Tajikistan is losing the battle against the flow of drugs from neighbouring Afghanistan and is characterised 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.
But Tajikistan's worst obstacle is the country's venal president Emomali Rahmon, diplomats say. A secret cable dated 16 February 2010, from the US embassy in Dushanbe, Tajikistan's capital, describes how Rahmon runs the ex-Soviet 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, President Rahmon prefers to control 90% of a ten-dollar pie, rather than 30% of a hundred-dollar pie."
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 dolefully: "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 to Russia, have so far come to nothing, the cables say. Last year Dushanbe intercepted only 5% of the 40 tonnes of "Afghan opiates" smuggled to Russia, the cable says, noting: "Corruption is a major problem." In addition, Tajikistan's "largely conscript" border guards are "poorly trained, poorly paid, under-equipped and often under-fed".
In an entertaining cable the US ambassador in Tajikistan Richard E Hoagland describes a meeting with President Rahmon soon after he kicked the Russians out. Rahmon explained 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 Putin himself is a 'chekist' (career intelligence officer) at heart," the president said.
During the two-and-a-half hour meeting, the president expressed gratitude to the US, arguing that it was important for the "international community to moderate what he described as Russia's 'worst instincts'." The cables also reveal that Tajikistan agreed to host a US military base on its territory – in defiance of the Kremlin, which regards former Soviet central Asia as a zone of "privileged interest" and is determined to keep Washington out.
The US appears under no illusions about the Kremlin's resistance to US encroachment in its back yard. "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.
America's own attempts to make friends with the Russians in Tajikistan were often crudely rebuffed, the cables show. In November 2006 the US ambassador hosted a dinner. The Russian ambassador and his deputy failed to turn up, however, and the defence attache, Colonel Ivanov, left after just 10 minutes.
The one colonel who stayed, Alexei Zavizyan, "was mildly rude throughout the evening," the ambassador recalled. His behaviour "deteriorated rapidly after Colonel Ivanov's departure. Zavizyan made a series of sexist remarks. The dinner ended abruptly after he sunk to uttering racist slurs about African Americans".
