CC BY
24
Foundation of support of Islamic culture and education regularly arranges conferences and seminars for Muslims.
References
1. B. Bgazhnokov. Adygskaya etika [Adygei Ethics]. Nalchik, 1999, pp. 84-85.
2. Izvestia, 2002, 13.05.
3. G. Punanov. Vahhabitskoye podpolye. Partizansky jihad protiv Rossii prodolzhayetsya [Wahhabi Underground. Guerilla Jihad against Russia Continues].
4. T. Titova Kadardino-Balkariya: registratsiya prodolzhayetsya. [Kabardino-Balkaria: Registration Continues]. Kestonskaya News Service. 3.11. 2000.
5. NG-regiony. 19.01.2004.
6. NG-regiony. 14.08.2006.
7. NEWSru.com. 17.11.2006
8. Izvestia, November 21, 2011.
9. http : //adigasite. com/archives/1668
10. Izvestia 26.03.1998. Stavropolskiye gubernskiye vedomosti and Vecherny Stavropol, 26.03.1998.
11. NG-religii. 24.07.1997.
12. Gazeta Yuga, No 5. 01.02.2001.
"Ekonomicheskiye, sotsialno-politicheskiye i etnokonfessionalniye problemy stran Vostoka," Moscow, 2014, pp. 179-199.
G. Rudov,
Ph. Dr. (Political Science), Professor, Ambassador
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
of the Russian Federation
FERGHANA VALLEY: REASONS FOR CRISIS
PHENOMENA AND WAYS OF THEIR
NEUTRALIZATION
The destruction of social peace in Syria, the continuing crisis in Ukraine, the Middle East in flames, and the revival of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict - all these events can be included in the modern
concept of "Eurasian Balkans," which came to life in the 1990s. Initially, the "Eurasian Balkans" included nine countries: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan. Potential candidates to this list, in the view of Zbigniew Brzezinsky, were Turkey and Iran. The exacerbation of the situation in the conditions of the world crisis has increased the number of such countries: now they include Iraq, Syria and Ukraine. However, their main distinguishing feature remains the same, namely, instability of poly-ethnic areas.
One of the most conflict-breeding zones, maximally close to the borders of Russia is Central Asia, which in turn has its own "superBalkans" - the Ferghana Valley.
Basic Reasons for Conflict Phenomena
in the Ferghana Valley
The special significance of the Ferghana Valley not only in regional, but also world politics can be explained by natural-geographic, ethnocultural and geopolitical factors. Situated in the southeastern part of Central Asia, surrounded by mountains, and rich in water of the Syrdarya, the longest river in Central Asia, and its numerous tributaries, the Ferghana Valley boasts high soil fertility (22,000 square kilometers of plains).
The unique natural and geographic position of the valley has determined its significance for the entire region of Central Asia, which, in turn, could not but influence the entire demographic situation. At present the Ferghana Valley is inhabited by slightly more than a quarter of the entire population of the region - almost 15 million of 63 million.
The conflict-breeding potential of the FV is determined by a complex of interconnected factors. Among the most important ones,
capable to play the key role in a possible destabilization of the situation, three groups of factors can be singled out.
First group - socio-economic reasons for crisis phenomena, including demography, migration, and high unemployment.
Second group - broad range of historical and political problems manifested in the problem of enclaves.
Third group - interest of outside players, new challenges and threats to security of the entire region, which are largely a consequence of the development of the globalization epoch.
We begin with the first group. The Ferghana Valley has the highest population density in Central Asia; it holds tenth place in the world by this index (on average, 659 people per one square kilometer, but in some districts population density exceed 2,000 per square kilometer, and in not so distant future the region may become one of the five most densely populated regions of the planet). However, it is not so much the density of the population, as its ethnic and religious composition that may cause one to stop and ponder of the dangerous future of the region.
The valley is divided into three unequal parts. The central part includes the most densely populated districts of Uzbekistan (Ferghana, Namangan and Andizhan regions). One-third of Uzbekistan's population lives there. Two "border" parts of the Ferghana Valley belong to Kyrgyzstan (Jalal-Abad, Osh and Batken regions) and Tajikistan (Sogdian region).
The Tajik part of the FV is inhabited by over a third of the republican population, and the Kyrgyz part - by about a half. The annual birth rate of the valley population amounts to over two percent, or over 300,000 a year.
The direct consequence of overpopulation is shortage of land, unemployment, and labor migration. The number of people living
below the poverty line in some districts reaches 40 percent and more. Labor migration and outflow of the population are an indirect confirmation of growing unemployment.
Migration can solve, if partly, the problem of unemployment and living standards, yet it gives rise to other problems. In recent years there have been twice as many divorces, the growing number of incomplete families with small children, and an increase of the gender imbalance in migration flows.
According to the data of the World Migration Organization, the UN and the World Bank, about 300,000 women below 30 years of age are unmarried, which seriously affects the destabilization of the region and deforms the traditional style of life which existed for centuries.
Another new challenge to the FV has been the so-called creeping migration of ethnic Tajiks and Tajik citizens in Kyrgyz villages. As a result, in a few years' time the villages formally belonging to Kyrgyzstan will be populated mainly by Tajiks, which can lead to the emergence of the so-called Albanian casus, or the appearance of a new state formation of the Kosovo type. The possible proclamation of an autonomy, and then independence from the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, of territories populated by ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks.
Economic factors of crisis phenomena form a separate bloc of the first group. Just as in a whole number of other conflicts of our day, nationalism is an outward manifestation of economic and political problems. Economics closely connected with politics is one of the main reasons for the destabilization of the region.
The overwhelming part of the population of the Ferghana Valley is engaged in agriculture. Cotton, rice, grapes, melons and water melons, and grain are grown on irrigated lands. The Ferghana Valley is a big area of sericulture with a 1,500-year history of silkworm breeding and silk production. But the Ferghana Valley has suffered from the old
Soviet problem - a shortage of plough-land. The per capita area of plough-land is about 0.11 hectare, which is the lowest in the CIS. In the Kyrgyz part of the valley this figure is somewhat higher, and in the Uzbek part it amounts to 0.19 hectare.
These figures are much lower than the average world standard -0.3 hectare per capita. However, this is not the limit. In many districts of the FV the figure is less than 0.1 hectare per capita. Such state of affairs cannot be considered other than critical and fraught with serious conflicts. And it is only one of the problems.
Cattle breeding is no less important for the regional population. The emergence of new state borders has violated the free movement of cattle breeders from plain to mountain pasture lands. This, naturally, affected the qualitative and quantitative indices of cattle breeding, as well as the employment of people, which, in turn, worsens the general economic situation directly connected with the physical survival of the local population.
However, the Ferghana Valley yields not only agricultural products. It is known as a major trade station on the Great Silk Route and is today an important wholesale base of the region. Its monthly trade turnover exceeds $200 million, according to official data. The shadow turnover is twice as big, according to admissions of local traders.
The problem of water resources is a cause for conflicts in Central Asian countries. This also concerns the situation in the Ferghana Valley.
According to Uzbek experts, the shortage of water for irrigation on the Uzbek territory of the FV reaches 1.5 billion cubic meters a year. The population of the Kyrgyz and Tajik regions of the valley suffers less.
This problem regularly leads to disputes and conflicts between the different national groups inhabiting the region. All people who are
aware of the problem remember the words of President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, which he said during his visit to Kazakhstan in September 2012: "The water resources can become the problem causing an exacerbation of relations between people, and not only in our region. The situation may worsen to such an extent that there can be not only a confrontation, but even wars."
Indeed, it is hardly likely that the people of the Ferghana Valley will be able to agree on a just distribution of the water resources between the "upstream" and "downstream" countries.
Historical and Political Causes of Destabilization of Ferghana
Valley
The tense situation in the region is largely a result of the social and political experiments during the Soviet period. There are now three states in the Ferghana Valley, whereas during the greater part of its history the FV had existed under one and only political rule.
In ancient time it was part of the Persian Empire, in the 13th century it fell under the rule of Mongols and was included in the khanate of Chagatai. The political borders were lifted after the Turkic groups and Islam had come to the region, which was now ruled as a single whole. In the 18th - 19th centuries the Ferghana Valley was the center of the Kokand khanate, and in 1876 it became part of the Russian Empire. However, in the Soviet period, after numerous changes of interstate borders based on the principle of self-determination of nations the Ferghana Valley was divided between three Central Asian republics - Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The proclamation of independence of former Soviet republics required the immediate demarcation and delimitation of the state borders, which, in a number of cases (especially in enclaves), have not been carried out. The pendency of these problems is the basis of permanent conflicts caused, among other things, by nationalism, which
are frequently accompanied with human casualties. Clashes between Uzbeks and Kyrgyzs, Kyrgyzs and Tajiks, and Tajiks and Uzbeks have become almost regular. Most often conflicts take place along the borders. Of the last most serious conflicts mention should be made of clashes on the Tajik-Kyrgyz border in January and May of 2014.
The problem of enclaves should be regarded as a separate factor of the crisis phenomena in the Central Asian countries as a whole, and in the Ferghana Valley, in particular. The enclaves, which appeared in the Soviet period, seriously aggravate the situation in the FV. There are several enclaves at present, including Uzbek enclaves surrounded by Kyrgyz territory, a Kyrgyz enclave surrounded by Uzbek territory, as well as three Tajik villages in Kyrgyz and Uzbek territory. Conflicts in these enclaves occur almost every day, but sometimes they acquire an ethnic tint.
Activity of Extremist and Terrorist Organizations
The problems of the Ferghana Valley create conditions for the emergence of the most dangerous phenomena today. It is not for nothing that the Valley is called "a paradise for extremists and terrorists."
According to the data of the Center of strategic studies under the President of Tajikistan, the activity of 13 organizations regarded as extremist and terrorist have been banned on the territory of the republic; among them is the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. By experts' estimates, there are no less than from three to five thousand extremists and potential terrorists in the Ferghana Valley.
The situation is far from simple and calm in the Kyrgyz part of the valley. For one, the town of Kara-Suu is not only the biggest trade junction, but also a center of Wahhabi Muslims and the opposition to the official authorities of both Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Most experts believe that after the withdrawal of the NATO and U.S. forces from Afghanistan the situation concerning Islamic radicalism in the Ferghana Valley and in the whole of Central Asia, for that matter, will seriously deteriorate. "Militants from Central Asia now fighting in Afghanistan will most probably return home and will look for other spheres of activity and plans. For instance, to eliminate Christians and Jews and proclaim a world caliphate. The destabilization of the Ferghana Valley will be a good beginning for the export of Islamic revolution. Besides, the stepping up of terrorist activity in the region may cause destabilization in the entire Central Asian region and become a threat to Russia, where twenty million Muslims live." This is one of the conclusions of western experts.
Corruption, criminal activity and drug trafficking are related to the third group of factors breeding conflicts.
Drug trafficking is the most dangerous of all these vices. Afghanistan is the world's leader in drug production, supplying the international black market with more than 90 percent of all opiates produced in the world.
According to UN data, Afghan heroin is the cause of death of more than 100,000 people in the world annually. One-third of them are Russians. In 2010 more than 80,000 died in our country due to narcotic drugs, that is, over 200 each day.
Evidently, narcotic drugs have become a powerful weapon in the world today, which is used for reaching serious geopolitical aims: drugs "bleed white" whole nations and corrupt the elites of countries rich in natural and other resources. It is necessary to take all steps possible to remove this threat of physical annihilation of people.
Interests of Geopolitical Giants
as a Factor of Destabilization
The influence of the leading actors of world politics, among which are big states (U.S.A., China) and transnational and supranational companies and organizations (TNC, NATO), as well as regional powers (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey), on Central Asia is conditioned, above all, by economic and geopolitical interest. Foreign actors are ably using the entire range of the above-mentioned problems for the promotion of their interests. The United States and NATO countries are interested in destabilizing this region and drawing it in the drug zone, whereas the Islamic states support radical Islamic theories capable to prompt the inhabitants of Central Asia to work for the formation of an Islamic caliphate.
Suffice it to recall the events of the "Arab spring," to say nothing of the Ukrainian crisis, and observe the growing activity of pro-western non-governmental organizations.
In recent years the activity of the latter has noticeably grown in the Ferghana Valley, at least in its Tajik and Kyrgyz parts.
Among other things, seminars and training sessions for local journalists writing about conflicts have become regular.
One of the catalysts of the conflict can be the project of building a railway line called Chinese-Kyrgyz-Uzbek along the route Kashgar-Osh-Andizhan, which is lobbied by the Kyrgyz establishment.
Along with the growing activity of Russia and China in the region, there will be more pretexts for conflicts among our western partners. However, irrespective of the presence of casus belli, several dozen militants from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (which is supervised by the U.S. and British special services) will be transferred to the Ferghana Valley for maximal destabilization of the region. For this purpose a section of the British MI6 has been set up in the Afghan
town of Faizabad near the Afghan-Tajik border; the area of its activity includes Darvaz, Pamirs and Ferghana.
It should be clearly understood that even a small group of militants can easily provoke an open interethnic conflict whose consequences may be catastrophic for the entire region. It is also important to realize that a conflict will inevitably draw the CSTO, and first and foremost Russia, And the main aim of such conflict is the weakening of the main geopolitical rivals of the West, that is, Russia, China and Iran.
The Role and Place of Russia in Settling Crisis Phenomena in the Ferghana Valley.
It should be noted that in the conditions of the exacerbation of the international situation, especially in the context of the present Ukrainian crisis causing the confrontation between Russia and the West, any aggravation of the situation in Central Asia can be used against Russia and will directly tell on its domestic political situation. Any serious conflict in the Ferghana Valley will lead to an increase of the flow of refugees and drugs, the active penetration of extremist groups of radical Islamists in Russian territory, and possible terrorist attacks there. To combat these phenomena and their consequences is much harder than to prevent them. The Ukrainian crisis is a vivid confirmation.
Rivalry for influence in Central Asia has long acquired a multilevel character.
The first level is geopolitical clashes for the strengthening of the influence and positions of the geopolitical giants - Russia, the United States and China in the region, which does not exclude the possibility of using the military-political and regional blocs - CSTO, NATO and SCO.
The second level is regional, between the Central Asian countries themselves.
The third level is conflicts between political groupings within the Central Asian countries.
What role should Russia play in order to prevent the further deterioration and "Afghanization" of the countries of the region?
Evidently, at the first level the main allies of Russia in the region are the CSTO and SCO member-countries. This is why more attention should be paid to the strengthening of these organizations and their greater activity in the Central Asian region. There should be more offices of CSTO and SCO in regional countries, and they should be properly equipped. They should organize seminars, training sessions, etc. for representatives of the local authorities, government officials, and employees of the special services. At this level the struggle against drug trafficking and radical extremist and terrorist organizations should be stepped up, and this will be impossible without the strengthening of border security in order to prevent the penetration of militants and drug dealers from Afghan territory in to the Ferghana Valley.
The second level presupposes closer interaction of power at all levels of the Russian Federation and Central Asian countries. Work with the political elites of Central Asian countries, as well as young people of different social groups, should be stepped up.
Parallel with the "soft power" presence in these countries, socioeconomic measures should be increased, which is impossible without close economic integration and the expansion of the Eurasian economic community.
A free-trade zone could be set up in the Ferghana Valley. Then the problems of enclaves, borders and corruption will be better and more rapidly resolved. However, it should be realized that the stabilization of the situation in the Ferghana Valley is impossible
without its reindustrialization and modernization of the economy of all three countries bordering on each other in the valley. This can only be achieved through rapid integration within the framework of a uniform economic area. For this purpose it is necessary to persuade the political leadership and population of the Central Asian countries in the advantages and vital necessity of integration and the development of the Eurasian economic community.
The new level of penetration in the political elite, just as work with the opposition and young people will definitely contribute to lifting off the contradictions of the third level, that is, those within these countries.
Thus, the role of Russia in the regulation of crisis phenomena in the Ferghana Valley goes far beyond the bounds of the Eurasian "superBalkans."
Security of this micro-region depends on complicated problems whose solution can only be comprehensive, which, in turn, demands that the Russian leadership should revise its foreign-policy priorities and approaches in the region.
References
1. Zbigniew Brzezinki. The Grand Chess Board. Moscow. Mezhdunarodniye otnosheniya Publishers. 1998, pp. 149-180. URL.: http://www.cia.gov/library/ publications/the-world-factbook.
2. A. Zakhvatov. Dolina problem — Fergana [The Valley of Problems - Ferghana] // URL.: http://www.dialog.tj/news/dolinaproblem-fergana
3. Ferganskaya dolina — gosudarstvo v gosudarstvakh [Ferghana Valley - a State within States] // URL.: http://bukharainfo.com/blog/?p=328
4. Document of the World Bank. Key Questions for further examination of the project of the Rogun hydropower plant // URL.: http://www.worldbank.org/conntent/dam/ Worlsbank/Event/EC/ECA/central-asia/WB%20Rey%201Issues_rus.pdf
5. Central Asia: complications in the Ferghana Valley // URL.: http://inozpress.kg/ news/views/id/40387
6. Border conflicts in Ferghana valley as a factor of disintegration in Central Asia // URL.: http://www.region.kg/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id= 7312013-03-19-06-16-23&catid=39:2013-03-01-13-06-27&Itemid=48
7. I. Rotar. Ferganskaya dolina — akhllesova pyata Tsentralnoi Azii [Ferghana Valley -Achilles Heel of Central Asia] // URL.: http://inozpress.kg/news/views/id/37459; http ://www.j amestown.org/single/?no_cache=1 &tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%tD=39924 &tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D= 13&&Hash=4f4f9123d1afd3a56fae181bcf5c49794
8. Military analysts of the United States: Ferghana Valley will become ungovernable territory and springboard of terrorism // URL: http://www.centrasia.ru/newsA. php?st=1352785800
9. Review of production of opiates in Afghanistan for 2011 // URL. : http://fskn.gov.ru/ includes/period_gak_all/2012/0213/084017308/detail.shtml
10. B. Sharifov. Ne proigrat Tsentralnuyu Aziyu [Don't Loose Central Asia] Expert. 2012, No 39.
11. A. Knyazev. Novaya rezidentura britanskoi razvedki v Faizabade i perspektivy mezhetnicheskogo konflikta v Fergane [New Office of British Intelligence in Faizabad and Prospects of Interethnic Conflict in Ferghana] // URL.: http://www. iarex.ru/interiews/33278.html
"Obozrevatel = Observer, " Moscow, 2014, N 11, pp 16-28.
A. Saidov,
Ph. D. (Philosophy), Daghestan State University ISLAMIC FACTOR OF LEGITIMATION OF POWER IN NORTH CAUCASIAN REPUBLICS
In the present conditions the Islamic factor in the North Caucasus becomes the most significant in the functioning and legitimation of the institutions of power and management. Although North Caucasian societies and the official institutions of power are largely secularized, religion has an ever growing influence on all socio-political values, playing an important role in the sphere of political symbols. Regulated by legislation, the formal institutions of power and management closely interact with informal ones, operating in accordance with customs, traditions and religious norms. Informal institutions in North Caucasian
