Tajik Civil War Case Study

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1. Introduction (See Appendix 1- Conflict Tree map)
The purpose of this paper is to focus on the successful mediation and negotiation process that ended the Tajik Civil war. The Tajik conflict has continued to receive little or no public attention when compared to other conflicts such as those in Rwanda and Somalia. Nonetheless, the negotiations needed to take place in order to stop the brutality against innocent civilians and to encourage mutual respect between the Tajik government and the opposition group. Hence, after the Tajik war in May 1992, negotiations by third party moderators such as the United Nations, Russia and Iran was quickly started in June 1997 (Tetsuro, 2010: 1). Evidently the United Nations was the most important party …show more content…

The reliability of the mediator is also important to the successful outcome of any mediation as it allows the conflicting sides to trust any information that be being passed on to them from the third party (Greig and Patrick, 2008: 760). Thus, the ripeness for mediation often occurs when both sides agree that reaching a compromise is best for them or the state. Therefore, when conflict results in huge human and financial costs for both sides such that neither side can singlehandedly impose a resolution, both opponents then become interested in moving towards a negotiated outcome (Greig and Patrick, 2008: 761). Mason and Fett, argue that mediation is mostly to be expected at the later stages of conflict. Meaning, a longer duration of conflict is most likely to increase the probability of a negotiated outcome. Zartman, on the other hand argues that conflicts are ready for resolutions at the beginning or at the later stages of occurrence (Melin and Svensson, 2009: 264). In regards to the United Nations mediation in Tajikistan, the former argument by Mason and Fett holds more. Although there seemed to be a situation of ripeness for negotiations to take place as both sides were aware of the damages of war. It was only in 1995, four years after the start of the Tajik civil war in 1992 that the …show more content…

Both the Tajik government and the United Tajik Opposition tended to perceive each other with deep suspicion and bitterness, which resulted in an unwillingness to engage with each other in dialogue. Dialogue, which could have in turn resulted in resolutions that could have resolved the conflict quicker (Nathan, 1998: 2). Right from the beginning, the negotiations had reached several deadlocks, which evidently revealed to both sides that neither was in a position of winner takes all. Thus, both sides recognized that they were in a mutually hurting stalemate (Iji 2010:17). As a result of this, the only solution available was thus to find a way out, moreover, this then created a ripeness for mediation as peaceful results could not be achieved without the intervention of a third party (Melin, 2013, 89). Also, the crisis in Afghanistan additionally played an essential role in pushing both parties to negotiate. The quick rise of the radical Islamist and Taliban movement situated in Pashtun, Afghanistan in 1995-1996 transformed the motives for mediation and negotiations. Foreign state observers involved in the mediation process therefore pressured their Tajik allies to reach a diplomatic settlement based on their fear that the Taliban might

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