I told my husband he needed to find a job. This is easier said than done in Tajikistan and neighboring Uzbekistan, the two poorest nations in the former Soviet Union. In both countries, the majority of people live outside the capital, where about the only honest work is picking cotton. The region's only other thriving industry is drug smuggling, a billion-dollar business said to be controlled by Islamic militants based in Afghanistan, the world's leading supplier of heroin. This amount is more than a teacher or doctor here makes each month, making it a temptation that parents can ill-afford to resist especially if, like Abusto, their children are starving before their eyes.
Evidence points to a growing number of villagers lured into the smuggling business.
The roughly 10,000 Russian border troops who guard the 1,000-mile Afghan border at the request of the Tajik government say they stopped more than 900 people carrying drugs during the first nine months of this year, an increase of 15 percent over last year that is attributed to higher volumes rather than better patrolling. Tajik and Russian officials say they stop only about 10 percent of the drug flow. Certainly, drug-running to feed one's family is not tantamount to taking up arms and fighting for the Islamic militants. Already, Turkish and Saudi religious organizations have stepped in to build desperately needed schools and hospitals in the countryside. These good deeds, diplomats say, will go a long way to showing largely illiterate villagers whom they should trust.