Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Another Hazara Targeted in Quetta
Planned Extermination: Balochistan’s Shia Hazara Community
By Nadir Hassan 18 MAY 2012
Photo: AFP
You don’t need to travel to Balochistan to understand how it has been systematically separated from the rest of the country. There is a cell-phone company advertisement at the airport in Karachi showing off the breadth of its network. A thousand points of light illuminate most of the country. However, Balochistan is mostly shrouded in darkness.
It has now become a journalistic cliché for an outsider to breathlessly report on the diversity of a city and Quetta, Balochistan’s capital city, certainly is diverse. But what is truly astounding is how diversely militarised Quetta is. There is the XII Corps of the Pakistan Army stationed there, now headed by Lt Gen Aslam Khattak and moved to the city in 2004, just before the Baloch rebellion began. A base of the Pakistan Air Force is maintained at Samungali and the Frontier Corps headquarters in the province is also maintained in Quetta and headed by Major General Obaidullah Khattak. That the military presence in Balochistan has such a strong Pakhtun component is not coincidental, for reasons that will become apparent. In addition, it is hard to walk any place in Quetta that doesn’t have policemen from the provincial police force patrolling the streets. It’s as if Pakistan’s security establishment is playing the world-domination board game Risk and has decided the best strategy is to move all its pieces to one tiny area.
However, in the minds of locals, because of this overwhelming military presence, Quetta may be one of the most insecure places in the country. By now everyone knows that a separatist rebellion is exploding in the province; less attention is being given to an organised war against minorities in the province’s capital. The most systematic of these campaigns may be the one against its Shia Hazara community...Continue Reading..
Photo: AFP
You don’t need to travel to Balochistan to understand how it has been systematically separated from the rest of the country. There is a cell-phone company advertisement at the airport in Karachi showing off the breadth of its network. A thousand points of light illuminate most of the country. However, Balochistan is mostly shrouded in darkness.
It has now become a journalistic cliché for an outsider to breathlessly report on the diversity of a city and Quetta, Balochistan’s capital city, certainly is diverse. But what is truly astounding is how diversely militarised Quetta is. There is the XII Corps of the Pakistan Army stationed there, now headed by Lt Gen Aslam Khattak and moved to the city in 2004, just before the Baloch rebellion began. A base of the Pakistan Air Force is maintained at Samungali and the Frontier Corps headquarters in the province is also maintained in Quetta and headed by Major General Obaidullah Khattak. That the military presence in Balochistan has such a strong Pakhtun component is not coincidental, for reasons that will become apparent. In addition, it is hard to walk any place in Quetta that doesn’t have policemen from the provincial police force patrolling the streets. It’s as if Pakistan’s security establishment is playing the world-domination board game Risk and has decided the best strategy is to move all its pieces to one tiny area.
However, in the minds of locals, because of this overwhelming military presence, Quetta may be one of the most insecure places in the country. By now everyone knows that a separatist rebellion is exploding in the province; less attention is being given to an organised war against minorities in the province’s capital. The most systematic of these campaigns may be the one against its Shia Hazara community...Continue Reading..
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Saturday, May 19, 2012
The Buddhas of Bamiyan by Llewelyn Morgan – review
The story of two Afghan sculptures, destroyed after a millennium and a half
Samanth Subramanian
guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 May 2012
Afghan girls walk past the empty seat of one of the Buddhas in Bamiyan. Photograph: Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images
In 2001, in a violent attempt to advance the cause of Islamic fundamentalism, a clutch of men empowered by the Taliban brought down a titanic pair of structures that loomed over their skyline. No lives were lost. The few people living near the Buddhas of Bamiyan, in central Afghanistan, were cleared out first, before anti-artillery weapons were trained on the sculptures, carved out of the russet cliffs of the Bamiyan valley. "These statues have been and remain shrines of unbelievers," a February 2011 edict from Mullah Omar had proclaimed. Their destruction was carried out with a rare and perverse vim. Failing at first to pulverise the Buddhas, the Taliban called in Pakistani and Arab engineers to finish the job. In The Places in Between, Rory Stewart observed that the Taliban had scorched a fresco on the ceiling of one of the caves that honeycomb the cliffs and then stamped boot-prints over the patina of soot. "This must have taken some effort, as the ceiling was 20 feet high....continue reading...
Samanth Subramanian
guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 May 2012
Afghan girls walk past the empty seat of one of the Buddhas in Bamiyan. Photograph: Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images
In 2001, in a violent attempt to advance the cause of Islamic fundamentalism, a clutch of men empowered by the Taliban brought down a titanic pair of structures that loomed over their skyline. No lives were lost. The few people living near the Buddhas of Bamiyan, in central Afghanistan, were cleared out first, before anti-artillery weapons were trained on the sculptures, carved out of the russet cliffs of the Bamiyan valley. "These statues have been and remain shrines of unbelievers," a February 2011 edict from Mullah Omar had proclaimed. Their destruction was carried out with a rare and perverse vim. Failing at first to pulverise the Buddhas, the Taliban called in Pakistani and Arab engineers to finish the job. In The Places in Between, Rory Stewart observed that the Taliban had scorched a fresco on the ceiling of one of the caves that honeycomb the cliffs and then stamped boot-prints over the patina of soot. "This must have taken some effort, as the ceiling was 20 feet high....continue reading...
Friday, May 18, 2012
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Two Shia policemen shot dead in Quetta
Staff Report
QUETTA: Two police personnel, belonging to Shia sect, were shot dead and another two were injured in a targeted attack in the Sardar Karez area on Thursday.
Police said a police van was on a routine patrol when unidentified men opened fire on the vehicle in the Sardar Karez area of Eastern Bypass. Two officials, belonging to Hazara community, were killed on the spot and another two sustained injuries.
Heavy contingents of police and FC rushed to the spot and cordoned off the area. The bodies were shifted to the Bolan Hospital. The deceased were identified as constable Ghulam Murtaza and constable Sanaullah and those injured were ASI Muhammad Hussain and Constable Deen Muhammad. “It could be a case of sectarian killing,” a police official said. No group has claimed responsibility so far.
Balochistan Governor Zulfiqar Magsi and Chief Minister Aslam Raisani condemned the attack. A case has been registered against unidentified assailants.
Daily Times
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