Map 48: Border Disputes in the Farghona Valley
S
ince the 1980s the Farghona Valley has been potentially
one of the most explosive areas in Central Asia, and a
microcosm also of the social, political and economic trends
typical in the developing world. The Farghona area, which
occupies less than four percent of the region's territory, is
home to about \
r
i percent <>l the region's population. It is
shared between three republics—Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan
and Uzbekistan—and therefore destabilization in the
valley can immediately affect all three republics. This is
particularly true for Uzbekistan, whose capital, Tashkent,
the largest urban center in the region, is situated roughly
100 miles (160 kilometers) away. All the problems and con-
flicts that have affected the region since independence are
to be found in the valley (Rubin 1999).
In many ways the problems in the valley replicate
patterns of development in countless agriculture-based
third world countries. Over the past 50 years the popula-
tion in the area has nearly tripled, reaching between
8 and 9 million. Due to this massive demographic expan-
sion in the 1970s and 1980s, the valley's population is
largely youthful, with an estimated 45 to 50 percent
28 years old or younger. This growth has severely aggra-
vated competition for resources and jobs between indi-
viduals and communities. Social problems have become
particularly acute, as local and national governments did
not direct adequate investment into job-creation in the
1980s and the 1990s. According to various estimates,
between 15 and 30 percent of the people in the area are
unemployed or underemployed and about half the pop-
ulation lives below the poverty line (International Crisis
Group 2000). Limited market-oriented reforms and the
opening of private initiatives have been introduced only
in the Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan parts of the Farghona
Valley, not on the Uzbekistan side.
The area's soda! and demographic problems have
been worsened by an ecological crisis. The Farghona
Valley is one of the most productive agricultural areas in
the region, but it has a very fragile ecosystem. As in
many developing countries, local peasants tend to use
outdated practices and technologies in order to squeeze
out of their small plots of land as much produce as pos-
sible, often ignoring long-term consequences. Thus, the
valley has lost nearly all of its alpine and subalpine for-
est, and large areas of bush along the rivers and creeks
have also been destroyed. This in turn has led to an
increase in the frequency of landslides and floods during
the wet season, water shortages in the dry season and
severe salinization and desertification.
Competition between communities has been aggra-
vated even further by the multiethnic composition of
the area and by rising nationalism. It is not uncommon
for a small conflict or disagreement between communi-
ties to explode into a full-scale confrontation between
representatives of different ethnic groups. This type of
escalation can immediately involve much larger
groups, as neighboring villagers rush to help their kin.
Such was the case in community conflicts that led to
mass riots claiming many lives in 1988, 1989 and 1990,
and in minor water and land disputes in the 1990s.
Economic management and proper governance of the
area have been undermined by the erection of borders, a
rise in border disputes and an absence of cross-border
cooperation. During the Soviet era, all communication,
transportation, energy and water infrastructure was built
by the central government. After 1991, however, the
national governments asserted their sovereign rights
over land, property and infrastructure and began man-
aging and using these resources according to their own
needs, often ignoring the needs of the others. The case of
water management illustrates the problem. The govern-
ments of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan claim that their water
resources constitute proprietary commercial assets and
therefore that a downstream country—in this case,
Uzbekistan—should pay for the water or let them use the
water according to their needs. Kyrgyzstan's and
Tajikistan's governments wish to develop hydroelectric
power stations and sell the resulting power to China and
Afghanistan for hard currency. To accomplish this,
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have insisted on their right to
manage the water resources by themselves, accumulat-
ing as much water as possible during the spring and
summer seasons when the demand for electricity is low,
and discharging as much as possible in the winter when
demand is high. The government of Uzbekistan, on the
other hand, has taken the view that water is not a com-
mercial asset but a public good, and hence it has the right
to participate in managing the water resources and to use
them without having to pay for them. The issue is very
important for Uzbekistan, as its cotton farmers need
water in the spring and summer, while excessive water
during the winters would flood their fields.
In the meantime, as local and national governments
have been locked in unending disputes and inefficient
practices, various radical Islamist groups have stepped
in. These groups claim that the only solution lies in their
vision of radical change, which includes building
Taliban-style governments and legal systems. These
groups are believed to have established close ties with
the Taliban and to have undergone training in their
camps. Upon returning from Afghanistan, they went so
far as to attempt the seizure of villages and towns in
remote areas of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in
order to establish their presence and power bases there.
All together this development added a whole new layer
of tension to the existing situation, further destabilizing
the area.