The oppressed Pamiri peoples of eastern Tajikistan have seen their ways of life torn apart in the last three years, and now it appears that the Tajik authorities are set to cut decades-old ties with their chief benefactor and spiritual leader, the Aga Khan.

Pamir Inside, a media outlet run by Pamiris who have fled Tajikistan, on November 18 reported that there has been no renewal of the agreement between Tajikistan and the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) that expired on October 31.

The news comes as no surprise given the events that have unfolded since 2022 in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO), the rugged mountainous region where the Pamiris live under the watchful eye of the Rahmon regime.

(Credit: DFID, UK, cc-by-sa 2.0).

Eighty-seven-year-old Prince Shah Karim al-Husseini Aga Khan (pictured above) is the 49^th imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, some 200,000 of whom, namely the Pamiris, make up the majority of the population in remote GBAO.

The Pamiris differ not only religiously, but also ethnically, linguistically and culturally from the Tajiks.

The AKDN works in more than 30 countries around the world, but was unable to have a presence in Tajikistan during the time of the Soviet Union and only managed to start operations there in 1995, four years after the collapse of the USSR. Since then, over nearly 30 year, it has invested more than $1bn in Tajikistan.

Thanks to the Aga Khan’s organisation, small hydropower plants generate electricity for remote communities of GBAO, which extends across more than 40% of Tajikistan. The AKDN has also financed research on hybrid crops that can grow at the high altitudes of the region and has built water sanitation facilities to provide GBAO towns and cities with clean drinking water.

It was also AKDN funds that between 2007-2018 paid for the construction of six bridges that connect Tajikistan to Afghanistan, boosting cross-border trade.

A medical centre and a park in GBAO’s capital, Khorog, were, meanwhile, built with funding from the AKDN, which also established a bank, First Microfinance Bank of Tajikistan.

The AKDN has also built three universities for mountain communities: one in Kazakhstan, one in Kyrgyzstan and one in Khorog.

The AKDN-backed University of Central Asia in Khorog has attracted professors from other countries, including Western countries, and provided quality education to young Pamiris, many of whom might otherwise not have been able to receive a higher education.

Tajikistan is the poorest country in Central Asia and GBAO is its poorest region.

Without the AKDN assistance, the standard of living in GBAO would be significantly lower than it is today.

And here we might find the reason for Dushanbe not prolonging the AKDN contract with Tajikistan.

The government is strapped for cash, and GBAO is only connected to the rest of Tajikistan by a single road that is often closed by heavy snowfall and avalanches. The unreliable air connections between Dushanbe and Khorog are sometimes suspended for weeks due to the unpredictable weather conditions in the mountains.

In relation to GBAO and the Pamiri, Rahmon (right) has not honoured the terms of the 1997 Tajik Peace Accord that settled his country's civil war, instead opting to gradually turn the screw of oppression (Credit: Tajik presidency).

The assistance the AKDN provides is worth more than the Tajik government can afford to spend on GBAO, making the Aga Khan more popular than the Tajik president, Emomali Rahmon, among Pamiris.

Rahmon, as it happens, has personal cause to begrudge special efforts that help the Pamiris.

During the 1992-1997 Tajik Civil War, a Pamiri independence party, Lali Badakhshan, featured among the coalition of forces, the United Tajik Opposition (UTO), that was trying to bring down Rahmon and his government.

The nearly inaccessible terrain of GBAO provided perfect shelter for the UTO during the civil war. The UTO knew vehicles and aircraft could not follow them into jagged mountains.

Under the terms of the 1997 Tajik Peace Accord, the former combatants were supposed to forgive and forget and work together to improve Tajikistan.

The UTO, to a great extent, has lived up to these terms. Rahmon’s government has not.

Once peace was firmly rooted in Tajikistan and the chances of a renewal of hostilities dissipated, Rahmon worked to erode the influence of his former adversaries.

Leading members of the groups that made up the UTO were harassed and imprisoned or fled the country.

GBAO’s remoteness allowed the region a reprieve, but in May 2022, with all other resistance in Tajikistan firmly crushed, it was GBAO’s turn.

In the years after the civil war, the stiffest challenge to the Rahmon government’s complete control over Tajikistan came from GBAO. Violence broke out in 2008, then several times after during the next 14 years, usually sparked by government efforts to impose its rule over GBAO.

Rahmon’s regime was forced to negotiate deals with local Pamiri powerbrokers to keep the peace and promote the illusion that the government had tamed GBAO.

In November 2021, a young Pamiri man named Gulbiddin Ziyobekov was essentially assassinated by local security personnel, though police claimed Ziyobekov died while resisting arrest.

In early 2020, Ziyobekov had beaten a local deputy prosecutor for molesting a local girl, and forced the deputy prosecutor to apologise in a video.

The killing of Ziyobekov quickly sparked violence as locals demanded justice. Two more Pamiris were killed in clashes with police.

Calm was restored, and, as had happened during previous conflicts in GBAO since 2008, local officials and officials sent from Dushanbe worked with local community leaders to resolve the issues.

Months and months passed, however, and nothing was resolved. So, on May 14, 2022, a group of Pamiris informed the administration in Khorog of plans for a peaceful rally on May 16 to demand Ziyobekov’s killers and those responsible for the two people killed in the later violence be brought to justice. Another demand was the release of the locals jailed for their alleged part in the clashes.

When people started to arrive at the rally, security forces and police fired tear gas and rubber bullets. Violence erupted and, this time, the Tajik authorities had no intention of seeking a compromise.

The government initiated what it described as a counter-terrorism operation and sent reinforcements to the region to crush resistance and round up anyone who could potentially rally local support.

Since the clash, the park in Khorog has been seized by the state, the Serena hotel and medical centre in Khorog that both belonged to the AKDN have been nationalised and the government has cancelled the licence of the Aga Khan Lyceum in Khorog.

The government has also seized sections of land where the Aga Khan’s University of Central Asia is located, but the AKDN continues to operate the university and is fighting the government’s claim on parcels of territory where the university stands.

The crackdown does not stop there. A programme sponsored by the AKDN to send some Pamiris to study at the London-based Institute of Ismaili Studies was scrapped. 

The two Ismaili centres in Tajikistan, one in Khorog, the other in Dushanbe, remain open, but only for prayers. Both centres are banned from conducting educational or cultural activities.

In January 2023, government officials told GBAO elders to spread the word that Ismailis were no longer allowed to pray in their homes and must remove any portraits of the Aga Khan.

Amnesty International said in a report released in September this year that the Pamiris face “systemic discrimination,“ and there have been reports that many Pamiris are fleeing GBAO.

The agreement between the AKDN and Tajik government gave AKDN organisations diplomatic status in Tajikistan. With the expiration of that agreement, the organisations can continue operations as regular NGOs, but the Tajik authorities’ actions against AKDN establishments of the past three years suggest that what is left of the Aga Khan’s network in Tajikistan will soon be taken over by the state.