The state under Siege: The drug trade and organised crime in Tajikistan

Abstract

This article explores the impact of the drug trade on security and stability in Tajikistan. In order to capture the multifaceted nature of this relationship, the effects on territory, population, state institutions, and the idea of the state are examined. The types of threats affecting these components of the state are discussed. These include societal security in the form of addiction and drug-related diseases; the military threat, most notably manifested by the merger of crime and terror; economic and political threats resulting from a criminalised economic and political system; and the relationship between the drug trade and the legitimacy of the state.

Notes

¹On Moscow's national delimitation of Central Asia, see Sabol (1995, pp. 225 – 241).

²Also available at: http://www.asiaquarterly.com/content/view/121/40/, accessed 19 May 2006.

³Interpol (2000) Testimony on International Crime, 13 December, available at: http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/2000_h/001213-mutschke.htm, accessed 29 April 2006.

⁴Rashid, A. (2000) ‘IMU Insurgency Threatens Tajikistani Political Reconciliation’, Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, 27 September, available at: http://www.cacianalyst.org/view_article.php?articleid=127, accessed 29 April 2006.

⁶Quote by David Lewis as cited in Blua, A. (2004) ‘Central Asia: Is the IMU Still a Threat to Regional Security?’, RFE/RL, 23 January 2004, available at: http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/01/22ec254f-13c5-4b38-beb0-4c94a6164a08.html, accessed 29 April 2006.

⁵Comments by Ahmed Rashid cited in Blua, A. (2004) ‘Central Asia: Is the IMU Still a Threat to Regional Security?’, RFE/RL, 23 January 2004, available at: http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/01/22ec254f-13c5-4b38-beb0-4c94a6164a08.html, accessed 29 April 2006.

⁷Ponce, R. (2002) ‘Rising Heroin Abuse in Asia Raises Threat of Public Health Crisis’, Eurasia Insight, 29 March, available at: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav032902a.shtml, accessed 29 April 2006.

⁸United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (UNODCCP) (2002) Illicit Drugs Situation in the Regions Neighbouring Afghanistan and the Response of ODCCP, available at: http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afg_drug-situation_2002-10-01_1.pdf, accessed 29 April 2006.

⁹Ponce, R. (2002) ‘Rising Heroin Abuse in Asia Raises Threat of Public Health Crisis’, Eurasia Insight, 29 March, available at: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav032902a.shtml, accessed 29 April 2006.; F. Najibullah (2003) ‘Tajikistan: En Route to West, Trafficked Drugs Leave Social Crisis in their Wake’, RFE/RL, 18 June, available at: http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/news/2003/06/sec-030618-rfel-154021.htm, accessed 29 April 2006.

¹⁰Stachowiak, J. & Beyrer, C. (2003) ‘HIV Follows Heroin Trafficking Routes, Presented at the Conference on Health Security in Central Asia: Drug Use, HIV and AIDS’, Eurasianet, 9 July, available at: http://www.eurasianet.org/health.security/presentations/hiv_trafficking.shtml, accessed 29 April 2006.

¹¹ Irinnews (2004) ‘Tajikistan: Drug Use, Migration and Ignorance Fuel Rise in HIV Infections’, 24 February, available at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=39661&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN, accessed 29 April 2006.

¹²See Irinnews ‘Tajikistan: Drug use, migration …’, for full details see footnote 11 (2004). That the official HIV cases are only the tip of the iceberg is also put forward by Zukhra Khalimova, executive director of the Soros Foundation in Tajikistan, who believes that the real figure is over 2,000, and the International Health Organization (IHO), which places the number at between 1,500 and 4,000. See Zakirova, N. (2002) ‘Tajikistan: AIDS Timebomb Ticking’, Eurasianet, 29 October, available at: http://www.eurasianet.org/health.security/iwpr.shtml, accessed 29 April 2006).

¹³Buzurukov, A. (2002) ‘HIV/AIDS Epidemic: Time is Running out for Central Asia’, Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, 10 April, available at: http://www.cacianalyst.org/view_article.php?articleid=29, accessed 29 April 2006.

¹⁴See the World Bank on HIV/AIDS in Tajikistan, available at: http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/ECA/ECSHD.nsf/0/814FDCE14FDAF46585256C83006D9373?Opendocument, accessed 29 April 2006.

¹⁵Gleason, G. (2001) ‘Tajikistan Minister's Murder Points to Drug-Route Conflict’, Eurasia Insight, 16 March, available at: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav041601.shtml, accessed 29 April 2006.

¹⁸ Jamestown Foundation Monitor (2001) ‘Drug Trade Engulfs Tajikistan, Spills into Russia’, 31 January, available at: http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=24&issue_id=1950&article_id=17995, accessed 29 April 2006.

¹⁶ Jamestown Foundation Monitor (2001) ‘Drug Trade Engulfs Tajikistan, Spills into Russia’, 31 January, available at: http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=24&issue_id= 1950&article_id=17995, accessed 29 April 2006.

¹⁷ Jamestown Foundation Monitor (2001) ‘Drug Trade Engulfs Tajikistan, Spills into Russia’, 31 January, available at: http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=24&issue_id=1950&article_id=17995, accessed 29 April 2006.

¹⁹Madi, M. (2004) ‘Who is the New Director of the Tajik Drug Control Agency?’, Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, 24 March, available at: http://www.cacianalyst.org/view_article.php?articleid=2230, accessed 29 April 2006; Pravda (2001) ‘Tajikistan Capital's Mayor Involved in Drug Business’, Pravda, 30 July, available at: http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/07/30/11317.html, accessed 29 April 2006.

²⁰ Eurasia Insight (2004) ‘Arrest of Tajikistan's Drug Czar Stirs Political Tension in Dushanbe’, 9 August, available at: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav080904.shtml, accessed 29 April 2006.

²¹These are the four elements commonly derived from Max Weber's classical definition of the state. See Weber (1964, p. 156).

²²Peuch, J.-C. (2001) ‘Central Asia: Charges Link Russian Military to Drug Trade’, RFE/RL, 8 June, available at: http://www.rferl.org/features/2001/06/08062001111711.asp, accessed 29 April 2006.

²³Such fears have been expressed from Kyrgyz experts, who see it as a possibility that the Kyrgyz – Tajik frontier rather than the Tajik – Afghan border will become the first frontline in the fight against the drug trade from Afghanistan (Kairat Osmonaliev, formerly Deputy Director Kyrgyzstan Drug Control Agency, personal communication, Bishkek, February 2006).

²⁴Kairat Osmonaliev, personal communication, Uppsala, July 2004.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Johan Engvall

The author is particularly grateful for the support of this research offered by the Central Asia – Caucasus Institute—Silk Road Studies Program of Uppsala University. He would also like to acknowledge comments made by Dr Svante Cornell and Professor Stefan Hedlund, as well as the anonymous reviewer.