It s the wild east and the culture of the gun primitive accumulation. We just hope it will pave the way to a more rational system. Those in the capital hear evidence of this showdown in the nightly skirmishes and periodic bomb blasts. But the view from the provinces seems tragically burlesque. Pensions are not paid.
Teachers have no salaries.
Policemen have no typewriters, no paper to type on, no guns, not even handcuffs. As one field worker says, The police are certainly no match for the local armed gangs. It s a joke. Given the alarming frequency of reports about the growing narcotics traffic from Afghanistan, many people interviewed for this report question the extent to which the frontier could be better policed by the CIS border forces, commanded primarily by Russians. Anyone in southern Tajikistan last August had an opportunity to witness a rampage of looting by government forces, reminiscent of Russian military campaigns through Chechen villages in 1995 and 1996.