organisation itself was structured, leaving too much power vested in the mufti himself. According to Malikov, the institution is in urgent need of reform, not just for its own sake but because the Kyrgyz authorities have to be able to influence the religious environment in the country. In the years since we became independent [in 1991], Islam and the religious situation generally have been somehow left to one side. The state has not always attended to it . A religious revival is increasingly encompassing all levels of society, and young people in particular are rapidly becoming Islamicised, he said. The role of the state is not, actually, to interfere in religious affairs, or to replace one spiritual leader with another whom the authorities deem more acceptable. No - its role is to facilitate the growth of Islam along positive lines, and create the frameworks within which that can happen. Malikov ended with a warning, If the state does not start engaging with Islam today, others will do so tomorrow. TAJIK RESETTLEMENT PROJECT AIMS TO HELP POOREST Families hit by unemployment and flooding get a chance to start again, though some analysts suspect their relocation to a sensitive border area is a form of social engineering. By IWPR staff in Dushanbe A scheme to resettle families from southern Tajikistan to an area close to the Uzbek border is intended to offer some of the countrys most vulnerable people a fresh start in life. Some analysts say the move is a controversial one in a country where ethnic and regional differences are an important political factor. Under the programme, 1,000 families from the Kulyab (Kulob) area are being relocated to areas close to Tursunzade, a town west of the capital Dushanbe. The government says the scheme is all about tackling poverty in one of the countrys poorest regions. The government is conducting a phased resettlement of people from the overpopulated Dangara, Muminabad, Farhor, Moskovsky [now known as Hamadoni] and Shurabad regions, where unemployment rates are high, said Deputy Agriculture Minister Sadokat Sanginova. As well as the districts listed by Sanginova, settlers will also come from the Vose and Khovaling districts and from Kulyab itself. These areas around Kulyab are almost entirely rural, with little industry, and many people there have few economic prospects and no homes or land. Tursunzade, on the other hand, is home to the countrys major industrial producer, a giant aluminium plant, and is surrounded by fertile farmlands whose produce is easily transported for sale in the capital, just 80 kilometres away. Southern Tajikistan has been especially affected by the mass labour migration in recent years, in which hundreds of thousands of men are away doing seasonal work in Russia and Kazakstan while their wives tend the farm at home. Some never come back. As well as chronic poverty, the resettlement programme also addresses a more immediate crisis facing people in the Hamadoni and Vose areas, where many homes were swept away by severe flooding last year after the Panj river on the Tajik-Afghan border burst its banks. These homeless settlers are being described as ecological migrants. Anvar Boboev, the head of the labour and welfare ministrys migration service, said the total number of settlers would equate to 5,000 people. According to Boboev, the government has identified unused land near Tursunzade that these people could usefully occupy. The two areas allotted to the settlers are located close to the border with Uzbekistan. Its worth noting that this land hasnt been populated for several years now, he said, adding that many heads of households from Kulyab have come to take a look at the land recently. Boboev added that the farmland was short of water, but local government chiefs had promised to install irrigation systems by spring next year. Priority is being given to professionals like teachers, doctors and vets, and skilled workers like tractor drivers and specialist farmers. A government official told IWPR that another priority group consisted of young people with little hope of finding jobs in their home region, who would be trained to work at the aluminium plant or other industrial units around Tursunzade. As well as land, each family will be given a grant of 3,000 somoni, worth about 1,000 US dollars, so that they can build houses. The offer has been seized on by people left behind by the economic problems that followed the collapse of the Soviet system under which the Tajik republic was subsidised from Moscow and the ensuing civil war. A reporter based in Qorghan-Tepa (Kurgan-Tyube), a town in southwest Tajikistan, described the desperate situation facing many rural people in the south generally, There are virtually no men left in the villages and men often commit suicide because of their hopeless situation. Many women have become [virtual] widows since their husbands have been in Russia for six or seven years and have set up new families there. Earlier, they would have been sending money home for food and clothes for the children, but now they dont. Womens options, too, are limited. Many young women are unable to go on to further education, because their parents wont let them, said a womans rights activist called Jamila. There arent enough factories where they could work as seamstresses or do sewing as home workers . The girls here are very good at stitching, spinning and weaving, but unfortunately theres no place where they can use their skills. It means theres an excess labour force. To avoid staying unmarried, which is seen as highly undesirable as well as a burden on the parents, many young women become second or third wives, in a society which has seen a resurgence of polygamy even though the law prohibits it. Around Kulyab, the large collective farms of the Soviet era many of them growing cotton - persist in the form of jamoats, but harsh economic realities have led them to shed many of their workers. Saidmahmad Oripov has one leg and in the absence of adequate welfare systems, is forced to beg in Kulyabs town centre. He lives with his wife, who is also disabled, and two children in a trailer in the village of Tugarak in the Vose district. But the jamoat farmland has been privatised and the family has been told to move out. Ive asked the local authorities to give me some land, but they said there wasnt any available, Oripov told IWPR. Theyve offered me a chance to move to Tursunzade - and Ive agreed. Another village, Tagi Namak, which forms part of the same jamoat as Tugarak, typifies the problems of rural Kulyab areas. With a population of 25,000 and a high birth rate, 120 marriages a year mean more households looking to set up on their own land but there is none available. In the last three years, the local authorities have issued lease rights on only 20 tiny plots of a tenth of a hectare each in this village. But the land is virtually useless as it doesnt have artificial irrigation essential in this arid environment. Six years ago an official ban was placed on the distribution of irrigated farmland, due to the acute shortage of land in Vose district. It is impossible to survive without an allotment of land, said Ahyon Ismoilov, who lives in Tugarak. Ive got four children, and as well as my family, my three brothers and their families all live in my fathers house. Theyre waiting for me to go [to Tursunzade] so that my younger brother can take over my land. Ubaid Sharipov, a retired teacher in Tagi Namak, is looking forward to moving to a new location after his house was destroyed in last years flooding. Our house was washed away. I have several sons, and I cant afford to buy a new house or apartment. Move to Tursunzade is the only choice I have, he said. I dont know how we are going to live there, though. The lands good, but you need money for construction materials to build a house. Theyve promised us 1,000 dollars, but thats not nearly enough. The apparent space in the labour market in Tursunzade and the neighbouring Regar district would seem to make the resettlement programme eminently sensible from an economic point of view. However, some commentators are concerned that the government may have a secondary motive in moving Tajiks to a sensitive frontier zone with a substantial ethnic Uzbek population. The countrys recent history means such a policy could carry considerable risks. The different areas that make up Tajikistan have distinct identities, which in some cases were exacerbated by the 1992-97 civil war which was in part fought along regional lines. At the start of the civil war, a Kulyabi faction came to dominate the Tajik government, while the opposition guerrilla movement was formed along different regional lines. President Imomali Rahmonov, who has led the country since 1992, and won a further presidential term in November, is from the Kulyab area himself, as are many members of the administration. Poor rural Kulyabis although they have not benefited from their leaders patronage might therefore be seen as a particularly loyal group. Then there is Uzbekistan, a powerful neighbour with which Rahmonovs government has had a troubled and sometimes frosty relationship. In past years, the government in Tashkent was suspected of encouraging ethnic Uzbek figures such as Mahmud Khudoiberdiev, who led a succession of army mutinies against Rahmonov. Tursunzades aluminium plant still a lucrative source of export revenues despite its decrepit state was the focus of clashes in 1996-97. A prominent local figure at the centre of the struggle for control of the plant was Ibod Boymatov, who had clear links to both Tashkent and Khudoiberdiev. Hojimahmad Umarov, a political analyst based in Dushanbe, is in no doubt that the government is acting out of a complex set of political and ethnic considerations. The reason for resettling people from these areas . is clearly that this [Tursunzade/Regar] border area is largely populated by Uzbeks, he told IWPR. Its being done to avoid a repeat of events in the Nineties . To ensure that this situation does not happen again, you need to have Tajiks living along the border. It being done in the interests of national security. No one has discussed the matter in public, but everyone is guessing that this is the case. Shokirjon Hakimov, a political analyst, said that if the government merely wanted to use up empty farmland, it would have done better to recruit Tajiks living in the Hissar valley, in which Tursunzade is located. The Hissar valley has its own specific ways, its own traditions and customs, he said. If there really was a need, it would have made more sense to settle these villages with Tajiks from elsewhere in the valley. Hakimov said there was a risk that if there were tensions between local people and the outsiders from Kulyab, things could play out as an ethnic dispute, with consequences that are hard to predict. In Tursunzade, reactions were mixed to the prospect of settlers from Kulyab. Some were openly concerned about the idea. We dont need these Kulyab people here, said a market trader in the city, who did not want to be named. They will make their own rules. A man who gave his first name as Said, reflected the view that the move is a deliberate social engineering project to shift the ethnic balance, Its our leaderships policy they fear that Tursunzades residents will . ask for a referendum to hand the area over to Uzbekistan. Others in the town were more welcoming one Uzbek schoolgirl, for example, hoped the new arrivals would offer her more of a chance to learn to speak Tajik properly. As there are only 5,000 households involved, there is a good chance their presence will have less of an impact than people think on both labour market and society generally in this densely-populated part of the country. Halimakhon Sultanova, who works at the aluminium plant, said, I have nothing against people from our own country moving here. They wont be taking our houses, and they wont take our jobs away, so why should we be against the re-settlement? **** www.iwpr.net ******************************************************************** REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA provides the international community with a unique insiders' perspective on the region. Using our network of local journalists, the service publishes news and analysis from across Central Asia on a weekly basis. The service forms part of IWPR's Central Asia Project based in Almaty, Bishkek, Tashkent and London, which supports media development and encourages better local and international understanding of the region. 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