Border-guard training centre opens with the support of IOM

A training centre has been launched in Tajikistan with the support of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), aimed at providing professional training for its border guards. "We basically recommended the establishment of such a centre, because border guard officers don't receive any training on inspecting borders," Igor Bosc, the head of the IOM mission in Tajikistan, told IRIN from the capital, Dushanbe, adding that IOM believed that there were four or five very elementary issues that they needed to know. The main training centre of the Tajik State Border Protection Committee was opened in Dushanbe on 17 December with a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Saidamir Zuhurov and Bosc, set to provide professional training for border officers and enhance their skills. According to the IOM, the border guard officers are expected to learn to read Latin script and acquire basic English language skills along with learning how to operate computers at border checkpoints. They will also acquire knowledge of border laws and procedures, as well as the ability to detect fraudulent documentation. "These are five different things that are very important, and it is part of a general framework of our programme that we have on enhancing border management in Tajikistan, supported by the US Department of State," Bosc said, noting that the effort was aimed at enhancing the capacity of the border officers to do their job professionally and to facilitate travellers. The IOM official went on to say that the second issue was to ensure that inspections were carried out done in a manner geared to implement the government's legitimate aim to control fraudulent documents and ascertain the identities of travellers. Asked whether this would impact on human trafficking, Bosc said the two issues were to some extent inter-related. "This [training] should allow border guards to better identify fake passports or passports in which the holder's age could have been altered for specific purposes. It does partially link to the whole issue of fighting against trafficking in persons, however, that is not the main element," Bosc explained, adding that the main element was to facilitate passengers, travellers in a secure way. IOM is providing both equipment and technical and advisory support in terms of curriculum and training for trainers. The total cost of the project, including the training centre, the equipment to be given to Tajik authorities and installed at checkpoints at the Dushanbe airport and the border checkpoint in Tursunzade, will be some US $100,000, donated by the IOM and the US State Department. Meanwhile, Lt-Gen Nuralisho Nazarov, the first deputy chairman of the TSBPC, reportedly said on Wednesday that the command of the Tajik border troops was ready to take under its control all checkpoints on the Tajik-Afghan border as early as next year. "It is precisely with this issue that Tajik-Russian talks on making amendments and additions to the agreement on the status of Russian border troops in Tajikistan are expected to begin in January 2004," Russian media quoted him as saying. Recently, there have been a number of reports claiming that the Tajik authorities were insisting on the withdrawal of the Russian border guards from the Tajik-Afghan border, the first border on the route of illicit drug trafficking from Afghanistan through Central Asia to Russia and thence to Europe. However, Nazarov reportedly denied those claims. Tajik border guards took control a 500-km section of the border with China at the end of last year.