Participants of the expert forum «World. Safety. Development: Lessons from Military Conflicts at Border in Batken Region of the Kyrgyz Republic» note that Tajikistan has committed military aggression against Kyrgyzstan.
They also note that the neighboring state has violated requirements of the following international agreements and multilateral regulatory legal acts:
- 1976 Charter of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
- Agreement on Creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) dated 1991;
- The Alma-Ata Declaration 1991 on the goals, principles and foundations of the CIS;
- The 1994 Moscow Declaration on Observance of Sovereignty, Territorial Integrity and Inviolability of Borders of CIS Member States;
- 1996 Treaty on the Basics of Interstate Relations between the Kyrgyz Republic and the Republic of Tajikistan;
- Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms;
- Declaration on Elimination of Violence against Women, adopted by General Assembly resolution 48/104 dated December 20, 1993;
- Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, adopted by General Assembly resolution 34/180 dated December 18, 1979;
- International humanitarian law, which strongly condemns commissioning of war crimes against humanity;
- Principles of state and territorial integrity within the framework of multilateral agreements between the OSCE countries;
- UN General Assembly Resolution 3093 dated October 10, 1980 on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects;
- UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on the importance of the role of women in conflict prevention and resolution in order to maintain peace and security.
Experts remind: Tajikistan in 2001 signed and ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Ratification of the Rome Statute makes it possible to use the UN legal mechanisms and extend the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court to the war crimes committed by the Tajik authorities.
The participants of the expert forum are unanimous in the opinion that the conflict that occurred in Batken region on the Kyrgyz-Tajik state border, the actions of the security forces of the Republic of Tajikistan are armed aggression and war crime.
They emphasize that as a result of unlawful actions on both sides, dozens of people died, including children, hundreds received injuries of varying severity, thousands of civilians were forced to leave their homes, which were destroyed and burned. Residential buildings and infrastructure have suffered significant damage.
Human rights activists and experts urge the President Sadyr Japarov to take urgent measures to recognize Tajikistan’s military actions as an act of aggression against sovereign Kyrgyzstan. They also appeal to the competent state bodies of the Kyrgyz Republic to draw up an appeal to the Special Rapporteur and to the UN Human Rights Committees and develop a plan for further actions to prevent possible repetition of armed clashes in risk zones in the border areas of Batken region. They also ask to launch the OSCE Moscow Mechanism to investigate the conflict at the Kyrgyz-Tajik border.
In total, 190 Kyrgyzstanis suffered in the border conflict, 36 people were killed, including children. More than 40,000 people have been evacuated from the conflict zone.
