Tajikistan
Mine Ban Policy
Policy
The Republic of Tajikistan acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty on 12 October 1999, becoming a State Party on 1 April 2000. In late 2007, the Tajikistan Mine Action Center (TMAC) submitted three draft amendments to the national parliament aimed at harmonizing national laws with the requirements of the Mine Ban Treaty.[1] Tajikistan has not reported any progress since that time. In the past, the government said that new legislation to implement the treaty domestically was unnecessary, as it relied on its criminal code to punish violations of the treaty.[2]
Tajikistan regularly attends Meetings of States Parties, including the Third Review Conference in Maputo in June 2014, and more recently the Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in November 2018. Tajikistan also attended the intersessional meetings in Geneva in May 2019, where it submitted an Article 5 mine clearance extension request.[3]
Tajikistan promoted the Mine Ban Treaty in its region, calling for a “Central Asia region free of mines,” and a “Mine Action Regional Coordination body in Central Asia.”[4] It also hosted the Dushanbe Workshop on Progress and Challenges in Achieving a Mine-Free Central Asia on 7 and 8 July 2009, the third in a series of regional conferences.[5]
Tajikistan is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and its Amended Protocol II on landmines. It is also party to CCW Protocol V on explosive remnants of war. Tajikistan is not party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Production, transfer, use, stockpile destruction, and seizures
Tajikistan has reported that it never produced or exported antipersonnel mines.[6] The most recent use of mines in Tajik territory occurred in 2000 and 2001, when Russian and Uzbek forces placed mines at various border locations inside Tajikistan.[7]
Between 5 May 2002 and 31 March 2004, Tajikistan destroyed its stockpile of 3,084 antipersonnel mines it inherited from the Soviet Union.[8] Tajikistan initially retained 255 antipersonnel mines, and had indicated it would use these until 2010 when their shelf life expired. Tajikistan reported that it consumed the last of these mines in 2007.[9] Though the end of 2014, Tajikistan did not report any mines retained for training and research. However, in April 2017, Tajikistan’s Article 7 report listed 37 mines retained for training and research, with no information on the origins of the mines.[10] Tajikistan reported maintaining 37 antipersonnel mines for training and research through the end of December 2018.[11]
In 2009, Tajik authorities seized a total of 16 PMN-2 blast mines during “anti-criminal operations” and subsequently destroyed the mines.[12] In 2008, Tajikistan reported two instances where mines were “confiscated or detected…as a result of counter-terrorism activity.”[13]
Tajikistan reported in 2008 that a total of 49,152 PFM-1S remotely-delivered blast mines[14] and 100 “blocks” of POM remotely-delivered fragmentation mines[15] were transferred by Tajik border protection forces to Russian forces in Tajikistan sometime in 2006 for destruction after being discovered following the completion of its stockpile destruction program.[16] These stocks were destroyed in October 2006 by the order of the Russian Federation Federal Border Service.[17]
Tajikistan is the only State Party to declare antipersonnel mines stockpiled on its territory by a state not party to the treaty. It reported that approximately 18,200 antipersonnel mines of various types are stockpiled with Russian Ministry of Defense units deployed in Tajikistan.[18] These stockpiles are not under the jurisdiction or control of Tajikistan.[19] In each of its Article 7 reports since 2003, Tajikistan has reported that intergovernmental talks are “currently underway” to clarify and complete data collection regarding these Russian mines.[20]
[1] Interview with Jonmahmad Rajabov, Director, TMAC, Dushanbe, 5 February 2008. The amendments are to the following laws: “On State Armaments Order”; “On Circulation of Explosive Materials for Civil Purposes”; and “On Arms.” The amendments resulted from a project started in 2006, in cooperation with the Tajik NGO Harmony of the World. The ICRC provided funding for the project, but did not review the recommendations. Email from Eve La Haye, Legal Adviser, Arms Unit, ICRC, 29 July 2008.
[2] Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report, Form A, 14 March 2005. The 1996 Law on Weapons expressly regulates all issues related to the registration, shipment, transport, acquisition, transfer, and storage of armaments and munitions on the territory of Tajikistan. Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report, Form A, 3 February 2003.
[3] Presentation of Tajikistan, Mine Ban Treaty Intersessional Meetings, 22 May 2019.
[4] Statement by Bakhtiyor Khudoyorov, Minister of Justice, Second Review Conference, Mine Ban Treaty, Cartagena, 3 December 2009.
[5] Five states from the region participated along with eight donor states and several international and national NGOs. The workshop also included a parallel program for victim assistance experts from Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
[6] Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report, Forms E and H, 3 February 2003.
[7] Ibid., Form C, 3 February 2003.
[8] Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report, Form G, 14 March 2005. The text in Forms A, D, and F cite a total of 3,029 mines destroyed, but the detailed listing in Form G adds up to 3,084. This includes: 1,591 POMZ-2; 633 PMN; 436 OZM-72; and 424 MON-100 mines.
[9] Tajikistan consumed 30 mines in 2005, 120 mines in 2006, and 105 mines in 2007. The mines were used for refresher training of survey and demining personnel. For more details, see, Landmine Monitor Report 2008, pp. 662–663.
[10] Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report, Form C, 30 April 2017.
[11] Ibid., 2 April 2019.
[12] Ibid., Form B2, 30 April 2010.
[13] Ibid., 3 February 2008.
[14] TMAC has confirmed that this is the number of individual mines. It likely represents 768 canisters each containing 64 individual mines.
[15] According to the form “each block [of POM mines] has several clusters [canisters] and each cluster has several mines. We have not determined the number of clusters that each block includes. This means, that each block has several mines.” Typically, a KPOM-2 canister has four mines, but it is unclear how many canisters are in a block.
[16] Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report, Form B, 3 February 2008. Tajikistan used the optional form B2.
[17] Order #21/6/8-5609, dated 1 September 2006. Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report, Form B2, 3 February 2008.
[18] Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report, Form B, 3 February 2003.
[19] Interview with Jonmahmad Rajabov, then-Deputy Head of the Board of Constitutional Guarantees of Citizens Rights, Executive Board of the President, in Geneva, 5 February 2003. In another interview in Geneva on 13 May 2003, he stated that Tajik forces are under a separate command-and-control structure and would refuse orders by Russian forces to lay mines.
[20] See Form B of each Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report.