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For Abdolhamid Sarawani, Behzad
Naroui and Ahmad Dahmarda
And now they stay tall shining in
history!
02-11-206
By G. Hosseinbor
At a time that everybody thought that the surrender of the Baluch people
have been completed and the submission of Baluchistan to tyranny has been
established, suddenly a large number of lions roared vigorously and broke
the silence. It was the music of their machineguns that awakened every body,
and today it is their execution that is reviving the spirit of bravery in
every Baluch all over the world.
Today every Baluch is feeling guilty for underestimating his own power and
strength and not doing the good things that he could have done but now all
of us are tapping in our inner resources to unleash the giant within us. The
Islamic Republic of Iran did not hung the three young Baluch but killed the
sense of tolerance of tyranny in every single Baluch. A Baluch who was ready
to tolerate tyranny and oppression yesterday, is not prepared anymore to
take nonsense from anybody. Now the giant has been awakened. The Baluch have
found the lion within themselves. They are breaking the limits and the
limitations that have been imposed on them. They are breaking the mental
barriers that have imprisoned them. They are seeking freedom. They are
seeking glory. The Baluch people will never be the same again.
There are always people who complain when the darkness comes and there are
always people who lit candles to generate light instead of complaining. Time
for complaining is over. Time for action has come.
The psychology and the mentality of the Baluch people are changing from
blamers to achievers. Everyday that passes we see that the psychology of
achievement is getting more established in the culture of the Baluch people.
The cultural of Baluch people has always been a culture of accomplishing
outstanding tasks and overcoming rough and tough conditions. The conditions
of Baluchistan are among the toughest in the world and this tough conditions
have brought up some of the toughest people in the world.
A people who have survived for thousands of years, it is their destiny to
survive for thousands of years to come. As it was the task of our
grandfathers to continue our survival, it is our responsibility today to
guarantee the well-being and survival of this generation and pass it to a
competent, confident and well-equipped generation of the future.
Millions of people have gone from this world and millions will come to this
world. But only a few are known and if you are remembered. Abdolhamid
Sarawani, Behzad Naroui and Ahmad Dahmarda will be remembered for ever in
the history of Baluchistan. They stay tall in history as their lives shine
light on thousands of young men who are prepared to make history.
History is in the making and no history for Baluchistan is better than the
history that is made by the Baluch people themselves.
G. Hosseinbor
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Posted on Wed, Sep. 27, 2006
Rumsfeld assistant accuses Radio
Farda of being soft on Iran
Today's topic: International
broadcasts
By Warren P. Strobel And William Douglas
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON - In another
indication that some in the Bush administration are pushing for a more
confrontational policy toward Iran, a Pentagon unit has drafted a report
charging that U.S. international broadcasts into Iran aren't tough enough on
the Muslim regime.
The report, a draft of which McClatchy Newspapers obtained this week,
appears to be a gambit by some officials in Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld's office and elsewhere to gain sway over television and radio
broadcasts into Iran, one of the few direct tools the United States has to
reach the Iranian people.
The report has circulated on Capitol Hill. It accuses the Voice of America's
Persian TV service and Radio Farda, a U.S. government Farsi-language
broadcast, of taking a soft line toward Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad's regime and not giving adequate time to government critics.
U.S. broadcasting officials and others who've read the report said it's
riddled with errors.
They also see it as a thinly veiled attack on the independence of U.S.
international broadcasting, which by law is supposed to represent a balanced
view of the United States and provide objective news.
"The author of this report is as qualified to write a report on programming
to Iran as I would be to write a report covering the operations of the 101st
Airborne Division," Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, chairman of the Broadcasting Board
of Governors, said in a statement yesterday.
Larry Hart, a spokesman for the board, which oversees U.S. non-military
international broadcasting, said that the radio and TV operations have
covered Iran's human rights abuses extensively and have featured appearances
by dissidents -- who sometimes telephoned from Iranian jails.
Surveys have shown that Radio Farda is the most-listened-to international
radio broadcast into Iran, Hart said.
Three U.S. government officials identified the author of the report as Ladan
Archin, a civilian Iran specialist who works for Rumsfeld.
Archin was unavailable for comment. She works in a recently established
Pentagon unit known as the Iran directorate.
Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, a Pentagon spokesman, said last week that the
unit was established this spring as part of a government-wide reorganization
aimed at better promoting democracy in Iran. He confirmed last night that
Archin had been asked to prepare the report. "It was meant to be a look at
how the program was working and to determine if it was an effective use of
taxpayer dollars," Ballesteros said.
Critics charge that the unit resembles the pre-Iraq-war Office of Special
Plans, which received intelligence reports directly from Iraqi exile groups,
bypassing U.S. intelligence agencies, which distrusted the exiles. Many of
the reports proved to be fabricated or exaggerated. Some of the
directorate's staff members worked in the now-defunct Office of Special
Plans, and some intelligence officials fear that directorate also is
maintaining unofficial ties to questionable exiles and groups.
U.S. government radio and TV broadcasting to Iran has expanded significantly
in recent years.
Some conservatives, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, have
called for ramped-up broadcasting aimed at overthrowing the clerics who run
Iran.
Veterans of government broadcasting say that not even during the Cold War --
with the exception of the 1956 uprising in Hungary -- did such news
organizations as the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty
call for the overthrow of adversary governments. Rather, they said, they
serve as sources of objective news and models of how democracies operate.
Archin's report states that while VOA's Persian TV service "often invites
guests who defend the Islamic Republic (of Iran)'s version of issues, it
consistently fails to maintain a balance by inviting informed guests who
represent another perspective on the same issue."
Hart, the Broadcasting Board of Governors spokesman, disputed that and said
Archin chose a handful of the 180 guests who appeared on the station's
programs during her period of study. Various viewpoints were represented, he
said. "Does that mean they're in full accord with U.S. foreign polices? No.
Those are two different things," he said.
Archin also wrote that Radio Farda, which is managed separately from the TV
service, recently hired journalists whose most recent experience was with
Iran's state-run news agencies. That is incorrect, Hart said.
Also incorrect, he said, is the report's contention that "neither station is
a primary source of news for Iranians."
A March 2006 telephone survey of 2,003 Iranian adults found that 13.5
percent of them had listened to Radio Farda in the previous week, compared
with 5.6 percent for BBC Radio and 4.5 percent for VOA Radio.
Archin also criticized Joyce Davis, the radio's manager in Prague, and said
she doesn't speak Farsi.
Davis, who worked in the Washington bureau of Knight Ridder, which has since
been acquired by McClatchy, declined comment. But colleagues said the
Arabic-speaking journalist is taking Farsi courses.
http://www.kentucky.com/
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IRAN IS A RACIST STATE
Peter Tatchell reveals Tehran 's secret
ethnic cleansing programme
Tribune – Labour's left-wing weekly
London – 27 October 2006
Iran is waging a secret, racist war against its Arab population. The latest
victim is Dr Awdeh Afrawi, a respected Arab Iranian psychologist and human
rights advocate. Despite a lack of evidence, he has been jailed for 20 years
– supposedly for bombing oil installations.
Dr Afrawi is lucky. Sixteen other Arab rights activists have been sentenced
to death. Found guilty of insurgency in secret trials before Revolutionary
Courts, none had proper legal representation. Human Rights Watch confirms
that lawyers for many of the condemned men “did not have an opportunity to
meet with their clients.” Most of the defendants were convicted solely on
the basis of confessions extracted under torture. Amnesty International says
two of those sentenced to die, Abdolreza Nawaseri and Nazem Bureihi, were in
prison at the time when they were alleged to have been involved in bomb
attacks.
Some of the 16 condemned Arabs recently had their sentences referred back to
the courts for reevalution, after their families staged vigils and
hunger-strikes that embarrassed the regime. But the rest are likely to be
hanged in the coming weeks.
The death sentences seem designed to silence protests by Iran 's persecuted
ethnic Arabs. They comprise 70% of the population of the south-west province
of Khuzestan , which Iranian Arabs call Ahwaz . Many Ahwazis believe the
activists were framed. Their real ‘crime' is campaigning against Tehran 's
political repression and economic exploitation of their oil-rich homeland.
More show trials are scheduled - 50 Ahwazi Arab activists have been charged
with insurgency since 2005. They are accused of being “Mohareb” or enemies
of god, which is a capital crime. Other allegations include sabotage and
possession of home-made bombs. No material evidence has been offered to
support the charges. All face possible execution.
In a recent letter to the chief of the judiciary, Ayatollah Hashemi
Shahroudi, one of Iran's leading human rights activists, Emadeddin Baghi,
said that the trials of Ahwazi Arabs were flawed, the charges baseless, and
that the sentencing was based on a spurious interpretation of the law.
Human rights groups confirm a new wave of repression against Ahwazi Arabs.
Ali Afrawi (17) and Mehdi Nawaseri (20) were publicly hanged in March, for
allegedly participating in insurgency. They were hanged using the
strangulation method, designed to cause a slow and painful death. Amnesty
International condemned their trial as “unfair.” They were denied access to
lawyers. The Ahwazi Human Rights Organisation (AHRO) says that seven other
Arab political prisoners were secretly executed in jail at around the same
time.
Tehran 's has recently stooped to taking Ahwazi children hostage. According
to Amnesty International, kids as young as two have been jailed with their
mothers, in a bid to force their political activist fathers, who are on the
run and in hiding, to surrender to the police.
Protests against these abuses are brutally suppressed. Since April 2005,
25,000 Ahwazis have been arrested, 131 killed and 150 have disappeared,
reports AHRO. The bodies of many of those executed have been dumped in a
place the Iranian government calls “Lanat Abad”, the place of the damned.
They are buried in shallow graves. Dogs dig up and eat the bodies.
Ahwazi political parties, trade unions and student groups are illegal. Arab
candidates have been barred from standing for election. Among those excluded
is Jasem Shadidzadeh Al-Tamimi, the secretary-general of the reformist
Wefagh Party and an MP for Ahwaz from 2000-04. He was barred from seeking
re-election in 2004 and his party was banned for attempting to express
Ahwazi concerns using lawful and constitutional means.
Ahwazis allege anti-Arab persecution by the Persian-dominated Tehran regime,
which they accuse of “racism” and “ethnic cleansing.” Other minority
nationalities face similar oppression by “Persian chauvinists”: Kurds,
Azeris, Turkmen and Baluchis. While the Arab League professes pan-Arab
solidarity, it does nothing to challenge Iran 's abuse of Ahwazi Arabs.
Tehran has a secret plan to resolve ‘the Arab problem' by making Arabs a
minority in their own land through ‘ethnic restructuring.' The plan is to
cut the Arab population in Ahwaz from over two-thirds of the total to under
one-third. It encourages ethnic Persians to settle in the region by offering
financial incentives, such as zero-interest loans, and by building new
townships to house 500,000 non-Arab incomers. Meanwhile, tens of thousands
of displaced Arabs have been forcibly relocated to poverty-stricken
far-flung northern regions of Iran .
Already, 250,000 Arabs have been uprooted from their villages following the
Iranian government's confiscation of 200,000 hectares of farmland for a
massive sugar cane project. Compensation was in some cases less than 3% of
the market value of the land, notes Miloon Kothari of the UNCHR.
A further 400,000 Ahwazis Arabs face displacement by the creation of the new
military-industrial Arvand Free Zone (AFZ) covering over 3,000 square
kilometres, along the Shatt Al-Arab waterway, which borders Iraq. Dozens of
Ahwazi towns and villages will be erased and their inhabitants dispersed.
According to the Iranian media, the British government has been involved in
discussions on investing in the AFZ.
Ironically, Lebanon 's Hezbollah – the supposed embodiment of Arab
resistance in the Middle East – is complicit in the displacement of Ahwazi
Arabs. On confiscated Arab land, Tehran has set up military training camps
for Hezbollah and for the Iraqi fundamentalist militia, the Badr Brigades.
Badr death squads in Iraq are assassinating Sunni Muslims, unveiled women,
gay people, men wearing shorts, barbers, sellers of alcohol and people
listening to western music. They are also killing British soldiers. Many of
the killers received their training in Ahwaz .
Ahwaz produces 90% of Iran 's oil and 10% of OPEC's global output. Tehran
expropriates 100% of oil revenues. A bid by Ahwaz MPs to secure the
repatriation of 1.5% of these earnings back to the region for expenditure on
social welfare projects was rejected in January 2006. The result? Ahwaz is
the region of Iran with the third greatest level of poverty. Half the
population are impoverished and 80% of children suffer from malnutrition,
according to an AHRO report to the UNCHR in 2004. The unemployment rate of
Arabs is more than five times that of Persians.
In a bid to crush Arab ethnic identity, Tehran has banned Arab language
newspapers and educational text books. Borrowing from the tactics of the
apartheid regime in South Africa , which compelled school lessons in the
oppressor language of Afrikaans, Tehran has made instruction in Farsi
(Persian) compulsory in Ahwazi schools. The result is a 30% Arab drop-out
rate at primary level and a 50% drop-out rate at secondary level. Illiteracy
rates among Arabs are at least four times those of non-Arabs.
Contrary to Tehran 's propaganda, the vast majority of Ahwazi Arabs reject
separatism. They want regional self-government, not independence. Nor do
they support a US invasion. This would, they argue, strengthen the position
of the hardliners in Tehran , allowing President Ahmadinejad to use the
pretext of defense and security to play the nationalist card and to further
crack down on dissent. Many Ahwazis believe the route to reform is an
internal alliance of Iranian democrats, leftists, trade unionists, minority
nationalities and local civic organisations.
http://www.petertatchell.net
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Federalism: the Only Solution for
Iran’s Minorities
17-11-2006
Daniel ِBrett
https://www.gozaar.org/template1.php?id=351
Individual citizen rights are
not enough-group rights are as important.
All Western democracies possess legislation to combat racism, but few have
the commitment to ethnic equality enshrined in the Iranian Constitution.
Article 15 allows the use of non-Persian regional and tribal languages in
the media and education. Article 19 states that “All people of Iran,
whatever the ethnic group or tribe to which they belong, enjoy equal rights;
and color, race, language, and the like, do not bestow any privilege”, while
Article 20 establishes the equal cultural rights for all. The Constitution
is an acknowledgement that Iran is and always has been a multi-cultural
society. Cultural equality is an Iranian tradition that dates back some
2,500 years to Cyrus the Great who similarly acknowledged the importance of
regional identity, ruling over a plethora of different cultures and kingdoms
through a system of autonomous satrapies.
While the Constitution may lay out commitments to equality, the reality is
far different for Iran’s cultural minorities. Iran has the dubious
distinction as being one of the world’s worst oppressors of minorities, with
ethnic groups one of the regime’s main targets. Atrocities against Iran’s
ethnic and cultural minorities occur on a daily basis.
Located in the geopolitically sensitive and oil-rich Khuzestan province -
called Arabistan by the Safavid in early 16th century and changed by Reza
Shah in 1936 to Khuzestan - neighboring Iraq, the Ahwazi Arabs suffer more
than most. The irony is that the regime preaches solidarity with the
Palestinians, funding the Sunni Islamist group Hamas with the oil wealth
extracted from land confiscated from Shia Arabs who comprise around 70 per
cent of Khuzestan’s population.
The treatment of the Ahwazi Arabs belies the regime’s professed solidarity
with the poor and dispossessed in the Arab world. Displaced from their
traditional lands and crowded into slums, the Ahwazi Arabs endure human
development indicators that fall well below those of the Palestinians and
the Iranian national average. Illiteracy among Ahwazi Arab men is around
50-60 per cent for men, higher for women, compared to 14-18% for Iran as a
whole and 4% for Palestinian territories. The average malnutrition rate for
Iran is 11% and in the Palestinian territories 4%, but in the Arab district
of Susangerd the level is around 80%. Unemployment among Ahwazi Arabs is
around 50 per cent, compared to Iran’s national average of 12 per cent and
30 per cent among Palestinians. Added to this are the lingering effects of
the Iran-Iraq War, with landmines continuing to kill and maim Arab farmers
and contamination from chemical weapons leading to high rates of birth
deformities. Levels of poverty among Ahwazi Arabs outstrip many African
countries: Zimbabwe has higher rates of literacy; Ethiopia has lower levels
of child malnutrition. Poverty has fuelled a sense of despair among the
youth, with a spiraling problem of drug addiction and suicide. Yet, these
African levels of deprivation are occurring in a province that has more oil
wealth than the UAE and Kuwait combined.
There is strong evidence that poverty is the result of institutional racism
that has recently escalated into full-scale ethnic cleansing and violent
repression. Despite constitutional guarantees of equality, Amnesty
International states that Ahwazi Arabs have “reportedly been denied state
employment under the gozinesh criteria. Many villages and settlements
reportedly have little or no access to clean running water, sanitation or
other utilities such as electricity … land expropriation by the Iranian
authorities is reportedly so widespread that it appears to amount to a
policy aimed at dispossessing Arabs of their traditional lands. This is
apparently part of a strategy aimed at the forcible relocation of Arabs to
other areas while facilitating the transfer of non-Arabs into Khuzestan and
is linked to economic policies such as zero interest loans which are not
available to local Arabs.”
In a visit to Khuzestan in July 2005, UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate
Housing Miloon Kothari verified the fact that land confiscation was been
conducted to set up housing and industrial projects that excluded the Ahwazi
Arabs. He said: “…when you visit Ahwaz…there are thousands of people living
with open sewers, no sanitation, no regular access to water, electricity and
no gas connections… why is that? Why have certain groups not benefited? ...
Again in Khuzestan, …we drove outside the city about 20 km and we visited
the areas where large development projects are coming up - sugar cane
plantations and other projects along the river - and the estimate we
received is that between 200,000 - 250,000 Arab people are being displaced
from their villages because of these projects. And the question that comes
up in my mind is, why is it that these projects are placed directly on the
lands that have been homes for these people for generations? I asked the
officials, I asked the people we were with. And there is other land in
Khuzestan where projects could have been placed which would have minimised
the displacement.”
More than 200,000 hectares of land owned by Ahwazi Arabs farmers have been
confiscated since the 1979 Revolution and given to the government sponsored
Sugar Cane Project, an intensive sugar cultivation project. Around 47,000
hectares of Ahwazi Arab farmland in the Jofir area have been transferred to
non-indigenous settlers and a further 25,000 hectares have been taken from
Ahwazi Arab farmers and given to the government-owned Shilat corporation and
government agencies. More than 6,000 hectares of Ahwazi farmland north of
Shush have been taken to "resettle the faithful non-indigenous Persians",
according to directives by the Ministry of Agriculture and the IRGC's
Command. In 2004, the homes of 4,000 Arab residents of Sapidar were
destroyed and bulldozed over in 2004 with little or no compensation to make
way for a shining new housing development for settlers from Isfahan and Fars,
enticed into Khuzestan with zero-interest loans not available to the local
Ahwazi Arabs.
Ethnic cleansing has been stepped up under the Ahmadinejad administration
with the creation of the 155 sq km Arvand Free Zone, a military-industrial
zone along the border with Iraq’s Basra province. Entire villages are being
eradicated to make way for petrochemical projects that will profit only the
ruling mullahs and their friends in the Chinese business community who are
investing heavily in the zone. The now banned Hamsayeha newspaper has
reported complaints from Arabs living on Minoo Island – where they have
cultivated dates for centuries – that agents working for the government and
the Arvand Free Zone are bullying them into selling their homes ahead of a
planned land confiscation programme. Mostafa Motowarzadeh, the Majlis
(parliament) member for Khorramshahr, has confirmed the problems facing the
farmers. He added that the Iranian authorities were pushing ahead with
acquisitions before the end of the official consultation period for the land
acquisitions.
Faced with such blatant discrimination, poverty and ethnic cleansing, Ahwazi
Arabs began mobilising around their right to equality. In 1999, taking
advantage of the modest relaxation of political repression under the Khatami
administration, Ahwazi Arab intellectuals set up the Lejnat Al-Wefaq
(Reconciliation Committee) to campaign for equal cultural, political and
economic rights. The group participated in elections and its general
secretary, Jasem Shadidzadeh Al-Tamimi, succeeded in winning a parliamentary
seat in the Sixth Majlis (2000-04) as well as winning all but one seat on
the Ahwaz municipal council in 2003. However, in the last parliamentary
elections in 2004, conservatives in the regime barred candidates nominated
by Lajnat Al-Wefagh. The group was dismantled, closing down legal
possibilities for demands for Ahwazi rights.
A ban on the party participating in elections led many Ahwazi Arabs to
conclude that they could not expect the regime to respect their
constitutional right to equality, leading to ethnic unrest. In April 2005,
Ahwazi Arabs staged an uprising against the confiscation of their land and
racial discrimination. The government of President Mohammed Khatami
responded by brutally clamping down on the demonstrators, leading to 51
confirmed deaths. The use of state terror has continued with at least 25,000
arrests and hundreds of killings, executions and disappearances.
Lejnat Al-Wefaq's former Majlis member Jasem Shadidzadeh Al-Tamimi appealed
to the government to accede to Ahwazi demands for cultural tolerance and an
end to racial discrimination and land confiscation. In an open letter to
President Khatami, he urged him to "do your utmost in lowering the 'wall of
mistrust' between the proud Iranian ethnicities, so that the 'infected
wounds' of the Arab people of Ahwaz may heal." In response, the government
detained Al-Tamimi, but released him without charge - although regime
hardliners have called for his arrest and he has faced at least one
assassination attempt. Dozens of Wefaq activists have been imprisoned and
many have escaped into exile. Many are buried at a place the government
calls "Lanat Abad", the place of the "damned people". The bodies do not stay
long in the unmarked graves, before they are dug up and eaten by feral dogs.
Relatives of the dead claim that they do not know where they are buried and
say they have not been buried in accordance with Islamic custom, despite
being killed by the Islamic Republic for offending the same religion by
opposing the theocracy.
In November 2006, the Ahwaz prosecutor’s office declared that the Wefaq had
been outlawed due to its alleged opposition to the Islamic regime and
encouraging communal violence. Anyone associated with the party is therefore
guilty of mohareb (enmity with God), which carries the death penalty.
Meanwhile, traditional Arab cultural events held around religious festivals
such as Eid ul-Fitr have been banned, with actors, singers, imams and
teachers among those jailed for mohareb and threatening national security,
while mosques and Islamic meeting centres run by Arabs have been closed.
The denial of constitutional rights is the surest sign that Ahwazi Arabs
cannot expect freedom and justice under the Islamic Republic. The question
is: what is the alternative? As yet, only a minority support pan-Arab and
separatist parties, but the failure the broader Iranian opposition to extend
solidarity to Ahwazi Arabs and acknowledge their plight and support their
cause is leading many desperate youths to support complete independence from
Iran.
The Democratic Solidarity Party of Al-Ahwaz has proposed a new
constitutional settlement that would enable Ahwazi Arabs to exercise their
cultural rights and enjoy some degree of control over the resources of their
traditional lands. The solution is federalism.
Many Iranians eschew such a concept, fearing that it would be the first step
towards their country’s fragmentation. The Balkans wars are cited as an
example of what would happen to Iran if its regional governments were given
a measure of autonomy. There is also the fear that local autonomy would make
Iran vulnerable to the kind of interference in its domestic affairs seen
during certain periods of Iranian history, notably by the British and
Russians during the Qajar dynasty and the Second World War and the Iraqis in
the 1980s.
The notion that Iran would balkanise with the introduction of a federal
democratic constitution is based on the supposition that Iran’s minorities
are inherently disloyal. It is, in fact, a racist belief that ensures that
the ambitions of regional-based ethnic minorities should be forever
repressed to ensure the integrity of the Iranian state. This attitude is
shared by significant sections of the Iranian opposition and the Islamic
regime itself. The ethnic oppression of Ahwazi Arabs also predates the
Islamic Republic and was a characteristic of the chauvinistic nationalism of
the Pahlavi dynasty. Yet, the majority of Ahwazi Arabs did not rally behind
Saddam Hussein’s call for pan-Arab unity, but rather fought and died in
their thousands against the Iraqi invasion. They have paid and continue to
pay a blood price for passing the loyalty test, but are still regarded as an
enemy within. It is clear to most Ahwazis that a constitutional commitment
to equality is not enough. Equality needs to be accompanied by the
devolution of power and a fair redistribution of wealth generated by the
abundant resources in their traditional lands.
There is no proof that federal states are any weaker than centralised
states. On the contrary, federalism allows regional authorities to contest
the central government within a constitutional framework, thereby
undermining the separatist cause. Federalism has enabled the world’s largest
democracy, India, to maintain its territorial integrity despite its huge
diversity of ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious groups and attempts
by neighboring Pakistan to inflame communal hatred and divide Indians.
Contrary to those who claim that federalism would lead to Balkanisation,
Yugoslavia is in fact a good example of where the centralisation of power in
the hands of those from a particular ethnic group can destroy a multi-ethnic
state. The Balkan region is a warning to those who seek to characterise Iran
solely in terms of Persian culture and language and centralise power in
Tehran. Serbian chauvinism, not federalism, was the ultimate reason for the
Balkans wars. Serbian domination of monarchist Yugoslavia fuelled separatist
sentiment that was exploited by the Nazis with the installation of the
fascist Ustashe regime in Croatia, leading to the genocide of Croatia’s
ethnic Serbs. The re-establishment of Yugoslavia as a neutral socialist
federal state after the Second World War led to decades of communal harmony.
But these were shattered by Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbian nationalism, which
sought to centralise power in Belgrade and reorganise the country’s federal
structures to ensure Serbian hegemony. It was ethnic chauvinism by the
leaders of Yugoslavia’s largest national group that led to the bloody wars
that devastated the Balkans, not federalism itself.
Yugoslavia is a warning of what could happen to Iran if its constituent
national minorities are not given the autonomy that enjoyed for centuries
before Reza Pahlavi’s rise to power. India shows that a stable democracy can
accommodate a diverse population like Iran if regional demands are
accommodated through federal power structures. Iran would be a stronger,
more stable, cohesive and peaceful nation.
For the Ahwazi Arabs, federalism and regional autonomy would enable them to
control their own affairs, protect their land rights and exercise their
cultural rights. The only other alternative to being crushed forever under
the weight of a militaristic centralised state is independence. Increased
oppression and continued social and economic marginalisation of the Ahwazi
Arabs will also generate the kind of extremist backlash seen in the Balkans,
but which has so far only been seen in a minority of disillusioned Ahwazi
youth.
-----------------------
* Daniel Brett is the Chairman of British Ahwazi Friendship Society
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The Shiite Zarqawi: A Profile of
Abu Deraa
By Lydia Khalil
November 16, 2006
The Jamestown Foundation
Depending on whom you ask, Abu Deraa is either considered a Shiite hero or
the Shiite version of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The legendary militant,
notorious for his brutal tactics and hatred for Sunnis, is known to operate
out of Sadr City, yet he remains a mysterious and elusive presence. He is
feared by many Iraqis because of his reputation for cruelty as a death squad
leader. The U.S. military has launched numerous operations recently to
capture or kill Abu Deraa, but have so far come up empty-handed.
Nevertheless, while Abu Deraa's fable is great, the facts on him are slim.
"Abu Deraa," his nom de guerre, means "Father of the Shield"; his real name
is Ismail al-Zerjawi. Other than his name, little else is known about him or
his whereabouts. It is believed that Abu Deraa was a refugee who came to
Sadr City from the southern marshes where he had worked as a fishmonger.
During the rule of the Baath Party, Saddam Hussein drained the marshes and
destroyed Shiite villages as punishment for their uprising after the first
Gulf War—this caused many Shiites, like Abu Deraa, to move to the Sadr City
slum in Baghdad. Abu Deraa is allegedly in his forties and is married with
two children.
Many of the tidbits of information on Abu Deraa used for this report were
gleaned from various Western and Arab news reports covering the practices of
Iraq's Shiite militias. The Iraqi media have remained largely silent on Abu
Deraa. He has granted no interviews nor released any statements to the Iraqi
or foreign press, preferring to remain elusive and have his legend speak for
itself. Any member of the Iraqi press that conducts too many inquiries about
Abu Deraa would likely suffer a fate similar to his victims. His associates
and the Shiites he lives amongst are protective of him.
Until recently, his appearance was disputed, but oddly enough a video clip
surfaced of him on the popular file-sharing website YouTube (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV1qA_4v6u8).
Short, stocky and bearded, Abu Deraa is pictured feeding a baby camel. His
bodyguards were reported as saying that the video of Abu Deraa and the camel
was a message to Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi. According to his
bodyguards, when Abu Deraa captures and kills al-Hashemi, he will sacrifice
this new camel. The accuracy of the video cannot be confirmed.
Abu Deraa's Operations
Iraqi Sunnis accuse Abu Deraa of killing thousands of Sunnis, not just
political figures and militant Salafists, but ordinary civilians as well.
One of his associates recounted to an Australian newspaper how Abu Deraa
lured Sunni men to their deaths. The associate explained how Abu Deraa
commandeered a fleet of ambulances and drove them into a Sunni neighborhood
in Baghdad calling on all young men to come and give blood, announcing on a
loud speaker that "the Shiites are killing your Sunni brothers" (The Age,
August 22). The young men went to the ambulances and were trapped and
killed. According to one of the many rumors circulating around the country,
Abu Deraa offers his victims a choice in their murder—suffocation, shooting
or being smashed to death with cinder blocks. Many of the murdered victims
have been found in the al-Seddah sector of Sadr City, an area which Iraqis
have nicknamed the "Happiness Hotel." Victims are found in shallow graves,
many with signs of torture.
Yet Abu Deraa has also captured and killed high-value targets. A video
recorded on a telephone camera and circulated in Shiite areas shows a man
believed to be Abu Deraa conducting the kidnapping and assassination of
Saddam Hussein's lawyer Khamis al-Obeidi. The video shows al-Obeidi emerging
from a private residence, where he was undergoing interrogation, into a
narrow alleyway. Al-Obeidi pleaded with his captors on the video, saying
that he would lie beneath their feet and do whatever they wanted. Abu Deraa
then tied al-Obeidi's hands behind his back and placed him in the back of a
white Toyota pickup truck. Al-Obeidi was paraded through Sadr City, where
the crowd threw stones at him and taunted him with Shiite slogans. He was
hit on the back of the neck, an extreme insult in Arab culture. After being
paraded through the slum, the vehicle stopped and Abu Deraa fired three
shots into al-Obeidi's skull (The Age, August 22). Abu Deraa is also thought
to be responsible for the July abduction of female Sunni MP Tayseer Najah
al-Mashhadani. Unlike al-Obeidi, she is still believed to be alive.
The Sunni leadership is understandably nervous. Last summer, an anonymous
letter was distributed to Sunni mosques in Baghdad, titled "The Reaper of
al-Rusafa." It warned Sunnis living in the area about Abu Deraa. The letter
reads, "His name is Abu Deraa and he is a professional killer who is not any
less dangerous than al-Zarqawi…Some of the Sadr City police force works
under his command and under the command of other forces from Moqtada al-Sadr…Everyone
in Sadr City knows this madman but they do not say his name; it is whispered
in Sadr City when they wake up to the news of the blindfolded dead bodies
thrown out at al-Seddah…which the Interior Ministry officially made as a
place for Abu Deraa's victims."
Connections to Shiite Militias
Reportedly, Abu Deraa was a forger during Saddam's rule, but he now makes
his living doing the dirty work of Shiite militias and political parties,
whose leadership publicly disavow him. His connection to Moqtada al-Sadr's
Mahdi Army is unclear. He may have, at one point, taken orders from al-Sadr,
or alternatively played up his connection to the Mahdi Army for his own
legitimacy and standing within the Shiite community. Either way, he is most
likely now working as a free agent whose actions are publicly denounced by
the Shiite leadership but who privately are not altogether unhappy about the
"justice" he is inflicting on the Sunni community. Since he mostly operates
out of Sadr City and neighboring Shula, he must have at least the tacit
approval of al-Sadr since the latter's organization regulates human traffic
in the entire area (al-Sharqiyah, November 3).
Abu Deraa has mostly been associated with the al-Sadr trend, but it is also
rumored that he is supported by Iran (Tehran, not knowing who will emerge as
the dominant Shiite group in Iraq, has been supporting all of the Shiite
parties). It is also possible that he is supported in some way by the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a powerful party
within the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA). SCIRI and the Mahdi Army are rival
Shiite groups that are competing for dominance in the UIA. SCIRI has a
powerful backer in Iran and is a strong proponent of federalism based on
three large regional blocs. SCIRI's power base is mostly in southern Iraq,
while al-Sadr is more powerful in Baghdad. Al-Sadr is a nationalist and is
opposed to the strong federalization of Iraq. Although he has recently
flirted with Iran, his group's connection to Iran is not anywhere near as
strong as is SCIRI's.
Yet, where does Abu Deraa fit into this picture? There is much confusion
about the labyrinth of connections and competing interests among Shiite
political parties and Abu Deraa is a piece of that puzzle. Abu Deraa is
married to the sister of Hadi al-Amari, the SCIRI Badr Corps commander
(author interview, senior Iraqi advisor, November 6). It is not altogether
clear what other connection between Abu Deraa and SCIRI exists beyond family
ties, but it is safe to assume that the SCIRI's Badr Corps commander is at
least aware of Abu Deraa's actions and whereabouts. SCIRI has publicly
condemned the sectarian killings conducted by Shiite gangs and militias,
despite incidents committed by their own Badr Corps. It is in SCIRI's
interest to have Abu Deraa associated with the Mahdi Army. This connection
damages the Mahdi Army's and Moqtada al-Sadr's reputation by associating
them with such a ruthless figure. It also keeps the political heat on al-Sadr
and the Mahdi Army and away from SCIRI. SCIRI is also aware that the U.S.
military has been intent on capturing or killing Abu Deraa, and it has not
raised any public criticism against these operations.
Nevertheless, for both al-Sadr and SCIRI, Abu Deraa is a useful tool because
he remains a disposable one. If he is killed or captured, as will likely
happen sooner or later, he will have served his purpose in avenging Shiite
deaths without tainting the more established political parties, especially
SCIRI and Da'wa. For Moqtada al-Sadr, it is in his interests to maintain a
murky connection to the death squad leader. The Shiite community applauds
Abu Deraa's actions against their former oppressors, making it important for
al-Sadr to appear on Abu Deraa's side; at the same time, al-Sadr must
distance himself from Abu Deraa's distasteful methods so as not to damage
his growing political reputation.
Al-Sadr understands that the U.S. military seeks to capture or kill Abu
Deraa. He has calculated that it is not in his interests to stick out his
neck for Abu Deraa and has ordered his followers to avoid confrontation with
U.S. troops in Sadr City. Al-Sadr's spokesman said on al-Sharqiyah
television on November 3 that "Al Sayed Moqtada al-Sadr and the jihadist al-Sadr
trend distance themselves from the deeds that were committed, and are being
committed, and which are attributed to the al-Sadr trend."
Abu Deraa has been reportedly pushed further and further out of Sadr City.
Previously based out of the Lost 70's area of Sadr City—a desolate, largely
abandoned area of the poor slum—military operations have forced him to go to
the al-Amin district, according to some sources. Others have even speculated
that Abu Deraa crossed the eastern border into Iran. Military forces
conducted two recent raids targeting Abu Deraa, one in July and most
recently on October 25. He escaped in both instances, but in October his son
and an associate were killed (al-Jazeera, October 30). Abu Deraa may be able
to evade capture for a period of time, but the pressure on him is intense.
That same pressure is also on his tacit Shiite backers. Nevertheless, the
established Shiite parties, particularly al-Sadr's movement, are still
unwilling to take action against him. Al-Sadr, for example, recently
released a list of blacklisted members of his party and individuals he
claims are acting on his behalf but are not associated with the Mahdi
Army—Abu Deraa is not on that list.
Conclusion
Abu Deraa, however, is only a small part of the larger issue facing Iraq—the
splintering of militia groups into uncontrollable gangs. The Mahdi Army may
have unleashed Abu Deraa and others like him, but now they are unable to
rein him back in, even if they had the will to do so. This development is a
serious threat to al-Sadr. Al-Sadr's movement is considered the only
legitimate, national, grassroots movement to have emerged out of Iraq since
the fall of Saddam Hussein. Having criminal gangs and individuals like Abu
Deraa not only associated, but uncontrolled by al-Sadr, marks a serious
danger to his legitimacy. If this trend continues, then Moqtada al-Sadr will
no longer be viewed as an Iraqi nationalist, but as another partisan Shiite
leader beholden to Iran.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Geostrategic Implications of
the Baloch Insurgency
By Tarique Niazi
November 16, 2006
The Jamestown Foundation
Pakistan continues to grapple with insurgent violence in its southwestern
province of Balochistan, which is bounded by the country's tribal belt in
the northwest, Afghanistan in the north and Iran in the west. In the
northwest, Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has also
been a hotbed of violence, where Taliban militants have humbled Pakistan's
otherwise unbeatable armed forces in a three-year active conflict. On
November 8, they dealt the Pakistan Army the deadliest blow yet, in which 42
soldiers were killed in one strike. Similarly, Afghanistan to the north
continues to simmer with the Taliban's violent attacks that have registered
a four-fold increase from 130 a month last year to 600 a month since the
September 5 Pakistan-Taliban peace deal in North Waziristan (Dawn, November
13). The Taliban are alleged to have some operational bases in Balochistan,
in addition to those in Pakistan's tribal north. In the west,
Sistan-Balochistan, also known as western Balochistan, is up in arms against
the Iranian government. On December 15, 2005, a daring assassination bid was
mounted against a motorcade of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad on the
Zabul-Saravan Highway, in which one of his bodyguards was killed (Terrorism
Monitor, February 23). Pressure is, therefore, mounting on Islamabad to
solve the situation in Balochistan before it spirals out of control.
Pakistan's Military
Buildup in Balochistan
Pakistan has been watchful of Balochistan's violent surroundings, especially
since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, which delivered Kabul from the
Taliban's dogmatic theology and strict social order. Yet the Taliban,
however repugnant, were Pakistan's guardians of its northwestern frontier
with Afghanistan and its southwestern border with Iran, freeing up
Pakistan's military resources to allow it to fortify its eastern border with
India. Since the Taliban's toppling in 2001, Pakistan feels that its western
border is now exposed to "hostile intentions." It has since moved fast to
build up its military presence in Balochistan, planning a host of garrisons
all across the province, especially in its resource-rich, but
Islamabad-wary, bits of Dera Bugti, Kohlu and Khuzdar.
In parallel with army establishments, Pakistan, for the first time, began to
build naval defenses in Balochistan to safeguard its nearly 1,000-kilometer
coastline. One such defense installation is the Jinnah Naval Base at Ormara,
which is the Pakistan Navy's (PN) second-largest base after its flagship
naval port in Karachi. The Jinnah Naval Base has displayed Balochistan's
paramount naval importance that has long been envied by regional powers,
including the former Soviet Union and India. Yet the Jinnah Base is
ancillary to the development of Pakistan's ultimate naval defenses in
Balochistan's coastal town of Gwadar, which sits along the Arabian Sea
coast. Pakistan, in collaboration with China, is building one of the world's
largest deep seaports in Gwadar. General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's
president, and the visiting Chinese Vice Premier Wu Bangguo laid the
foundation of the Gwadar Port on March 22, 2002, exactly four months after
the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan (China Brief, February 15, 2005). The
first two phases of the $1.6 billion port has since been completed.
Musharraf will visit it on November 16, ahead of Chinese President Hu
Jintao's visit to Islamabad on November 23.
The Baloch, who are weakly represented in the military government in
Islamabad, were opposed to the planned militarization of their province and
"colonization of their natural resources," which include 29 trillion cubic
feet of natural gas, six billion barrels of oil and about a 1,000-kilometer
coastline (Terrorism Focus, September 6). They raised their voice against
Islamabad's moves to "occupy their land." Islamabad dismissed them as
"miscreants," "saboteurs" and "terrorists," responding with a large-scale
military deployment to crush opposition. The conflict that ensued pushed
Oxford-educated Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, who was internationally
acclaimed as a statesman, especially in neighboring Afghanistan, Central
Asia, the Middle East, India and Iran, to become involved. Nawab Bugti first
called on his political reserves to persuade Islamabad against advancing on
Balochistan's constitutionally protected "provincial autonomy." He, instead,
offered a negotiated settlement of the dispute over appropriation of
Balochistan's natural resources by reconciling federal claims of "eminent
domain" with constitutionally protected "provincial autonomy." Islamabad
agreed. Two parliamentary committees were formed to work out a settlement
(Daily Times, July 31, 2005). When one of the committees announced its
recommendations, Musharraf did not accept them and turned to military means
to resolve the conflict.
Nawab Bugti's
Assassination and its Aftermath
Early this year, government troops targeted Nawab Bugti in his house with
artillery fire, in which he escaped unhurt (Terrorism Focus, September 6).
He then collected his followers and took to living in the mountains, which
is a centuries-old Baloch tradition of protest, called "pariris" (i.e., when
all avenues of peaceful resolution of grievances are exhausted, violence
becomes justified). On August 24, an intercepted telephone call tracked him
to his mountain retreat (The News, August 27). For three days, a fierce
battle raged which killed him and 21 Pakistan Army commandoes (The News,
August 31). On September 1, when he was laid to rest, most of Pakistan
(except for central Punjab province) was shut down to mourn his passing and
to protest his assassination. The "official" Pakistan, however, was jubilant
after eliminating its chief antagonist.
Within hours of Nawab Bugti's assassination, reality began to sink in for
Islamabad. The backlash to his murder swept the country and shook the
government. Many government leaders, except Musharraf, publicly grieved for
the slain Nawab. Most importantly, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whose
power base is the majority province of Punjab, called Musharraf a "killer" (PakTribune,
August 28). As the Punjab dominates Pakistan's civil and military
establishment, Sharif's outrage resonated with the country's elite. Above
all, Punjab is the largest beneficiary of the federation, which
instinctively makes it wary of centrifugal forces, especially since the fall
of East Pakistan in 1971, which became the independent country of
Bangladesh. Similarly, retired military leaders, who generally echo the
views of serving officers, unanimously condemned the assassination and
feared that "another East Pakistan is in the making." They rejected the
military solution to the insurgency in Balochistan and urged Musharraf to
make peace with Baloch nationalists. Musharraf took their counsel, but in
reverse. Within 10 days of Nawab Bugti's assassination, he signed a peace
deal with the Taliban in North Waziristan on September 5 (Terrorism Monitor,
October 5). Observers find it ironic to see Musharraf cut his losses and run
from the tribal north, leaving it in the hands of the retrogressive Taliban,
only to crush a progressive nationalist movement in Balochistan, which is
allied with the democratic federal forces, such as the Pakistan People's
Party (PPP) of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
In doing so, he played on the military's general apprehension about the weak
defenses in Balochistan, where the overwhelming majority of the Baloch and
Pashtun population identify themselves with their own "Vatan" (i.e., native
land of Balochistan) rather than with "Pakistan." This apprehension was
amplified by the growing Indian presence in Afghanistan, Iran and Tajikistan
since the removal of the Taliban government in Kabul. Pakistan blamed Indian
consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar in Afghanistan, and Zahedan in Iran,
for insurgent violence in Balochistan (Terrorism Monitor, May 18). Pakistan
specifically accused India of training and arming the militants of the
Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) for sabotage in the province. In the same
vein, Pakistan accused Afghanistan of being India's conduit for cash flow
and military supplies to the BLA (Terrorism Monitor, May 18). Yet, what
unnerved Islamabad the most was India's military buildup next door in Iran
and Tajikistan. In Iran, it was building the Chahbahar Port to rival the
Gwadar deep seaport that came to symbolize the summit of the Sino-Pakistan
strategic partnership. As a major power of the Indian Ocean, India's move
into the Persian Gulf caused deep unease in Islamabad. Pakistan had not yet
come to terms with the Indian presence in Iran, especially when it
discovered that New Delhi was building an airbase in Tajikistan, which is
its second base on foreign soil after its base in Sri Lanka (Terrorism
Monitor, May 18). This base can bring northwestern and southwestern Pakistan
(the tribal north and Balochistan) under India's air cover.
Balochistan in Revolt
The internal dynamics in Balochistan, especially after the slaying of Nawab
Bugti, became all the more dangerous for federal unity. At the Nawab's
funeral in Quetta on August 29, hundreds of youth tore down a portrait of
Pakistan's founding father Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who is revered in the
country so much as to be mentioned only by his title of Quaid-i-Azam (The
Great Leader). In Karachi, which is home to two million Balochs, protesters
ripped the Pakistani flag off a wedding hall and dragged it through the
streets while stomping on it before they set it on fire (Reuters, August
27). Such expressions of outrage were simply unheard of in Pakistan. Many
ignored these outbursts as spontaneous venting of grief until the Baloch
National Jirga met in Quetta on September 21, and called for revisiting the
accession of Balochistan to Pakistan (The News, October 16). The jirga,
which was convened for the first time in 130 years, moved the International
Court of Justice (ICJ) to help end Pakistan's occupation of Balochistan (The
News, October 16). Earlier, the Balochistan National Party (BNP), a major
nationalist grouping, resigned its seats in provincial and federal
legislatures, dismissing them as no longer relevant. These events left most
Pakistani shaken and unsure of Balochistan's future in a federal Pakistan.
Musharraf further shocked them with his blunt admission on October 23 that
the "federation is weaker today than it was seven years before" when he came
to power (The Nation, October 24). Earlier, he rushed his prime minister to
Balochistan on October 13-14 to rally Baloch sardars for a pro-government
Baloch jirga, which he called in Islamabad on November 8 to counter the
Baloch National Jirga; the latter jirga was described as the most
devastating fallout of Nawab Bugti's assassination (The News, October 16).
The prime minister's two-day visit only revealed that no notable Baloch
sardar was willing to attend the pro-government jirga, although Musharraf
claims to have the support of 72 out of 75 Baloch sardars (The Nation,
November 13). With this revelation, the government dropped the idea of the
jirga, and instead decided to have "tribal elders" meet Musharraf in Gwadar
when he visits the deep seaport there on November 16 (Dawn, November 4; The
Nation, November 13).
Conclusion
Balochistan's strategic significance and natural endowment makes it a
critical province for Pakistan. Strategically, Balochistan bridges Central,
South, Southeast and East Asia on one end, and Central Asia, the Persian
Gulf and the Middle East on the other. Regional states, especially India,
cannot reach the energy and trade markets of the Caspian Sea region without
transit through Balochistan, which Pakistan denies to India despite repeated
pleas on New Delhi's behalf by Washington. India absorbs punitive freight
costs by routing its trade goods through the Persian Gulf and the Middle
East, even for shipments to Afghanistan. Since 2001, New Delhi has made
great strides in reaching out to Baloch leaders, whose National Jirga has
now made it a party to the arbitration of their "Accession to Pakistan Pact"
in the ICJ (The Nation, November 13).
India is also wary of the Sino-Pakistan naval port on the Arabian Sea, which
has raised Beijing's profile in the Indian Ocean. India is even more
concerned over Taliban-inspired "militant groups" who operate in
Indian-administered Kashmir. As the Taliban are widely believed to have
their operational bases in Balochistan, they equally worry India's allies in
the region, especially Afghanistan and Iran. Afghanistan resents Pakistan's
patronage of the Taliban, which have become the largest threat to its
stability since their regrouping in 2003. Iran is also unhappy with
Islamabad's policy toward the Taliban due to the group's anti-Shiite
theology and the subversive operations of the Taliban's allies, such as
Jandallah, in Iran's Sunni-dominated province of Sistan-Balochistan.
Besides these external dynamics, Pakistan is not helping its cause either
with its continued military repression of the Baloch national movement, the
latest manifestation of which is the alleged abduction by its security
forces of 6,000 Baloch youth who have been kept in illegal detention for
years (The Nation, November 8). Although none of Pakistan's neighboring
countries threatens Pakistan's integrity, every Pakistani's worst fear,
however, is that Islamabad's repressive push in Balochistan will cause the
province to revisit their accession to Pakistan.
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Current Baloch resistance differs
from the past
By Khalid Hasan
19-11-2006
WASHINGTON: Islamabad faces a
unified nationalist movement in Balochistan under younger leadership drawn
not only from tribal leaders but also from an emergent, literate Baloch
middleclass that did not exist three decades ago, according to noted area
expert Selig S Harrison.
Writing in Le Monde Diplomatique, the former Washington Post correspondent,
who is known for his harsh judgments on Pakistan and its relationship with
its minority provinces, argues that another difference this time is that the
Baloch have a better armed, more disciplined fighting force in the
Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). Baloch leaders say that rich compatriots
and sympathisers in the Persian Gulf provide money needed to buy weapons in
the flourishing black market along the Afghan frontier. He notes that
President Musharraf has repeatedly accused India of supplying weapons to the
Baloch insurgents and funds to Sindhi separatist groups, but has provided
“no evidence to back up these charges”. India, he adds, denies the
accusations. At the same time New Delhi has issued periodic statements
expressing concern at the fighting and calling for political dialogue.
Harrison writes, “India brushes aside suggestions that it might be tempted
to help Sindhi and Baloch insurgents if the situation in Pakistan continues
to unravel. Indian leaders say that on the contrary, India wants a stable
Pakistan that will negotiate a peace settlement in Kashmir so that both
sides can wind down their costly arms race. But many India media
commentators appear happy to see Musharraf tied down in Balochistan and hope
that the crisis will force him to reduce Pakistani support for extremist
Islamic insurgents in Kashmir.”
Harrison believes that the Balochi insurgents want independence, but will
settle for autonomy under the 1973 constitution, which he believes they are
unlikely to be granted. The Balochis, the Pashtuns and the Sindhis, he
maintains, want “an end to the blatant economic discrimination by the
dominant Punjabis”. He maintains that what makes negotiations on autonomy
difficult are the economic issues relating to taxation and to the terms for
sharing the resulting revenues from the development of oil, gas and other
natural resources.
Harrison writes that the possibility of a constitutional compromise with the
minority provinces is inseparably linked with the overall course of the
struggle for democratisation. With continued military rule, the Baloch
insurgency and the growing movement for Sindhi rights will be radicalised.
But it is unlikely that the Baloch could prevail militarily over Pakistani
forces and establish an independent state, even with Sindhi help, unless
India intervenes as part of a broader confrontation with Islamabad. The
prospect in late 2006 is for a continuing, inconclusive struggle by the
Baloch and Sindhis against Islamabad, that will debilitate Pakistan. In the
eyes of the Baloch and Sindhis, the US has a major share of the blame for
the present crisis because US military hardware is being used to repress the
Baloch insurgency.
According to him, “Instead of pressing Musharraf for a political settlement
with the minorities, as some European Union officials have done, the Bush
administration has said that its ethnic tensions are an ‘internal matter’
for Pakistan itself to resolve. Human rights organisations have called for
international pressure on Musharraf to pursue a settlement, and critics in
the US argue that the diversion of US-equipped Pakistani forces from the
Afghan frontier to Balochistan undermines even the limited operations
against Al Qaeda and the Taliban that Musharraf is pursuing in response to
the US pressure. Until Bush’s departure, however, the US commitment to
Musharraf is likely to remain firm, barring the outside possibility that he
will step down in the face of growing domestic pressure and permit former
prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to participate in the
presidential elections scheduled for next year.”
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk
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