Saturday, August 20, 2011
On Ejaz Haider’s ISPR press release on Hazaras of Balochistan – by Farrukhzad Ali
BY ADMIN
Ejaz Haider recently visited Quetta with the purported agenda of meeting Hazara tribal and religious leaders and Deobandi/Lashkar-e-Jhangvi leaders to inform his readers about the situation in Quetta. But what he has finally produced as a result of his Quetta sojourn is nothing short of an ISPR press release. Athar Abbas has most certainly lost credibility, and needs new faces to deliver his messages.
To be honest, Ejaz Haider didn’t have to visit Quetta to write what he did at the end of the day. He knew what he had to write even before he had left. After having formally consummated his relationship with the ISI, he has proven himself as one of the most treacherous spokespersons of the agency.
In his August 3 article published in Express Tribune, Ejaz Haider tells us that the situation in Quetta is not as simple as it might seem because Hazaras are actually not a persecuted lot, but an Iranian proxy in Quetta who are funded by Iran and operate for Iran’s interests. The miseries of Hazaras are therefore self-inflicted, and they fully deserve the fate they have been subjected to.
The justifications Ejaz proffers to substantiate this buncombe are: the Iranian government invited 170 members from the Hazara community to commemorate Ayatollah Khomeini’s death anniversary this year; the Hazaras celebrated Shab-e-Barat this year by cutting a 40 lbs cake; Allama Domki is accused of being involved in a Deobandi prayer leader’s murder on July 28; Shia clerics indulge in sectarian sermons; and happenings in Quetta are of an action-reaction pattern. These are the reasons which according to Ejaz Haider have resulted in the killings of Hazaras ever since it commenced in the late 1990s.
Let me take each of his claims one by one.
For Ejaz Haider’s information, the Iranian government has been inviting Pakistanis from all backgrounds (including Hazaras) to attend Ayatollah Khomeini’s death anniversary for two decades now, and the list of invitees includes politicians, army officers, journalists, members of several religious parties, as well as ordinary citizens. The list of the invitees also includes names such as Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Munauwar Hasan, and Gen. Hamid Gul. So should we accept Ejaz Haider’s apology that Hazaras are being killed because Iran invited 170 of their members to attend Ayatollah Khomeini’s death anniversary in 2011? By the way, most of the 170 Hazaras who visited Iran this year were actually women and children, for whom the visit entailed no political connotations.
Shab-e-Barat celebrations in Quetta are as old a story as Hazaras themselves, and have never included sectarian sermons. Shab-e-Barat in Quetta, like elsewhere, is celebrated by using firecrackers, holding poetry recital gatherings and cutting of cakes – including one 40 lbs this year, which according to Ejaz Haider, was funded by Iran and resulted in killings of Hazaras. For his information, this wasn’t the first instance of a 40 lbs cake being cut – it is a tradition which has continued for quite a while now. And a 40 lbs cake in Quetta costs something like Rs. 6000, which doesn’t necessarily have to come from Iran. Half a million Shias in Quetta can afford to pool that much money. Ejaz probably mortgaged to Khakis his mind along with his character to become their spokesperson.
Allama Maqsood Domki’s involvement in Maulana Karim Mengal’s murder seems far from possible for several reasons. First of all, Domki – a Baloch – is not a native of Quetta and is therefore disliked by the somewhat ethnocentric Hazaras. During the past decade in which he tried to find footholds in the Hazara dominated areas of Quetta, not only did he fail, he was driven out of the Hazara localities. Assuming that the assassin was indeed Domki’s accomplice and hailed from Dera Allah Yar, can Ejaz Haider educate us as to where could he perish instantly after the attack keeping in view the fact that due to Hazaras’ distinct features and their abhorrence for Domki, he couldn’t seek refuge in the Hazara dominated areas which are the only Shia populated localities in Quetta? Does Ejaz Haider even know that Jaffaria Alliance is dysfunctional in Balochistan and doesn’t even command a dozen followers?
In fact, why should we not assume that Mengal was actually murdered by ISI spooks in order to put the onus on Shias of Quetta (hold all of them responsible), present the situation as an ‘action-reaction process’, and deprive them of even the niggling sympathy they have recently received. Is it too far-fetched an assumption keeping ISI’s track record in view? Is it not rather plausible considering that Ejaz Haider visited Quetta right after Mengal’s murder and followed it up with a lousy article? Should the fact that the incident happened at only a few hundred yards from the FC headquarters be ignored? It adds to the suspicions that no arrest has so far been made in connection to Mengal’s murder, although Ejaz Haider has hurled wild accusations against Domki. If our sleuths can instruct Ejaz to accuse Domki for the murder, they wouldn’t have hesitated a moment before arresting him in case there were evidences of his involvement.
While Ejaz Haider has mentioned that Allama Domki was attacked by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi terrorists in 2009 in which his guard (who happened to be a Hazara policeman) killed one of the attackers, he has carefully eschewed the details that followed the incident. The killed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi terrorist was later presented by the state as an ordinary citizen, and Domki’s guard was charged for manslaughter and obviously so – he had killed an ISI strategic asset.
Ejaz Haider’s claim of indulgence of Shia clerics in sectarian sermons is perhaps the most ludicrous of all. While this may be construed as either their spinelessness or diplomacy, Shia clerics in Quetta do not indulge in sectarian rhetoric. Even while carrying dozens of corpses, instead of sloganeering against any other sect, they conveniently blame either some unknown enemies of Islam, or US and Israel – the easy punch bags. If Ejaz Haider insists he is right in his claim, I throw him a wager to name a single such cleric, or produce a single such sermon (which should most certainly be recorded by the ISI, and will be in easy access to him).
Ejaz Haider’s equation of the death of over 500 Shias of Quetta with the assassination of a Deobandi prayer leader, killed on July 28 is appalling, and characteristic of the cold and inhuman Khaki behavior. Ejaz Haider’s simplistic khaki logic deduces that the situation in Quetta is in fact a two-sided sectarian war, in which both the antagonists are killing each other. He conveniently ignores that Shia killings have been taking place for over a decade now, and during all this period, not a single act of violence can be traced back to them. This is not a sectarian war, but systemic genocide of a single sect. Isn’t it ridiculous to say that Shias in Quetta were killed between 2001 and 2011, because a Deobandi prayer leader was killed on 28th July 2011 by unknown assailants? This is exactly what Ejaz Haider is telling us.
Since Ejaz Haider has heavily relied on Abdul Khaliq Hazara’s views to buttress his hogwash, it is important to introduce the fellow to the readers. On the face of it, Abdul Khaliq Hazara is a secular nationalist Hazara leader, who assumed the chair of Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) after Hussain Ali Yousafi’s assassination.
Ridiculous it might seem, but not so when ISI is involved. I have stated previously that while the duplicitous ‘deep state’ has crushed every genuine secular movement in Pakistan, the secular/nationalist Hazaras of Quetta have had the privilege of receiving maximum state support ever since the Iranian Revolution. During the Soviet War, Hazara nationalists served as ISI’s secure channel to the Hazara factions of Afghanistan, more specifically, the self-professed Maoist groups. They have enjoyed a cozy relationship throughout this period, and what keeps them closer is a magnified Iranian influence in Quetta. The nationalists project it to remain relevant to the deep state, which in turn uses it as an excuse to ruthlessly use Hazaras as bait while pursuing its grand project in Afghanistan. Suffice it to say that Abdul Khaliq Hazara is the incumbent ISI blue-eyed among Hazaras in Quetta.
As previously stated, Ejaz Haider’s purpose of visiting Quetta and penning a concocted version of the happenings there is to allay even the marginal feelings of sympathy for the peripheral Hazaras, in mainland Pakistan. He serves the agenda of his Khaki masters well by telling his readers that Hazaras are not innocent citizens under fire, but Iranian agents who are under strict control of war-mongering Shia clerics involved in murders of Deobandi clerics. By presenting the situation as an action-reaction binary, he tries to deprive Hazaras of the higher moral stead, and reduces them to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’s level and holds them equally responsible for violence.
By trying to prove Iran and Hazaras as the main culprits who have provoked Lashkar-e-Jhangvi for violence, Ejaz Haider has absolved the Pakistani state, especially the ISI, of any culpability. By doing so, he is insidiously arousing the sentiments of the common Pakistanis against the Shias of Quetta, and sedating their consciences with the allegations of treason and violence against the latter.
Article Source,
http://pakistanblogzine.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/on-ejaz-haiders-ispr-press-release-on-hazaras-of-balochistan-by-farrukhzad-ali/
Friday, August 19, 2011
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Targeted killings of Hazaras
The rise in sectarian violence in Balochistan is forcing its Persian-speaking Shia community to flee to safer places in the country.
Photo: Metrix X, flickr
After a brief pause, sectarian violence is once again on the rise in Quetta, the capital city of Balochistan province in Pakistan. In the last few months, at least 41 people, all belonging to the Hazara minority which follows the Shia sect of Islam, have been killed in separate targeted attacks.
A few days ago, 14 Hazaras were gunned to death in the city in two separate attacks. In mid-July, two Hazara government officials had been shot dead by unknown assailants, while a month before that Director of Pakistan Sports Board, Syed Abrar Hussain Shah, a three-time Olympics representative from Pakistan, had been similarly murdered. The month of June saw two dead and 11 others injured when a group of armed men ambushed a bus carrying Hazara pilgrims to Iran. In May, 14 Hazaras, including a little baby, were killed in two separate attacks, one of which was a well-coordinated rocket attack. An independent news source states that over 200 Shias have been killed in Balochistan in the last three years.
The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), a banned sectarian organisation, allegedly linked with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), al-Qaeda and other Afghan Taliban groups, has claimed the responsibility for these killings. After the death of the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, the LeJ vowed to avenge his killing by targeting not only Pakistan’s government officials and security forces but also its Hazara community. Recently, threatening letters have been widely distributed in Quetta, warning the Hazaras to prepare for more fatal attacks, which the LeJ calls a jihad similar to the one carried out against Hazaras in Afghanistan during the Taliban’s rule.
The Hazaras in Afghanistan, the third-largest ethnic group in the country, were heavily oppressed during the Taliban regime. Massacres in large numbers were carried out in the provinces of Bamiyan, Ghazni and Balkh, as the Taliban suspected that the Hazaras collaborated with the Afghan Northern Alliance, an organisation fighting the Taliban regime at the time. Experts on militancy issues believe that the Taliban had help in the killings from the LeJ and its mother organisation, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).
Hazaras in Balochistan, however, had been left alone at the time, with the onset of targeted killings seen only after the Taliban were ousted from power. When the Taliban rule collapsed, so did the al-Qaeda-linked Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and other jihadi groups, the blame for which was placed on the Pakistani Hazaras for allegedly colluding with the Americans and aiding in their ultimate downfall. As the city became a major hub for the defeated Taliban groups, it also provided a new vent for the expression of the Taliban hatred towards the Hazaras.
‘Apart from being ideological opposites,’ says Abdul Khaliq, head of the Hazara Democratic Party (HDP), ‘the Taliban have historic bitterness against the Hazaras, killing, according to an Amnesty International report, some 12,000 Hazaras in central Afghanistan.’ This bitterness, coupled with mere conjectures on the Hazaras’ collusion with the American and NATO forces, he adds, is now leading the Pakistani militants groups, especially the LeJ, to murder the Hazaras in Quetta.
Poor government response
The LeJ is regarded as Pakistan’s fiercest Sunni extremist outfit and is accused of killing hundreds of Shias since its emergence in 1996. Usman Saifullah Kurd and Dawood Badini are believed to be heading the LeJ network in Quetta. Both of them had been apprehended by the Karachi police (Kurd in 2002 and Badini in 2004) and subsequently handed over to the Balochistan police. However, in 2008, they managed to escape from the Anti-Terrorist Forces headquarters at the Quetta cantonment. Apart from their involvement in suicide attacks on Shia religious processions, mosques and on Shia imams, the two are accused of killing dozens of professionals, police cadets and political activists, a majority of whom belonged to the Hazara community.
‘The Hazaras have been at the receiving end of violence for almost a decade now,’ says Amjad Hussain, a senior journalist, ‘but, not surprisingly, their plight remains largely unknown. And the culprits remain at large, and are encouraged by either the state’s participation or its indifference.’Abdul Khaliq agrees, saying that the increase in militancy in Balochistan is not solely the result of social unrest but also a clear indication of bad governance. ‘The LeJ claims the killings of Hazaras, and the government claims to have arrested the suspects, but the alleged attackers are never brought before the public or any court of law,’ he says. In 2009, HDP’s then-chairman Hussain Ali Yousafi was assassinated and the killers are yet to be identified.
The government’s failure at tackling the militants involved in sectarian violence has forced the Hazara community members to leave Quetta city for safer places like Karachi and Islamabad. Apart from threatening letters issued by the LeJ, which order them to leave Quetta city by 2012, the Hazaras have been the subject ofvitriolic speeches against Shias by religious clerics belonging to banned militants’ outfits. The intelligence agencies are believed to be aware about the whereabouts of all militant outfits including the LeJ, and yet the banned outfits publicly operate under new names. It is also believed that members of the Afghan Taliban leadership council are based in Quetta and/or in the neighbouring areas, but the Pakistani government continues to deny such reports.
Despite a long history of sectarian killings in Balochistan, especially in Quetta, the government has failed to bring the perpetrators to justice. Whatever the ultimate motive is, and whatever the politics involved, fanning such sectarian violence in Balochistan is destroying the centuries-long ethnic harmony. The recent killings only further widened the gulf between the Sunnis and Shias, pitting the Shia Hazaras against the local Pashtuns and other Baloch ethnic communities. While the government and its law enforcement agencies might not condone such attacks, their inefficacy in prosecuting the guilty displays a sense of lack of urgency in defeating the terrorist outfits. And this only serves these organisations’ objective of converting progressive and liberal Balochistan into a religious and Talibanised province.
~ Zia Ur Rehman is a freelance journalist and researcher based in Karachi.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)