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| Now Pashtuns are raging Pakistan state | |
Farooq Ganderbali
Pashtuns are a fiercely independent people but have remained loyal to Pakistan. They could have chosen to follow the Baloch in demanding and fighting for independence but they did not. In return for their loyalty, Pashtuns are now finding out that the state to which they ceded to is now hunting them like terrorists or untouchables.
After the Baloch and Sindh nationalists, Pakistan state wants to subjugate the Pashtuns through violent means. For years now, Pashtuns have been subjected to highly biased regulations, kept out of the development paradigm and discouraged from taking part in the mainstream life of the country which they chose to adopt in 1947. But Pashtuns, like the Baloch, are not easy people to hoodwink or subjugate as recent events show.
The brutal extra-judicial killing of an aspiring model, Naqeebullah Mahsud, by the security forces in Karachi has sparked a storm among the Pashtun community. A long march of Pashtuns has landed in Islamabad where it has only gathered more momentum. The Pashtuns took to the road demanding justice for Naqeebullah Mahsud, end to what they call Pashtun genocide and cessation of all military offensives in the Pashtun homeland of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the tribal areas. In Islamabad, they had more reasons to be angry—the mainstream ignored them; the `long march` for justice for Pashtuns was no news. Tweeted the well-known Pashtun nationalist BushraGohar, a former member of Pakistan's National parliament: 'Blackout by media of today's huge gathering of Pashtuns in front of Press Club in Islamabad, demanding justice for Naqeebullah and end to State atrocities in FATA, has proved beyond doubt, freedom of media in Pakistan is a myth, a lie' .
The story Pashtun disaffection with the state could be gleaned from what young and old Pashtun leaders said at the Islamabad sit-in. A young Pashtun leader, Abdul Hai Wazir, was vocal and direct in his accusation. He said the enemy of Pashtuns was known to all, that was the military establishment of Pakistan. He called up on the Pashtuns to oppose the state-sponsored terrorism against their community. Several tribal elders from Waziristan, addressing the gathering, accused the Pakistan security forces of planting landmines and toy bombs in their homeland and killing children and animals. They said Pakistan was ``pursuing the policy of lies and deceit in war on terror, adding good Taliban have been enjoying safe havens, training and fundraising centres in big cities of the country, while the security forces brutalizing the innocent Pashtuns across the FATA, especially Waziristan in order to deceive the international community``.
The News International, an English daily, echoed these sentiments in its editorial (February 6, 2018): ``Those who have sacrificed their homes and their lives in the war on terror, have suffered bigotry and violence, have endured military operations and have been targeted by militants are today demanding justice. This is the very least they deserve.``
These are not random voices of anger and dissent but a collective cry of anguish from a proud people. Behind this rising anger is a recent history of betrayals and atrocities which began with the so-called on `war on terror` which the army exploited to earn billions of dollars from the west while protecting the real terrorists. The victims have been the innocent Pashtuns whose homeland, the tribal areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was turned into a battlefield by Pakistan Army.
In the `global war on terror`, Pakistan found a ready excuse to subjugate the proud Pashtun community. The army not only created sanctuaries for their loyal groups like the Haqqani Network and others but also began bombing tribal villages and communities in the name of wiping out terrorism. What began as a kill, destroy and demolish policy under General Pervez Musharraf, the systematic killing of Pashtuns and destruction of their age-old traditions and way of life was continued by successive Generals. The army was clear in what it wanted to do and how—it had the past experience of destroying the Baloch homes and villages although with not much success. The Generals not only deployed field artillery guns but also combat jets to pummel tribal villages, flattening several villages and towns. Since the media was banned from visiting these areas, it took several years for the truth to come out in the form of pictures of devastated hospitals, schools, colleges, roads, villages and houses across the tribal areas. The pictures resembled that of bombed Syrian and Iraqi townships.
The successive wave of operations, which were all claimed to be a success by Pakistan Army, drove hundreds and thousands of tribal men, women and children out of their homes, to distant places or refugee camps set up by the state where they were reduced to beggars. It was a systematic attempt was made to break the proud and independent community’s spirit. Those who were left behind, in their own villages and cities, became the targets of Pakistan Army’s brutal offensive. Several thousand were killed and all labelled as terrorists as Naqeebullah Mahsud.
There was another kind of offensive, more insidious, secretive, launched by the army in the Pashtun homeland—abduct all those who were raising their voice against the state, especially the army, detain them in illegal prisons, torture them, and in most cases kill them and dump their bodies. It was the repeat of the army’s `kill and dump` policy adopted in Balochistan to crush dissent and anger.
The sheer intensity of this policy can be gauged from the official figure of persons who are labelled as ``disappeared``, an euphemism for those who were abducted by the security forces. The latest figures of missing persons submitted to the Supreme Court of Pakistan in January this year show the maximum number from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa—867 and 61 from FATA ( 928 in all) , as against 270 from Punjab, 138 from Sindh and 125 from Balochistan. A quick glance at this figure would reveal that the number of `missing` persons in the Pashtun-dominated areas is far more than the sum total of `missing` persons from other provinces. There cannot be a more telling pointer to the gravity of the situation faced by the Pashtuns.
Well known journalist and editor of The News, an English daily, RahimullahYusufzai summed up the boiling anger among the Pashtuns: “Certainly, this kind of organised struggle for Pashtun rights, reforms and resources has not been seen in years and years. The people of the tribal areas have had pent-up feelings of resentment and anger at their treatment by the state for decades. Mahsud’s killing was just the tipping point.”
The Pashtun anger, and consolidation, is yet another pointer to the dysfunctional state in which Pakistan has been dragged into by an neurotic army and a feeble and corrupt political leadership.
(The author is a senior journalist and columnist)
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