Marat Khayrulin, Moscow

The Tajik cotton-growers, more exactly, the authorities, working out a harvest plan, took it into their head to gather 550 thousand tons of raw cotton harvest. However, at the end of the campaign the harvest was 130 thousand tons less. Only 418 thousand tons were gathered and the debts of cotton-growing farms had grown fabulously.
Today the cotton-growers’ arrears to futures companies exceed US$511 million – as twice less as the Tajikistan’s state budget in 2007 and almost equal to the budget in 2006. More over, an average salary is US$36 nation-wide, and the minimal one is US$3.75 per month. It should be noted that in this, as a matter of fact, mountainous country the sown areas are located in several fertile valleys, which are only few there.
Neither in the government nor in Tajik president’s administration anybody cares about establishment of actual mechanisms to assist local farmers in resolving their financial problems. Meanwhile, today the Tajik authorities carry out the “far reaching” policy of purposeful extrusion of “superfluous” labor force from the country, premeditatedly bringing local farmers to bankruptcy and redistribution of land resources in favor of a number of clans who monopolized political and economic power in Tajikistan.

It is an open secret that land in Tajikistan is the only resource as well as the last serious “item” of economic interest. This situation occurs due to the shortage of investment projects and economic activity instruments. Besides, land has become an object of jobbery, on the one hand, and the matter of survival for millions of Tajiks involved in agriculture, on the other.

In the nearest future the Tajikistan’s model of economic structure will remind of the Latin American quasi-states in the end of the XIX – beginning of the XX centuries, based on large latifundia. The major number of landless peasants has to leave their country and get involved into economic development of more industrialized states (Kazakhstan, Russia). The minimal industrial basis will be established in the country, first, to maintain a necessary level of urban life in the country’s some urban areas; second, to exploit fields and resources (uranium, non-ferrous metals, aluminium).

In its foreign policy Tajikistan is becoming even more depended on global powers, and, finally, will exercise its rights as “international settlement”. Interests of international actors will be given priority and only then – to the puppet Tajik elite’s political and economic ambitions, which will make semblance of the country’s legitimacy and sovereignty. This scenario is a reflection of discussion ongoing among president Rakhmon’s aides and of study of continuing debates on “land reform” – amendments and additions to the Tajikistan’s Land Сode adopted by the Lower Chamber at the Tajik parliament’s session on 12 December 2007. These changes now should be approved by the Upper Chamber –Majlisi Milli of the Majlisi Oli, and then - by Rakhmon. Once adopted, one can say, there is the end of the modern agriculture in the Republic of Tajikistan.

On 28 November there was a wild debate among parliamentarians in the Majlisi Oli’s Majlisi Namoyandagon on this issue. The member of Agriculture and Employment Committee R.Umarov, who presented the government-prepared draft, said, “the goal of the document is to improve the Land Code, to distribute lots equally, to provide appropriate control over use of land”. He noted that in accordance with the draft, “individuals and legal entities are enabled to use land lots, which can be rented or pawned, indefinitely”. Unfortunately, being one of the biggest landowner, Mr.Umarov has forgotten “by pure accident” to clarify that the bill, in fact, is a convenient tool to take away last property sources from ruined farmers. Nobody in the “land committee”, how the Agriculture Resources Committee is called lately, not even tried to remind, whether due to malicious intent or, maybe, because of the narrow-minded ignorance (most likely by virtue of both factors), that any industrialized or developing state is depended on agriculture. In different countries there is a number of financial, administrative and legislative measures adopted to support local growers. The answer is simple – “war comes and goes, but there is always need to eat”.

What is going on in Tajikistan is a robbery of the population deprived of their civil rights. Instead of making this economic area attractive for investors, conducting a debt readjustment, consolidating farms and creating machine-tractor stations for farmers, the government has paved the way to bankrupt its farmers. “Farmers realize profits from growing cotton worldwide, but in Tajikistan there are debts only!” - head of the British Foreign Office’s Central Asia, Caucasus and Moldova Section of International Cooperation Department Jim Monde astonishes. So far, only narrow business circles have designed similar large-scale frauds in ex-Soviet states (let’s recall the notorious “MMM”). In Tajikistan, where the criminal, power and business are masks of the same individuals, the bill has become, in the form of “reform”, a legalized form of robbery by the ruling elite of the other part of the population.

Everyone in the country, especially farmers, can foresee the future course of the events. Farmers who are behindhand will pawn their lands for debts. They will hardly rid themselves of debts selling their future harvest - this is a fact. And taking into account the next inputs for sowing, increase of interest and administrative costs, they will work off the debts next 3-5 years, even giving up the right of ownership to new landlords. Their more “successful” colleagues-farmers will hold out only 2 years, because significant increase of prices for combustive-lubricating materials, electricity, new land tax, more expensive grains and many other expenses prevails them from exiting the vicious circle of servitude.

Thus, the considerable concentration of lands in hands of 5-6 “companies” (firms, agro-corporations, call it as you like) is to be expected in the nearest future. In principle, they will be interested in withdrawing lands from the agricultural circulation and maximization of benefits through profiteering.

Not for nothing, the president’s state adviser for economic issues M.Davlatov said, “in accordance to the official information, during the last 10 years cotton trade brought US$1.200b., at the same time, debts have increased to US$400m. Ten largest Tajik investors shared 80% of the debts!” Good, there is a huge financial backlog for that.

Now a third force - narcocapital - has interfered in this confrontation. The drugdollar flows have become a real test for the poverty-stricken economy affecting all areas of country’s activities. When laundering of money earned by the illegal drug production and trade turned into the country’s leading industry, it is becoming clear who is the genuine inspirer of the “land reform” and what is its ultimate goal. I’m going to explain those who did hot understand – the bill will allow to launder hundreds of millions of dollars by investing in the most reliable resource – “land”. Thus, the criminally earned profits will by legalized.

In fact, the country’s united family-clan groups will play before millions of Tajikistanis’ very eyes, who understanding little the current situation, the last act of the drama.

What about the ordinary Tajiks? For an outsider it seems that the Rakhmon’s administration is a bunch of primitive mobs, interested in nothing but power and money. It is not quite so. It should be understood that with enhancement of power, financial resources and economic capabilities concentration, any criminal group, not necessary Rakhmon’s or anybody else’s, will increase in geometric progression a possibility of potential risks and fears about preserving these benefits. In our case, the major risk is the ordinary Tajik people. To neutralize this threat, the policy is carried out aimed at extrusion of able-bodied, politically active population to other countries. It is well known from the reliable sources that the numbers of the Tajik citizens expected to live abroad permanently in search of jobs should be: in 2008 – 1.380.000 people, and in 2009 – 1.6 million. According to the official Dushanbe, nowadays a half of a million Tajiks work abroad, most of all in Russia and Kazakhstan. Accordingly to independent sources, this number comes up to 1.070-1.100 million people. Sh.Usmanova, Deputy Head of Migration Service of the Tajikistan’s Ministry of Interior, believes that “officially, 500.000 Tajiks worked in Russia in 2007, unofficially – one million.”

President of Tajikistan cares little about the life in insanitation at building sites, doghouses, basements, ill-equipped for employee groups, of those living in undocumented immigration; that in countries of residence Tajiks are ill-treated like low-grade people. The Rakhmon’s goal has been achieved – the CIS is overflowed by a new wave of the Tajik gastarbeiters.

According to the President of the “Tajiks” People’s League K.Sharipov’s assessment, “almost 80% of new comers (Tajiks) in age of 18-40 just illiterate. They cannot neither read nor write, often not only in Russian, but also in their native language. Today many boys in Tajikistan, when leaving schools, go to Russia in search of a job. The outflow of 17-20 year old young men will increase each year, and they seem not to desire to come back to homeland in the future, especially because it will be already divided and owned by others.

Lands, bought cheap by new Tajik baybochcha (the rich), of course, not to be cultivated. They will preserve them for their future potbelly generations. And the Tajik leadership will continue to force out its population, already poor, from their country to free living areas for the strong and the rich. However, at that, the Tajik nouveau riches must realize that their offspring will never express desire to live in Tajikistan. Therefore, they currently take out their children and capitals to close and far abroad. The question is: if it comes to that, why to deprive common people of last possession – the land, on which the remaining 30% of the Tajik nation is still surviving?

Oppressors seem to come to a bad end soon: the greedy will find their punishment among Pamirs! Tajiks won’t allow Rakhmon to rule until the very last Tajik!