Balochistan(Part 3): The Politics of HR

In the aftermath of Sabeen Mahmud’s murder, actually right after the cancellation of the LUMS talk, a large number of people voiced anger against those trying to highlight state abuses in Balochistan. Mama Qadeer especially came under fire, but many people vocal about the issue were also accused of being traitorous, or at least of lacking patriotism, or colluding with separatists or, well, you get the idea.

The group under fire have expressed shock over the reaction they have faced. All they are trying to do is highlight basic, basic, human rights violations; human life itself. Human life, in theory, should be the foremost concern of every decent person, even in an indecent society.

In Pakistan however, that is perhaps too much to ask for.

As mentioned in part 2, an overlooked aspect of the Balochistan issue is that tactics employed by Baloch insurgents are similar to those that are used by TTP in FATA and KP. Another overlooked aspect is that the state’s security apparatus has also employed similarly abusive tactics in KP/FATA to deal with them.

The displacement of a population, like that of parts of the Bugti tribe, has been witnessed in South Waziristan. Also witnessed is distrust of the populace and delayed rehabilitation. The raising/backing of pro-government militias to fight the insurgents, as alleged to take place in Balochistan, is another common occurrence in the long fight against the Taliban.

There’s more. Amnesty International’s report in 2012, “The Hands Of Cruelty”, details some of the other abuses committed by the Pakistani forces in the tribal areas. These include abductions, torture, deaths in custody and dumping of bodies. They also include “enforced disappearances”, again, like the ones that have brought Balochistan into the limelight. If anything, the intensity seems to be greater, with the report noting 2000 court cases filed by 2012, compared to only 135 by 2015 for Balochistan.

In addition, the people in FATA and parts of KP face intensive artillery & aerial bombing campaigns in populated areas, villages and towns etc. These forced millions to move and caused unprecedented damage to property and, one would imagine, to life. “Imagine” because even though there are recorded instances of gunship helicopters firing indiscriminately, and mowing down everyone, in crowded main bazars, no figures of civilian deaths have been compiled by any organization whatsoever.

This is because their lives, or deaths, are not relevant to politics of any organization. Or any group. In fact, highlighting the above mentioned tragedies is considered, by most of us, as detrimental to the greater good.

Consider that, according to Wikileaks, Asma Jehangir & HRCP, when investigating HR violations in the wake of the Swat operation, actually covered up the military’s abuses. The rights body, that has been vocal on Balochistan, did so in order to “avoid arming the militants' propaganda machine”. 

Is it a secret that the establishment doesn’t want its abuses in Balochistan to be highlighted for the same reason HRCP covered them up in Swat? What happens when someone is intent on highlighting abuses another group would rather have swept under the carpet?

Let’s take the example of drone strikes. Not only a violation of international law, but also the purest, most arbitrary form of extrajudicial killings we have seen in the last decade.

Unlike in the case of missing persons, there are no arrests, no interrogations, no one is released. Drone attacks have killed roughly the same number of children as the number of enforced disappearances the HRCP could confirm in Balochistan.

Yet many that are appalled by the atrocities elsewhere have cheered them on. They have mocked protests against drone strikes with religious fervour and admonished the protesters as informers or supporters of TTP.

Is that at all different from what happened last month? The efforts to hide the truth about military brutality. The vitriol against those who protest. Only the roles have changed.

The same people who are willing to overlook abuses & attack dissenters in one conflict, for the greater good, can be at the other end of vitriol for highlighting abuses in another theatre. For the greater good.

This is the sad reality of discourse in our country. Around the world, peoples’ politics decide the HR causes they get behind. In Pakistan, our politics decide the HR abuses we get behind. 

Balochistan(Part 2) : A Disfigured Insurgency

The attack by Baloch separatists on labourers in Turbat last month was a timely reminder that there is more to Balochistan than the state’s high-handedness. The atrocities of the armed forces reviewed in the preceding blog-post take place in, and are part of, a two way conflict.

Mama Qadeer’s son, Jalil Reiki, was the information secretary of the Balochistan Republican Party, headed by Brahamdagh Bugti. Brahamdagh is also believed to control the Balochistan Republican Army and, alongside Harbiyar Marri & Allah Nazar Baloch, credited with leading the insurgency in Balochistan. All 3 are designated as terrorists by Pakistan.

The insurgency, which has often been romanticised because of the neglect of Baloch demands & general deprivation in the province, has sadly become increasingly problematic. To the extent that it displays a host of defining features of terrorism.

Take for instance the practice of killing settlers.

“I do not want to justify the acts of Baloch fighters but they say they only attacks spies and collaborators,” said Mir Muhammad Ali Talpur about the issue, a veteran supporter of the Baloch cause and another invitee of the cancelled LUMS talk.

History however suggests the “spies & collaborators” line to be an excuse for a terrorist operation. The TTP, for example, killed scores of alleged informants and tribal elders it saw supporting the Pakistani government in FATA.

Also, it’s not really true. As one former BSO-Azad member, now affiliated with the “independence movement”, explained, the separatists want all settlers gone. Actions speak even louder, and the tale they tell is clearly one of ethnic cleansing.

The attack that killed 20 labourers, settlers, recently was not an anomaly. Innocent settlers have been killed regularly for not being Baloch, including women. Baloch Nationalist leader Hasil Bizenjo puts the number of settlers killed by insurgents equal to his estimate of the number of missing persons; 2000. The Balochistan Punjabi Ittehad put it at 1,200 back in 2011.

The HRCP’s Balochistan head put the number at 1000 Punjabi settlers killed by last year. In addition they have been threatened and hounded out of Balochistan on a very large scale, 90,000 from Quetta city alone, leaving livelihoods and property behind. Having been all but driven out of the Baloch majority areas by now, only a few survive in Pakhtun dominated areas, or working under the watch of the security forces.

Like the labourers that were murdered earlier in April, who, to the surprise of many, included one's from Sindh. But those following Balochistan closely know that even Hindko speakers & Urdu speaking settlers have been a target for some time now.

The insurgents also go after other Baloch, “informants” obviously, but people seen as pro-Pakistan, even anyone going to contest in or cast votes for an election is threatened. It is often remarked that the Pakistani national anthem isn’t heard in schools there. Muzaffar Jamali, a principal of one such school, was attacked by the insurgents and his 10 year old son was killed in 2012, for allowing the singing of said national anthem.

This wasn’t a one off incident either. Schools, just like the TTP, and teachers in particular, have been the targets of insurgents all along. HRW’s report “Their Future At Stake” recorded killings of 22 teachers  by 2010. Attacks on schools were so rampant that government schools opened for only 120 days of the year.

Lastly, journalists in Balochistan are also threatened by the Baloch insurgents for favourable coverage, and killed when necessary. All security forces personnel & state employees are the more legitimate targets, including of kidnapping and execution style attacks.

The kidnapping & execution of security personnel is, as was the case with targeting schools, alleged informants or supporters of government, opposing figures and relative minority groups, a trait the Baloch insurgency shares with the TTP.

The insurgency is divided into factions that clearly don’t see eye to eye, and their quarrels have manifested in attacks on, and killings of, each other’s militants. Despite appeals for the militants to work together against the state, by Mr Talpur for instance, the divisions have not gone away.

Perhaps this can be explained by the different backgrounds of the people who have taken up the armed struggle. Hrybiar Marri is carrying on the long fight by the Marri tribal leaders against the state of Pakistan. Allah Nazar started as a political activist from the BSO, not a tribal sardar, and became increasingly more radicalized with time. Brahamdagh and his grandfather meanwhile had always stayed away from siding with separatists until Gen Musharaf encroached on late Akbar Bugti’s authority in Dera Bugti.

Whatever the case, these divisions add to an already weak insurgency. The military has outsourced the insurgent problem to the FC, a force designated for, and simultaneously undertaking, the manning the border. One which does not have significant military grade firepower. Yet, as Mr Bizenjo noted, the insurgents can’t defeat them.

What they can do is become a liability for those sympathetic to the Baloch cause with their many terrorist operations. 

Part 3 to follow..

Balochistan: Nature & Extent of State's Abuses

Sabeen Mahmud, described as a peace activist and founder of The Second Floor (T2F), was shot dead on Friday after hosting a talk on Balochistan. Her guests included the now infamous Mama Qadeer, who was also the most prominent invitee at an earlier talk in LUMS. That talk was cancelled after intervention by the state, or the ISI.

The subject she highlighted right before her death, and the manner of it, suggests unusual bravery. It also puts an onus on the rest of us to discuss it more. Obviously Balochistan is too complex an issue to encompass in its entirety, especially for outsiders. We can though look at the information publicly available about the missing persons, as well as the insurgency, to at least draw some basic conclusions. 

Mama Qadeer’s story is well known by now. His son, Jalil Reiki, was “disappeared” by state agencies and found dead 3 years later. One has to note that, appallingly, Mama Qadeer’s story is not unique. People in Balochistan - activists and those suspected of working with/being separatists - have been subjected to extra-judicial killings and disappearances for the better part of the last decade.

The number of such cases however is a contested issue, with a huge gulf between the claims by Baloch activists, HR bodies and the statistics of the govt. Mama Qadeer’s VBMP has always claimed the highest toll, which, according to the organisation, has climbed dramatically in the last 5 years.

Baloch Activists: 

In 2011 it was claimed by the organization that 8000 people had gone missing in Balochistan and 200 dead bodies had been found. However, they had complete data about 1,300. (In 2013, a US State Dept. Report noted that the VBMP had listed information on 2,627 missing persons.)

By 2012 VBMP’s claim of missing people had gone up to 14,385 and 400 dead bodies, an increase of more than 6,000 in one year. By the time of Mama Qadeer’s long march, VBMP had revised their figures to 18,000 and last month, April 2015, they increased it further to 21,000 missing, & another 6,000 dead. 

It is not clear what is the number they have actual data on at this moment. The International Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, an apparently separate organization working for the same cause, has provided names and general areas of residence for the people who have gone missing from Balochistan on its website. Their database has names of around 600 missing people. 

The Baloch Republican Party lists around 70 missing persons. Jalil Reiki, Mama Qadeer's son, belonged to the BRP. The oldest victim listed is from 2009, so the data is probably partial. 

State's Figures:

In terms of official bodies, the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (CIED) informed the Supreme Court that 982 missing persons had been traced in the last 4 years. According to CIED’s report 1,273 cases of enforced disappearances are still unresolved, with only 122 of them belonging to Balochistan.

The Balochistan Assembly was informed recently that 135 cases of missing persons are in court, while 80 had already been traced.

HR Bodies:

Defence of Human Rights, an NGO that traces missing people and has relatives of missing people included in its ranks, puts the number at 5,149. However their figure is of missing persons in the whole country, not just Balochistan.

HRCP have been vocal about the issue of Baloch missing persons, and HRCP’s IA Rehman was among the invitees of the cancelled LUMS talk. Two activists associated with HRCP are also among the extra-judicially killed in Balochistan.

The HRCP in its 2012 fact finding mission titled “Hopes Fears and Alienation in Balochistan” confirmed 198 cases of missing people in Balochistan. These include those released and those still missing, and there is some overlap with those whose dead bodies had already turned up. A full list with each victim’s name & status is provided at the end.

The word “overlap” is used because sometimes the bodies that turn up are not accounted for in the missing persons. For example, the report gives a breakdown of the disappearances in the Makran area. 148 cases of disappearances had come to the attention of HRCP since 2004, 103 of them had been released. However, 60 dead bodies had also turned up.

Perhaps these can be accounted for if we include the work of alleged “death squads”. In addition to the disappearances phenomenon, activists blame state agencies for raising and/or empowering “death squads”. Comprised of religious outfit cadres or pro-establishment Baloch Sardars, in some cases the two working in tandem, these are armed elements that seek out & kill dissident or separatist elements.

..................................................

Coming back to the actual number of missing persons in Balochistan, it can be observed that government figures, plus those of rights bodies, IVBMP and the inquiry commission all hover well below the 1,000 mark. The number claimed by VBMP, i.e. 21000, is not backed by most other resources available on the matter, not even by the documentation they apparently possess.

Similarly, the VBMP claim of 6000 dead is a significant climb from their earlier figures. It also offers significant contrast when put beside other sources. For example, Balochistan assembly was informed that in the last 5 years 612 dead bodies had been found in the province, 373 of them Baloch.

The IVBMP’s database on extra-judicial killings of the Baloch consists of around 210 names. Baloch Republican Party has names of around 100. 

According to data compiled by SATP, 153 dumbed bodies were recovered from Balochistan in 2014. This was much higher than the average because of discovery of 3 mass graves. The 2013 number for bodies found is 39.

It is not unlikely that a relatives of many missing people do not come forward, or those who have been released after being held & tortured don’t speak out, for fear of renewing their ordeal. It is though unlikely that such cases can account for a difference of around 20,000 missing persons, and 5000 dead.

P.S: There are undeniably thousands of displaced Baloch, largely from Dera Bugti. They fled fighting when the army & Akbar Bugti faced off, or have been expelled because the security forces believe them to be loyal to the late Nawab & responsible for sabotaging activities.

Part-2 to follow.

On Rigging

First, a few observations on the new narrative being constructed about rigging; specifically the ‘electiontribunals’ argument made famous by who appears to be Fakhruddin Ibrahim’s son. While many went gaga over it yesterday, this 'view' has been here for a month now. I first read it in a Dawn column at the start of last month, and in a Five Rupees blog the next day. Since then it has been furiously parroted by at least one PMLN guy on TV; the new Punjab law minister. 

The argument basically is that the election tribunals are working fine, with 78% (latest FAFEN report) of the petitions disposed of already. ‘Already’ and ‘fine’ here are obviously relative to which side of the political divide you are.

The tribunals are supposed to conduct hearings day-to-day and under no circumstances grant an adjournment of more than 7 days. They broke the law and granted adjournments of more than 7 days on 2,393 occassions. And 'already' it is almost a year after the stipulated time period for settling the petitions, with the new assemblies having served 25% of their term, and the process isn’t done. Next will come appeals in the Supreme Court.

More importantly, the disposal of these petitions doesn’t have as much bearing on settling the rigging issue as you would think. That has to do more with the manner of their disposal.

Consider that 26 petitions never made it to tribunals, 28 were withdrawn and 22 dismissed due to non-prosecution. By far the largest number, 126, were dismissed on technical grounds, these include some of MQM’s wonders in Karachi, and 30 were dismissed due to ‘unknown reasons’ (FAFEN tried and failed to obtain copy of orders).

Petitions which went to full trial and couldn’t be proved stand at 62. Petitions accepted stands at 24, with the most number of de-seated MPs belonging to the PMLN at 10.

62-to-24 is a pretty serious ratio. Make that 62-to-25 after another MP, again from the PMLN, was de-seated on allegations of rigging in PP-97 Gujranwala.

Additionally, even the petitions that went to full trial and couldn’t be proved include many where influential government figures held sway and recounts or vote verifications were never carried out.

Which brings us to NA 110. Khuwaja Asif’s victory here was challenged by the PTI as one of four constituencies where they demanded recount and vote verification. Video evidenceof PMLN polling agents stuffing ballots was also available.

Vote verification was never carried out. Instead, as Mr Ibrahim pointed, the tribunal found that the petitioner was non-serious. This example was also quoted in the initial five rupees blog, which sourced the two pages of the verdict from a defence.pk forum. Also available on the forum was the version of the petitioner, which has been ignored by both the initial blog and the recent article.

The petitioner claimed that he had in fact attended all hearings but the court did not grant the request for vote verification. Later when he travelled abroad with the consent of the tribunal, a hearing was set in his absence and he was declared absent and disinterested in said hearing.

So while vote verification, or even a recount, never took place, the official record for this petition will read “not proved in trial”.

The order in NA 110 by election tribunal apparently annoyed with adjournments from petitioner is dated May 12. On May 16, Speaker of the national assembly Ayaz Sadiq got his stay order extended against recount in NA 122. He clearly hasn’t annoyed any judge. NA 122 is the second NA constituency where the initial demand for recounting and verification was made.

A glimpse into this constituency is provided by vote verification in six polling stations of its provincial counterpart, PP 147. The record for the 6 polling stations showed that around 4,700 votes were polled here. However, only over 3,700 could be recovered from the bags. Around 700 of them were cast using fake CNIC numbers on the counterfoils.

The third NA is 125 with Khwaja Saad Rafique. The petition filed against him states that at the very least 15 polling stations in the constituency that polled at 100 percent should be opened up for verification. 15 different polling stations had a voter turnout of 100 percent. No verification has been ordered.

Voters in the area filmed and photographed Khuwaja Saad barging into one women’s polling station after the other, an upright police SP in tow. The current minister later claimed that he went to the polling stations because all of them, and these are his words, “were taken over by PTI women”.

In the storied history of Pakistani elections, this is the first instance an MNA and a police SP had to rush to different polling stations in order to liberate them from women.

There is another instance of a polling incident involving women & PMLN. In the by-elections after the 2008 election, PMLN workers and police barged into a women’s polling station. They grabbed the ballots from PML-Q women supporters. Before running away with the ballots, they beat the women, molested and “de-shalwared” them, as witnessed and reported here by Marvi Memon, current PMLN MNA.

The last NA constituency is NA 154. It saw Siddique Khan Baloch gain 40,000 or so votes overnight to beat Jehangir Tareen by around 10,000 votes, with rejected votes over 9,000. 2 days later his historic turnaround victory made sense when it was announced he would be joining the PMLN.

After a year of stays when recounting commenced the ballots were found infested with termites. Polling bags are supposed to be sealed after counting so no votes can be added or taken out. 80% were unsealed.

Overall, the three most common complaints in the election process have been:-

1)     ROs, who were judges, helping one party or another & fudging the vote counts provided by Presiding Officers, a la “typo”.

2)      Collusion of POs & polling staff with one party or another to stuff ballots, slow down women’s voting etc.

3)      Refusal to sign and hand over Form XIVs, polling details and vote count, by POs to polling agents. This can later to be used to tally with ROs counts. But only if you get it, get it?

In fact, according to FAFEN, 212 of the petitions that made it election tribunals levelled allegations of corrupt or illegal practices by the administration, election officials and/or polling staff.

This has different connotations for different areas. In Balochistan of course the military didn’t want Akhtar Mengal to win and large scale voter suppression, PMLN’s Abdul Qadir Baloch won by polling a whopping 7,000 votes, helped achieve that end. In Karachi the votes were going to the MQM or the polling staff were going to boris. Etc.

So who did it in Punjab, & how? Nobody talks about this for obvious reasons, but I am sure everyone in the know, knows. In the first week after the election bureaucrats in Lahore were telling anyone who would listen that Aslam Kamboh & Justice Ramday were the king’s men who did what was necessary.

The Election Commission admitted, and FAFEN pointed out, that they did not have complete authority over the ROs. The ROs are answerable to the courts and the POs to their relevant government departments, which for a large part happen to be the education department.

In subsequent reports FAFEN has recommended that the ECP should be empowered to suspend and take action against these public functionaries.

However, the damage in this election has been done. Perhaps stung after finding ‘radi’ filled in polling bags of Kasur, Aitezaz Ahsan is the first and only person I can think of who spoke about Justice Ramday & Justice Khwaja Sharif coordinating the activities of ROs on May 11, to the benefit of the winners in Punjab.

Some police officers were transferred from Punjab to Balochistan before Najam Sethi took office as caretaker CM, not when he was there. While Muneeb & Khwaja Saad will have you believe he shuffled around the Punjab government as much as humanly possible, he did forget to remove one guy.

Aslam Kamboh, who had been serving as Shahbaz Sharif’s secretary for schools since 2009, was accidentally & totally unintentionally allowed to remain in that position by future chairman PCB Najam Sethi during elections. No wonder POs, Gov school teachers, were so reluctant to sign Form XIVs. 

Nobody has publically taken his name so far, but the PTI have hinted at it lately, so he might come up before 14^th August.

Will it make a difference? Not likely. In a country where the caretaker CM of a province said on air that rigging took place & he wasn’t “allowed” to go outside on election day, in the same show where the anchor had ballots in his hand, people are still looking for evidence of rigging.

Evidence that can satisfy these people, and the Pakistani courts, is hard to come by. It is even harder to come by against the Sharif family. Affidavits against them by colluders in riggings past are not it, nor are admissions of money laundering, videos of their goons beating people or even audio tapes of Shahbaz Sharif influencing a judge.

There’s never any ‘evidence’ against the Sharifs.

While it's hard to match the resolve shown in not finding evidence against the Sharifs, people on the other side now have somewhat comparable views on rigging. With the ECP & judiciary already viewed as controversial, to say the least, vote verification by NADRA seemed the only alternative that could satisfy them. The whole episode with NADRA chief Tariq Malik, from his illegal removal by Nawaz Sharif to the current arrest plans, has put an end to that option. And while the court noted that Tariq Malik was threatened & put under pressure to resign, evidence against the Sharifs again eluded them.

Well, buckle up then.

Friends Like These

Is safeguarding the life and rights of religious minorities a responsibility of the government? In the context of Pakistan, present or past, it appears not to be the case.

So is the targeted killing and persecution of religious minorities actually a credit to the government?

If you follow a certain Mr. Faisal Raza Abidi, it would seem so. For wherever Faisal Raza goes these days, he wears the badge of minority rights with great pride and greater pompousness. It’s quite mesmerizing actually.

For instance, I was dumbfounded when I saw him invoking the names of dead Shia leaders, at the top of his voice, to batter an anchor into submission. The fact that these leaders had been killed on the watch of a PPP government that seemed not in the least bit interested, or bothered, about their life or death, was lost on Abidi.

I mean we have seen a lot in the last 4 years or so, granted. But vying for political mileage over dead bodies? That too of people you were sworn to and failed to, or didn’t want to, protect. I really cannot come up with an analogy.

You may ask what allows Abidi and company to get away this. How can they stand by and watch as their citizens are butchered and then shout about it on TV? Well, it’s the media. Or a certain section of the media.

This is the section that lays claim to the moral high ground more often than WAPDA cuts your power. They are the champions of free speech, of tolerance and are great friends of the minorities in Pakistan. They are also great friends of the PPP, but don’t say that out loud.

It’s peculiar how these mild mannered folk, who believe in tolerance and abhor abusive trolls, love the slightly less mild mannered Faisal Raza. It’s also peculiar how they oversee, everyday, what the PPP has done to minorities in Pakistan.

How? The “Deep State”. It remains the refuge of the PPP apologist. They hide behind it, pleading that their liberal party is helpless. They say the party’s hands are tied.

Yet there is much they don’t say.

They don’t say how there is more sectarian strife in the country today than when the military was directly in power, under Musharraf. They don’t say how the siege of Shia-Hazaras in Balochistan intensified under the current regime or how the PPP Chief Minister can’t even feign pity for them. Let alone the President.

They don’t say how this government has failed to control growth of sectarian outfits throughout the country, from Sindh to Gilgit to Balochistan. They don’t say that the PPP has failed to introduce stricter anti-terrorism legislation either. Apparently the Deep State wanted to do away with the third time prime minister clause instead? It also demanded public office holders be granted immunity from contempt proceedings.

It’s not that these people don’t have a voice. They speak ferociously enough, just not when the “secular” parties are involved. Suppose one “Sheeda Tully”, classy btw, was involved in forceful conversion of Hindu girls. Nusrat Javed might have spontaneously combusted on TV. It was though a PPP MNA, so he's safe. Similarly, imagine if an Imran Khan government were to incarcerate an 11 year old Christian girl on blasphemy charges. Now imagine Sana Bucha. Exactly.

The fact is, an ulema council has actually come out to support the girl. In the meantime former Prime Minister, upholder of the constitution and champion of the masses, Yousaf Raza Gillani has claimed credit for Bhutto’s Ahmedi achievement.

Still there is scant chance Muhammad Hanif will find himself in a seat next to the former PM on one of his travels.

None of these champions of minority rights will ask the PPP why they have been this inhuman, this unmoved and this complicit in the atrocities committed. They will instead write one harrowing tale after the other, each ending before the victims can lodge a complaint against their government. A government that not only abandoned them, it persecuted them as well.

It is however a PPP government, so that must not make it to the papers. It doesn’t need to, man. You wrote a vague story from a distant land, such bravery would put a lion to shame. You outdid yourself sire. Your best article ever, for the third time this week! Bla bla bla.

Young “jiyalas” don’t grow up to be unbiased commentators. A Radio only broadcasts its feed. Institutes don’t fund themselves.

There is so much this county has given to minorities isn’t there. And prominent among our many gifts - are friends like these.