Tajik officials react to Ahmadov’s threat to take up arms

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DUSHANBE – Several Tajik observers have responded to former United Tajik Opposition field commander Mirzokhudzha Akhmadov's vow to resort to arms if the government tries to prosecute him for the unsolved 2008 slaying of special police (OMON) commander Oleg Zakharchenko.

The story is false, Interior Ministry spokesman Makhmadullo Asadulloyev told Central Asia Online.

“The story spread by several foreign media organisations is unreliable and can be treated as disinformation,” he said. “We’ll explain who wrote it and are preparing a denial.”

The question of Akhmadov’s alleged involvement needs to be answered through the legal process rather than through violence, said Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (PIVT) spokesman Khikmatullo Saifulozoda.

“In light of the situation in eastern Tajikistan,” he said, “it’s necessary to create a working group (on this issue) ... to prevent destabilising an entire region.”

In an interview with Central Asia Online, Akhmadov said that he doesn’t have weapons now, but he has many supporters. He said if the Zakharenko case is raised again, he will resort to arms. Akhmadov said he wasn’t guilty in Zakharenko’s death – Zakharenko died in an exchange of fire, but there is no proof that the bullet that killed him came from Akhmadov’s side.

Sukhrob Sharipov, director of the Presidential Centre for Strategic Research, was more optimistic about Tajik stability when he gave a news conference July 15. The country is peaceful for several reasons, he said then. “It has eight legitimately existing political parties,” he said, adding that law enforcement agencies monitor and fight religious extremism.

The ultimate guarantee of stability, in his view, is the population’s memory of civil war. “Our people will never return to the chaos and anarchy that reigned at the beginning of the 1990s,” he said.