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Will the Economic Crisis Destabilize Tajikistan?The end of Russia's building boom could cause more problems on Afghanistan's borders.

By Ilan GreenbergPosted Monday, March 16, 2009, at 12:34 PM ET

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Criminal networks and radicalism could quickly fill the void. In a recently released report widely cited by Western diplomats here, the International Crisis Group concluded that Tajikistan is at risk for massive social unrest and is no longer a "bulwark against the spread of extremism and violence from Afghanistan." Rather, it is a potential source for both.

Alarming statistics back up the report. The Tajik government reports that this year crime is up 6.5 percent (and that's probably a low-ball estimate), while, according to the IMF, remittances are already down by 24 percent. Almost none of the Tajik countryside receives electricity or water in the winter, while three-quarters of rural residents live in what the International Crisis Group characterized as "abject poverty." The report adds, "[H]unger is now spreading to the cities." The country's two biggest industries, cotton and aluminum, have tanked.

Not that long ago, Central Asia—all those opaque countries ending in -stan that used to be part of the Soviet Union—was diplomatic flyover country. Other than as a source of oil and the site of the odd U.S. military base, Central Asia has not registered as a priority for the security mandarins commanding U.S. foreign policy. This may soon have to change. This mostly Muslim region, marinated in oil, uranium, and a full periodic table of other important commodities, is in a position to undermine the Obama administration's emphatic aspirations for success in Afghanistan. From failing banks in Kazakhstan to angry and unemployed men loitering in the shadows in Tajik villages, the financial crisis threatens to disrupt Central Asia's fragile political and social stability.

Having failed to reach Tajikistan's southern border with Afghanistan, I decided to check out the country's northern boundaries with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. I flew into a northern city called Khojand, which dates its municipal history to Alexander's conquest. On the sidewalks, dirty little Chinese-built gas generators powered the lights in stores and offices. And on the streets, cars imported from Eastern Europe and purchased with money earned in Russia maneuvered for advantage to cross intersections made chaotic by an absence of working traffic lights.

In the city, I hired a car and a translator and headed for the border with Kyrgyzstan. Again I met with total failure. This time, a couple of police officials stopped me. Citing a dormant uranium mine nearby and employing Central Asia's standard interrogation method (bad cop/worse cop), the police claimed I had entered a "closed" town. I was promptly relieved of my press credentials.

Utterly defeated, I returned to Khojand, where I had lunch with Aziz, a university student whose parents are both doctors in a village bordering Uzbekistan. Aziz wore a suit and carried an old-fashioned briefcase. He spoke English, so he was able to find a part-time job working as a security guard in a hotel.

I told Aziz about my problems reaching his country's borders.

"These borders are a problem for everybody. But I can tell you, they do not matter." Aziz picked at his grilled meat and continued. "On all sides of our borders you will find the same thing: angry people with nothing to do."

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Ilan Greenberg, a freelance writer based in New York, lived in Central Asia from 2002-07. A grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting provided funding for the reporting of this article.

Map of Tajikistan from Wikimedia Commons.

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