Ghazi Salahuddin
Sunday, October 02, 2011
America has generally been our beloved infidel. It is, as the poet might say, too much with us, getting and spending. The walls of so many of our living rooms are adorned with family photographs that also present, in the background, an American landmark or landscape. It would be a rare middle-class household that has no close relative studying or settled in the United States. But in spite of these familial bonds, we remain very suspicious of American policies towards Pakistan.
This suspicion rose in a crescendo this week, in response to remarks made by Admiral Mike Mullen, the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, before a Senate committee. His assertion that the Haqqani network was a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s ISI was a shattering indictment of our armed forces in the context of a professed alliance against terrorism.
It is true that Mike Mullen’s outburst had come in the wake of similar though more carefully worded accusations by other high US officials and the ‘trust deficit’ between the two countries had already risen to a critical point. But Mullen’s farewell testimony certainly touched a raw nerve, raising the prospect of a diplomatic breakdown.
It was last Sunday when our news channels abandoned their routine programmes and competed with each other with hurriedly put together talk shows, featuring the usual suspects. Suddenly, all our other troubles receded into the background and a feverish tempo was built on the possibility of a diplomatic disaster in our relations with the United States. An extraordinary meeting of the corps commanders was held in the GHQ and it lasted for six hours. One report in the New York Times spoke about “the media frenzy and warmongering”.
Our official response, too, was quite blunt. Charges that Pakistan had any connections with the Haqqani network were flatly rejected. In a commentary published in The Washington Post on Friday, David Ignatius, a writer who knows Pakistan well, reviewed the latest situation in the wake of Mike Mullen’s retirement. He said: “But surely this is a sick relationship when the partners have to go to the brink of open confrontation to get the other side to listen. If they were a married couple, you would send them to a counsellor, or, failing that, a divorce lawyer”.
Ah, but the really sick relationship that the Pakistani establishment has fostered is not with the United States but with the monster of extremism we can describe as the enemy within. It is a relationship that our rulers are not even willing to recognise as a major element in the national crisis that we are confronted with. Unfortunately, a rational debate on the state of the nation is not being held, mainly because of the dominance of intolerance and bigotry at all levels.
In any case, by the time that the All Parties Conference was held on Thursday, some diplomatic steps had been taken to bring down the temperature. The White House did not endorse Mullen’s description of ISI’s links with the Haqqani network, though it affirmed the US stance that Pakistan did have links with a network that had safe havens in North Waziristan.
As political theatre, the APC monopolised the nation’s attention for some time. But what has it achieved in real terms? Initially, it was amusing to see so many of them at the conference – around sixty leaders who sought to redefine our national security policies with direct reference to the latest tension with the United States. A large contingent, call it a regiment, represented the religious parties. You can imagine who must have written the script for the play. But the big surprise, the kind of twist that pulls the audience to a dramatic presentation, came at the end when a 13-point joint resolution was approved. And lo and behold, this resolution does not even mention the United State by name. It does not refer directly to why the conference was called in such a hurry.
That said, I am more concerned here with another omission. It does not condemn terrorism, terrorists or religious militancy. Why? It may be argued that they avoided naming the United States because they want to retain their partnership with that country. Is it the same with the Taliban and other home-grown militant outfits operating in Pakistan?
It is not my argument that the anti-American sentiment that has surged in the country, whipped up also by the religious parties, is without any reason. At the same time, it boggles the mind that no political agitation is mounted against the Taliban and other terrorist networks that have attacked our mosques and schools and have indulged in sectarian killings.
Our security forces have specifically been the target of these terrorists. And yet, there is no focus on them and no attempt to understand why Pakistan has been the worst sufferer in what was supposed to be war on terror.
Of course, the casualties that Pakistan has suffered are repeatedly highlighted to vindicate our massive contribution to the war on terror. But who are these terrorists and extremists who have left the country bleeding and in disarray? Where did they come from? Why have our rulers not been able to deal at least with militants who indulge in sectarian violence – what is happening to Shia Hazaras in Balochistan being a case in point?
In a television interview, former prime minister of Britain, Tony Blair, said that Pakistan is “paying heavily” for its mistakes in the 1970s when it starting mixing religion with politics and promoted extremism. Blair must have been out of touch with Pakistan. What began with Zia-ul-Haq has continued and has flourished. In this process, we also have the insurgency in Balochistan and recurring spells of killings in Karachi.
Do our military leaders lose any sleep pondering over the deepening sorrows of Pakistan? Do they sincerely wish to understand the causes of our present disarray? Yes, our political leaders also bear some responsibility, the ones who are sometimes in power and not the bit players who congregated on Thursday in that palace on the hill known as the prime minister’s house. However, there should be no doubt about where the real power belongs and who presides over our security and foreign policies.
Yes, it is another relationship – between the civilian and the military institutions in Pakistan – that is fundamentally flawed and problematic. We cannot ignore the fact that we have one of the largest standing armies in the world in a society that has such terrifyingly low indicators in social development. What is most crucial is that we are so insecure. Is this so because we are surrounded by men who hold guns, many of them not under any military discipline?
The writer is a staff member. Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com
THE NEWS
Saturday, October 1, 2011
No headway in Mastung tragedy probe
Published: October 02, 2011
QUETTA - No significant progress has been made in the investigation of Mastung tragedy that left 26 Shia pilgrims dead. Unidentified gunmen attacked a Taftan-bound passenger bus at Ganjdori area of Mastung on September 20, killing 26 Shia pilgrims.
“Though the law enforcement agencies have arrested more than 250 suspects from Quetta and other parts of Balochistan, there is no significant progress in the investigation,” an official said on the condition of anonymity. He said, “Since no proper measures have been taken to bring the culprits to justice, the incidents of sectarian killing surge.”
“Though police and other law enforcement agencies have arrested more than 250 people from Quetta and Mastung in connection with the killing of pilgrims, another incident took place in Quetta just four days after the tragedy, claiming three lives,” said the source, adding that just arrests could not stop the sectarian killings. Reportedly, Balochistan, once a peaceful province, plunged into lawlessness and sectarian strife after the takeover of former president Musharraf.
According to statistics, more than 400 people, mostly from the Hazara tribe, have lost their lives in sectarian killing in the Quetta city. “Only one person fell prey to sectarian violence before the takeover of former president Pervez Musharraf,” said a source in the Balochistan Home Department.
Quetta witnessed a surge in sectarian killings after the murder of two Sunni leaders in July’s last week and the mid of August this year. Eleven people from the Hazara tribe were killed a day after the murder of Maulana Abdul Karim Mengal.
“Forty-eight people of the Hazara tribe have been killed in six weeks in five separate sectarian attacks, including a suicide hit on Eidul Fitr and firing on pilgrims in Mastung,” the source added.
This situation has raised worries amongst the people and sources in police department warned that the situation would worsen if serious measures were not taken to stamp out sectarianism.
THE NATION
QUETTA - No significant progress has been made in the investigation of Mastung tragedy that left 26 Shia pilgrims dead. Unidentified gunmen attacked a Taftan-bound passenger bus at Ganjdori area of Mastung on September 20, killing 26 Shia pilgrims.
“Though the law enforcement agencies have arrested more than 250 suspects from Quetta and other parts of Balochistan, there is no significant progress in the investigation,” an official said on the condition of anonymity. He said, “Since no proper measures have been taken to bring the culprits to justice, the incidents of sectarian killing surge.”
“Though police and other law enforcement agencies have arrested more than 250 people from Quetta and Mastung in connection with the killing of pilgrims, another incident took place in Quetta just four days after the tragedy, claiming three lives,” said the source, adding that just arrests could not stop the sectarian killings. Reportedly, Balochistan, once a peaceful province, plunged into lawlessness and sectarian strife after the takeover of former president Musharraf.
According to statistics, more than 400 people, mostly from the Hazara tribe, have lost their lives in sectarian killing in the Quetta city. “Only one person fell prey to sectarian violence before the takeover of former president Pervez Musharraf,” said a source in the Balochistan Home Department.
Quetta witnessed a surge in sectarian killings after the murder of two Sunni leaders in July’s last week and the mid of August this year. Eleven people from the Hazara tribe were killed a day after the murder of Maulana Abdul Karim Mengal.
“Forty-eight people of the Hazara tribe have been killed in six weeks in five separate sectarian attacks, including a suicide hit on Eidul Fitr and firing on pilgrims in Mastung,” the source added.
This situation has raised worries amongst the people and sources in police department warned that the situation would worsen if serious measures were not taken to stamp out sectarianism.
THE NATION
Patrick Cockburn: Muslim sectarianism will halt democracy in its tracks
World View: The ancient hatreds of the Sunni and Shia communities, exploited by rulers clinging to power, means the Arab Awakening won't succeed east of Egypt
Sunday, 2 October 2011
AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Shiites carry the coffins of victims of gunmen who killed 26 people in Mastung, Balochistan, last month
A war of extraordinary brutality is being waged across the Muslim world which is largely ignored by the media. It is a war in which victims are assassinated or massacred with no chance to defend themselves. Most of those who die are poor people murdered in obscure places without the world paying any attention.
Few places are more obscure than a dusty road at Mastung, 30 miles south of Quetta in Balochistan province, Pakistan. But it was here late last month that between eight and 10 gunmen stopped a bus filled with Shia pilgrims on their way to Iran. According to the bus driver, the gunmen ordered the pilgrims off his bus and opened fire, killing 26 and wounding six. The Sunni fundamentalist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility. A year ago there was an even worse atrocity in the same area, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a Shia rally and killed 57 people.
Earlier in the month, 1,500 miles away at Nukhayb in Al Anbar province, western Iraq, there was a similar incident to the massacre at Mustang. A bus carrying Shia pilgrims from Karbala to a shrine in Syria was stopped at a fake checkpoint and uniformed men told the women, children and old men to stand to one side. The rest of the pilgrims were taken to another location and slaughtered. It is fair to assume in overwhelmingly Sunni Anbar that the killers were Sunni.
The conflict between Shia and Sunni has been becoming deeper and more dangerous ever since the triumph of militant Shi'ism in the Iranian revolution of 1979. Sectarian hostility became worse when, in 2005, Iraq became the first Shia-dominated Arab state since the time of the Fatimids 800 years ago. The civil war between Sunni and Shia in Iraq which followed in 2006-7 has left a legacy of hatred and fear that has not abated. Tens of thousands were tortured and killed. Al-Qa'ida in Mesopotamia slaughtered Shia, and the Mehdi Army and the Shia-dominated security forces butchered Sunni and drove them out of most of Baghdad.
Since the start of the Arab uprisings this year, Shia-Sunni hostility has deepened again wherever the two communities seek to live side by side. Rulers have appealed to the Sunni and Shia loyalties of their people to stay in power. In Syria and Bahrain the democratic movement against authoritarian rule, the Arab Awakening, has been thwarted by officially sponsored sectarianism. In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad has been clinging to power by playing the sectarian card for all it is worth. The ruling elite, drawn from the Alawites, an offshoot of Shi'ism, is being told that they must sink or swim with the Assad regime or face elimination or exile. Assad and his family rely on Alawite officers and Alawite-dominated units to shoot demonstrators and control the main towns and cities. The Sunni majority understandably react by holding Alawites as a whole responsible for the atrocities.
The same thing has happened in Bahrain. Cherif Bassiouni, the American-Egyptian lawyer conducting an inquiry sponsored by the Bahrain government into the events of earlier this year, told me he had seldom seen a more polarised society. He compared the situation to Sarajevo in 1992 when Serb gunners firing at Muslim civilians told him they were avenging the defeats suffered at the hands of the Turks by their Christian ancestors over the past 600 years.
Sectarianism in Bahrain pervades every aspect of life. When repression started in March, the government portrayed democratic protests as a Shia coup d'etat orchestrated by Iran. Respected consultants at Salmaniya hospital were tortured to make them confess that they had stored weapons, splashed blood on uninjured demonstrators, and even secretly killed patients by deliberate neglect. Shia shrines and mosques were bulldozed.
Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa is finding the sectarian genie is difficult to get back in the bottle. In a speech at the end of last month he spoke of Bahrainis' "common future, regardless of the diversity of our sects" and "the inevitability of co-existence". But last week the Bahraini government closed the door on compromise when a military court gave 20 medical practitioners long sentences for helping those injured in the protests. Thirteen received 15 years in prison and two others were sentenced to 10 years. This can only suggest that the al-Khalifa royal family intends either to remain in a state of simmering war with the majority of Bahrain's Arabs or that it plans to drive them out and replace them with Sunnis. Either way, the violence is likely to get worse.
While decrying sectarianism, the United States and its allies have done their bit over the years to pump it up. In Iraq, US ambassadors and generals were continually pretending that Shia militants were the pawns of Iran. This fed into the extreme and not-so-extreme Sunni claim, made in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, that any drive by the Shia for civil and political rights, is an Iranian inspired plot. Communities which benefit from Sunni or Shia sectarianism find it hard to give up. In Iraq, it determines the chances of staying alive and getting a job. The two are intertwined: a few years ago I had a Sunni driver in Baghdad who, through various connections, was offered a well-paid Interior Ministry job as a computer specialist. I remember him agonising for weeks over whether to take the job in this mainly Shia ministry until deciding it was just too dangerous and he would probably be killed if he did.
A similar pattern is repeated elsewhere. In Bahrain, sacked Shia point out that Sunni who have taken their jobs are in no hurry to give them back. In Syria, Alawites provide not just most of the senior army officers but some 60-70 per cent of ambassadors, 50 per cent of university professors and a majority of oil and gas executives, according to the opposition. Given that Alawites are some 12 per cent of the Syrian population, equal rights for the Sunni means that a lot of these people will be out of a job.
Sectarianism is likely permanently to enfeeble Iraq and Syria, two of the Arab States who once helped determine the region's future. It will absorb the attention of the Sunni monarchies of the Gulf and put them at odds with Iran and Iraq. It explains why the democratic uprisings that succeeded in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya are faltering east of the Egyptian border.
THE INDEPENDENT
Sunday, 2 October 2011
AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Shiites carry the coffins of victims of gunmen who killed 26 people in Mastung, Balochistan, last month
A war of extraordinary brutality is being waged across the Muslim world which is largely ignored by the media. It is a war in which victims are assassinated or massacred with no chance to defend themselves. Most of those who die are poor people murdered in obscure places without the world paying any attention.
Few places are more obscure than a dusty road at Mastung, 30 miles south of Quetta in Balochistan province, Pakistan. But it was here late last month that between eight and 10 gunmen stopped a bus filled with Shia pilgrims on their way to Iran. According to the bus driver, the gunmen ordered the pilgrims off his bus and opened fire, killing 26 and wounding six. The Sunni fundamentalist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility. A year ago there was an even worse atrocity in the same area, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a Shia rally and killed 57 people.
Earlier in the month, 1,500 miles away at Nukhayb in Al Anbar province, western Iraq, there was a similar incident to the massacre at Mustang. A bus carrying Shia pilgrims from Karbala to a shrine in Syria was stopped at a fake checkpoint and uniformed men told the women, children and old men to stand to one side. The rest of the pilgrims were taken to another location and slaughtered. It is fair to assume in overwhelmingly Sunni Anbar that the killers were Sunni.
The conflict between Shia and Sunni has been becoming deeper and more dangerous ever since the triumph of militant Shi'ism in the Iranian revolution of 1979. Sectarian hostility became worse when, in 2005, Iraq became the first Shia-dominated Arab state since the time of the Fatimids 800 years ago. The civil war between Sunni and Shia in Iraq which followed in 2006-7 has left a legacy of hatred and fear that has not abated. Tens of thousands were tortured and killed. Al-Qa'ida in Mesopotamia slaughtered Shia, and the Mehdi Army and the Shia-dominated security forces butchered Sunni and drove them out of most of Baghdad.
Since the start of the Arab uprisings this year, Shia-Sunni hostility has deepened again wherever the two communities seek to live side by side. Rulers have appealed to the Sunni and Shia loyalties of their people to stay in power. In Syria and Bahrain the democratic movement against authoritarian rule, the Arab Awakening, has been thwarted by officially sponsored sectarianism. In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad has been clinging to power by playing the sectarian card for all it is worth. The ruling elite, drawn from the Alawites, an offshoot of Shi'ism, is being told that they must sink or swim with the Assad regime or face elimination or exile. Assad and his family rely on Alawite officers and Alawite-dominated units to shoot demonstrators and control the main towns and cities. The Sunni majority understandably react by holding Alawites as a whole responsible for the atrocities.
The same thing has happened in Bahrain. Cherif Bassiouni, the American-Egyptian lawyer conducting an inquiry sponsored by the Bahrain government into the events of earlier this year, told me he had seldom seen a more polarised society. He compared the situation to Sarajevo in 1992 when Serb gunners firing at Muslim civilians told him they were avenging the defeats suffered at the hands of the Turks by their Christian ancestors over the past 600 years.
Sectarianism in Bahrain pervades every aspect of life. When repression started in March, the government portrayed democratic protests as a Shia coup d'etat orchestrated by Iran. Respected consultants at Salmaniya hospital were tortured to make them confess that they had stored weapons, splashed blood on uninjured demonstrators, and even secretly killed patients by deliberate neglect. Shia shrines and mosques were bulldozed.
Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa is finding the sectarian genie is difficult to get back in the bottle. In a speech at the end of last month he spoke of Bahrainis' "common future, regardless of the diversity of our sects" and "the inevitability of co-existence". But last week the Bahraini government closed the door on compromise when a military court gave 20 medical practitioners long sentences for helping those injured in the protests. Thirteen received 15 years in prison and two others were sentenced to 10 years. This can only suggest that the al-Khalifa royal family intends either to remain in a state of simmering war with the majority of Bahrain's Arabs or that it plans to drive them out and replace them with Sunnis. Either way, the violence is likely to get worse.
While decrying sectarianism, the United States and its allies have done their bit over the years to pump it up. In Iraq, US ambassadors and generals were continually pretending that Shia militants were the pawns of Iran. This fed into the extreme and not-so-extreme Sunni claim, made in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, that any drive by the Shia for civil and political rights, is an Iranian inspired plot. Communities which benefit from Sunni or Shia sectarianism find it hard to give up. In Iraq, it determines the chances of staying alive and getting a job. The two are intertwined: a few years ago I had a Sunni driver in Baghdad who, through various connections, was offered a well-paid Interior Ministry job as a computer specialist. I remember him agonising for weeks over whether to take the job in this mainly Shia ministry until deciding it was just too dangerous and he would probably be killed if he did.
A similar pattern is repeated elsewhere. In Bahrain, sacked Shia point out that Sunni who have taken their jobs are in no hurry to give them back. In Syria, Alawites provide not just most of the senior army officers but some 60-70 per cent of ambassadors, 50 per cent of university professors and a majority of oil and gas executives, according to the opposition. Given that Alawites are some 12 per cent of the Syrian population, equal rights for the Sunni means that a lot of these people will be out of a job.
Sectarianism is likely permanently to enfeeble Iraq and Syria, two of the Arab States who once helped determine the region's future. It will absorb the attention of the Sunni monarchies of the Gulf and put them at odds with Iran and Iraq. It explains why the democratic uprisings that succeeded in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya are faltering east of the Egyptian border.
THE INDEPENDENT
Hazara Protest in Vienna, Austria
The Hazara Association of Austria organized a demonstration against the killing of the Hazara community in Quetta, Pakistan. Approximately 300 people attended the peaceful demonstration. Vienna, Austria. 1st October, 2011
The Hazara Association of Austria organized a protest demonstration in Vienna, Austria as part of a worldwide demonstration against the killing of members of the Hazara community in Quetta, Pakistan. The Hazara have lived in Hazarajaat, Afghanistan for the last 3,000 years. Today, approximately 1.5 million live in Pakistan, in Quetta, the capital city of the Western province of Balochistan.
In the last ten years it is believed that more than 1,500 Hazara have been killed in Quetta. In the last 40 days there have been 3 attempts on the lives of the Hazara who feel that they are being persecuted and left unprotected by the Pakistani and Afghani authorities. The Hazara have requested help from the Pakistan and Afghanistan Governments and the United Nations. Today's protest demonstration was carried out to try to bring further attention to their plight.
DEMOTIX
The Hazara Association of Austria organized a protest demonstration in Vienna, Austria as part of a worldwide demonstration against the killing of members of the Hazara community in Quetta, Pakistan. The Hazara have lived in Hazarajaat, Afghanistan for the last 3,000 years. Today, approximately 1.5 million live in Pakistan, in Quetta, the capital city of the Western province of Balochistan.
In the last ten years it is believed that more than 1,500 Hazara have been killed in Quetta. In the last 40 days there have been 3 attempts on the lives of the Hazara who feel that they are being persecuted and left unprotected by the Pakistani and Afghani authorities. The Hazara have requested help from the Pakistan and Afghanistan Governments and the United Nations. Today's protest demonstration was carried out to try to bring further attention to their plight.
DEMOTIX
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