TAJIKISTAN: DISSIDENT WARLORDS MAKE PEACE WITH GOVERNMENT.

The forces under Colonel Mahmud Hudoberdiev and Ibodullo Boimatov, poised respectively to the south and west of Dushanbe, yesterday gave up their challenge to the Tajik government and began to hand over some of their weapons to government troops. The commanders did so one day after president Imomali Rahmonov satisfied some of their political demands by dismissing the all-powerful First Deputy Prime Minister Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloev (responsible inter alia for defense and security), presidential chief of staff Izatullo Khayeyev, and several other officials. Rahmonov also announced an amnesty for the insurgents, contingent on their disarmament by February 7; but he rejected the insurgents’ demands for the dismissal of defense minister Sherali Hairulloev.

Throughout the confrontation, the government and the insurgents kept their pledges to negotiate and not to open fire against one another. However, the government had been assembling sizable forces in and around Dushanbe for a possible strike against the insurgents. Russian president Boris Yeltsin’s national security adviser Yuri Baturin, who mediated between Rahmonov and the two dissident warlords, said yesterday that the political compromise remained "very fragile… everything can collapse at any moment." (11)

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