|
|
Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia
By Ahmed Rashid, Penguin Books, 2003, £8-99
Reviewed by Per Åke Westerlund
THE BRUTAL dictatorships in Central Asia have become key
allies of US imperialism in its ‘war against terrorism’. This alliance, and the
fact that Central Asia is one of the world’s poorest regions, have created
fertile ground for the growth of right-wing political Islam. Ahmed Rashid
clearly states where he believes the responsibility lies: "Both the governments
and the international community have betrayed the people of Central Asia and
offered them nothing but oppression, unemployment, poverty, disease and war".
He is very critical of the Islamist groups: "The new Muslim
fundamentalists are not interested in making an unjust society just. They don’t
care about jobs, education, social benefits or about creating harmony between
the different ethnic groups which live in many Muslim countries. The new jihad
groups have no economic manifesto, no plan for improved rule or the construction
of political institutions, and no vision on how decision making can be
democratised in their future Islamic states".
By 1929 Stalin had divided Turkestan into five republics,
playing on ethnic and regional power struggles to make his control easier. The
natural centre of the region, the Fergana Valley, was divided between
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The two most important Tajik cities,
Samarkand and Bukhara, were awarded to Uzbekistan, the biggest republic with 22
million inhabitants, as was the predominantly-Tajik Sukh region. Uzbeks make up
the biggest ethnic group, with 72% of the population in Uzbekistan and big
minorities in other republics. In Kyrgyzstan, only 52% are Kyrgyz. The
privileges of the ruling Stalinists – and their military power – were totally
dependent on the link with Moscow.
Islam’s comeback was given impetus after 1980 when the
Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, where there are 4.5 million Tajiks and two
million Uzbeks. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 resulted in economic
devastation, combined with increased repression. And much of the backlash
against this repression was channelled into political Islam. A thousand new
mosques were established in each of the republics.
Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan and Askar Akayev in
Kyrgyzstan applied IMF-style programmes and large-scale privatisation.
Kazakhstan has sold its oil fields mostly to US companies, but also to China,
which set up the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). This includes Russia
and the Central Asian republics except Turkmenistan, handling economic projects
as well as limited military cooperation. In March 2001, Chevron’s Tenghiz field
pipeline was completed. All major companies have been sold since 1994, many to
friends of Nazarbayev. The president’s daughter, Dariga Haz, controls 80% of the
media and her husband is head of state security.
Kyrgyzstan is deeply split ethnically, with separate
schools, mosques and bazaars for Kyrgyz and Uzbek people. Hundreds were killed
in ethnic fighting in the city of Osh in the summer of 1990. By 2001, 68% of the
population were living on less than $7 a month, according to the World Bank. In
response to armed raids by the Independent Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU),
president Akayev banned all opposition parties in the elections in February 2000
and imprisoned Islamists. A wave of protests and strikes followed. In March
2000, the then US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, visited the country
and promised money for military rearmament.
Saparmurad Niyazov in Turkmenistan and Islam Karimov
(Uzbekistan) refused to implement IMF ‘reforms’. The cult around Turkmenistan’s
president is, according to Rashid, more extensive than even the cult around
Stalin. In 1991 Niyazov appointed himself the ‘Father of all Turkmen’. There are
statues everywhere. He has renamed every street in the capital, and his book on
‘ethics’ is the equivalent of Mao Ze Dong’s red book. Political parties are
banned, the media is controlled by the government and all telephone calls are
tapped.
Uzbekistan is the dominant power in Central Asia. President
Karimov rules with an iron hand. He got 92% in the last election, when even the
‘opposition’ candidate voted for him. Turkey has invested in 400 joint ventures
and some US companies are involved in mining and energy, through direct deals
with Karimov.
Tajikistan is the poorest republic. In 2000 grain production
fell by 47% due to drought. The International Committee of the Red Cross
estimated that 1.2 million people were affected by hunger and malnutrition,
reporting that people sold the doors and windows of their houses to get food.
Sixty per cent of all under-30s are unemployed.
The civil war, between troops of the former Stalinist regime
and the armed wing of the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), saw 50,000 killed and
250,000 refugees from 1992-97. The IRP was founded in Russia as a party for
Muslims throughout the former Soviet Union. Politically and militarily it was
close to Ahmad Shah Masood and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, prominent US-supported
commanders in Afghanistan. The IRP built support through distributing food, and
alliances with other opposition parties. It was supported by Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia and Iran. Russia and Uzbekistan – then later, Iran – backed the Tajik
regime, led by Emomali Rahmonov.
When the Taliban came to power in Kabul in 1996 the
situation changed. Rahmonov’s regime and the IRP wanted to stop the Taliban. A
peace agreement in 1997 legalised the IRP, and its soldiers were integrated into
the army. Sayed Abdullah Nuri and other IRP leaders were given seats in the
government. The economic crisis deepened, however, and its support soon
collapsed.
Some IRP supporters joined two, more extreme, Islamic
alternatives: the IMU and Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (HT – Party of Islamic
Liberation). Hizb ut-Tahrir has won strong support among urban people and
academics. Its stated aim is to take power in one or two countries, form a
caliphate and then take over the rest of the Muslim world. Its model state is an
autocracy with sharia laws, Arabic as its language, the oppression of women’s
rights, anti-Semitism, anti-Shiism, a ban on most cultural activity, etc.
The IMU differs from both the IRP and HT in openly
advocating the violent overthrow of the current regimes. (HT supported the
Taliban, but claims to be non-violent.) The IMU developed under the leadership
of Tohir Yuldeshev and Juma Namangani with money from Saudi Arabia and, in the
beginning, Turkey and Iran. When it was based in Peshawar, Pakistan (1995-98),
it built links with Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Uzbeks in Saudi Arabia also
support the IMU financially.
In February 1999, six car bombs were detonated in Tashkent
in an attack on Karimov. This led to increased repression against Muslims. The
IMU declared war on the regime the following August. Yuldeshev was given asylum
by the Taliban, and the IMU received a big share of the income from the opium
trade. The IMU conducted guerrilla raids in the Fergana Valley, and the rulers
closed the borders, which worsened the economic crisis. After demonstrations in
2000, the US, Russia, China, Turkey, France and Israel flew in ‘riot-control
equipment’. Clearly, they were not just worried about the guerrillas.
After 11 September 2001, Russian and Central Asian regimes
offered the US access to military bases. Russia wanted a free hand in Chechnya
and the rulers in Central Asia wanted help to crush the IMU. US Secretary of
Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, visited Uzbekistan in October 2001, and the World Bank
granted new loans.
It is clear that the collapse of Stalinism into a kind of
shadow-Stalinism, combined with the imperialist robbers and their armies, have
created the crisis in Central Asia. Social discontent and anger is rising
against the corrupt elites – and the West. They could be channelled into mass
workers’ struggle, but also into guerrilla action and the emergence of new
Islamic organisations. Unfortunately, Rashid’s focus on Islamic opposition means
that mass protests, in most cases, are not featured in his book, the most
important omission being that of the workers’ struggle in Kazakhstan.
A fuller version of this review is available at www.socialismtoday.org/comment
|