Relations strained by deportees on border

Relations between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have been strained following the deportation last month of 56 ethnic Uzbek people to Tajikistan. On 10 March, the Uzbek authorities deported 12 families to the Tajik border as part of a security operation aimed at preventing militant activity this year in the border provinces. Stopped by Tajik officials at the border, the families have been forced to live in makeshift tents in no-man's-land. UNHCR head in Tajikistan, Taslimur Rahman, told IRIN on Wednesday that Uzbek authorities had initially deported 56 people, but there were now 39 people stuck at the border. He explained that many ethnic Uzbeks had left Tajikistan between 1992 and 1996 to settle with relatives across the border. "These people are not refugees. They are ethnic Uzbeks with Tajik passports, and they left Tajikistan a long time ago. Uzbekistan sent them out, and the government here is unsure what to do," he said. The refugee agency and Tajik authorities had provided assistance to the group, he said. Taslimur Rahman said that the Tajik authorities were now extremely concerned that this could be the beginning of a large-scale deportation by Uzbek authorities. He said the Uzbek authorities claimed they had already granted citizenship to 10,000 Tajiks in Uzbekistan. UNHCR estimates that about 30,000 Tajiks left since 1992, and are living in Uzbekistan either legally or illegally. Meanwhile, it is clear that the group has no wish to return to Tajikistan. "There are 39 people on the border now, and they want to go home. They have property and livestock in Uzbekistan. How can you simply throw these people out? It is a gross violation of the rights of these people," said Taslimur Rahman. On 26 March, the secretary of the Tajik Security Council, Amircoul Azimov, travelled to the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, to discuss the deportation of the "Tajik-Uzbeks". Local media sources in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, reported that Tajik authorities had said they would allow the 39 people, who have spent a month in no-man's-land, to come in, but would accept no more. According to local sources, many ethnic Uzbeks left Tajikistan as recently as 1997 to settle in the Surkan-Darya province of Uzbekistan, an area which has since been associated with intense militant activity. The Uzbek authorities are particularly concerned with ethnic Uzbeks who are still at large after a failed incursion into Tajikistan's northern province of Leninabad by the dispossessed Tajik army Colonel Mahmood Khudaiberdiyev two years ago. Taslimur Rahman felt the forced deportations had further strained relations between the two countries, which are already engaged in protracted negotiations on border delineation and the use of natural gas and water resources in the region. "If the Uzbek authorities carry on like this, they are creating regional tensions. There are Uzbeks in Tajikistan and Tajiks in Uzbekistan: this only serves to increase tensions," he said.