Cameras, Water and Borders; That is What Hinders Ending the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan Conflict

After the declaration of a ceasefire between neighbors Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in early May 2021, following bloody clashes that continued intermittently, many hope that the declaration will play “a positive role” in stopping the border dispute between the two countries, but following Bishkek's confirmation of a ceasefire that killed and injured dozens of people, Dushanbe announced that it would “not give up any inch” of its territory to its neighbor.

This intense position goes with other attempts to find a peaceful solution to contain the crisis; the Media Office of the Kyrgyz Presidency made a statement in which it said, President Sadyr Japarov agreed with his Tajik counterpart İmamali Rahman to resolve the dispute over the borders of the two states peacefully.

In a statement broadcasted by Kyrgyz television networks, Jabarov declared his confidence in the ability of his country's authorities to find a common language with the Tajik brothers, he called on the citizens to not comply with the provocations.

The talk about the quest for a peaceful solution was had come after rounds of armed clashes, most recently on April 29, 2021, that led to killed 31 Kyrgyz and injured 121 others, according to an announcement by the Kyrgyz Ministry of Health, more than 20,000 citizens have been evacuated from the conflict zone.

More than 100 buildings were also damaged during the clashes, including houses, schools, shops, gas stations, police stations and border checkpoints, Turkey's Anadolu Agency reported. On the other hand, the Tajik authorities announced the killing of 10 of their citizens during the clashes, no details were released on the number of wounded or the losses of the armed forces.

 

Surveillance Cameras

From the Tajik point of view, the clashes broke out because of Kyrgyz attempts to capture an area that Tajikistan claims to be a part of its territory. The Associated Press quoted from Tajikistan’s National Security Committee as saying that Kyrgyz forces opened fire on Tajik border guards first, Kyrgyzstan has been accused of attempting to forcibly seize the region, which Tajikistan considers part of its territory.

On the other hand, the Kyrgyz authorities said: “The conflict broke out as Tajik officials tried to install cameras to surveillance the water supply facility, this is a step opposed by the Kyrgyz side”.

Before the outbreak of the clashes, local residents had demanded that the cameras be removed from the site in Kyrgyzstan province, however, the officials on the Tajik side rejected the population's request, a violent clash broke out, which led to injured people on both sides.

Surveillance cameras had been installed on an electric pole at a water distribution point in the village of Kok Tash in Golovny district of Pitkin province, it is the area at the source of the canals that feed the Tortkol reservoir in Kyrgyzstan province in Central Asia.

Events have evolved dramatically, which led to gunfire between the two sides, then to the control of Tajik border points by the Kyrgyz special forces.

 

Ice Head

The spark that broke out after the cameras were installed not represented only the ice head of the conflict between the two neighbors, but the two countries have fought rounds of war, because of their dispute over an area that is part of the fertile Fergana Valley, it is a mixture of Kyrgyz, Tajik and Uzbek villages.

According to the Associated Press, much of the Tajik-Kyrgyz border remained without signs for controlling the border, in a region where conflict goes back for decades, that is to the period when the two countries were part of the Soviet Union, before its collapse at the end of the 1980s.

The agency adds that the dispute has fueled fierce and frequent disputes over water, land and pastures; the two sides have held several rounds of the talks in recent years, but they failed to end their border dispute.

According to the BBC, the curvy border between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan is particularly tense, more than a third of its length which has 1,000 km that is disputed over it, the limitations have often led to obstruction of the access to the land and water, and the communities have been passing through deadly clashes in the past.

The border dispute has been reflected in the local communities, it directly contributed to limiting the movement of cross-border goods, it has also caused militarization of borders and problems related to natural resource management, after years, the goods would pass through without any restrictions.

The population was able to move freely between the Soviet republics, it was not important to know which part of the land belonged to those communities, however, the collapse of the Soviet Union generated solid borders and frequent conflicts.

 

The Basis of Conflict

The conflict between the two neighboring countries seems to be greater than solutions focused on resource sharing, in a study entitled "Contextual Factors of Conflict in Pitkin County", prepared by Researcher which specializing in mountain communities research in the Central Asian University's, Assel Murzakiolova, “Transformation of Soviet republics into sovereign states has led to the emergence of nationalistic borders”. 

She explained: “The rationale for this situation is that ethnic borders must conform to national borders, according to this situation, the earth must be seen ideologically, not as agriculture and a cultural resource, but as a symbolic embodiment of the state”.

She said: “However, it is difficult and even impossible to establish borders on ethnic and national grounds, it is noted here that in the case of the Fergana Valley and Central Asia in general, race as a concept was built during the Soviet period, and it became clear that the Soviet Union linked the administrative division to the infrastructure which designed on the basis of geographical areas, not cultural and ethnic standards”.

So, the borders problem in the speech of nationalism, according to Murzakiolova, is not much about the material design of the regional environment, but with the creation of new national states, including Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

The study which was prepared in February 2017, adds that “According to this logic, the motives for the conflict in the border areas can be understood, these are motives that could exist elsewhere, either in the political center or in a place geographically away from where the conflict is already taking place”.

With regard to the repeated rounds of conflict over the natural resources, and the water in particular, they can be taken through 3 levels, according to researcher Murzakiolova: “The first is upstream-downstream conflicts, which are of a seasonal nature, happen from the end of April to the beginning of June each year, this is because of the low amount of water”.

The second status is disputes caused by the land, which is an integral part of the water resource, it is a conflict closely linked to economic change in the lives of communities.

While the third status of the conflict arises after the deprivation of access to water or because of its unfair distribution, it is a conflict that reveals the gap between poor and rich families, where water is privatized, and more water fields are granted more water in the areas that include Tajik and Kyrgyz villages.

Murzakiolova concludes her study by saying: “However, it is wrong to simplify these conflicts and view them as a competition between the different ethnic groups for the possession of natural resources, the reality of the dynamics of that conflict in the border communities is more complex and more diverse, it goes beyond the issue of land and water resources property, although it is often expressed in this way”.