Tajikistan - Military Personnel

Tajikistan inherited a Soviet-era conscription system, according to which every male between 18-27 years of age must serve in the army for two years. Conscription takes place every spring and fall. In recent years, Tajik men have been trying to avoid army service due to the conditions and hazing faced by young conscripts, which prompted the authorities to organize special raids to round up men who did not fulfill their duty and force them into service.

Tajik men will be able to legally avoid serving their mandatory two-year stint in the country's armed forces by paying a fee to the Defense Ministry. A government resolution enforcing legislation allowing Tajik men between the ages of 18 and 27 to pay the equivalent of $2,200 in order to avoid conscription was made public on 16 August 2021. The new regulations were approved by lawmakers earlier in the year.

Those who choose to pay the fee will still have to go through a one-month military training session but avoid the full two-year service requirement. According to the new regulation, men who graduate from universities that offer military training in addition to their regular studies will be granted officer ranks only if they serve at least one year in the armed forces. Until now, such officer ranks were awarded immediately after graduation. The new regulation also bans those who did not serve in the army from working as officials in the prosecutor’s offices, courts, customs, anti-corruption agencies, and governmental executive entities.

The Tajik army as it was being created had a serious problem, i.e., nobody wanted to serve in it. The most significant decision to shape Tajikistan's early forces was Dushanbe's declaration that the main Russian force deployed in Tajikistan, the 201st Motorized Rifle Division (MRD) would not be nationalized to form the basis of the new Tajik Armed Forces. A subsequent visit by Russian Defense Minister Grachev confirmed that the division would not be disbanded or withdrawn, although local recruitment would increase the proportion of ethnic Tajiks and all Russians serving would be on contract. Instead, the 201st MRD would remain in Tajikistan until at least 1999 in support of the Tajik Army.

Without that trained, well-equipped core, Tajikistan was forced to rely on leftovers to form its conventional forces, and leftovers they were. The first sub-units of the new national army which took the oath of allegiance in Dushanbe's main square on 23 February 1993, were a mixture internal security, local militia (police), and KNB (KGB successor) troops. The first five "battalions" were also unconventional, formed from paramilitary Popular Front volunteers.

In June 1992 Dushanbe announced a conscription system, but proclamations could not resolve the real issues stonewalling development of operational forces: a shortage of experienced ethnic Tajik officers and non-commissioned officers, reliance on Russian training facilities (of the 201st MRD), the inability to enforce conscription, and a nonexistent military doctrine to pull it all together. It also did not solve the most crucial issue: lack of funds to pay for such forces.

Tajikistan had no border troops of its own until May 1994, when the Tajik Supreme Soviet created a small indigenous "Border Troops of the Republic of Tajikistan" to support the Group of Russian Border Troops in Tajikistan (GRBTT). The three border brigades then formed (and a fourth in 1995) were used independently in rear areas and jointly with Russian forces in the mountain regions. Tajik border guards were commanded by Russian officers. Given the choice, however, over 80 percent of Tajik officers and warrant officers chose duty in the Russian border troops because of the better pay.

The ethnic composition of this force altered since its formation. After 6 years of local recruitment, the term "Russian" border forces refers more to its chain of command and subordination to Moscow than its ethnic composition. Of the GRBTT's approximately 18,000 men, about 12,000 were Tajik and the remainder made up of some 4,000 Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians and some 2,000 Kazaks, Kyrgyz and Uzbeks.

This use of foreign forces to defend Tajikistan was necessary because Tajikistan had not succeeded in developing an indigenous officer corps or a conscript force to serve under it. The first Chairman of the Defense Committee was an ethnic Russian. As units were gradually transferred to Tajik control, another Russian, Shishlyannikov was named Defense Minister. The appointment of a non-Tajik to create and control the development ofthe TajikArmed Forces was a further indication of the dearth of senior native qualified military commanders in the Central Asian republics on which to build a national command.

At his first meeting with Tajik defense officials, Shishlyannikov discussed the future of 513 ethnic Tajiks serving with other armies of the CIS. They, too, lacked staff and command experience. It was not a big pool to build upon and not all chose to return. The situation did not improve as civil war engulfed the nation and military operations fell under the sway of the Russian 201st MRD and the CCPFT. "Tajikization" of Russian ground and border units also drew Tajik candidates into the better-paid Russian forces.

The distinction between Russian border forces, the Russian 201st MRD, and the Tajik Army remained blurred. Some Russian officers from the 201st MRD transferred to the Tajik military; an October 1994 agreement provided Russian military advisors to the Tajik Armed Forces. New Tajik recruits since 1993 have been used to boost manpower in CIS (that is, Russian) units on Tajik territory, to include the 201st MRD and border troops.102 By this means the "Tajikization" of existing Russian units began. This "localization" of the 201st MRD might make eventual withdrawal of "Russian" forces difficult.

Tajikistan, therefore, also relied on foreign troops for its security not as a management tool but because it was incapable of creating a viable indigenous force. It totally depended upon the foreign forces, especially Russian. Tajik forces were trained by the 201st MRD; no domestic educational infrastructure existed. In total, about 14,000 military personnel under Russian command served in Tajikistan, 20 percent of them being Russians (essentially officers and non-commissioned officers on contract) and 80 percent Tajiks, mainly soldiers.

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary since the establishment of the Armed Forces of the country, it was noted in February 2013 that for the five years 2008-2013, law enforcement and military agencies’ financing grew three-fold compared to 2008. From 2006 up till the year 2013, four phases of wage reform of the military and law enforcement personnel were carried out, as a result of which the amount of monetary allowances for the military and army personnel increased almost 9 times.

Improvement of units and departments of the Armed Forces and their provision with qualified personnel is one of the main directions of the policy of the state and the Government of Tajikistan. Up to 2013, nearly 14 thousand people among those graduated from higher military educational institutions in the country and more than 2600 people out of those graduated from universities abroad have been employed to serve in the military structures and law enforcement agencies throughout Tajikistan. There were about 3000 students-cadets studying at higher educational establishments and 1100 people – study in the leading universities of the world.

Until 2005, the Russians guarded the Tajik/Afghan border; after the Russians departed, the outposts were broken down lean-tos, unfit for human habitation. The Tajik Border Guard force is staffed largely by conscripts who are poorly trained, poorly paid, underequipped and often under-fed.

All able-bodied male citizens betweeen the ages of 18 to 27 years old, who are not members of the armed forces reserve are subject to the draft. Males are eligible for military service between the ages of 18 and 49. The standard tour of active duty is 24 months. Young Tajiks can avoid or postpone military service if they are ill, studying at university, an only son, or if they have two children. Because bribery of conscription officials is common, a disproportionate number of poor individuals are forced into military service. Authorities claim conditions of service have improved in recent years and that parents should not be worried about the fate of their children.

The two-month-long effort to conscript young men for the two-year compulsory military service takes place twice a year, in the spring and fall. According to the Ministry of Defense, every year, some 15,000-16,000 young Tajik men are drafted into the country’s armed forces. The CIA World Factbook reports the manpower reaching militarily significant age annually at 76,430, and the manpower fit for military service [males age 16-49] to be 1,490,267 [an impossibly precise number]. Other sources report that more than 600,000 young men in Tajikistan are eligible for military service, but some 150,000 of them have received draft deferments or are exempted from the military service and some 100,000 other conscript-age young Tajiks are outside the country in search of work.

President Emomali Rahmon signed a decree on drafting young Tajiks into the country’s armed forces from October through November 2011 on 14 September 2011, and Tajikistan began its autumn draft on October 1. This decree also provides for the retirement from active duty of soldiers and sergeants whose service under conscription is over.

Every spring and fall, when the draft begins, some Tajik parents send their children to Russia to avoid their being enlisted. The Association of Young Lawyers, Amparo, conducted a survey in 2009-2010 among 4,036 young people of the age of conscription. Some 35 percent of those surveyed said that they get into shanghaiing (when recruitment officers abduct young men on the street and send them into army service without informing their families) at least once. Recruitment officers usually took young men from streets, their houses or markets. There were cases when, when they took young men at night from Internet-cafes, the Amparo director Dilrabo Samadova said.

Since the year of 2000 Tajik Ministry of Defense practiced regular call up of reservists and army reserve officers in various regions of the country. Reservists and army reserve officers are called for refresh training courses. Some 70 people were killed in fighting between government forces and militants In July 2012 in Gorno-Badakhshan's provincial capital, Khorog. The call up campaign in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province [GBAO], which was scheduled for the third decade of August in Darvaz region, had no relation to the special operation in Khorog, which was carried out on 24 July 2012 this year, a spokesman for Tajik Ministry of Defense Mr. Faridun Mahmadaliev said. He stressed that earlier this year similar call-up campaigns were conducted in regions of Sughd and Khatlon provinces.

"According to Tajik Defense Ministry's plan, call up campaigns for reservists and army reserve officers are carried out in regions, cities and provinces of the country since 2000," F. Mahmadaliev said. The order called on all males aged between 18 and 45 years of age to report to military offices. Males in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region were called to military commissions for questioning about their military background. Men who formerly served in Soviet or Tajik forces as paratroopers, snipers, or members of special rapid-reaction forces were required to register. The registration is usually followed by short-term military training.

A military parade dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the formation of Tajikistan’s Armed Forces took place in Dushanbe on 23 February 2013. It is to be noted that this year, female military personnel were on the military parade on the occasion of February 23. They are officers from the central body of the Ministry of Defense (MoD). Besides, officers from the counternarcotics agency, customs service, anticorruption agency and the State Committee for National Security (SCNS) participated in the parade this year for the first time. In all, 10,000 servicemen of Tajikistan’s power wielding structures were on the military parade in Dushanbe on February 23. Tajik Defense Minister, Colonel-General Sherali Khairulloyev, and Commander of the Dushanbe Garrison, Major-General Latif Fayziyev, commanded the parade.

In March 2013 Tajikistan's parliament passed new legislation exempting village teachers from compulsory military service. According to the amendments to the Law on Education approved by lawmakers on March 6, teachers in rural areas will also benefit from free land lots, tax cuts, and other financial benefits. Education Minister Nuriddin Saidov told RFE/RL that cases of forced drafting of young teachers will be investigated and that those responsible will be punished. "By drafting a young teacher to the army, we deprive 20-25 schoolchildren of a teacher," Saidov said. Tajik men between 18 and 27 have to serve two years in the Tajik army. The number of teachers in Tajikistan, especially in rural regions, dramatically decreased after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.