Tajikistan is losing the battle against the flow of drugs from neighboring Afghanistan and is characterized by “cronyism and corruption” emanating from the president downwards.
A series of leaked US diplomatic dispatches released by WikiLeaks paint a bleak picture of central Asia’s poorest state. They note that it suffers from “earthquakes, floods, droughts, locusts and extreme weather” and is situated next to “obstructive Uzbekistan,” “unstable Afghanistan” and the “rough, remote” Pamir mountains next to western China.
However, Tajikistan’s worst obstacle is the country’s venal leader, President Emomali Rahmon, diplomats said in the cables.
A secret cable dated Feb. 16 from the US embassy in Dushanbe describes how Rahmon runs the republic’s economy for his own personal profit: “From the president down to the policeman on the street, government is characterized by cronyism and corruption.
“Rahmon and his family control the country’s major businesses, including the largest bank, and they play hardball to protect their business interests, no matter the cost to the economy writ large. As one foreign ambassador summed up, Rahmon prefers to control 90 percent of a US$10 pie, rather than 30 percent of a US$100 pie,” the cable said.
Tajikistan’s sole industrial exports are aluminium and hydroelectricity, but most of the revenues from the “technically state-owned Tajik Aluminium Company (Talco) end up in a secretive offshore company controlled by the president,” the cable states, adding: “The state budget sees little of the income.”
Tajikistan is of growing importance to the US as a military supply route for the US army in next-door Afghanistan, but attempts to stop the endless traffic of Afghan heroin in the other direction — to Europe and Russia — have so far come to nothing, the cables say.
Last year Dushanbe intercepted only 5 percent of the 40 tonnes of “Afghan opiates” smuggled to Russia, the cable says, adding that: “Corruption is a major problem.”
Tajikistan’s “largely conscript” border guards are also “poorly trained, poorly paid, under-equipped and often under-fed,” the cables say.
In an entertaining cable, US Ambassador Richard Hoagland describes a meeting with Rahmon soon after he kicked the Russians out. Rahmon said that Moscow had been using the border guards to orchestrate a coup against him.
Chucking away his notes, the president said the Russian special services were bent on “causing trouble in Tajikistan.”
“It’s coming from the Kremlin, and some of it comes from the top. We can never forget that [Russian Prime Minister Vladmiri] Putin himself is a chekist [career intelligence officer] at heart,” the president said.
The cables also reveal that Tajikistan agreed to host a US military base on its territory — in defiance of the Kremlin.
The US appears to be under no illusions about the Kremlin’s resistance to US encroachment in its backyard.
“We believe Russia is exerting consistent and strong pressure on Tajikistan to reduce the US and Western role and presence,” the embassy said in 2006.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number