People by river/focus into barbed wire.

Dominique Schwartz:  There are two things which separate Tajikistan from Afghanistan - the Amu River and 1300 kilometres of barbed wire fencing, Under Russian control.

01.00.00.00

Tajikistan may have declared its independence - but as far as Moscow's concerned, this Central Asian nation is still the edge of the empire

Music

Barbed wire

Schwartz:  Today, four years after their country was plunged into civil war, a handful of Tajik refugees are coming home. They no longer face the wholesale slaughter which drove them - so desperately - into strife-torn Afghanistan.

00.55

Military vehicle

Schwartz:  But Tajikistan - the poorest of the former Soviet states teeters on a knife edge. And everyone is jumpy.

United Nations vehicles

Schwartz:  Today in Tajikistan, there is no guarantee of safety or security, particularly for the returnees.

01.30

Group of Garmis on bus

Schwartz:  These people are Garmis  members of the Garm regional group - the backbone of Tajikistan's Islamic-led Opposition.

Essentially, they are the losers in this war.

For years, Garmis like Said, have dared not return home - fearful of reprisals by another regional group - the pro-Communist Kulabis - who seized government in December 1992 with Russian support.

Said with child

SAID ROSIKOV : I've been told that I may end up being drafted in the army and I've had lots of threats against  my life. We have all been afraid to come back

02.22

Guissou

GUISSOU INTERVIEW:  The returnees still face a lot of tension from the government...

02.44

Schwartz:  Guissou Jahangiri-Jeannot has been monitoring human rights abuses here for the past two years

Super:  GUISSOU JAHANGIRI-JEANNOT

Former Human Rights Watch

GUISSOU INTERVIEW:  However I would say that in the last year, because of the lack of centralised forces, - no centralisation in Tajikistan - many incidents of abuses have been, unfortunately, on the rise in Tajikistan. This has meant not only in terms of the basic freedoms of the press, of expression, but also systematic abuse against a specific segment of the society

Returnee undergoing medical check

Schwartz:  There's no doubt the returnees come under close scrutiny  physical and political.

03.26

Schwartz:  We were allowed to film their medical check-up, but not their interviews with national security officers.

During these, returnees are grilled for any information about Opposition forces operating from bases within Afghanistan.

Children

Schwartz:  Tomorrow these people will make the final journey to their villages - or what remains of them.

03.59

Said's mother Halimova

Schwartz:  For Said's mother, it will be a exercise not so much in hope, as faith.

HALIMOVA INTERVIEW:  We don't know what will the future will be but we came back with our children because this is our country. Only God knows what the future will bring.

04.16

Helicopter

Schwartz:   The seed for Tajikistan's brutal civil war was sown seventy years ago, when Stalin carved up Central Asia.

He created a series of artificial states - with no regard for ethnic and regional groupings.

After the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991, long suppressed tensions flared.

Tajikistan became a battleground as pro-communist Kulabis and Islamic-backed Garmis fought for power.

Music

Destroyed villages

Schwartz: In little more than a year, 50,000 people were killed, and nearly one million Tajiks - a fifth of the population - rendered homeless.

05.21

Schwartz in destroyed village

Super:  DOMINIQUE SCHWARTZ

Schwartz:  This is where the Civil war erupted in 1992. Khatlon Region in southern Tajikistan. It was here, around Kurgan Tyube that some of the worst fighting - took place. As you can see  villages were completely destroyed. Thousands of people fled in terror and those who didn't were killed - often in the most brutal of ways: decapitated, mutilated - in extreme cases, skinned alive. It's peaceful here now - but the war continues, only this time, it's on a different front.

Group of children /flour being measured

Schwartz:  In the Soviet-named May the First village the immediate enemy is starvation.

06.22

Without the flour, sugar and oil provided by the World Food Programme, many here would have nothing to eat.

Bohigul

BOHIGUL INTERVIEW: Nowadays the Tajik people depend 100 percent on the World Food Programme and if there was no help, all our people would die.

06.39

Schwartz:  Bohigul Safarova is the head of this community. When war. broke out, it was the stronghold of Islamic Opposition leader, Said Abdullah Nouri.

06.53

Today it's the domain of widowed returnees.

Most work on the state cotton farms - but few are getting paid.

Bohigul

BOHIGUL INTERVIEW:  People aren't being paid their wages. During the first five months of 1996, after working every day, they have only received one payment - 500 roubles.

07.16

Schwartz:   That's three Australian dollars - not enough to buy even one bag of flour

Flour being measured into buckets

Schwartz:  The World Food Programme is appealing for 30-thousand tonnes of food - but even if successful, that will help feed only one tenth of those in need.

07.44

Super:  TREVOR MARTIN

World Food Programme

MARTIN INTERVIEW:  Well we've had many cases of people who are really desperate. We've had reports of people committing suicide, we've had reports even of people wanting to sell off their children - it sounds terrible, but this has occurred

07.56

Cable car

Schwartz:  One hundred kilometres to the north, in the capital - Dushanbe - the government of Tajikistan sits in splendid isolation

While claiming the war has cost the country seven billion dollars, the Prime Minister would have us believe Tajikistan has turned the corner.

Azimov

Super:  YAKHYO AZIMOV

Tajikistan Prime Minister

AZIMOV INTERVIEW:  I don't think our economy is collapsing any more. We're on the way to stabilising the situation.

08.40

Schwartz:  You say that the government has managed to stop the economic decline, so why haven't you been able to pay salaries?

AZIMOV INTERVIEW:  In the very near feature we will be able to pay salaries without delays every month.

Tanks in street

Schwartz:  The reality, however, is that the government's priority is maintaining its tenuous grip on power.

09.10

It has effectively lost control of the eastern half of the country, where it's battling Opposition forces just 150 kilometres from the capital.

Cracks are also widening within the government's own ranks.

Night in Dushanbe

Schwartz:  The only reason the government still controls Dushanbe is because of Russia's military and financial backing.

09.48

Even so, the atmosphere here is tense. Being seen to support either side could cost you your life.

Schwartz:   Journalists are a favourite target for attack. Ukrainian-born Yuri Kushko, who's been working in Tajikistan for 13 years, has lost many friends and colleagues.

10.09

Yuri Kushko

YURI INTERVIEW:  Up to forty journalists have been shot dead since May 1991. Militia and prosecution didn't investigate cases properly and none of the killers have been found and punished.

Street scenes

Schwartz:  Today even though Tajikistan is independent, Moscow is reluctant to let it go. The fear, whether real or imagined, is that if Russia withdraws, Tajikistan may become a radical Islamic State - a tinderbox just waiting to ignite the whole of Central Asia.

Man on scaffold building mosque

Schwartz:  Islam is undergoing something of a renaissance in Tajikistan.

11.20

Suppressed under Soviet rule, today religious leaders, nationalists and democrats see rebuilding the faith as integral to restoring Tajik identity and culture.

Together these groups constitute the Opposition.

While not initially fundamentalist, it is becoming more radical as the conflict drags on.

Schwartz in car

Schwartz:  To find the Opposition you need to travel to Afghanistan - a country wracked by war for 15 years.

11.59

We went with the United Nations - the easiest way to get past the Russian border guards.

It's from Mujahadeen leaders here, that the Tajik Opposition draws much of its support - Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are other benefactors.

Refugee camp in desert

Schwartz:   At the height of Tajikistan's conflict, 60,000 refugees took shelter in camps in Afghanistan. Today, as many as one third remain.

Schwartz:  At Sahki Camp, run by the United Nations, Islam is an important part of life. Most of the children's schooling is spent studying the Arabic alphabet and the Koran.

12.48

Boy walking through camp

Schwartz:  The Tajik Government claims the Islamic Opposition is indoctrinating the refugees, and recruiting fighters. It wants the camps closed immediately

But few people here, are willing to go home. Some with very good reason.

Schwartz greet Qari

Schwartz:  Qari Sultan is a man with a price on his head - spokesman for the Islamic Opposition, and a close personal friend of its leader - Said Abdullah Nouri - now based in Teheran.

Qari

QARI INTERVIEW: There would be a 100 percent certainty that if I went back to Tajikistan I would be prosecuted and even killed.

13.43

People in camp

Schwartz:  For the people of Tajikistan - whether in Afghanistan or at home - there will be no quick return to normal life.

14.17

The government and opposition are locked in a stalemate - both unwilling to back down.

The only hope is that Russia tires of the conflict, and uses its considerable influence to force a compromise. If not, it may well help create the very monster it sought to prevent - a second Afghanistan, even closer to its doorstep.

Music

ENDS

15.09