Page 6 - Small Stans Outlook 2024

He added: "The ongoing crackdown on ethnic and religious minorities, their local organisations and leaders, in the Gorno-Badakhshan region in particular, is especially troubling."
In September, a group of self-exiled Tajik dissidents threw eggs at Rahmon’s motorcade during a visit by the despot to Berlin. One of the activists in the group was later deported to Dushanbe, where he was arrested. Prior to that, the regime’s tactics against the dissidents included cutting off power to the homes of their parents in Tajikistan. It was another demonstration of the unscrupulous efforts made by Rahmon to maintain total control and his intolerance of any meaningful criticism.
Corruption among the elites certainly remains a major problem in Tajikistan. The government recently transferred thousands of hectares of prime land to a private company that observers claim is controlled by a close relative of the authoritarian Rahmon.
On a positive note, there are hopes that 2024 could deliver a long-sought deal between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan over the mapping of their post-Soviet border. Disagreements over various territories that were delineated and demarcated under the former Soviet Union have several times exploded into armed clashes over the years, including a brief and bloody Tajik “invasion” in September 2022.
A border deal could be another move Rahmon would like to see definitively concluded before stepping down.
Tajikistan is the Central Asian state most opposed to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, though there has been a slight warming of relations between Dushanbe and Kabul lately.
Nevertheless, the threat from groups in Afghanistan to the countries of Central Asia, and primarily to Tajikistan, is growing, according to analysts cited by a November article that looked at the questionable capabilities of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO).
The November 30 report by Asia-Plus referenced repeated warnings from Andrei Serenko, director of the Analytical Centre of the Russian Society of Political Scientists and head of the Centre for the Study of Afghan Politics.
Serenko cautioned on his Telegram channel – while relaying information
provided by his sources in Afghanistan – that the Jamaat Ansarullah movement (also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Tajikistan, or TTT, or the “Tajik Taliban”), has started training suicide bombers.
Though its present capabilities are in big doubt given Russia’s draining engagement in Ukraine, the CSTO can still count on Tajikistan as a loyal member. Russia has recently supplied some S-300 missile units to Tajikistan in a modest stop towards the goal of a CSTO common air defence system.
At the same time, at a December meeting between Vladimir Putin and Rahmon in Moscow, the Russian leader expressed interest in exploring and developing Tajik uranium, lithium and rare earth resources, though the extent of these resources is far from ascertained.
6 Small Stans 2023 www.intellinews.com