The Pashtun Problem

On August 18^th 2009 Asma Jahangir, then chair of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, met with the US mission in Pakistan to brief them about an HRCP report. The report alleged that Pakistani military had engaged in public, extrajudicial killings of suspected Taliban & Taliban sympathisers in the Malakand Division, even referencing mass graves.

Jahangir confided in the US mission however that the more inflammatory incidents of abuse had been ignored by the HRCP so as to avoid arming the Taliban’s propaganda machine. She then asserted that the HRCP would have tried to downplay the abuse allegations if the military had used the “usual tactic” of extrajudicial murders; staged encounter.

A staged encounter is when security forces kill a suspect in custody and then claim he died in an exchange of fire with them, an “encounter”. Such as the one Rao Anwar conducted to murder “Taliban” Naqeeb Mehsud.

This Faustian bargain is at the heart of the trouble brewingin Islamabad right now. To understand the Pashtun grievance, and the ongoing protest, one has to examine how the war against Taliban has unfolded in the last decade, and how it has been covered.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan systemically targeted and eliminated tribal leaders within FATA, establishing their control over the region but also robbing it of leadership and voices that could represent the people there. The Pashtun nationalist party ANP was next on their hit list. They lost many workers and leaders to targeted attacks, Bashir Bilour the most notable among them. Their coalition partners in the KP & Federal government at the time, PPP, of course lost Benazir Bhutto to a terrorist attack.

This meant that when the military operations took place, there was no Pashtun leadership from FATA to protest or identify any abuses and/or profiling that occurred. The Pashtun nationalist party, ANP, & the PPP for that matter, had themselves suffered at the hands of TTP and pushed for military action. Little interest was shown in keeping the military in check.

Rights watchdogs, activists & liberal sections of the press were already willing to back abuses against the population of FATA, which happened to be largely Pashtun, if it meant ridding the country of Taliban. The HRCP’s willingness to downplay extrajudicial murders is only one example of steps taken which, coupled with the appalling state of journalism in the country, presented a distorted image of the war to mainstream Pakistan. One which was completely void of any abuses that the, again largely Pashtun population, suffered at the hands of the state.

The easily identifiable bits are the support for drone strikes & military bombings inside FATA, and the framing of opposition to them as being pro-Taliban. Yet there are other ways of shaping discourse.

Treatment & plight of the Pashtun IDPs, which numbered in millions, never could wade into the national conversation. The missing persons issue has largely been linked with Baloch separatists and is reported in that context. The number of Baloch missing persons cases HRCP could confirm in 2012 is 198, whereas the number of missing person court cases in PHC alone, in the same year, were over 2000. It’s an epidemic for Pashtuns, and it is never in the news.

Then there’s the misreporting about casualties. Over and over completely fabricated figures for the number of people killed by TTP are published. Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies compile the actual numbers by tallying the count from each reported attack in their yearly security reports. As of 1^st January 2018, 22,048 people have lost their lives in violent terrorist attacks. This includes lives lost in sectarian & separatist (Baloch) violence, not just the TTP. Yet you hear 45 thousand, 55 thousand, 60 thousand. A fetish for increasing the death count plagues our media. This is to drum up support for the war, to do what is “necessary”.

What is necessary here is military bombings, profiling and extrajudicial killings of suspected Taliban. For which there are no figures. There is no telling how many have lost their lives in bombings or encounters/custodial killings. Even though we know all that has happened, some cases are detailed in Amnesty International report “Hands of Cruelty”.

This comes back again to the necessity of dealing with the Taliban, and the firm belief of our military, rights watchdogs and the press that any information that could hinder that goal should not be shared with the public. The problem with extrajudicial killings in this war however, as it is constructed now, is that the murder you condone is of a “suspected” Taliban, but a confirmed Pashtun.

A Naqeeb Mehsud.

Karachi is where the line has been crossed from “necessary” evil to clear ethnically, politically biased crime against Pashtuns. The demonisation of Pashtuns in the city was started by the terrorist Altaf Hussain and MQM, who had a political interest in doing so and a history of profiting from ethnic hate. Much like when Trump banned Syrian refugees by linking them with “Muslim” terrorists, Altaf Hussain railed against the “Talibanisation” of Karachi by FATA refugees for years.

The difference was that unlike in the case of Trump, the press here were in the corner of Altaf Hussain. Another difference was that Altaf himself is a terrorist and the MQM, not the TTP, and certainly not the Pashtun refugees, are the biggest threat to peace in Karachi.

According to the Police, by end of 2011 alone over 7,000 people had been killed in ethno-political violence in the city. “Ethno-political” is code for MQM & PPP, who the press aren’t at liberty to identify. By the end of the same year the number of people killed in “terrorist” - TTP, AQ, LeJ - attacks in the city was 720.

It is true that TTP militants did find their way into Karachi and established operations there, but the first target killing credited to TTP came in the August of 2012, an ANP leader Amir Sardar. The results of the Karachi operation launched in 2013 show that they remained small players in that respect.

According to a Rangers briefing about the operation in Aug of 2016, they were able to fix responsibility for 7,224 target killings in the city. Only 557 killings were traced back to members of banned organisations; TTP, LeJ, AQ.

5,863 killings were traced back to members of the MQM.

Yet it is young Pashtun men that are bearing the brunt of extrajudicial killings in the name of fighting terrorism. Extrajudicial murders in 2014 were 925, and in 2015 were 700 in Karachi. Naqeeb is just one of 450 killed, majority Pashtuns, by Rao Anwar alone. MQM members, according to party claims, that have been lost to extrajudicial killings stands at 62.

You have to be dishonest to not see the contrast here. One organisation has gotten away with murder, with collusion or condoning by rights groups & the press, because they claim to represent an ethnic group.

One ethnic group has suffered at the hands of the state, with collusion or condoning by rights groups & the press, for the crimes of an organisation that doesn’t represent them. It is not difficult to see why the media is as uninterested as it is in covering the Islamabad sit in.

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: 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.

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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.