Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Tajik communists seek restoration of ousted leader Date: Tue, 3 Nov 92 15:19:55 EST Message-ID: \SE A;WORLD \SS (WS) \HD Tajik communists seek restoration of ousted leader \BY Elif Kaban \CR REUTERS NEWS AGENCY \DT KHOJAND, Tajikistan KHOJAND, Tajikistan - Sitting cross-legged on a sofa, the leader of Tajikistan's latest abortive coup appeared haggard but unrepentant. Safarali Kenjayev led several thousand pro-communist gunmen in an assault on the capital of Dushanbe Oct. 24 but was thwarted when government forces blocked his advancing fighters. Forced to retreat after fighting that killed at least 20 people, the former speaker of parliament still firmly resolved to restore ousted President Rakhmon Nabiyev to power in this volatile and anarchic Central Asian state. "Me and my boys entered Dushanbe at 6 in the morning on Saturday. We went straight to the presidential palace and parliament building," Mr. Kenjayev said. "My aim was to talk peace with the government," he said. "But then the war began. The mullahs used against us three armored vehicles, which we ourselves had bought last year to protect the state." Mr. Kenjayev, who claims 100,000 supporters for his movement, shied away from questions on the assault. "I'm not a soldier," he said. "I'm a politician, and I am for peace." Why, then, was he wearing combat pants? "Oh, just because they're very comfortable," he quipped. "The government in Dushanbe is unconstitutional. Nabiyev was forced to resign at gunpoint. He must be restored to power. Then we must have new parliamentary elections." The fall of the former communist leader under fierce opposition pressure in September intensified the fighting in the poorest and most volatile of the former Soviet republics. Hundreds of people have been killed in clan fighting in the south, which has taken on the dimensions of a civil war. Tracking down Mr. Kenjayev proved an adventure in Khojand, the industrialized northern power base of Mr. Nabiyev and center of opposition to the current ruling coalition of secular politicians and Muslim radicals. "At the bus stop. Be there in 30 minutes," ordered the voice at the end of a crackling telephone line, refusing further conversation for fear of security police bugging. A Lada car emerged at the meeting place, carrying Kenjayev guards who reached for their guns from time to time to guard against some unexplained menace. The car bumped along a potholed suburban street, sending three automatic rifles crashing against each other at the back, and pulled up before the iron gates of a single-story house guarded by two huge shepherd dogs. Inside was Mr. Kenjayev. Khojand, formerly Leninabad, which has close transport and communication links with neighboring Uzbekistan and is home to many Uzbeks fleeing the fighting, feels far removed from chaotic Dushanbe, across the snow-capped mountains to the south. "Dushanbe? I haven't been there for more than a year," said a businessman dining at a restaurant offering everything from bowls of caviar to steaming platters of lamb, far from the angry crowds scrambling for bread in the capital. Communists remain well entrenched in the Leninabad region, which in the past threatened to secede from Tajikistan and join Uzbekistan. Mr. Kenjayev acknowledged he had to drive to Khojand via Uzbekistan to escape the wrath of the Dushanbe National Security Committee. The continuing threat from pro-communist gunmen massing in some towns served to unify the government. But even Prime Minister Abdulmalik Abdulajanov, a wealthy businessman from Leninabad who is trying to bridge the regional differences, does not know how long the marriage of opposites between Muslims and parliamentary democrats will last. "My main goal is to unite Tajikistan and put an end to the bloodshed," he said in an interview. "But it is hard to say whether we will succeed." The coalition's unity will be tested Nov. 4 in Khojand at a meeting of a new Majlis, a national assembly, being gathered with more than 500 representatives of ethnic Russians, Uzbeks, politicians and intellectuals of Tajikistan. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM