‘Who Provoked the Pogroms in Dushanbe in 1990?’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 29 – Thirty years ago, in February 1990, there was a bloody clash between Tajiks, Armenians who had fled from Azerbaijan, and the authorities. At least 25 people died, and 565 were wounded.  And that event, the bloodiest of those times in Central Asia, became the prelude to the decade-long civil war in Tajikistan.

            While the basic fact that Tajiks were angry that their officials were giving housing to Armenians when Tajiks were having to wait for apartments underlies the conflict, there has been much debate in the years since then about whether this was a spontaneous development or reflected official incompetence or was the work of outside agitators from Moscow or elsewhere.

            Uzbekistan’s Asia Terra portal has now published the 2016 reminiscences of Maryan Eshondzhonova, who in 1990 was working as a journalist at Dushanbe’s Payomi Dushanbe newspaper, was present  when the conflict occurred and interviewed some of its participants (asiaterra.info/history/kto-sprovotsiroval-pogromy-v-dushanbe-v-1990-godu).

            She says she doesn’t know what the overall explanation is but wants to share her experiences to provide additional details. She says she was approached in her newspaper’s offices by a woman who spoke Uzbek and Russian who wanted the paper to publish her story about Azerbaijani repression against the Armenians.

            The paper said it would consider that after she filed it. Later. Eshondzhonova says, she saw the woman in the midst of the demonstrators. The journalist also saw a man among the protesters speaking Azerbaijani and saying once the authorities started shooting, “it has begun,” an apparent indication that he felt that the protests in Dushanbe would lead to something larger.

            The journalist’s report – and she provides the kind of supporting detail which make it clear that she is not inventing this but taking it from her notes at the time – does not allow for any final conclusion. The individuals she refers to could have been working on their own or they could have been the agents of Dushanbe, Baku or Moscow, each with their own agendas.

            Two things make the publication of this story now important. On the one hand, it shows just how raw the events of that time remain in the region. And on the other, it shows that at least some outlets are prepared to keep the story alive by publishing what even their authors admit are only partial stories that do not permit any final conclusions.