Keep the army out

While the Shia communities’ sit-ins were commendable, we must now unite against a coup

“Will handing over Balochistan to the army solve the targeted killings of Shias across Pakistan? Does it open the space for another coup?” were the two questions asked at the sit-in outside the Governor’s House in Lahore.

“No,” was the clear answer privately given by members of the Shia community to both questions in Lahore. And yet the demand at the sit-in was clear: “Hand over Quetta to the army.” The resolve of those sitting in Lahore for over 36 hours matched the resolve of members of the Shia Hazara community in Quetta that had refused to bury the bodies of 86 of their own and took out an unprecedented sit-in for over 80 hours in freezing temperatures.

Expressing solidarity with the genuinely aggrieved family members in Quetta and the Shia community across Pakistan was essential – but one could genuinely retain a right to disagree with demands being made.

While those sitting at the dharnas chant ‘Labaik Ya Hussain,’ there are those who reminded the crowds of the Shia communities three-day dharna from July 4-6, 1980, outside the General Zia-occupied Presidency which forced him to revoke the application of the Zakat and Ushr Ordinance from applying to Shias. No one, however, cared to remind them of the deep state’s response: to create the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) to assassinate the Shia leadership.

With funds from the United States of America and Saudi Arabia, these proxy fighters were given birth to in the bi-polar world to “curb growing Iranian influence” and “the threat of an Iran-style revolution.” The successful three-day dharna had served to reify the threat posed by the Shia to the Sunni-ising state of Pakistan under Zia’s Islamisation. And so, under the tutelage of the state, Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi of Jhang, began to operate madrassas, organise a militia and assassinate the Shia leadership as well as attack Iraninan consulates.

The SSP later became the Laskhar-e-Jhanvi (LeJ); the LeJ later branched into politics by creating the Ahl-e-Sunnah wal Jammat (ASWJ); all aided and abetted by you know who. The 1990s were when the LeJ leader Riaz Basra fled into Afghanistan, apparently fleeing life threats, and developed links with the Taliban. At this point, it must be remembered, the Taliban and Pakistan were formerly allies. A number of SSP/LeJ leaders were killed in police encounters, some by the Shia-led militias, but there was no official ban on either. But the deep state’s dual policy with them remained in force. There is no better instance to show that than when ASWJ MNA Maulana Azam Tariq, another known Shia hater who was born from the deep state’s womb, voted for General Musharraf-backed Zafarullah Khan Jamali as prime minister in 2002, despite the army-led government’s decision in 2001 (post 9/11) to ban the LeJ/ASWJ.

When exactly did the LeJ enter Balochistan appears to be a bit of a mystery. The killings of Hazara Shias began in the early 1990s but the sudden upsurge in targeted killings and bombings after 2010 has not been seen before. The surprising part was that it fell in tandem with questions being raised over the military’s role in Balochistan and the rising tide of Baloch nationalism. During meetings at the Quetta Press Club in the summer of 2011, it was made clear that while Baloch nationalists were being found killed-and-dumped, the LeJ was free enough to enter the press club at will and threaten them to carry statements declaring “Hazara Shias infidels and liable to be killed”. One of the journalists clearly stated that the LeJ was being aided by the military’s agencies to “spread chaos”. No one contested his claim as it had been a tried and tested tactic. Proxies are the way our military operates in the most ‘sensitive regions’.

Before the LeJ’s January 10 attacks in Quetta, if we choose to remember, there were calls for the army to “get out of Balochistan”, not take control of it. The fact that the Balochistan government was unrepresentative and powerless was not lost on anyone, including its own members and chief minister. Then suddenly the winds changed when the Hazara Shias refused to bury the bodies of their dead and the rest of the Shia community joined their demand in solidarity.

The grief, the hopelessness, the sheer desperation in which the demand arose deserves the deepest sympathy. The Shia community, especially Shia Hazaras in Balochistan, have suffered in the last three years. There can be no denying this. But if demands emerging out of desperation are to lead to the return to power of their own chief tormentor, then who would be to blame for greater massacres in the coming future?

Would they blame the Supreme Court, who released the LeJ’s chief ideologue Malik Ishaq in July 2011 for “lack of evidence,” and whose release coincided with the spike in the brutality of attacks against Shia’s across the country? Malik Ishaq, it must be reminded, only last month asked the SC to take up “resolving Shia-Sunni disputes” as a sou motu. Whom, when surrounded by Tahirul Qadri (TuQ)’s fanatical troops on Tuesday, decided to issue arrest warrants for the serving prime minister?

If not, then may we not question why there were also demands at the Shia dharnas for the SC to “take a suo motu against the Quetta killings, like the one he took in the Shahzeb case”.

Two protests and one SC order together in three days has the military dreaming of taking the reigns of power once again; we must learn from experience this time around and take to the streets against the repetition of this possibility. And the Shia community must now join progressive political forces in solidarity as they joined the Shia in their grief.

The TuQ force, threatening the parliament with dissolution, would lose its mystique once again if met by an opposing street force. Its power does not come from strength in numbers as much as it being the only force around. It is a strange parallel to the time Mussolini took power in Italy in the 1920s with around 20,000 people. It would be no surprise if Qadri is installed by Pakistan’s puppet masters as the interim caretaker prime minister: he has talked up the credentials of both the military and the judiciary.

Now it is up to those who have suffered at the hands of ‘imposed rule’ in Pakistan to take up the stand for real people’s power. The countrywide dharna against the LeJ attack has strangely served to talk up the credentials of a man who could not care to delay his tamasha to join the grief amidst a national tragedy. It should be considered a sign of things to come.

Amidst the bodies lying unburied for four days at Quetta was that of activist Irfan – alias Khudi – Ali, with whom I had protested on the need to ‘coexist’ – and (even) put an “end to capitalism”. But it was his symbolic protest T-shirt: “Let’s get butchered together” that marked his eventual fate. Khudi Ali’s martyrdom was a testimony to his own words. These words will resonate as deeply for us too if we are yet unable to distinguish friends from foes. The army must be kept out of Balochistan and out of power. There is no other way forward. Period.

The writer is the General Secretary

(Lahore) for the Awami Workers Party. He is also a journalist and a researcher.