A Tajik villager during the 1992-1997 armed conflict between supporters of the central authorities and the various groups comprising the United Tajik Opposition (UTO). November 2006. Photo (c): R. Mangasaryan / RIA Novosti. All rights reserved.
On 11 and 12 February 1990, the streets of Dushanbe teemed with thousands of protesters. These protesters in the capital of Soviet Tajikistan demanded improved living conditions and the fair distribution of housing from the authorities. The KGB’s Alfa division answered by opening fire, killing 25 people in cold blood. As a result, indignant citizens demanded the resignation of the country’s communist leadership, and the authorities dispatched 5,000 soldiers to crush the protests.
To date there has still been no investigation into these events, neither by the Soviet nor the post-Soviet leadership of Tajikistan. For its part, the international community reacted to the protests as an internal matter for the (already doomed) Soviet Union. And in the end, the protests led to nothing but the start of a brutal civil war.
