Saturday, October 22, 2011
No peace in region with unstable Afghanistan: PM talking to Mohaqiq
* Gilani says Pakistan is ready to train Afghan security forces and administration to cope with situation after withdrawal of foreign troops
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, on Friday, said there could be no peace in the region without peace in Afghanistan.
Talking to Ustad Mohaqiq, member of Wolesi Jirga and Commission on Law and Justice of Wolesi Jirga chairman at the PM House, Gilani said Pakistan was ready to train the Afghan army, police and administration to cope with the aftermath of withdrawal of foreign troops by 2014.
Gilani said he shared his views about peace in Afghanistan with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and said friendship and animosity could not co-exist, as was the case with reconciliation and brinkmanship.
The prime minister said that All-Parties Conference’s resolution stood for giving peace a chance, and it was conveyed to the US secretary of state and to the world in a very candid manner.
The prime minister urged the need for frequent exchanges of parliamentarians between the two countries, adding people to people contact was the best diplomacy to build bridges among people.
Gilani said it was his vision to develop good neighbourly relations with countries of the region, saying this paradigm shift in the foreign policy best served the national interests. “It was in accordance with this vision that I have embarked upon diplomacy aimed at enhancing cooperation among the countries located in this part of the world,” the prime minister said.
Gilani said he had met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President Karzai, Iranian president and leaders of other countries of Central Asia to further the cause of friendly relations with the countries situated in close proximity to Pakistan. He said such a shift in foreign policy was critical to establishing connectivity among peoples of the countries, promoting intra-regional trade, and laying the foundation for sustainable bonds, a prelude to social development of people.
The prime minister said he had visited Afghanistan twice and met President Karzai along with Pakistan’s military leadership. He said Pakistan supported an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned process of reconciliation. “We want to see independent, prosperous and stable Afghanistan. My government supports any solution which will not destabilise Pakistan as was the case last time when this country had to host three million Afghan refugees,” Gilani stated.
The prime minister said he went to Quetta and expressed his deep condolences over the brutal killings of members of the Hazara community and directed the administration to take all steps to ensure safety of their lives and properties.
“Interior Minister Rehman Malik recently visited Quetta on my instructions to assure the community that the government would bring the culprits to justice,” the prime minister said. The prime minister said Pakistan had contributed $350 million to the rehabilitation of people of Afghanistan and awarded 2,000 scholarships to the Afghan students who were now studying in various universities of Pakistan.
Gilani thanked Ustad Mohaqiq for giving land to build Jinnah Hospital in Afghanistan with the assistance of Pakistan, including a number of basic health units and primary schools.
Ustad Mohaqiq said both the countries shared common traditions, culture and history.
He paid tributes to the leadership of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan by saying that he was a man of peace.
He advocated the kind of reconciliation in which Taliban could be included provided they accepted the Afghan constitution.
He thanked the Gilani for taking effective measures to protect the Hazara community.
He strongly rejected the practice of blaming each other and instead underscored the need for working closely against the common enemy.
He said both Afghanistan and Pakistan should work to accomplish the mission of Professor Burhanuddin who wanted to see both the countries as good neighbours and good friends. app
Daily Times
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, on Friday, said there could be no peace in the region without peace in Afghanistan.
Talking to Ustad Mohaqiq, member of Wolesi Jirga and Commission on Law and Justice of Wolesi Jirga chairman at the PM House, Gilani said Pakistan was ready to train the Afghan army, police and administration to cope with the aftermath of withdrawal of foreign troops by 2014.
Gilani said he shared his views about peace in Afghanistan with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and said friendship and animosity could not co-exist, as was the case with reconciliation and brinkmanship.
The prime minister said that All-Parties Conference’s resolution stood for giving peace a chance, and it was conveyed to the US secretary of state and to the world in a very candid manner.
The prime minister urged the need for frequent exchanges of parliamentarians between the two countries, adding people to people contact was the best diplomacy to build bridges among people.
Gilani said it was his vision to develop good neighbourly relations with countries of the region, saying this paradigm shift in the foreign policy best served the national interests. “It was in accordance with this vision that I have embarked upon diplomacy aimed at enhancing cooperation among the countries located in this part of the world,” the prime minister said.
Gilani said he had met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President Karzai, Iranian president and leaders of other countries of Central Asia to further the cause of friendly relations with the countries situated in close proximity to Pakistan. He said such a shift in foreign policy was critical to establishing connectivity among peoples of the countries, promoting intra-regional trade, and laying the foundation for sustainable bonds, a prelude to social development of people.
The prime minister said he had visited Afghanistan twice and met President Karzai along with Pakistan’s military leadership. He said Pakistan supported an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned process of reconciliation. “We want to see independent, prosperous and stable Afghanistan. My government supports any solution which will not destabilise Pakistan as was the case last time when this country had to host three million Afghan refugees,” Gilani stated.
The prime minister said he went to Quetta and expressed his deep condolences over the brutal killings of members of the Hazara community and directed the administration to take all steps to ensure safety of their lives and properties.
“Interior Minister Rehman Malik recently visited Quetta on my instructions to assure the community that the government would bring the culprits to justice,” the prime minister said. The prime minister said Pakistan had contributed $350 million to the rehabilitation of people of Afghanistan and awarded 2,000 scholarships to the Afghan students who were now studying in various universities of Pakistan.
Gilani thanked Ustad Mohaqiq for giving land to build Jinnah Hospital in Afghanistan with the assistance of Pakistan, including a number of basic health units and primary schools.
Ustad Mohaqiq said both the countries shared common traditions, culture and history.
He paid tributes to the leadership of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan by saying that he was a man of peace.
He advocated the kind of reconciliation in which Taliban could be included provided they accepted the Afghan constitution.
He thanked the Gilani for taking effective measures to protect the Hazara community.
He strongly rejected the practice of blaming each other and instead underscored the need for working closely against the common enemy.
He said both Afghanistan and Pakistan should work to accomplish the mission of Professor Burhanuddin who wanted to see both the countries as good neighbours and good friends. app
Daily Times
Friday, October 21, 2011
Shia Hazaras: Guilty of being a minority in establishment’s Pakistan – by Hafsa Khawaja
Originally published on her blog
The Pakistan of today has found itself to be nothing but a wreckage of a country, a carcass of a state and an international outcast.
A tragedy brought upon itself by both; the sharp functioning muscle of the unofficial institutional dictatorship that aggrandized itself under four decades of military authoritarians and the Pakistani nation’s obscene obsession with easy acceptance of the exacerbation, denialism, dogmatism and preposterousness.
The very characteristics have been manifest in wake of the recent unleashing of organized and systematic bloodletting of the peaceful, educated and civilized community of Shia Hazaras in Balochistan by the associates of the Establishment’s ‘Assets’.
Carrying a history replete with persecution and torment, the Shia Hazaras have found little relief and difference between their past in Afghanistan and present in Pakistan; where they are the victims of various sectarian militant groups such as Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, that deem and decry Shi’ites as Non-Muslims. ‘Impure’ creatures that they are determined to completely exterminate from ‘The Land of Pure.’
A question might arise, why is it that blame for this bloodshed is ascribed as such to them.
Amir Mir writes in one excellent article of his on the predicament the Hazara Shia have been placed in and the militant sectarian groups:
‘The SSP and the LeJ, which is considered to be the military wing of the SSP, were once the strategic assets of the state of Pakistan and have linked with al-Qaeda as its ancillary warriors, killing Pakistani citizens and targeting the security forces to dissuade Pakistan from fighting the “war against terror” as a United States ally.
The LeJ today has deep links with al-Qaeda and the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban and is considered to be the most violent terrorist organization operating in Pakistan, with the help of its suicide squad. As with most Sunni Deobandi sectarian and militant groups, almost the entire LeJ leadership is made up of people who have fought in Afghanistan with the backing of the Pakistani security establishment and most of its cadre are drawn from the numerous Sunni madrassas (seminaries) in Pakistan.’
The fact that these terrorist organizations are the ‘ancillary warriors’ of the ‘elements’ that the Establishment cherishes and avails in pursuit of its detrimental ‘Strategic Depth’ policy in Afghanistan (The Policy, to put it simply, is constructed on the Establishment’s compulsive obsession with the theme and idea of India as the arch enemy of Pakistan and envisages a Pro-Pakistan Government in Post-Troop-Withdrawal Afghanistan that counters the Indian influence there and protects ‘Pakistani interests’.) naturally transforms their position to being ‘untouchable’, considering they are part and parcel of the deal – thus the ‘failure of intelligence and the forces’ when it comes to sectarian killings similar to that happening in Balochistan of the Hazaras.
While much has been excellently chosen, written about and posted about the grave issue on LUBP and a few other sites that have proven to challenge the distortions of the mainstream media and welcoming to topics that they either ignore or willingly twist and feed to the people with their vulpine cunning – this post aims to focus on the collective, institutional and national conspiracy of silence that was concocted after the slayings of the Hazara Shias based solely on a sectarian footing.
One can only wonder where the conveniently-free-media is when fatwas, pamphlets and declarations of hate and instigation of murders are circulated around in different parts of the country?
Where does their self-proclaimed ‘patriotism’ and professional magnificence vanish to when it comes to the intentional misrepresentation of the massacres that only helps to reinforce, what those under whose patronage the groups act, want the people to believe?
Why is it that only outrageuously sparse coverage is provided to the victims and their plight but hours of talk shows are wasted on futile discussions?
And the ever-eager-to-take-suo-moto judges? Are the Shia Hazaras Children of a Lesser God in the eyes of a so-called judiciary that is anything but independent, rather just another instrument of the Establishment for furthering their goals and ambitions?
Afterall, what can be expected of judiciary that releases butchers like Malik Ishaq on grounds of ‘lack of evidence’
The Government too, brazenly watches over the the whole community being pulled down into pools of blood of their own while the Punjab Government gives the very butcher, a montly stipendand their Law Minister proudly courts extremists to garner votes for elections.
Hundreds from amongst the ordinary came marching on the streets and roads against Raymond Davis gunning down two Pakistani citizens and for a dubious ‘Daughter of the Motherland’ but as corpses over corpses pile of the Hazaras, none speak up nor the ‘activists’ hold their famed vigils.
Is the nation only moved and it’s compassion and anger only evoked when America is the proposed guilty party?
It must be public knowledge to the citizens of Pakistan that these incidents of carnage aimed at the Shia Hazaras are not sporadic as they seem but part of an entire crusade (Note: The Shia Tooris of Parachinar, often slaughtered by the Haqqani Network members and other ‘Assets’ given refuge there) waged by sectarian militant outfits that are best-described as the subsidiaries of major terrorist organizations (in whose name and due to whom, the entire country has been struck by sheer devastation) and are under the auspices of the Establishment.
Which other nation should hold the importance of the lives, security, liberty and interests of the minorities highly than that of a country whose history bears witness that the threats to the interests and protection of the Muslim minority of Pre-Partition India was a central factor in fostering the struggle for its creation?
And today when the generations of that minority are a majority of the country – other minorities: the Shias, Christians, Hindus and Ahmedis are fraught with peril.
It is about time, that the proponents of Jinnah’s vision in this country, if any, come forward against the Establishment on all fronts and also fight for the rights of those whose only crime is being guilty of being a minority.
- Hafsa Khawaja
*Ironically, much of the non-controversial content in this post that concentrated on the lack of attention that the Shia Hazara murders deserved, was sent as three separate letters to the ‘News Post’ of ‘The News’ which they decided not to publish. So much for a free media
Let Us Build Pakistan
The Pakistan of today has found itself to be nothing but a wreckage of a country, a carcass of a state and an international outcast.
A tragedy brought upon itself by both; the sharp functioning muscle of the unofficial institutional dictatorship that aggrandized itself under four decades of military authoritarians and the Pakistani nation’s obscene obsession with easy acceptance of the exacerbation, denialism, dogmatism and preposterousness.
The very characteristics have been manifest in wake of the recent unleashing of organized and systematic bloodletting of the peaceful, educated and civilized community of Shia Hazaras in Balochistan by the associates of the Establishment’s ‘Assets’.
Carrying a history replete with persecution and torment, the Shia Hazaras have found little relief and difference between their past in Afghanistan and present in Pakistan; where they are the victims of various sectarian militant groups such as Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, that deem and decry Shi’ites as Non-Muslims. ‘Impure’ creatures that they are determined to completely exterminate from ‘The Land of Pure.’
A question might arise, why is it that blame for this bloodshed is ascribed as such to them.
Amir Mir writes in one excellent article of his on the predicament the Hazara Shia have been placed in and the militant sectarian groups:
‘The SSP and the LeJ, which is considered to be the military wing of the SSP, were once the strategic assets of the state of Pakistan and have linked with al-Qaeda as its ancillary warriors, killing Pakistani citizens and targeting the security forces to dissuade Pakistan from fighting the “war against terror” as a United States ally.
The LeJ today has deep links with al-Qaeda and the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban and is considered to be the most violent terrorist organization operating in Pakistan, with the help of its suicide squad. As with most Sunni Deobandi sectarian and militant groups, almost the entire LeJ leadership is made up of people who have fought in Afghanistan with the backing of the Pakistani security establishment and most of its cadre are drawn from the numerous Sunni madrassas (seminaries) in Pakistan.’
The fact that these terrorist organizations are the ‘ancillary warriors’ of the ‘elements’ that the Establishment cherishes and avails in pursuit of its detrimental ‘Strategic Depth’ policy in Afghanistan (The Policy, to put it simply, is constructed on the Establishment’s compulsive obsession with the theme and idea of India as the arch enemy of Pakistan and envisages a Pro-Pakistan Government in Post-Troop-Withdrawal Afghanistan that counters the Indian influence there and protects ‘Pakistani interests’.) naturally transforms their position to being ‘untouchable’, considering they are part and parcel of the deal – thus the ‘failure of intelligence and the forces’ when it comes to sectarian killings similar to that happening in Balochistan of the Hazaras.
While much has been excellently chosen, written about and posted about the grave issue on LUBP and a few other sites that have proven to challenge the distortions of the mainstream media and welcoming to topics that they either ignore or willingly twist and feed to the people with their vulpine cunning – this post aims to focus on the collective, institutional and national conspiracy of silence that was concocted after the slayings of the Hazara Shias based solely on a sectarian footing.
One can only wonder where the conveniently-free-media is when fatwas, pamphlets and declarations of hate and instigation of murders are circulated around in different parts of the country?
Where does their self-proclaimed ‘patriotism’ and professional magnificence vanish to when it comes to the intentional misrepresentation of the massacres that only helps to reinforce, what those under whose patronage the groups act, want the people to believe?
Why is it that only outrageuously sparse coverage is provided to the victims and their plight but hours of talk shows are wasted on futile discussions?
And the ever-eager-to-take-suo-moto judges? Are the Shia Hazaras Children of a Lesser God in the eyes of a so-called judiciary that is anything but independent, rather just another instrument of the Establishment for furthering their goals and ambitions?
Afterall, what can be expected of judiciary that releases butchers like Malik Ishaq on grounds of ‘lack of evidence’
The Government too, brazenly watches over the the whole community being pulled down into pools of blood of their own while the Punjab Government gives the very butcher, a montly stipendand their Law Minister proudly courts extremists to garner votes for elections.
Hundreds from amongst the ordinary came marching on the streets and roads against Raymond Davis gunning down two Pakistani citizens and for a dubious ‘Daughter of the Motherland’ but as corpses over corpses pile of the Hazaras, none speak up nor the ‘activists’ hold their famed vigils.
Is the nation only moved and it’s compassion and anger only evoked when America is the proposed guilty party?
It must be public knowledge to the citizens of Pakistan that these incidents of carnage aimed at the Shia Hazaras are not sporadic as they seem but part of an entire crusade (Note: The Shia Tooris of Parachinar, often slaughtered by the Haqqani Network members and other ‘Assets’ given refuge there) waged by sectarian militant outfits that are best-described as the subsidiaries of major terrorist organizations (in whose name and due to whom, the entire country has been struck by sheer devastation) and are under the auspices of the Establishment.
Which other nation should hold the importance of the lives, security, liberty and interests of the minorities highly than that of a country whose history bears witness that the threats to the interests and protection of the Muslim minority of Pre-Partition India was a central factor in fostering the struggle for its creation?
And today when the generations of that minority are a majority of the country – other minorities: the Shias, Christians, Hindus and Ahmedis are fraught with peril.
It is about time, that the proponents of Jinnah’s vision in this country, if any, come forward against the Establishment on all fronts and also fight for the rights of those whose only crime is being guilty of being a minority.
- Hafsa Khawaja
*Ironically, much of the non-controversial content in this post that concentrated on the lack of attention that the Shia Hazara murders deserved, was sent as three separate letters to the ‘News Post’ of ‘The News’ which they decided not to publish. So much for a free media
Let Us Build Pakistan
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