Posted: 10/7/11 04:28 PM ET
Ahmad ShujaWriter, blogger, analyst
Nestled along the eastern and western foothills of the mountains surrounding the Pakistani city of Quetta are the enclaves of Mariabad and Hazara Town, inhabited mainly by ethnic Hazaras. Once a vibrant community known locally for its hard work and dedication to education, it is now marked by a sense of desperation and despair.
For years, this ethnic and religious minority has been the quiet target of sectarian attacks by a Sunni militant group with close links to al Qaeda. When U.S. troops killed Osama bin Laden in May this year, they were among the first victims of revenge attacks.
The Hazaras have been singled out and targeted repeatedly over the past few years by the banned sectarian outfit known as Lashkar-e- Jhangvi (LeJ). Nobody has kept count of their victims, but the number floating around is 500 killed, about 100 of them this year alone. Community leaders, businessmen, pilgrims, worshippers, day laborers, miners and mourners visiting the graves of their loved ones have all been targeted.
About 20% of Pakistan's 180 million population is Shia, and a very tiny fraction of them are Hazaras. Yet they have borne the absolute brunt of sectarian attacks in recent years. The attacks in Quetta have received the most attention, but the Hazara community in Karachi has also been targeted on several occasions.
While sectarian violence by its very nature is discriminatory, the attackers in Quetta have gone the extra step: Buses are stopped and the Shia of Hazara ethnicity are identified, lined up and shot in cold blood. The attacks are unpredictable but deadly, and the attackers are always able to get away with it.
Similar sectarian attacks in Pakistan generally escalate into a deadly cycle of mutual revenge, but the lessons of Gandhi and MLK have not been lost on this community. At a recent rally, a community leader called on the use of economic boycott to pressure the government to protect their lives.
A shutter down strike was called, half of Quetta's business remained closed and much of its public transportation system dragged to a halt for a day -- all to no avail. Two days later, a group of coal miners was killed as they were returning to work after spending their weekend at home.
Disappointed with the government, the people called for an international day of protest to raise awareness about their plight. Protestors in several Pakistani cities were joined by thousands of others in Turkey, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and other regions. The demonstrations, however, failed to garner much attention from international media or governments in these countries. The strongest reaction came from an Italian politician, a Social-Democrat MP, who called on the EU and the UN to take action to end "the Holocaust."
But it was a watershed moment for this small ethnic minority in this corner of Pakistan. For the first time, they were able to use social media -- mostly Facebook -- to organize and project their desperate pleas for help worldwide.
But three days after the protests, the terrorists stuck again. More than a dozen vegetable vendors and shopkeepers were singled out on a bus -- the other passengers were let go - and sprayed with bullets.
To be sure, the international day of protest was but one of the many demonstrations the community has staged. But over the years, as men and women have taken to the streets and chanted slogans outside the Quetta Press Club, the attacks have grown more frequent.
A sampling of attacks in the past four months tells the whole story: About 35 pilgrims going to Iran have been killed in two separate attacks. Twenty vegetable vendors were killed in two separate incidents as they were on their way to the market. Several were killed when gunmen opened fire and shot rocket-propelled grenades at people visiting the graves of loved ones and at kids playing in the playground nearby. About a dozen were killed when a prayer congregation on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid was attacked.
As a result of this bloodshed, no one in the community is safe; anyone could be attacked at anytime. There is a sense of desperate helplessness, of life reduced to a painful interval between two attacks.
As one 15-year-old schoolgirl put it, "We are tired of picking up dead bodies."
Tired and afraid. After a short respite since the attacks first began in 1999, they resumed in mid-2000s following the escape from a maximum-security jail of two LeJ operatives, Usman Saifullah and Shafiq-ur-Rehman, convicted of killing dozens of Shia Hazaras in Quetta. They melted into the dark of the night, leaving their jail cell empty and its lock broken when the guards checked on them the next morning.
Threat letters appeared in the community earlier this year, promising a campaign to "rid Pakistan of this unclean people." Although it was not the first such letter, it spread palpable fear of bloody reprisals among the population.
"The Hazaras we speak to regularly talk of rarely leaving their homes, rarely leaving their neighbourhoods, because they know that they're being targeted," said Amnesty International's Mustafa Qadri.
"Often they will get death threats over the phone, they will get letters saying that they will be killed. At the moment they're particularly scared."
The community has lost faith in the government's ability to protect them. The federal government has not taken any steps, and the Baluchistan provincial government -- judged by this callous statement from its chief minister -- is displaying a level of irresponsibility that borders criminality:
"Of the millions who live in Baluchistan, 40 dead in Mastung is not a big deal. I will send a truckload of tissue papers to the bereaved families," said Aslam Raisani.
"The security situation in Baluchistan is satisfactory."
Unsurprisingly, the Hazaras have a different opinion about the situation. Some want the army to intervene and restore order, while others even suspect that the government and intelligence agencies are colluding with the attackers. This is a sentiment that is also reflected in the latest Amnesty International statement on the killings:
Routine targeted killings against the Hazara and other groups because of their ethnicity, religion or political affiliations raises serious questions about the will or ability of Pakistan security force [sic] to protect the people.
With their cries for help falling on deaf ears at home and abroad, an increasing number of young Hazara men are calling for an armed response.
But against whom? It's a faceless enemy that comes in twos and threes on motorbikes, makes its kill and disappears. This inability to do anything in the face of repeated attacks has contributed to a further sense of fear and frustration.
The situation in the city has reached a boiling point. When a militant organization that is banned on paper kills hundreds of people on the streets and cripples and entire community with utter impunity, it is reasonable to ask whose side the government is on. And when the state fails in its basic duty to protect the lives of its citizens, it is not inconceivable that people who see their relatives and neighbors fall every day might take matters into their own hands.
With the general breakdown in law and order in Quetta and the city's proximity to the Afghan border, access to arms is not particularly difficult.
The Huff Post
Friday, October 7, 2011
U.S. Envoy: New Silk Road Would Bring Prosperity
NEWS / FROM OUR BUREAUS
The old Afghan city of Bamiyan northwest of Kabul was on the old Silk Road, linking China to Central Asia and beyond.
October 07, 2011
DUSHANBE -- The U.S. special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan says a bid to revive the ancient Silk Road across Central Asia should bring prosperity to the region, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports.
Marc Grossman made the comments in Dushanbe on October 7 after meeting with President Emomali Rahmon to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.
Grossman claimed that Rahmon expressed support for the proposed revival of the ancient Silk Road, saying the project should be drafted and implemented fast.
"This vision of the new Silk Road is a way to bring economic development and prosperity to the very important region from Central Asia to New Delhi," Grossman said. "As the President [Rahmon] just put it to me, it is the way to connect Central Asia to South Asia."
Grossman also indicated that he and Rahmon discussed upcoming international conferences on Afghanistan and its neighbors to be held in Istanbul, Turkey on November 2 and in Bonn, Germany, on December 5.
"The idea in Istanbul is for the neighbors and near-neighbors of Afghanistan to show their support for the future of a secure and stable and prosperous Afghanistan inside of a secure, stable and prosperous region," he said.
"And the idea of the conference in Bonn, which will be chaired by the government of Afghanistan and hosted by the government of Germany, is to welcome the statement from Istanbul and very importantly to move forward with the vision of a new Silk Road."
The Silk Road was once at the heart of lucrative trade routes between Asia and the West, with merchants carrying goods ranging from textiles to spices.
About 25 countries met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last month to discuss the idea of reviving the Silk Road by developing closer economic ties between Afghanistan and its neighbors.
Asked on October 7 about the situation in Afghanistan after the assassination of former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, Grossman said "the death of Professor Rabbani is a message that we have to continue this process of peace.
Radio Free Europe
October 07, 2011
DUSHANBE -- The U.S. special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan says a bid to revive the ancient Silk Road across Central Asia should bring prosperity to the region, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports.
Marc Grossman made the comments in Dushanbe on October 7 after meeting with President Emomali Rahmon to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.
Grossman claimed that Rahmon expressed support for the proposed revival of the ancient Silk Road, saying the project should be drafted and implemented fast.
"This vision of the new Silk Road is a way to bring economic development and prosperity to the very important region from Central Asia to New Delhi," Grossman said. "As the President [Rahmon] just put it to me, it is the way to connect Central Asia to South Asia."
Grossman also indicated that he and Rahmon discussed upcoming international conferences on Afghanistan and its neighbors to be held in Istanbul, Turkey on November 2 and in Bonn, Germany, on December 5.
"The idea in Istanbul is for the neighbors and near-neighbors of Afghanistan to show their support for the future of a secure and stable and prosperous Afghanistan inside of a secure, stable and prosperous region," he said.
"And the idea of the conference in Bonn, which will be chaired by the government of Afghanistan and hosted by the government of Germany, is to welcome the statement from Istanbul and very importantly to move forward with the vision of a new Silk Road."
The Silk Road was once at the heart of lucrative trade routes between Asia and the West, with merchants carrying goods ranging from textiles to spices.
About 25 countries met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last month to discuss the idea of reviving the Silk Road by developing closer economic ties between Afghanistan and its neighbors.
Asked on October 7 about the situation in Afghanistan after the assassination of former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, Grossman said "the death of Professor Rabbani is a message that we have to continue this process of peace.
Radio Free Europe
Price of peace
BY MURTAZA RAZVI ON OCTOBER 7TH, 2011
The new nexus is now complete: while the US, Afghanistan and India will fight the Taliban, Pakistan would look for making peace with the Islamist militants. Following last week’s courageous overtures made to the militants by the All Parties Conference in Islamabad, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the killer of Benazir Bhutto and thousands of nameless Pakistanis and the terror outfit that works closely with al Qaeda and blows up shrines and schools, has responded positively to Pakistan’s ruling elite’s proposal, but with only two conditions.
These are: sever relations with the US and enforce Sharia laws (of the kind that only they would dictate). The same Sharia laws which allow rich Raymond Davises of the world to pay blood money and walk free after committing murder in cold blood, or let the victims of rape languish in jail for want of evidence to prove the assault while the perpetrator walks free. Besides, we know what else they entail: flogging young girls in the street for stepping out of the house; shutting down girls’ schools; blowing up shrines; taking cable TV off the air; banning all performing and visual arts; training militias to wage jihad to reclaim Kabul and Delhi, besides Kashmir, of course, and hopefully planning a new assault on America.
Pakistan now seems to be creating a strategic depth it sought in Afghanistan in its own homeland proper. Way to go! What India has been accusing us of doing to ourselves and the world is now confirmed and endorsed by Pakistan’s politicians and the civil-military establishment. We’re finally at peace with the terrorists and can’t wait to call them to the mainstream.
We’ve been talked and walked into this under the very nose of the ISI, the government and the brave, emerging popular leaders like Imran Khan. Who needs a Maududi anymore, you may ask? On the flip side, who needs Jinnah and his minorities and the women whom he had assured of equal rights? Pakistan’s plunge into Talibanisation is a willing journey into a bottomless pit, where the nation will reside happily ever after with its mighty nuclear arsenal intact and in safe hands. What a vision.
And pray who will be our strategic partners in this holy endeavour? The great People’s Republic to the north and the Islamic Republic to the west? Not a fat chance because neither is as suicidal as we may be deluded to believe. Keep messing up in Xinjiang and keep killing the Shia Hazaras as an article of faith and you’ll see how the two great friends will also leave you to your own devices.
Ironically, democratic Pakistan today is dangerously set to embark on an isolation plan that will be the envy of the nutcases running North Koreas and Myanmars of the world, that is, if Imran Khan’s great vision of making peace with the Taliban is to prevail. Even Hamid Gul sounded cautious and worried on TV the other day after seeing the consensus behind closed doors in Islamabad. That was not what even the hawkish likes of him sought for Pakistan, which is now in Hamid Karzai’s ominous words, a twin sibling to his Afghanistan. President Zardari confirmed the sibling rivalry by decrying the fact on The Washington Post’s Op-Ed the other day by complaining that America gave more money to Kabul than it ever did to Islamabad.
Meanwhile Obama seems to be in no mood to listen, and has repeated the same mantra of ‘do more’ to contain the dirty Haqqanis in Afghanistan. Where in this new emerging order of things does Pakistan fit today, you may well ask? A quick glimpse into our obsessive compulsive streak in matters worldly and other worldly came on Thursday as the Supreme Court announced its judgment on the Karachi killings and the law and order case, which it had taken up in public interest. The learned chief justice started off by saying that Islam takes a very serious view of a killing. Pray, tell, which religion or legal system in the world does not?
Yet, we know it is not the fear of Allah that deters people from killing fellow human beings: Iraq and Afghanistan are shining examples of people killing one another in the name of God. Pakistan does not lag too far behind, where the killing of Shia Hazaras and Ahmadis comes as an article of faith to those with whom the state now wants to make peace.
Can peace ever be built on the debris of justice; with or without God being part of the equation?
The writer is a member of the staff at Dawn Newspaper.
The new nexus is now complete: while the US, Afghanistan and India will fight the Taliban, Pakistan would look for making peace with the Islamist militants. Following last week’s courageous overtures made to the militants by the All Parties Conference in Islamabad, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the killer of Benazir Bhutto and thousands of nameless Pakistanis and the terror outfit that works closely with al Qaeda and blows up shrines and schools, has responded positively to Pakistan’s ruling elite’s proposal, but with only two conditions.
These are: sever relations with the US and enforce Sharia laws (of the kind that only they would dictate). The same Sharia laws which allow rich Raymond Davises of the world to pay blood money and walk free after committing murder in cold blood, or let the victims of rape languish in jail for want of evidence to prove the assault while the perpetrator walks free. Besides, we know what else they entail: flogging young girls in the street for stepping out of the house; shutting down girls’ schools; blowing up shrines; taking cable TV off the air; banning all performing and visual arts; training militias to wage jihad to reclaim Kabul and Delhi, besides Kashmir, of course, and hopefully planning a new assault on America.
Pakistan now seems to be creating a strategic depth it sought in Afghanistan in its own homeland proper. Way to go! What India has been accusing us of doing to ourselves and the world is now confirmed and endorsed by Pakistan’s politicians and the civil-military establishment. We’re finally at peace with the terrorists and can’t wait to call them to the mainstream.
We’ve been talked and walked into this under the very nose of the ISI, the government and the brave, emerging popular leaders like Imran Khan. Who needs a Maududi anymore, you may ask? On the flip side, who needs Jinnah and his minorities and the women whom he had assured of equal rights? Pakistan’s plunge into Talibanisation is a willing journey into a bottomless pit, where the nation will reside happily ever after with its mighty nuclear arsenal intact and in safe hands. What a vision.
And pray who will be our strategic partners in this holy endeavour? The great People’s Republic to the north and the Islamic Republic to the west? Not a fat chance because neither is as suicidal as we may be deluded to believe. Keep messing up in Xinjiang and keep killing the Shia Hazaras as an article of faith and you’ll see how the two great friends will also leave you to your own devices.
Ironically, democratic Pakistan today is dangerously set to embark on an isolation plan that will be the envy of the nutcases running North Koreas and Myanmars of the world, that is, if Imran Khan’s great vision of making peace with the Taliban is to prevail. Even Hamid Gul sounded cautious and worried on TV the other day after seeing the consensus behind closed doors in Islamabad. That was not what even the hawkish likes of him sought for Pakistan, which is now in Hamid Karzai’s ominous words, a twin sibling to his Afghanistan. President Zardari confirmed the sibling rivalry by decrying the fact on The Washington Post’s Op-Ed the other day by complaining that America gave more money to Kabul than it ever did to Islamabad.
Meanwhile Obama seems to be in no mood to listen, and has repeated the same mantra of ‘do more’ to contain the dirty Haqqanis in Afghanistan. Where in this new emerging order of things does Pakistan fit today, you may well ask? A quick glimpse into our obsessive compulsive streak in matters worldly and other worldly came on Thursday as the Supreme Court announced its judgment on the Karachi killings and the law and order case, which it had taken up in public interest. The learned chief justice started off by saying that Islam takes a very serious view of a killing. Pray, tell, which religion or legal system in the world does not?
Yet, we know it is not the fear of Allah that deters people from killing fellow human beings: Iraq and Afghanistan are shining examples of people killing one another in the name of God. Pakistan does not lag too far behind, where the killing of Shia Hazaras and Ahmadis comes as an article of faith to those with whom the state now wants to make peace.
Can peace ever be built on the debris of justice; with or without God being part of the equation?
The writer is a member of the staff at Dawn Newspaper.
Rights activists condemn Hazara killings
Published Date: October 7, 2011
Human rights groups in Pakistan have urged the government to prevent killings of members of the Hazara community in western Balochistan province.
“Groups of Muslims are being singled out as minorities and persecuted. Terrorists are not the only ones to blame; the whole nation is involved”, said I. A. Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
Unknown armed assailants ambushed a local bus and murdered 14 people belonging to the Hazara community of Shi’ite Muslims and injured six others on October 4 in Quetta, where gunmen shot dead 26 Shia pilgrims traveling to Iran two weeks ago.
Zohra Yusuf, chair of HRCP, called upon country’s executives to take immediate, direct and personal action against the “most heinous nature of the recent wave of Hazaras’ killing” in her October 5 press statement.
“These killings must cause your government serious anxiety for a number of reasons. The failure of the administration to stem the odious tide or to apprehend the culprits reveal a state of lawlessness no civilized government can countenance.”
She demanded action against those who forfeited their right to hold their positions and failed to fulfil their duty to protect people’s lives in Balochistan. “All of them should be made to pay for their incompetence and insensitivity to the killing of innocent citizens and the sufferings of their families.”
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has strong ties with the al-Qaeda and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the massacre. Media reports say 422 Hazaras have been killed in Balochistan alone since 1999. There are about half a million members of the Persian speaking Hazara community in the country
Cath News India
Human rights groups in Pakistan have urged the government to prevent killings of members of the Hazara community in western Balochistan province.
“Groups of Muslims are being singled out as minorities and persecuted. Terrorists are not the only ones to blame; the whole nation is involved”, said I. A. Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
Unknown armed assailants ambushed a local bus and murdered 14 people belonging to the Hazara community of Shi’ite Muslims and injured six others on October 4 in Quetta, where gunmen shot dead 26 Shia pilgrims traveling to Iran two weeks ago.
Zohra Yusuf, chair of HRCP, called upon country’s executives to take immediate, direct and personal action against the “most heinous nature of the recent wave of Hazaras’ killing” in her October 5 press statement.
“These killings must cause your government serious anxiety for a number of reasons. The failure of the administration to stem the odious tide or to apprehend the culprits reveal a state of lawlessness no civilized government can countenance.”
She demanded action against those who forfeited their right to hold their positions and failed to fulfil their duty to protect people’s lives in Balochistan. “All of them should be made to pay for their incompetence and insensitivity to the killing of innocent citizens and the sufferings of their families.”
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has strong ties with the al-Qaeda and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the massacre. Media reports say 422 Hazaras have been killed in Balochistan alone since 1999. There are about half a million members of the Persian speaking Hazara community in the country
Cath News India
Lawless Pakistan
REVIEW & OUTLOOK ASIAOCTOBER 7, 2011
Sunni radicals are attacking Shiites, and could provoke a civil war.
Sunni extremists stopped a bus full of Shiites belonging to the Hazara ethnic group who were headed to work in southwestern Pakistan Tuesday. The gunmen forced everybody off the bus, stood them in a line and sprayed them with bullets, killing 13. This was the second attack in just a month against the Hazaras, the last claiming the lives of 26 pilgrims.
More than 2,200 Pakistani civilians have died so far this year in terrorist attacks. It is especially deadly for journalists, who are subject to threats and intimidation. Small minority groups like Christians and Ahmadis, a heterodox Muslim sect, find themselves routinely under attack.
The brazen strikes against the Hazara follow on the heels of the bombing of a Shiite mosque and a suicide attack on a Shiite procession in recent months. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni sectarian group allied with the Taliban, is thought to be involved in some of them.
Though the rivalry between Sunni and Shiites rests on a centuries-old theological debate within Islam, the Sunni majority has historically lived in peace with Pakistan's 30 million Shiites. As columnist Sadanand Dhume wrote on these pages last month, some of the country's most prominent leaders since 1947 have hailed from Shiite communities. Yet Sunni fundamentalists who find Shiite practices and observances heretical have these communities suddenly scared.
Pakistan's Sunni radicals are the real minority in Pakistan. But they have managed to terrorize the rest of the country because of the culture of lawlessness and impunity. Police promised a crackdown on Sunni militants Wednesday. But with the writ of the state eroding, Pakistanis are skeptical. This week, the judge who passed a death sentence on the assassin of liberal politician Salman Taseer went on an indefinite leave. He reportedly received death threats.
Unless Pakistan's government takes stronger steps to protect its Shiite citizens, they'll have little choice but to try to defend themselves. Pakistan's existing insurgency could descend into a civil war.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Sunni radicals are attacking Shiites, and could provoke a civil war.
Sunni extremists stopped a bus full of Shiites belonging to the Hazara ethnic group who were headed to work in southwestern Pakistan Tuesday. The gunmen forced everybody off the bus, stood them in a line and sprayed them with bullets, killing 13. This was the second attack in just a month against the Hazaras, the last claiming the lives of 26 pilgrims.
More than 2,200 Pakistani civilians have died so far this year in terrorist attacks. It is especially deadly for journalists, who are subject to threats and intimidation. Small minority groups like Christians and Ahmadis, a heterodox Muslim sect, find themselves routinely under attack.
The brazen strikes against the Hazara follow on the heels of the bombing of a Shiite mosque and a suicide attack on a Shiite procession in recent months. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni sectarian group allied with the Taliban, is thought to be involved in some of them.
Though the rivalry between Sunni and Shiites rests on a centuries-old theological debate within Islam, the Sunni majority has historically lived in peace with Pakistan's 30 million Shiites. As columnist Sadanand Dhume wrote on these pages last month, some of the country's most prominent leaders since 1947 have hailed from Shiite communities. Yet Sunni fundamentalists who find Shiite practices and observances heretical have these communities suddenly scared.
Pakistan's Sunni radicals are the real minority in Pakistan. But they have managed to terrorize the rest of the country because of the culture of lawlessness and impunity. Police promised a crackdown on Sunni militants Wednesday. But with the writ of the state eroding, Pakistanis are skeptical. This week, the judge who passed a death sentence on the assassin of liberal politician Salman Taseer went on an indefinite leave. He reportedly received death threats.
Unless Pakistan's government takes stronger steps to protect its Shiite citizens, they'll have little choice but to try to defend themselves. Pakistan's existing insurgency could descend into a civil war.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Hazaras despair, home and away
by: Amanda Hodge, South Asia correspondent From: The Australian October 08, 2011 12:00AM
Pakistanis at Quetta hospital mourn the shooting death of a relative this week as Sunni extremists opened fire on Hazaras on a bus, the second such attack in weeks. Picture: AP Source: AP
IN broad daylight on a bustling Quetta highway this week a white ute screeched to a halt in front of a bus carrying mostly poor Hazara fruit sellers to a market.
Heavily-armed men, suspected members of the Punjab-based militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, spilled out of the vehicle and boarded the bus from the front and rear doors.
Those passengers who did not bear the unmistakable Asiatic features of the Mongolian-descended Hazaras - adherents to the Shia Islamic sect - were allowed to leave. The remainder were shot with AK-47s.
Fourteen died on Tuesday, just three days after Hazaras gathered in cities across the world - including Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Sydney - to beg for international action against the almost-weekly targeted killings by Sunni terrorists in Pakistan's Balochistan province.
Not for the first time, their pleas fell on deaf ears.
Such is the level of violence in Quetta now that no ambulance would respond to Tuesday's emergency.
Instead the traumatised bus driver ferried his bloody cargo to the door of Quetta's Combined Military Hospital, where devastated families gathered to identify the latest victims of this ethnic cleansing.
Yet the plight of the Hazara community has become little more than a footnote in the decade-long counter-insurgency battle being waged by NATO and coalition forces across the border in Afghanistan.
The Australian government officially re-evaluated the assessment process for Hazara refugees last year and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Afghan government in January, enabling the return of rejected asylum-seekers.
With the removal of their most brutal persecutors - the Sunni Afghan Taliban - from power, life in Afghanistan has improved for the historically persecuted tribesmen. It could scarcely have got worse.
But the persecution, kidnapping and targeted killing of Hazara people is still a reality. And in Pakistan - where millions of Hazaras fled in the wake of the Taliban's rise to power - the situation is increasingly desperate as Sunni militants pursue their campaign of ethnic cleansing with seeming impunity.
Human Rights Watch has recorded at least 16 attacks on the Shi'ites so far this year. Local leaders say at least 600 Hazaras in Pakistan have been killed since 2007 and more than 1500 injured.
Pakistan's Human Rights Commission has warned that the latest strike "exposes once again the diminishing writ of the state".
A fortnight before Tuesday's attack - the week the Australian government returned a rejected Hazara asylum-seeker to Pakistan - 29 Hazaras were killed in a strikingly similar attack on a bus of pilgrims 30km outside Quetta.
It was the deadliest attack on Shias in Pakistan since September 4 last year, when a suicide bomber killed at least 57 people at a rally in Quetta.
"Continued sectarian bloodshed across the country is a direct consequence of the authorities' perpetual failure to take note of sectarian killings in Quetta, which have been going on for many years," the Human Rights Commission said this week.
It said the killers had been emboldened by a persistent lack of action against sectarian militants, which have been implicated in thousands of deaths in past years.
Indeed, several Pakistani television talk shows claimed this week that the LeJ aimed to run all Hazaras out of Pakistan by the end of next year.
The group, formed during the military regime of General Zia ul-Haq, was banned after the 9/11 attacks on the US but has since been linked to several major attacks, including the 2008 Islamabad Marriot hotel bombing and the 2009 assault on the touring Sri Lankan cricket team.
The escalation in violence against Hazaras appears to have coincided with the release from prison of LeJ leader Malik Ishaq, jailed in 1997 on more than 50 terrorism and murder-related charges but released on July 15 for lack of evidence.
Ali Dayan Hassan, Pakistan analyst for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, says despite the rising violence there has been no discernible crackdown on the Taliban and al-Qa'ida-affiliated LeJ, which claimed responsibility for last month's attack.
"There's now a widespread assumption that somehow the military or the state are complicit in these attacks," he said. "If this isn't the case then security agencies in Balochistan need to show in their behaviour that they're willing to protect these people."
Balochistan has been wracked since at least 2004 by militancy and a regional insurgency waged by separatists demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region's wealth of natural resources.
Religious sectarian violence across Pakistan is also on the rise, with numerous attacks on Ahmadi, Shia and Sufi shrines and celebrations.
But no community has seen a more dramatic rise in violence than Pakistan's 700,000-strong Shia Hazara community, a good proportion of which had fled the brutal persecution of Afghanistan's Sunni Taliban regime.
"The bottom line is these people now face a double jeopardy situation because of their ethnicity and their religious affiliations," says Hassan, who describes as "Kafkaesque" Australia's tightened refugee policy in the face of rising threats to Hazaras. "Hazaras in Pakistan have never been more in need of safe haven than they are today."
In Australia, refugee advocates are tracking the violence on both sides of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border with mounting despair.
"The vast number of Hazaras we have been talking with over the years are based in Balochistan. They went there because Afghanistan was not safe," says Phil Glendenning, from the Edmund Rice Centre.
"Now Balochistan is not safe, Afghanistan is not safe, and the Australian government needs to pay considerable attention to this.
"Just because they want things to have improved, it doesn't make it so."
Under growing pressure, the Pakistani government has rounded up more than 100 suspects in recent days but there is little confidence the culprits will be captured.
"Hazara people are being targeted just because of their religious beliefs," fumed Quetta-based Hazara MP Nasir Ali Shah in parliament this week. "Where is the government? Where are the agencies? Aren't they Pakistanis?"
These are questions being asked by fearful Hazaras across Pakistan.
"I don't want to leave Pakistan. My family has been here since before 1947 (partition) and we are Pakistani citizens but things are now so bad I am scared to leave the house," says Altaf Hussain Safdari, a bachelor of science and IT student who runs the Hazara Nation website and a Hazara community station Mechid TV from his Quetta home.
The 27-year-old can no longer attend classes because his university is located in a Quetta suburb now considered a no-go zone for Hazaras.
Instead, he spends his days documenting attacks and abuses against his community.
"I have pictures of many of the attacks but they are extreme and I don't know that you could use them," Safdari says
"These are no longer just targeted killings. It's a genocide."
THE AUSTRALIAN
IN broad daylight on a bustling Quetta highway this week a white ute screeched to a halt in front of a bus carrying mostly poor Hazara fruit sellers to a market.
Heavily-armed men, suspected members of the Punjab-based militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, spilled out of the vehicle and boarded the bus from the front and rear doors.
Those passengers who did not bear the unmistakable Asiatic features of the Mongolian-descended Hazaras - adherents to the Shia Islamic sect - were allowed to leave. The remainder were shot with AK-47s.
Fourteen died on Tuesday, just three days after Hazaras gathered in cities across the world - including Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Sydney - to beg for international action against the almost-weekly targeted killings by Sunni terrorists in Pakistan's Balochistan province.
Not for the first time, their pleas fell on deaf ears.
Such is the level of violence in Quetta now that no ambulance would respond to Tuesday's emergency.
Instead the traumatised bus driver ferried his bloody cargo to the door of Quetta's Combined Military Hospital, where devastated families gathered to identify the latest victims of this ethnic cleansing.
Yet the plight of the Hazara community has become little more than a footnote in the decade-long counter-insurgency battle being waged by NATO and coalition forces across the border in Afghanistan.
The Australian government officially re-evaluated the assessment process for Hazara refugees last year and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Afghan government in January, enabling the return of rejected asylum-seekers.
With the removal of their most brutal persecutors - the Sunni Afghan Taliban - from power, life in Afghanistan has improved for the historically persecuted tribesmen. It could scarcely have got worse.
But the persecution, kidnapping and targeted killing of Hazara people is still a reality. And in Pakistan - where millions of Hazaras fled in the wake of the Taliban's rise to power - the situation is increasingly desperate as Sunni militants pursue their campaign of ethnic cleansing with seeming impunity.
Human Rights Watch has recorded at least 16 attacks on the Shi'ites so far this year. Local leaders say at least 600 Hazaras in Pakistan have been killed since 2007 and more than 1500 injured.
Pakistan's Human Rights Commission has warned that the latest strike "exposes once again the diminishing writ of the state".
A fortnight before Tuesday's attack - the week the Australian government returned a rejected Hazara asylum-seeker to Pakistan - 29 Hazaras were killed in a strikingly similar attack on a bus of pilgrims 30km outside Quetta.
It was the deadliest attack on Shias in Pakistan since September 4 last year, when a suicide bomber killed at least 57 people at a rally in Quetta.
"Continued sectarian bloodshed across the country is a direct consequence of the authorities' perpetual failure to take note of sectarian killings in Quetta, which have been going on for many years," the Human Rights Commission said this week.
It said the killers had been emboldened by a persistent lack of action against sectarian militants, which have been implicated in thousands of deaths in past years.
Indeed, several Pakistani television talk shows claimed this week that the LeJ aimed to run all Hazaras out of Pakistan by the end of next year.
The group, formed during the military regime of General Zia ul-Haq, was banned after the 9/11 attacks on the US but has since been linked to several major attacks, including the 2008 Islamabad Marriot hotel bombing and the 2009 assault on the touring Sri Lankan cricket team.
The escalation in violence against Hazaras appears to have coincided with the release from prison of LeJ leader Malik Ishaq, jailed in 1997 on more than 50 terrorism and murder-related charges but released on July 15 for lack of evidence.
Ali Dayan Hassan, Pakistan analyst for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, says despite the rising violence there has been no discernible crackdown on the Taliban and al-Qa'ida-affiliated LeJ, which claimed responsibility for last month's attack.
"There's now a widespread assumption that somehow the military or the state are complicit in these attacks," he said. "If this isn't the case then security agencies in Balochistan need to show in their behaviour that they're willing to protect these people."
Balochistan has been wracked since at least 2004 by militancy and a regional insurgency waged by separatists demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region's wealth of natural resources.
Religious sectarian violence across Pakistan is also on the rise, with numerous attacks on Ahmadi, Shia and Sufi shrines and celebrations.
But no community has seen a more dramatic rise in violence than Pakistan's 700,000-strong Shia Hazara community, a good proportion of which had fled the brutal persecution of Afghanistan's Sunni Taliban regime.
"The bottom line is these people now face a double jeopardy situation because of their ethnicity and their religious affiliations," says Hassan, who describes as "Kafkaesque" Australia's tightened refugee policy in the face of rising threats to Hazaras. "Hazaras in Pakistan have never been more in need of safe haven than they are today."
In Australia, refugee advocates are tracking the violence on both sides of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border with mounting despair.
"The vast number of Hazaras we have been talking with over the years are based in Balochistan. They went there because Afghanistan was not safe," says Phil Glendenning, from the Edmund Rice Centre.
"Now Balochistan is not safe, Afghanistan is not safe, and the Australian government needs to pay considerable attention to this.
"Just because they want things to have improved, it doesn't make it so."
Under growing pressure, the Pakistani government has rounded up more than 100 suspects in recent days but there is little confidence the culprits will be captured.
"Hazara people are being targeted just because of their religious beliefs," fumed Quetta-based Hazara MP Nasir Ali Shah in parliament this week. "Where is the government? Where are the agencies? Aren't they Pakistanis?"
These are questions being asked by fearful Hazaras across Pakistan.
"I don't want to leave Pakistan. My family has been here since before 1947 (partition) and we are Pakistani citizens but things are now so bad I am scared to leave the house," says Altaf Hussain Safdari, a bachelor of science and IT student who runs the Hazara Nation website and a Hazara community station Mechid TV from his Quetta home.
The 27-year-old can no longer attend classes because his university is located in a Quetta suburb now considered a no-go zone for Hazaras.
Instead, he spends his days documenting attacks and abuses against his community.
"I have pictures of many of the attacks but they are extreme and I don't know that you could use them," Safdari says
"These are no longer just targeted killings. It's a genocide."
THE AUSTRALIAN
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)