Balochistan PA condemns Mastung incident

By: Bari Baloch | Published: October 21, 2011
QUETTA - The Balochistan Assembly while condemning Mastung incident in which 26 Shiite Muslims of Hazara community were brutally killed has demanded of the govt to take practical steps to bring the culprits to justice.
The Balochistan Assembly adopted a condemnation resolution in its session which met with Deputy Speaker Matiullah Agha in the chair on Thursday.
Speaking on the admissibility of resolution, Chengezai said previously high profile members of Hazara community were being targeted but the current year witnessed more heinous incidents of mass killing of people belonging to the community.
Citing the details of attacks, he said terrorists on Eid-ul-Fitr day carried out blast in Quetta killing several people belong to Hazara community.
‘If volunteers were not deputed near prayers place the terrorists could have approached the congregation and more casualties could have occured’, he said,adding, 27 Shiite pilgrims were brutally murdered in Mastung district on September 20th.
He said when injured were being shifted to Quetta the terrorists attacked the vehicles killing three more Shiite people ,adding, that merely three day after Mastung incident three more members of Hazara community were dismounted from a mini bus near Machh and were shot dead.
He further said more than one dozen Hazara people were held at gun-point near fruit market in the outskirts of Quetta and after confirming their identity as Hazaras assailants brutally killed them. Chengezai regretted over lack of arrest of culprits, saying despite repeated attacks on Shia Muslims none of the culprits were brought to justice ,adding, that they should be told that why they were being treated like this whether they were not human beings.
He said it was the responsibility of the provincial government to ensure security to people and asked the chair to summon high-ups of law-enforcement agencies at the Assembly and the matter should be discussed. Supporting the condemnation resolution, Tariq Massuri Bugti said govt had failed to control law and order as such incidents were even not taking place in the dictatorial regime of Pervez Musharraf. ‘Innocent people were being killed and abducted but government is doing nothing’, he remarked.
Debating on the resolution, Provincial Minister and leader of PPP Ali Madad Jattak criticised his party member Jan Ali Chengezai, saying it was absolutely wrong conception that only members of Shiite Muslims were being targeted. ‘Terrorists do not belong to any religion or nationality as their sole aim is to create differences amongst the people living in Quetta’, he remarked and ,added, terrorists also targeted Sunni scholars including that of Maulana Abdul Karim and son of Maulana Hafiz Hussain Sharrodi.
He said Rehman Malik had visited Quetta on the special directives of President Zardari to meet members of Hazara community and visited Imambargah.
Due to hard hitting remarks of Ali Madad Jattak, Jan Ali Chengezai took the floor and said the Minister was threatening us in polite manner and he should not speak like this.
However, Mir Sadiq Umrani, PPP Balochistan President rushed to Jattak and calmed him down.
However, when the chair put the resolution for vote the House adopted it unanimously.
The House witnessed uproar when Mir Sadiq Umrani on a point of order strongly criticised PML-N President Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif for using hard words against PPP in public meeting in Dera Ghazi Khan.
‘Nawaz Sharif has committed contempt of the democratic institutions by using bad language against PPP leader’, he remarked and used unparliamentarily remarks for Nawaz Sharif.
At this, the chair stopped Umrani for passing objectionable remarks and ruled twice for getting the Umrani out of the House and expunged his remarks.
However, other members controlled the situation before a clash.
Ali Madad Jattak, on a point of order said they condemn the speech of Nawaz Sharif and general election of 2013 would decide to whom people would vote into power ,adding, that they would not be frightened of sit-ins and rallies.

THE NATION

Malik was wrongly briefed on law and order situation, says Balochistan minister

By Shehzad Baloch
Published: October 20, 2011

Malik claimed that Balochistan’s situation is comparatively better than other provinces. PHOTO: EXPRESS/FILE
QUETTA: Contrary to Interior Minister Rehman Malik statement, Provincial Minister for Quality Education Jan Ali Changezi of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) said the law and order situation in Balochistan is worse than other provinces.
“Malik may have been given wrong briefing about law and order situation in Balochistan,” Changezi told the reporters outside Balochistan Assembly.
He was referring to the statement in which Malik lauded the role of provincial government in overcoming law and order issues. Malik claimed that Balochistan’s situation is comparatively better than other provinces.
Changezi said that the provincial government did play a role in addressing other issues but as far as the law and order situation is concerned, the government is not sincere nor taking any serious steps.
Changezi, while highlighting the insincerity of the government, quoted Chief Minister Balochistan Nawab Aslam Raisani as saying “We will send a truck loaded with tissues to wipe the tears of the people weeping over increase in targeted killing.”

The Express Tribune

Extremists from Punjab involved in Balochistan unrest, says Malik

By: Bari Baloch | Published: October 20, 2011
QUETTA - Pakistan will next month reactivate a biometric computerised system to monitor movement of people crossing Pak-Afghan border, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Wednesday.
Addressing a press conference at CM Secretariat here, Malik said the government was going to revive immigration system, by restoring biometric system at Chaman and Torkham borders from November 30 to monitor movement of people through Pak-Afghan border from both sides. He said the government would convene a peace conference in Quetta, adding that a third party was involved in sectarian violence in Balochistan. “We are ready to hold dialogue with the disgruntled people who have climbed up mountains if they are ready to honour Pakistani flag,” he told the press conference.
Balochistan Home Minister Mir Zafarullah Zehri was also present on the occasion.
Malik said on the special directives of Prime Minister, he met with the people of Hazara community and Sunni scholars and discussed with them the issue of sectarian violence. “I got positive response from both sides. Thus we have decided to call a peace conference in Quetta next month inviting scholars from across the world including Imam Kaba’a to get rid of sectarian violence,” he informed.
He said a third party was involved in the incidents of sectarian violence and they were committing crimes for the sake of money. However, he vowed that they would be chased and punished. Referring to the security of Hazara community, he said police and Frontier Corps would provide security to the vehicles of Hazara pilgrims. It’s a temporary solution but the government is working on long-term plan to curb incidents of terrorism, he informed.
Malik said intelligence agencies had provided phone data which proved that some prisoners were involved in carrying out anti-peace activities in Quetta and other areas of Balochistan from jails. He said the law personnel conducted a raid last night in Quetta jail and recovered mobile phones from some prisoners.
“After complete investigation, action will be taken in accordance with the record of these phones.” Police have been directed to separate high-profile criminals in jails so that they could not operate, he said adding that he had ordered the reinvestigation of escaping of Usman Kurd from ATF sub-jail.
Responding to a question, he said President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani wanted to bring Baloch nationalists into mainstream . To a question, he said if party allows he is ready to expose corruption committed by the Sharif brothers.
and added that Governor, Chief Minister and Home Minister of Balochistan had been playing an active role for maintaining peace in the province.
Citing Ireland and Sri Lanka’s insurgencies, Malik said government was making progress in holding dialogue with the disgruntled elements but it would take time.
He said three districts including Quetta were sensitive.
Agencies add: Malik said members of some banned outfits of Punjab were also involved in anti-peace activities in Balochistan.
Referring to the missing persons issue, the Interior Minister said the total number of missing hailing from Balochistan was 54 and not 6,000. He said the commission set up to track the missing persons was active and discharging its services effectively. He said the PPP-led government was aware of Balochistan’s conditions and wanted to put it on the track of progress and prosperity.
He announced to grant arms licences to every member of Quetta Press Club so that they could keep licensed weapon for their safety and security.

THE NATION

syed nasir ali shah; Pakistan's Anna Hazare

COMMENT: Killings of Hazaras: makings of genocide? — Mohammad Taqi

The ICJ has set strenuous evidence standards for a state to be held responsible for direct commission of genocide. But it also imposed an equally strict onus upon the states to rein in the non-state perpetrators to prevent genocide

“War doesn’t negate decency. It demands it, even more than in times of peace” — The Kite Runner.

Anyone who has read Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, or watched its heart-rending film adaptation need not be reminded that the above quote was an Afghan man’s response to a Russian soldier on the verge of a war crime claiming, “This is war. There is no shame in war.” The man’s son tried to stop him from standing up to the Russian. The Kite Runner remains a poignant parable of what has gone wrong with Afghanistan and Pakistan. That war has ravaged both countries is obvious but the hit that common decency has taken goes almost unnoticed.

Hosseini’s character Amir and his decision, first to not do anything when his friend and half-brother Hassan is subjected to an atrocity and then to keep his father from intervening to stop violence, is a stark reminder that the perpetrators’ strength is compounded by the inaction of the bystanders. In the allegorical work, the epithets and slurs thrown at Hassan — the jovial, loyal and young representation of decency and more importantly Afghanistan itself — are the abyss staring us in the eye.

Unfortunately, the disaster and slurs are not limited to fiction any longer. After the recent massacre of the Shiite Hazaras near Mastung, the parliamentarian from the area — Ayatullah Durrani — suggested on a television show that the victim community benefits by getting Australian asylum. Aslam Raisani, the chief minister of Balochistan, where more than 500 Hazaras — over 90 in the past four months — have been killed, offered to send a truckload of tissue papers to the bereaving families. Many seasoned human rights campaigners have either remained mum or have issued subdued statements literally sanitising the premeditated mass murder underway in and around Quetta. Terms like ‘sectarian killings’, with connotations of a tit-for-tat warfare between equal groups for similar motives, have been deployed.

Mass murders do not happen in a vacuum or out of the blue. There are always indicators of the disasters in the making, which are ignored by the bystanders, euphemised by the enablers and denied by the perpetrators. Prevention of such catastrophes has been a subject of serious scholarship and among the warning signs the most important one is a history of similar atrocities. Professor Barbara Harff had aptly noted: “Perpetrators of genocide are often repeat offenders, because elites and security forces may become habituated to mass killing as a strategic response to challenges to state security.”

The Hazaras first came to the Quetta cantonment in the then British Balochistan from central Afghanistan after the Afghan ruler, Abdur Rahman Khan, prompted by clergymen from Kandahar, issued a decree in 1892 declaring the Hazaras infidels. He ordered them to convert to the Sunni faith and when they refused he followed up on his pledge to exterminate them. A similar edict was issued by the Taliban regime of Mullah Omar in 1998 followed by extermination campaigns such as Mazar-i-Sharif (1998), Robatak Pass (2000) and Yakaolang (2001). The Hazaras have lived in peace and relative prosperity in Quetta and have been considered model citizens of Pakistan. But that was until another series of edicts was unleashed against them by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) — the Pakistani affiliate of the al Qaeda-Taliban combine.

It is in this very specific context that recognising the vulnerability of the Pakistani Hazaras takes on an urgency that no human and civil rights activist can ignore. Over 600,000 members of an easy-to-profile community, largely residing in the Marriabad area near Alamdar Road and the Hazara Town off the old Brewery Road in Quetta have become sitting ducks given the callous government attitude and a determined and well-armed perpetrator. The responsibility of bearing witness, raising concern and proactive advocacy rests now with the media and human rights activists.

Within the human rights community there is reluctance to use the term genocide and a departure from the confines of the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, which provides a legal definition of the crime, is considered almost a judicial heresy. In a situation where the legal framework has not kept pace with time and the intervention and prevention of a disaster cannot wait, a working definition provided by John Thomson and Gail Quets may provide a useful start. They had stated: “Genocide is the extent of destruction of a social collectivity by whatever agents, with whatever intentions, by purposive actions which fall outside the recognised conventions of legitimate warfare.”

Even within the confines of the UN definition — based on the efforts of Raphael Lemkin — the atrocities do not have to be state-sanctioned, happen only in war or in peace, or a certain number of the target population have to die before the invocation of the term could be considered. Extermination of the last member of a community does not have to happen — in fact not one person has to be killed — for the crime to become genocide. Any ‘stable and permanent group’ (which can be national, ethnic, racial or religious) is considered a protected group. The responsibility for protection, of course, rests squarely with the state. In its 2007 judgement in the Bosnia vs Serbia case, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for the first time defined the scope of the state responsibility under the UN convention. The ICJ has set strenuous evidence standards for a state to be held responsible for direct commission of genocide. But it also imposed an equally strict onus upon the states to rein in the non-state perpetrators to prevent genocide.

Nadezhda Mandelstam, a survivor of the Stalinist gulags herself, writes in Hope against Hope, “The relentless keepers of the truth are the genocide’s most powerful opponents...those who fail to witness honestly — who turn away, distort, and deny — are reliable allies of the génocidaires.” Interestingly, Nadezhda means hope in Russian. One remains hopeful that the international and Pakistani human rights organisations and activists would help bear witness, chronicle and report what appear to be the makings of genocide. The Pakistani state, on its part, must remember that failure to avert an imminent catastrophe would land it in very dubious company.

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com. He tweets at http://twitter.com/mazdaki

CID report on Hazaras’ killing submitted in court

By Amanullah Kasi | From the Newspaper

Ethnic Hazara Shia women hold placards during a demonstration in Quetta to condemn the shootout in Mastung by unidentified gunmen. – Photo by Reuters

QUETTA: The advocate general submitted before a bench of the Balochistan High Court on Tuesday a report of the Crimes Investigation Department (CID) which stated that an important clue had been found in the Mastung massacre, but said that details could not be disclosed because that would affect further investigation.

Twenty-nine members of the Shia Hazara community were killed by gunmen near Mastung on Sept 20.

The bench comprising Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Abdul Qadir Mengal accepted the counsel’s request that due to sensitivity of the matter the report be kept under wraps.

A report prepared by the Frontier Corps was also submitted which said the Levies Force did not coordinate with them in the investigation.

The court noted that although the government had restored the Levies Force, it was not properly trained to combat terrorism and other crimes and directed the government to take steps to improve the force’s performance.

The court also called for measures aimed at better coordination among different law-enforcement agencies to stop terrorist incidents and other heinous crimes. The hearing was adjourned till Nov 23.

DAWN

Protest in Brussels against Target Killings of Hazaras; Urdu