Subject: Interests in the Ferghana Valley
From: brubin@email.cfr.org (by way of Ferghana Valley Development Programme (fvdp@elcat.osh.su)
Date: Sat Apr 10 1999 - 03:47:21 EDT
I will also take this opportunity to introduce myself.
I am currently a Senior Fellow, Director of the Center for Preventive Action,
and Director of Peace and Conflict Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations
in New York. Before than I was Associate Professor of Political Science,
Director of the Center for the Study of Central Asia, and Director of the
Project on Conflict in the Former Soviet Union at Columbia University. Before
that I had other positions at the US Institute of Peace and Yale University
where I had only one title. Somehow I managed.
My interest in the Ferghana Valley unites my regional specialization (south,
southwest, and then Central Asia) and my thematic specialization in recent
years
(origin, prevention, and resolution of violent conflict). Previously I wrote
three books on the war in Afghanistan (with Jeri Laber, Afghanistan under the
Soviets, 1988, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, 1995, and The Search for
Peace
in Afghanistan, also 1995) and also edited a volume with Jack Snyder called
Post-Soviet Political Order, in which I wrote a chapter on the Tajik civil war
as well as a conclusion. I have written a few other articles on the Tajik
civil
war as well. I did human rights reporting for various organizations from
India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. I am also a member of the
advisory board of the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation) project on
Central Eurasia.
Since I began working on conflict prevention at the Council on Foreign
Relations
in 1994, I wanted to do a project on Central Asia, and finally decided to
focus
on the Ferghana Valley. Nancy Lubin, whom many of you must know, worked as
the
director of this project. We sent a delegation to the area
(Moscow-Tashkent-Namangan-Andijan-Osh-Bishkek-Almaty) in March 1997 and
continued with further research afterwards. Our book-length report is now in
the final stages of publication (between copy-edited manuscript and
uncorrected
galleys) and should be out in a few months. I hope it will be a valuable
resource for all working on the region. It will also contain a map of the
region centered on the Ferghana Valley, with Tashkent, Bishkek, Kunduz, and
Mazar-i Sharif. We had this map custom made, as none was available, and we
hope
it will also be a useful resource for all of you when confronted with those
pesky questions, like, "The what? Where is it?"
Publication of my books on how to make peace in Afghanistan was immediately
followed by the rise of the Taliban. My project also did a report on the
South
Balkans (Kosovo, Macedonia, and Albania) recommending action to prevent
what has
now happened. Our project on the Great Lakes region of Central Africa was
followed by a coup in Burundi and two massive wars in the Democratic
Republic of
Congo, drawing in all states in the region. Our mission to the Ferghana
Valley
in 1997 was followed by riots in Khujand, assassinations in Andijan, mass
arrests in Andijan and Namangan, and subsequently bombings in Tashkent
blamed on
people from the Ferghana Valley. As we were finishing our report on Nigeria,
however, the military dictator died under mysterious circumstances, leading to
the recent elections. Let's hope for the best.
Barnett R. Rubin
Council on Foreign Relations
58 East 68 Street
New York, NY 10021
USA
212-434-9651
212-517-4967 (fax)
brubin@cfr.org
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