ReportingIn the Ferghana Valley, at the foot of the Pamir Mountains, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are fighting over territory and access to water from maps drawn under Stalin.
Abdykapar Mamytov’s apricot garden, just outside the Kyrgyz village of Kok-Tach, looks like a geopolitical nightmare. North side, beyond the stone wall, he explains, is Tajikistan. For this 67-year-old former heating engineer, the thing is obvious: beyond the wall, behind a dry canal, lives his neighbor – a Tajik with whom he has broken all contact, and that is enough to draw a border.
For the two capitals involved in this border conflict inherited from the Soviet period, the situation is more complex. According to Dushanbe, Mr. Mamytov’s property is in Tajik territory, since it borders a road claimed by Tajikistan, vital to the survival of the city of Voroukh, landlocked in Kyrgyz territory. For Bishkek, the Tajik reading is equivalent to an annexation: Mr. Mamytov’s neighbor is certainly a Tajik, but his house previously belonged to a Kyrgyz – his nationality is not sufficient to declare Tajik territory. As for the road, it has always been a shared use.
Armed clashes
Inextricable? There is worse. Another resident of Kok-Tach, Erguechov Douchebay, says he tried to register his house in the land register. The Kyrgyz employees refused to initiate the procedure because, to get to his house, they would have to cross land belonging to Tajiks. However, this could create a diplomatic incident, even, for these officials, a risk of kidnapping by the security forces of Dushanbe.
Because the border conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the Ferghana valley, at the foot of the majestic Pamir mountains, is not just a paper dispute. Since the beginning of the 2010s, it has regularly provoked brief armed clashes. In April 2021, the conflict reached unprecedented gravity. It spread along the border and saw the use of heavy weapons: 56 people died – 36 on the Kyrgyz side, 20 on the Tajikistan side, a country which appears to have prepared for a major offensive, starting a an escalation that Bishkek refused to follow.
During the fighting, Abdykapar Mamytov hid in his garden, sheltered by a high cement wall, erected after clashes in 2017, facing east, towards the disputed crossroads on which the Tajik forces directed their fire. Traces of bullets and fragments of mortar are still visible on the gate and the facade of his house. In 2017, taking advantage of the escape of the Mamytov family, Tajik civilians seized his refrigerator and television and burned a shed. This time, Abdykapar was content to keep his children and grandchildren away and keep guard. Fortunately, the shots did not damage the apricot trees, which offer a supplement to his pension of 11,000 som (115 euros).
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