Afghanistan: War Zone or Ski Resort?

27 June 2012

With skiers desperate for new adventures, could the mountains of Bamiyan become a snowsport holiday destination? Katherine Makris explores the possibility






Beautiful, fresh snow covering high, undiscovered mountains is not often an image associated with Afghanistan, the infamously war-torn country. But this may, in time, change.

Recently some extreme skiers have risked their lives with the Taliban to visit Bamiyan in central Afghanistan, and explore the Koh-e-Baba mountain range. With the third annual Afghan Ski Challenge returning in 2013, will more contestants take part than the fifteen in 2012?

Reports describe stunning views of the surrounding mountains and the country below, and mountain vistas hiding many unexplored peaks. There are a range of slopes for skiers and snowboarders making it a perfect destination for people from the western world, but it is a destination still in the centre of a war zone.

Despite often being associated with the bombings of the giant Buddha statues, the Bamiyan Mountains are actually one of the safest destinations in Afghanistan. But the journey to the slopes can be very dangerous. With no planes flying directly to Bamiyan, visitors must fly to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Here, they face the option of a six-hour road trip or another plane journey with an Afghan airline. Either way, there’s a high risk of danger with Taliban activity so close.

On arrival, getting to the top of the slopes is another conundrum. While the western world has chairlifts and gondolas, Bamiyan offers a 5000 metre climb with skins, or you can hire a donkey from a local farmer to get you to the summit. But those who reach the top claim the views are worth the dangers, and are eager for others to join them.




For the vast majority, the risks of skiing in Afghanistan seem to outweigh the remarkable sights. Therefore, in the past two years, a Swiss skier, Christoph Zurcher, has launched the Afghan Ski Challenge in the hopes of attracting more skiers to venture across the untouched terrain. The event encourages skiers and snowboarders from across the globe to participate in a seven-kilometre race.

In the 2012 Afghan Ski Challenge, ten Afghans and five foreigners took part. The top three places were all taken by locals, mainly due to their quick ascent up the slope, a skill not easy to master. Khalil Reza (19) won the 2012 race in 44 minutes, despite his relative lack of skiing experience.

So, if you are on the look out for a new ski destination which is well and truly off the beaten path, why not Afghanistan? Yes, the dangers and challenge are enough to dissuade most, but the rewards for any brave enthusiast are unmatched.


Words by Katherine Makris


Applications to next year’s Afghan Ski Challenge are now open. All foreign entrants are required to pay a fee of £320. For more information about the race, visit www.afghanskichallenge.com

Ski Club 

Those in peril on the sea

BY:MARK DODD AND BRENDAN NICHOLSON
From:The Australian
June 28, 2012 12:00AM



A boat packed with asylum-seekers arrives at Christmas Island on August 11 last year, weeks before the High Court's decision scuttling offshore processing. Picture: Stephen Cooper Source: The Australian


THE jagged scar across his son's throat is a constant reminder to Said Alawi of why he sold everything he owned to raise $10,000 - the price of a ticket on a leaky boat and a storm-lashed journey to Australia.

The child was just three when Taliban insurgents told his mother they'd kill him if he did not reveal where his father was. To make his point, the insurgent with the knife slashed firmly enough to leave a wound that was deep but not fatal.

That wound scarred Said's psyche and left a terror for his family so deep that it overcame the fear of crossing an ocean he and his family and most members of his community had never seen to a land vastly foreign to anything they'd ever dreamed of.

During the past two years, Australians have watched horrified as hundreds of asylum-seekers have died in unseaworthy boats that have capsized, sunk or blown up.

Refugee advocates estimate that more than 1000 refugees have died in such disasters, many of them vanishing in storms and unseen by rescue teams.

More than 100 men, women and children have died in that way just in the past week.

On December 17 last year a boat carrying about 250 passengers sank off Java. More than 100 bodies were found, while 98 of those believed aboard remain unaccounted for and are presumed to have drowned. Just 49 were rescued.

In November last year, 30 died in yet another sinking off southern Java. On December 15, 2010, the nation watched appalled as SIEV 221 smashed on to rocks at Christmas Island, killing at least 50 of those aboard while island locals stood helplessly by.

Since January 1, 64 boats carrying 4678 asylum-seekers and 127 crew from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Iran have come to Australia, earning people-smugglers millions of dollars.

Brisbane-based migration lawyer Bruce Henry, whose clients include many Hazara asylum-seekers from Afghanistan, says the experience of the sea voyage from Indonesia to Australia leaves families traumatised for years. "You have to remember they're Afghans and none has ever seen the ocean before," he tells The Australian.

Mohamed Ali, now a meat worker in Kilcoy in southern Queensland, wanted to travel with friends to Sydney. Henry told Ali and his friends they should take the coast road and stop at Yamba, where there's a wonderful saltwater pool.

"They all looked at me with absolute horror," Henry says. "Mohamed Ali said to me: 'We're never going near the ocean again as long as we live. When we drive to Sydney we're taking the inland route.' "

Pamela Curr, campaign co-ordinator at the Melbourne Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, tells The Australian she has files full of accounts by people who left their homes, their farms, their animals, their families and everything after receiving so-called "night letters" from the Taliban warning that they were going to be killed.

"They leave out of sheer desperation and lack of any other real alternatives," she says. "In practical terms, there is no proper way to get out of Afghanistan -- no embassy to apply for a visa. It doesn't work like that, so they have to flee and travel illegally.

"If there is no other way to get your family out safely, this is what you do."

From the late 1970s, Malcolm Fraser oversaw policies under which Australia accepted more than 70,000 refugees from Indochina. He says asylum-seekers are fleeing terrors far greater than that of the oceans that have swallowed so many of them.

"If people are fleeing what they regard as persecution or terror or danger to their kids or a place where there is absolutely no future for their family, then any kind of civilised government cannot create a nasty enough policy to deter them from trying to get somewhere else," Fraser told The Australian this week.

The former prime minister says the debate in Australia has made people-smugglers the cause of the problem. "It's not the cause. It's a consequence of tyranny. If you could some way get rid of terror and tyrannies, that would be the best way to get rid of people-smugglers. There'd be no market for them.

"No punitive measure, no nastiness by any Australian government, can match the terror from which a genuine refugee is fleeing," Fraser says.

That was the case with Alawi's family, part of the minority Hazara community, long persecuted by the largely Pashtun Taliban.

The family lived in Oruzgan province in southern Afghanistan where Alawi, then 26, ran a small shop. The Taliban turned up at his home after the Hazara community had been subjected to months of persecution.

The insurgents' intention was clear. Weeks before, the Taliban had murdered 35 Hazara men living nearby and tossed their bodies down a well. Family members were forced to pay the insurgents to get the bodies back for burial.

Alawi decided to escape to Australia, a country he had been told was "safe and rich". The prospect of a better life for his family justified the risks and the uncertainty of the voyage, Alawi says from his home in Brisbane. "It was a terrible time in Afghanistan. Schools were all closed, there was no economy, we were ordered to grow beards, were threatened and harassed all the time. I decided it was time we leave," he says.

Smugglers took the family to Quetta in Pakistan. Then they flew to Bangkok and on to Medan in Indonesia, then Jakarta. From there they flew to Surabaya to catch a ferry to Sumbawa in the chain of islands stretching down towards Timor.

That was their jump-off point.

At about 11pm they were taken to a beach with about 250 other passengers, mostly Hazaras, but including some Iranians. There was an early hint that all was not well when, as the vessel left Indonesia, two of its crew climbed into a small craft it was towing and headed for home in it.

Then followed a nightmare six-day voyage to Ashmore Reef with little food in a vessel that was "broken". After three days, the journey became a living hell.

"After three nights came the rain and very, very big winds," Alawi says.

"It pushed the boat over on its side. I was holding on for my life. The boat was shaking and water had begun to pour in. We were ordered to move to the other side. Lots of people were seasick, especially the women and children.

"Nobody had energy, we were so tired," Alawi continues. "It was a terrible time. Everyone on board was saying: 'Now we are going to die.' The captain announced we'd lost our way and he did not know where we were heading, and all the kids were crying."

To add to the terror, the Afghans discovered there were no life vests on board.

Eventually the storm subsided. The boat had taken on a lot of water and most of the precious store of drinking water and meagre food supplies had been lost overboard or contaminated in the chaos of the storm.

The boat arrived off Ashmore Reef, a tiny uninhabited Australian territory 840km west of Darwin, and was spotted by a Customs patrol plane. To the desperate asylum-seekers, that aircraft signalled salvation. "It was like a rainbow," Alawi says. Within hours a navy patrol boat arrived.

The family was housed in Woomera immigration detention centre in South Australia before being issued temporary protection visas. Alawi and his family were finally granted permanent residence and settled in Brisbane.

Today, he speaks fluent English and the former shopkeeper now works as a counsellor for aid agency Lives Without Barriers, caring for children and young people in immigration detention.

There is a dreadful repetition in the stories told by survivors of tragedy after tragedy. When last week's boat sank, it was believed to be carrying more than 200 people. Merchant ships and naval vessels rescued 110 of them.

Marine rescue experts calculated with grim precision that they had just 36 hours to find survivors who might be floating in life jackets or clinging to debris.

As RAAF and navy crews and merchant seamen searched with increasing desperation, that window shrank and closed with only bodies left to find.

Glimpses of the last days aboard the stricken vessel came in calls made on mobile phones by those aboard to relatives already in Australia.

One of those onboard the stricken vessel, Mohamed Salman, managed several calls to his cousin "Ali", who lives in Melbourne. In their last conversation Mohamed complained of a sore throat. Asked why it was hurting, Mohamed replied: "Everyone is praying loudly that we will be safe."

That call was received on the Monday soon after the boat set off on its doomed voyage and four days before it sank. Ali accuses people-smugglers of "playing with the lives of people".

One asylum-seeker who refused to board the overcrowded boat told the Pakistan Dawn newspaper how his last-minute decision saved his life. "I was about to board the vessel but changed my mind at the last moment when I saw the crowd," he said.

The dangers of the voyage have triggered calls by one refugee advocacy group for authorities to provide asylum-seekers with emergency radio beacons to help save lives in the event of a sinking.

The Refugee Action Coalition's Ian Rintoul has conceded this could break anti-people-smuggling laws, but he says more lives could be saved if boats carried radio beacons or EPIRBs (emergency position indicating radio beacons).

"We're getting advice that this could clash with the people-smuggling laws so we may well fall foul of that, although that's not necessarily an obstacle to us going ahead and doing it," Rintoul says.

That threat has left Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare unimpressed. He warns that there is no safe way to come to Australia on a people-smuggler's vessel.

"Anyone suggesting an EPIRB makes boarding a people-smuggling vessel any safer should consider the serious consequences of encouraging asylum-seekers to put their lives at risk," Clare says.

Brisbane-based migration lawyer Mark Plunkett says the government's policy of destroying asylum-seeker boats has led to the increasing use of unseaworthy vessels.

Fraser, meanwhile, says the answer to the refugee issue could be a regional solution in which Australia and some of its allies and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reach an agreement with Malaysia or Indonesia guaranteeing to take refugees from holding camps there.

Last night, Tony Abbott was offering to boost the nation's refugee intake to 20,000 a year.

"It was done before and it was done amicably," Fraser says.

After Vietnam, Australia, the US and Canada all agreed to take thousands of people to avoid boat tragedies. "We had about 70,000 refugees over quite a short time and everybody accepted it," he says.

The result was an economic boost for Australia. "Indochinese immigration has, in economic terms, probably paid off a thousandfold for Australia. They are very productive citizens."

The Australian 

COMMENT : Denigrating the Hazaras — I — Dr Mohammad Taqi

The post-1978 ethno-national revival of the Hazaras has been a subject of serious scholarship, which apparently Mr Marri is unaware of

An article titled “Balochistan: sectarian strife or Hazara community targeted?” written by Mr Surat Khan Marri appeared in these pages this past weekend. The piece is not just an extremely callous one but is littered with factual inaccuracies too. Given the prevailing situation in Balochistan and the important position of Quetta, where most of the Pakistani Hazara community resides, it is pertinent to set the record straight.

Mr Marri starts with a not-so-subtle attack on the ethnic origins and the social and political status of the Hazaras in Afghanistan. He wrote, “The Hazara community may claim to be descendants of the Great Khan of the Mongols or a remnant of the Mughals/Mongol conquerors of India via Afghanistan. However, in their recent abode, Afghanistan, they are considered and treated as of low-caste, compelled to work as sweepers and clean latrines, like some Christians in Pakistan and Harijans in India. In Afghanistan, they are in a considerable number, maybe half a million, but in Afghan challenges or wars against the British, Russians, the recent resistance termed as the war on terror, American and NATO aggression, the Hazara community in Afghanistan has no role. Afghans blame them for collaboration with the US and Pakistan.”

I find Mr Marri’s slur no different than, and perhaps picked from, 14-pages that the Afghan Gazetteer had dedicated to the Hazaras or Mountstuart Elphinstone’s 1815 drivel against the Hazaras. It is well known that Elphinstone never went beyond Peshawar, and even there, he stayed about four months and gathered information from people who had been fighting the Hazaras for ages. There is no hiding the fact the Hazara of central Afghanistan have historically remained at odds with the Pashtun dynasties of Afghanistan and faced extermination at the hands of the latter. Persecuted communities and especially those forced into internal and external displacement doing hard labour — I would not even call it menial or odd jobs — is not an uncommon phenomenon around the world. But Mr Marri has thrown the epithet to rule out a political role for the Hazaras in Afghanistan, and by extension in Pakistan, as he states later.

On the eve of the 1978 Saur Revolution in Afghanistan, the Hazaras, like most other Afghans, were active on both sides of the political divide. They were a part of the Marxist movement in the 1960s, especially in the Parcham faction of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). Affiliation with the Parcham earned them the wrath of the Khalq faction, which imprisoned thousands of Parchamis during the intra-party feuds of 1978. With the rise of the Parcham leaders Babrak Karmal, and then Dr Najibullah to power, the Hazara leaders like Dr Sultan Ali Kishtmand and the brothers Syed Nasir Nadiri and Syed Mansur were restored to power. Dr. Kishtmand remained the prime minister of Afghanistan until parting ways with the PDPA in 1991. Syed Mansur’s forces in Shiberghan and Baghlan had the status of the official PDPA government militia. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the rural Hazara uprisings against the PDPA started as early as 1979, e.g. in Waras and Yakaolang and led to the formation of Shura-e-Inquilab-e-Ittifaq-e-Islami and its various reincarnations, including an eight-party Mujahedeen alliance, and then the Hizb-e-Wahdat party of Abdul Ali Mazari and Karim Khalili (currently the second vice president of Afghanistan). The post-1978 ethno-national revival of the Hazaras has been a subject of serious scholarship, which apparently Mr Marri is unaware of.

Another allegation Mr Marri has levelled is that the Quetta Hazaras somehow exploited the local Baloch welcome. He fails to mention the dominant Pashtuns as the host population, who switched loyalties first to the British and then to the succeeding state of Pakistan. He says: “On their migration to Balochistan, they enjoyed and felt comfortable living in a Baloch liberal and heterogeneous society. However, they soon realised that power and the future lay somewhere else. They allied themselves with British employers and camp followers and had friendly relations with local Baloch-Pashtun collaborators.” Mr. Marri alleges that the Hazaras of Quetta found new patrons in the new Pakistan Punjabi/Urdu speaking elite and somehow, were given more than their due share in government services, especially the armed forces. This assertion ignores the fact that Pashtuns like Qazi Issa and Baloch like Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti Shaheed had also embraced the new power players like Mr M A Jinnah — the same ‘Karachiite’ that Mr Marri castigates elsewhere in the piece.

Mr Marri then writes, “Because of their (Hazara’s) allegiance to the new power, the rulers were of the opinion that this minority may replace and fill the vacuum created by the departure of the British army Gurkhas. The Pakistan army started recruiting a large number of Balochistan-based Hazaras, some of whom rose to the rank of general — General Musa being one example; brigadiers (Brigadier Sharbat), and other high ranks.”

Sharbat Ali Changezi was a Hazara but not a brigadier. I know this because his children were my schoolmates in Pakistan Air Force School, Peshawar in the 1970s/80s. Air Marshal Changezi served multiple tours of duty at Peshawar at the PAF base and then the Air Headquarters. Out of the two servicemen, Mr. Marri names to make his case, he is wrong about both. Even his spiel about Hazaras being a replacement for the Gurkhas is a farfetched one. The British had formed a Hazara Pioneers regiment but it was already disbanded by 1933. One will be hard pressed to find names other than General Musa and AM Sharbat Changezi in the top tiers of the Pakistani armed forces. Officers like General Musa were absorbed into the Frontier Force regiment and no Hazara ‘Gurkha’ regiment ever existed in Pakistan.

Mr Marri’s claim that made the lead was, “When General Musa became the governor of West Pakistan, he declared the Hazaras a local tribe of Balochistan through an ordinance.” This assertion needs vetting as the Political Agent Quetta-Pishin issued the final notification declaring Hazaras and three other Afghan tribes, viz Durrani, Yusafzai and Ghilzai, as local/indigenous tribesmen of Quetta on June 22, 1962. The notification refers to two letters dated February 19, 1962 and May 10, 1962 from the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions. The dates put Nawab Amir Muhammad Khan of Kalabagh as the governor West Pakistan and General Musa as army chief, not governor.

Regardless, it is the xenophobic and sectarian undertones of Mr Marri’s article that are of primary concern in the evolving situation in Balochistan.

(To be concluded)

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

Daily Times 

A U.S. citizen’s perspective on silent Shia genocide taking place in Pakistan – by Rusty Walker

The recent wave of cold-blooded targeted killings of Shiites Muslims at multiple locations throughout Pakistan is almost too horrific to digest. More than 250 Shias have been brutally murdered in the last three months alone; a similar number of Shias are injured or permanently maimed.

In September 2011 in Mastung (Balochistan), February 2012 in Kohistan (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and April 2012 in Chilas (Gilgit Baltistan), a similar pattern of segregating Shia passengers from Sunnis, followed by their brutal murder was repeated.

Massacre in Mastung happened next to a Pakistan army check post, massacre in Kohistan was conducted by militants wearing Pakistan Army uniforms, and the Chilas massacre happened right next to the local police station. According toa recent statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission, it is hard to refute the accusation that military is involved in killing of Shias in Pakistan.

In all of these massacres, attackers repeated the atrocity of lining up and identifying only Shiite passengers, who were segregated from Sunnis and murdered on the spot.

In the most recent incident, on 3 April 2012, where the banned Deobandi group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (currently operating as Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat ASWJ) ordered several passenger buses to stop near Chilas, and proceeded to machine-gun down all those identified as Shiites is a clear show of genocide in progress. Eye-witness accounts claim that those who ran were either shot or bludgeoned to death with rocks, several were burnt with acid or submerged under water.

The target killing of Shia Muslims in Pakistan is not a new phenomenon. On June 6, 1963, over a hundred Shiites were martyred and twelve injured by the Wahhabi-Deobandi extremists in the Terhi town, near Khair Pur, on the sacred day of Ashura (10 Muharram) during the military regime of General Ayub Khan. On that tragic day 118 Shiites lost their lives; their only crime: participation in Muharram rituals.

During General Zia-ul-Haq’s martial Law, 1977-1988, the Shiite persecution and target killing became more systematic element of the state’s policy.

In the last six decades, we have witnessed the gradual conversion of Pakistan from a secular state (Jinnah’s speech on August 11, 1947), to an Islamic state (Objectives Resolution in 1949) to a Sunni State (General Zia-ul-Haq’s promulgation of Sunni Islam) to a Deobandi-Wahhabi State through the Pakistan Army’s willing participation into anti-Soviet Union Jihad in Afghanistan, which was financed, unfortunately, by U.S. during its myopic Cold-War mentality, and by Saudi petro-dollars and indoctrinated by a Jihadi Wahhabi-Deobandi ideology. While the US had perhaps short-sighted geo-strategic reasons to participate in anti-Soviet Union resistance in Afghanistan, it was a mistake to allow the Saudi-ISI duo to produce a rabidly violent and intolerant breed of Salafi-Deobandi Jihadis.

Formation of the Siph-e-Sahaba-Pakistan (a Jihadi-sectarian Deobandi organization) in early 1980s by Pakistan Army was intended to counter and harass Pakistan’s Shia Muslims in order to suppress their opposition to the Wahhabi-ization of Pakistan and also to reinforce the Deobandi-Wahhabi Jihad Enterprise in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

The systematic murder of Shiite Pakistanis can be tracked from mid-1980s to the present date. Gruesome details and data are available on Shia activists’ websites such as the World Shia Forum, Shaheed Foundation and Shia Killing.

Here is an overview of most recent statistics in the last three months:
January 2012 – 58 killed: http://criticalppp.com/archives/70763
February – 71 killed: http://pakistanblogzine.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/71-shia-muslims-target-killed-in-pakistan-during-february-2012/
March – 30 killed: http://pakistanblogzine.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/shia-genocide-report-30-shia-muslims-target-killed-in-pakistan-in-march-2012/
April: More than 110 killed so far (till 10 April 2012)

There is a consistent neglect of this targeted Shiite killing bordering on apathy from Pakistani and international Human Rights groups, civil society and media (both right wing Urdu media and liberal elites in English media), some of whom may have been paid off or/and harassed by the Pakistan Army/ISI.

How can this be allowed to continue? The answer: the Pakistani Army and ISI along with the Supreme Court and some members of the civilian government (e.g., Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Balochistan CM Raisani etc) are too much invested in protecting the Jihadi-sectarian militants of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, i.e., Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat /ASWJ-SSP and its strategic depth Frankenstein, to stop it. Fear of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Taiba, SSP-ASWJ and Taliban (Wahhabi-Deobandi militants) turning on Pakistan itself, sets up the Perfect Storm for the massacre of perceived infidels, the Shiites, along with other persecuted groups e.g., Ahmadis, Sunni Barelvis, Christians, Hindus etc. However, the number of Shias killed is far greater than any other faith-based target killing in Pakistan. Routinely maligned, and erroneously aligned with separatists or Iranian-links in a smear campaign, the Shiites for the most part, are middle class, intelligent, tolerant, peaceful and productive members of Pakistan society on all levels of occupations, from common workers, and entrepreneurs, to medical, judicial, commerce and government officers.

And yet, Jihadi-Deobandi SSP/ASWJ militants align with Salafist LeT/JuD and Pakistan Taliban to engage in what can only be described as a systematic elimination of all Shiites, reminiscent of Nazi Germany or Stalin’s ruthless murder of Ukrainians in intensity varying only in the numbers killed. However, the death toll of Shias in Pakistan is rising on a frequent basis.

The recent massacres occurring of Shias in Pakistan suggest either authorities’ incompetency, fear or perhaps some law enforcement agencies are complicit with the killers. Perpetrators that kill and attack in plain sight are never investigated, arrested or prosecuted. The violence is not limited to one region or ethnicity (Shias are found in various ethnic groups in Pakistan), but has spread through southern Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkha, and may be linked to organized target killing of Shias in Karachi (Sindh), Quetta in Balochistan, and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan.

The Pakistani civilian government has a mindset of “hands-off” in terms of Shiite rights protections, despite President Zardari’s Shiite background. The principle being that the military formed the Jihadi-sectarian militants as proxy warriors and let them handle it- but, further, Zardari, from the Bhutto dynasty, should be understood also as being aware of assassination as a danger as no other president prior to him, were he to cross the line against the ISI/ Pak Army. Demonstrators and others who speak out are in real and present danger. The Pakistan Army still ignores atrocities in Parachinar, Gilgit Baltistan, and Balochistan. The Pakistan military is too much of a threat to citizens that speak out, including the media, to be accountable for its abuses and what is an outright genocide on Shiites being perpetuated throughout Pakistan.

As an American, I have written on the topic of Shia genocide and the role of the military establishment in Pakistan – thus proving that there is no monolithic viewpoint in America and that we welcome criticism of the US foreign policy. There are many moderate Americans like me who want to highlight the situation of Shias in Pakistan where they are facing genocide at the hands of the Islamist (Wahhabi-Deobandi) Jihadis that are being nourished by some sections of the military establishment.

However, a blanket, reactive criticism of US foreign policy is not the correct way to work together either. In the United States, there is a very strong Saudi-Ikhwan lobby that is trying to make us do its dirty work in Syria and wants us to align ourselves with Al Qaeda. While I have no love lost for a police state like Syria, I am uncomfortable that the Saudis want to drag my country into supporting the Al Qaeda mercenaries that are attacking Syria from Turkey and Jordan.

Furthermore, the rot in the situation is not just from my end. At my end, there are many Americans who are deeply critical of the US State department being influenced by the Saudi-Ikhwan lobby. However, in Pakistan, the Jinnah Institute FP elite report was an eye opener in that it included 53 prominent journalists, analysts who, without specific dissent, endorsed recommendations that Mullah Omar and the Haqqani Taliban network needs to be supported Post 2014! Barring a few journalists of integrity and the LUBP blog, the mainstream media (including a bulk of liberal elites) lent their full support to these horrific recommendations – recommendations which are an open invitation to the Taliban to take over Pakistan, purge it of all non-Wahhabi-Deobandis and take it back to the Stone Ages.

While the United States must not engage with Taliban, why is it that Pakistani intelligentsia provides it with no choice but to engage with the Taliban. It is now imperative that before the US is pushed further into the Saudi embrace, it must realize that several in Pakistan’s seemingly liberal intelligentsia (much of which works as a tool to raise anti-US sentiment in Pakistan) is not the honest partner it claims to be. The Jinnah Institute and other similar reports emanating from ISI-sponsored think tanks should be chucked in the can.



Appeal to international community and human rights organizations

An appeal to the justice system and Human Rights Organization would be in order. However, currently one would be hard pressed to consider Pakistan judiciary’s indirect role in enabling the Shia genocide. Aside from known killers being pardoned due to military pressure, the judicial over-reach and unwarranted actions over and above the affairs of the legislature and the executive prove that the military has influenced, if not intimidated the judiciary as well as the so-called establishment “free press.” Reports are that General Kayani has been involved in pay-offs to Mullahs and press to distort the killings as historically expected Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence. This is a distortion of the State-sponsored Shia genocide particularly in view of the fact that majority of Sunnis have dissociated from ASWJ-SSP and other Jihadi-sectarian militants.

Because the corrupt Supreme Court will not go against the Army/ISI which tacitly still supports ASWJ-SSP-LeJ, which has grown in wealth and numbers, independent of any control over it now; elements in the Pak Army are in league together with these groups. It appears that the Pak Army remains concerned over cracking down on ASWJ/LeJ/SSP and LeT/JuD in fear of risking all these splinter groups joining in unison with the Pakistan Taliban would once again start attacking the state with impunity (as they did against General Musharaf). Pak Army also remains complicit with LeT over its obsession with India, so, much easier to allow atrocities on Shiites, and insist on the mainstream press to mislabel it as sectarian unrest.

Foreign correspondents in Pakistan are perpetuating the same silence and misrepresentation to international media. State sponsored Shia genocide is misrepresented as Sunni vs Shia conflict, ignoring the fact that Sunni Barelvi Muslims (majority of Sunnis) have rejected fringe Deobandi militants who are a part of SSP-ASWJ and Taliban, and also the fact that Shias are being killed by the ISI, not Sunnis.

In the last few months, the situation has reached the stage of a human rights crisis. If the international media, human rights groups, US, EU, UN and the international community in general do not pay urgent attention, the Jihadist militants will be further encouraged by no interference, in which case, the atrocities of this type generally escalate, and may turn into another Rwanda or Armenia.

About the author:

About the author: Rusty Walker is an Independent Political Analyst, educator, author, Vietnam veteran-era U.S. Air Force, from a military family, retired college professor, former Provost (Collins College, U.S.A.), artist, musician and family man. Mr. Walker is an ardent supporter of Pakistan. Here is a link to Mr. Walker’s other articles published on  LUBP: http://criticalppp.com/archives/tag/rusty-walker

CriticalPPP.Com

One year old girl is orphaned

کشتی ڈوبنے سے سترہ تارکینِ وطن ہلاک، نوّے لاپتہ

آخری وقت اشاعت: منگل 26 جون 2012 ,‭ 16:31 GMT 21:31 PST



اطلاعات کے مطابق کشتی کے حادثے میں سترہ کے قریب افراد ہلاک ہوئے ہیں

بحرِ ہند میں کرسمس آئی لینڈ کے قریب انڈونیشیا سے آسٹریلیا جانے والی کشتی کے حادثے کے بعد شروع کی گئی امدادی کارروائیاں روک دی گئی ہیں تاہم کشتی پر سوار دو سو سے زائد افراد میں سے نوّے اب بھی لاپتہ ہیں۔

اکیس جون کو حادثے کا شکار ہونے والی کشتی پر آسٹریلیا میں پناہ کے خواہشمند پاکستانیوں سمیت کئی قومیتوں کے افراد سوار تھے اور اس حادثے میں سترہ افراد کی ہلاکت کی اطلاعات ہیں۔

آسٹریلیا میں پاکستانی ہائی کمشنر ملک عبداللہ نے بی بی سی اردو کے کاشف قمر کو فون پر بتایا کہ اگرچہ یہ حادثہ انڈونیشیا کی بحری حدود میں پیش آیا لیکن پیر کی شب ختم ہونے والا سرچ آپریشن زیادہ تر آسٹریلوی حکام ہی نے کیا۔

انہوں نے کہا کہ انہیں ملنے والی اطلاعات کے مطابق اکیس جون کو پیش آنے والے اس حادثے میں سترہ افراد ہلاک ہوئے، ایک سو آٹھ بچا لیے گئے جبکہ نوے کے قریب ابھی بھی لاپتہ ہیں۔

انہوں نے کہا کہ آسٹریلیا کے وزیرِ داخلہ کے ایک بیان کے مطابق ہلاک ہونے والے زیادہ تر افراد کا تعلق افغانستان سے ہے۔ تاہم انہوں نے کہا کہ ’ہمارے لیے بڑا مسئلہ یہ ہے کہ اس میں ہمارے کئی ایسے پاکستانی بھائی ہیں جنہوں نے سیاسی پناہ کے لیے اپنے آپ کو افغان شہری ظاہر کیا ہوا تھا۔‘

انہوں نے کہا کہ اس وقت تک ’ہم سے تین پاکستانیوں کے لواحقین نے رابطے کیے ہیں جن میں جاوید اقبال ولد اقبال حسین کا تعلق پنجاب، نعمت اللہ کا تعلق کرم ایجنسی جبکہ جابر حسین کا تعلق بھی کرم ایجنسی ہی سے بتایا جاتا ہے‘۔

پشاور میں متاثرہ خاندانوں کے ترجمان شاہد کاظمی نے بی بی سی کے نامہ نگار رفعت اللہ اورکزئی کو بتایا کہ بائیس جون کو تقریباً دو سو چھ افراد ایک کشتی کے ذریعے انڈونشیا سے آسٹریلیا کے لیے روانہ ہوئے تھے۔

ان کے مطابق اس کشتی میں جو دو سو چھ غیر قانونی تارکین وطن سوار تھے ان میں سے ایک سو پچیس کا تعلق کرم ایجنسی کے صدر مقام پارہ چنار اور متعدد کا تعلق بلوچستان کے شہر کوئٹہ سے بتایا گیا ہے۔

انہوں نے کہا کہ بین الاقوامی ذرائع ابلاغ اور بچ جانے والے افراد سے انہیں جو معلومات ملی ہیں اس کے مطابق یہ کشتی بحر ہند میں آسٹریلیا کی حدود میں کرسمس جزیرہ کے قریب حادثے کا شکار ہوئی جس میں اطلاعات کے مطابق سترہ افراد ہلاک ہوگئے جبکہ دیگر کو زندہ بچا لیا گیا۔

سیاسی پناہ کی خاطر۔۔۔

"آسٹریلیا کے وزیرِ داخلہ کے ایک بیان کے مطابق ہلاک ہونے والے زیادہ تر افراد کا تعلق افغانستان سے ہے تاہم ہمارے لیے بڑا مسئلہ یہ ہے کہ اس میں ہمارے کئی ایسے پاکستانی بھائی ہیں جنہوں نے سیاسی پناہ کے لیے اپنے آپ کو افغان شہری ظاہر کیا ہوا تھا۔"


عبداللہ ملک، پاکستانی ہائی کمشنر

شاہد کاظمی کا کہنا ہے کہ مرنے والے افراد کی لاشیں آسٹریلیا کے مختلف ہسپتالوں میں پڑی ہوئی ہیں تاہم ابھی تک یہ معلوم نہیں ہو سکا کہ ہلاک ہونے والوں میں سے کتنے پاکستانی ہیں۔

ترجمان نے بتایا کہ اس حادثے میں بچ جانے والے ستّر کے قریب افراد نے کرم ایجنسی میں اپنے عزیزوں کے ساتھ رابطے کیے ہیں تاہم کئی افراد بدستور لاپتہ ہیں جن کے رشتہ دار تشویش میں مبتلا ہیں۔

شاہد کاظمی کا کہنا تھا کہ ان کے ایک رشتہ دار سید مجاہد علی شاہ بھی کشتی میں سوار تھے لیکن ان کا ابھی تک اپنی فیملی سے کوئی رابطہ نہیں ہوا اور اس طرح دیگر کئی افراد بھی لاپتہ ہیں جن کے لیے ان کے عزیزو اقارب انتہائی بے چین ہیں۔

ترجمان نے بتایا کہ متاثرہ خاندانوں نے پولیٹیکل انتظامیہ کرم ایجنسی، منتخب نمائندوں اور کچھ بین الاقوامی اداروں سے رابطے کی کوشش کی ہے لیکن ابھی تک انہیں اپنے پیاروں کے بارے میں مکمل معلومات نہیں دی گئی ہیں۔

پارہ چنار کے ایک رہائشی محمود علی نے بتایا کہ ان کے ایک کزن محمد سلمان بھی اس کشتی میں سوار تھے جو بھی لاپتہ ہیں۔ انہوں نے بتایا کہ ان کے مطابق سلمان کی حال ہی میں شادی ہوئی تھی اور ان کے والدین اور اہلیہ انتہائی پریشان ہیں۔

محمود علی کے مطابق ان کے کچھ دیگر دوست بھی اس کشتی پر سوار تھے تاہم خوش قسمتی سے وہ اس حادثے میں محفوظ رہے۔

زیڑان پارہ چنار کے ایک باشندے فدا حسین کا کہنا ہے کہ ان کے چچا زاد بھائی سید مظہر حسین آسٹریلیا جانے کےلیے چار ماہ قبل انڈونشیا پہنچے تھے لیکن وہ بھی اس کشتی حادثے میں لاپتہ ہوگئے ہیں۔

خیال رہے کہ تقریباً دو سال قبل بھی بحر ہند میں کشتی الٹنے سے پچاس کے قریب پاکستانی ہلاک ہوگئے تھے۔ مرنے والے ان پاکستانیوں میں بھی اکثریت کا تعلق کرم ایجنسی سے تھا۔

بتایا جاتا ہے کہ آسٹریلیا میں پناہ لینے کے قوانین میں نرمی کی وجہ سے کچھ عرصہ سے پاکستان سے تارکین وطن بڑی تعداد میں وہاں کا رخ کر رہے ہیں۔ ان میں اکثریت کا تعلق ہزارہ اور اہل تشیع کمیونٹی سے بتایا گیا ہے۔

BBC Urdu

کشتی حامل پناهجویان در نزدیکی اندونزی غرق شد

به روز شده: 04:03 گرينويچ - چهارشنبه 27 ژوئن 2012 - 07 تیر 1391

مقام های استرالیا می گویند یک کشتی به همراه ۱۵۰ مسافر در نزدیکی اندونزی غرق شده است.

مقام های دریایی استرالیا می گویند این کشتی در ساعات اولیه روز چهارشنبه (۷ تیر) پیام های درخواست کمک فرستاده بود.


به گفته این مقام ها دو کشتی باری برای جستجوی مسافران در محل حادثه حضور پیدا کرده اند. دو کشتی نیروی دریایی استرالیا نیز راهی آنجا شده اند.

این دومین بار در روزهای اخیر است که یک کشتی حامل پناهجویان در نزدیکی جزیره کریسمس غرق می شود.

جمعه هفته گذشته نیز یک کشتی دیگر در این محل دچار حادثه شد. گروه های امداد موفق به نجات ۱۱۰ نفر از مسافران شدند و اجساد ۱۷ نفر از آنها پیدا شد.

کشتی که روز جمعه غرق شد، ۲۰۰ نفر مسافر همراه داشت. عملیات جستجو در ساعات پایانی روز شنبه خاتمه یافت.

پناهجویانی که قصد دارند خود را به استرالیا برسانند، معمولا با کشتی از نزدیکی جزیره کرسیمس عبور می کنند.

این کشتی ها اغلب مملو از مسافر هستند و موارد ایمنی در آنها رعایت نمی شود.

در سال های اخیر پناهجویان زیادی از کشورهای افغانستان، سری لانکا و عراق تلاش کردند خود را از طریق اندونزی به استرالیا برسانند.

در دسامبر ۲۰۱۰ حدود ۵۰ نفر جان خود را در سفری مشابه در نزدیکی جزیره کریسمس از دست دادند.

BBC Farsi