From: trh%jack.sns.com%harvunxw.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU (Al Trh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Tadzhikistan replaces leader again
Date: 22 Nov 1992 21:33:42 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Reply-To: Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

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 >From: clarinews@clarinet.com (MARIA KOROLOV)

        KHODZENT, Tadzhikistan (UPI) -- Tadzhikistan's Parliament removed the
 acting president by an overwhelming vote Thursday and replaced him with
 the country's third leader since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
        The Parliament also requested help from Russian troops and
 neighboring Central Asian republics in bringing a halt to the civil war
 tearing the republic apart.
        Imoli Rakhmonov, leader of one of the factions in the sharply divided
 republic, was named Parliament chairman -- and de facto president -- by a
 186-11 vote.
        Booted from his dual post of acting president and Parliament chairman
 by a vote of 141-54 was Akbarsho Iskandarov, who spent two stormy months
 as head of the ex-Soviet republic after President Rakhmon Nabiyev quit
 at gunpoint.
        The Parliament session took place in the northern city of Khodzent,
 formerly Leninabad, Nabiyev's home base and a Communist stronghold, with
 hammer-and-sickle flags and other trappings of communism in ample
 evidence.
        The session was transferred out of the capital Dushanbe, which was in
 disorder and under virtual martial law with numerous armed groups
 threatening to disrupt the legislature.
        Gunmen in Dushanbe killed the republic's deputy secutity minister,
 Dzhurabek Aminov, firing grenade launchers and submachine guns at his
 car as he drove home just before midnight Wednesday. He was the third
 high-ranking official to be gunned down recently.
        The change of government brought mixed opinion about whether it would
 worsen Tadzhikistan's problems or help solve them.
        ``Our main goal is to stop the bloodshed,'' Rakhmonov said after his
 selection.
        Rakhmonov was chairman of the Kulyab provincial council, which
 opposed the Iskandarov government coalition of democratic and Islamic
 parties. Even though he was leader of one faction and one region in the
 country, he said, ``All regions will be represented in the new
 government and will be represented equally.''
  be
 obvious.''
        Iskandarov, who will remain a member of Parliament, offered to help
 the new government, but the lopsided vote and his rocky rule made that
 appear unlikely.
        Ousted President Nabiyev played no role in the legislature's decision
 to get rid of his replacement and choose a new leader.
        Deputy Prime Minister Asliddin Sokhibnazarov said things had
 deteriorated so much in Tadzhikistan that it did not seem to really
 matter who was named to run the country. He told the Interfax news
 agency that any political leader would end up being ``a general without
 an army, a commander without subordinates, because all structures of
 state power are actually paralyzed.''
        Parliament called on the Russian 201st army to take an active
 peacemaking role in the country and urged that Russia and Tadzhikistan's
 Central Asian neighbors -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan -- come
 to the republic's assistance. Parliament invited troops under the
 command of the Commonwealth of Independent States to help restore order.
        Wars have been raging in the south between clans that have been
 enemies since long before the country was freed from Kremlin rule.
 Fighting has spilled over into the capital and other areas as arms have
 poured across the Tadzhikistan-Afghanistan border.
        Nabiyev, a former Communist Party leader who was overwhelmingly
 elected about a year ago, was ousted under pressure from a loose
 coalition of democrats and Islamic groups.
        But none of the problems in Tadzhikistan abated during Iskandarov's
 rule, and some of Nabiyev's old support rallied to install the new
 leader.
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