Dushanbe takes it calmly

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33253, 16 June 1973, Page 8

Dushanbe takes it calmly

(By

STEPHEN BROENING,

of the Associated Press through N.Z.P.A.)

DUSHANBE, (U.S.S.R.). The citizens of Dushanbe, in the disputed Russian-Chinese border area, are less nervous about the intentions of China than are their counterparts in far-away Moscow. In contesting the frontier, which divides the Pamir Mountain range in the southern part of the Soviet Union, China lays claim to a large sector of what is now Soviet Tadzhikistan, but in spite of the disputed border and the mounting attacks on the Chinese in the Russian Press, the people of Dushanbe seem calm and confident.

The Tadzhik Republic is wedged between Afganistan, on the south and west, and the Chinese province of Sinkiang on the east. Dushanbe, the Tadzhik capital, is 260 miles north of Kabaul, Afganistan. The newspapers in Dushanbe print only a small portion of the bitter diatribe against ithe Chinese that fills the Moscow press. To the Tadzhiks, Uzbeks, and Uigurs who make up the overwhelming majority of the Tadzhik Republic’s population, the Chinese are not convincing as a menace, even when the Russians discuss the Chinese problem with a strong undertone of “yellow peril.” The Tadzhik people are Asians themselves. In Dushanbe, a student said simply: “We are not worried.”

An Uigur tapped his. forehead and told a group of Western and Communist journalists invited to visit the Tadzhik area by the Soviet Government: “Mao is crazy, but he doesn’t bother us.” A clerical worker at the big Nurek hydro-electric facility outside the city commented: “The Chinese? It’s disgusting—like someone who has eaten your bread, and then strikes you with his stick. But we can handle them.” Academician Muhamed Os.imy, president of the Tadzhik; Academy of Sciences, was] asked by an east European! reporter: “Everything is calm ■ on the frontier, isn’t it?” |

“Everything is calm,” Academician Osimy replied. Then a Western reporter wanted to know why, if everything was calm, a Moscow paper had reported only two days before an incident on the Tadzhik border in which three people were killed. “It hasn’t been in our press,” the scientist replied hotly. “But you know the provocative policy of Peking—-

it is no wonder these incidents happen.” In Dushanbe, like many other Soviet cities, troops, can be seen in the streets, shops, and restaurants. Here there is a large number of border troops. About 25 miles outside of town, a group of travellers saw six men drop by parachute from a biplane about 2,000 feet up. Farther down the road, about two dozen border guards, in field uniforms, prepared for an emergency: each held a dog on a leash. What things are like closer to the border it is impossible to say. Visitors are allowed only as far as Dushanbe, about 200 miles from China.