Book Review: ‘PhD girl in Red Light area’ July 18, 2009
Posted by Malik Siraj Akbar in Malik Siraj Akbar.Tags: ActionAid Pakistan, Dr. Fouzia Saeed, Heera Mandi, Human Rights, Lahore, Lock Virsa Islmabad, Malik Siraj Akbar, Pakistani culture, prostitution, prostitution in Pakistan, Red light area of Lahore, Shahi Mohalla, state of women in Pakistan, Taboo
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Dr. Fouzia Saeed
By Malik Siraj Akbar
Taboo is an unmatched book that provides an insight into the world of prostitution in Pakistan. At the end of the book, one becomes exceedingly nostalgic about many of the characters with whom Dr. Fouzia Saeed, the author, spent several years in order to gain their confidence, make them speak, closely visualize their living style and observe the hardships they face in their ‘affice time’ in order to accomplish her research.
When Dr. Saeed, a PhD in Education from University of Minnesota and a renowned Pakistani social worker, made up her mind to research on the state of prostitutes in Pakistan, she faced stiff resistance from her top male bosses at Lok Virsa. They believed touching such a sensitive topic that entailing ‘these dirty women’ could disrepute the prestigious state-funded institute for which Dr. Fouzia worked at that time.
However, threats, hardships and warnings could not prevent this courageous lady from venturing into the world of Pakistan’s prostitutes who are surrounded from all sides by dangerous gangsters, highly powerful politicians and high-ranking bureaucrats.
Initially, Dr. Fouzia, who traveled from her home in Islamabad to Lahore to meet the prostitutes, failed to make her interviewees speak up openly. Everyone she tried to speak declined that they ever indulged in ‘ganda kam’[dirty work]. Preliminary failures did not deter the researcher but compelled her to review her research approach. She did so by starting to speak to musicians at first rather than the prostitutes to build contacts among them before she could get to know the real world of Shahi Mohalla.
The book elegantly describes the patriarchal structure of the Pakistani society where, like many other contemporary societies, the prostitutes, also widely regarded as ‘sinful women’, are solely held responsible for promoting obscenity and vulgarity while the men who go to these prostitutes are never blamed for anything.
True, many girls inherently become prostitutes, not all of them do the job delightedly. Many of them are often forced into the profession by their own family members. They are beaten up by their mothers and brothers in case they fail to ‘attract’ customers. Shahi Mohalla, Lahore’s red light town where the book is focused, is perhaps the only place in Pakistan where the birth of a son is mourned and that of a girl is celebrated. Unlike the traditional rural parts of Pakistan, the people living in this bazaar rejoice the birth of a female child whom they view as a ‘bread-winner’ for them.
Shahi Mohalla has given birth to several prominent musicians of Pakistan. The author quotes a local politician saying that they had come under police harassment from time to time. The authorities in Pakistan do not value of arts and music. Ironically, every government tired to dismantle this center of music and dance by terming it as the breeding ground for ‘sin’ and ‘dirt’ in the society. Yet the president of Pakistan regularly awarded the Pride of Performance and several other coveted awards to many singers and musicians for their outstanding performances in spite of the fact that all of them began their careers from the same Shahi Mohalla.
The officially sanctioned hours for the “artists” in the red light are 23:00pm to 01:00am. The prostitutes complain that Shai Mohalla is the only place where every government desperately feels the need for imposition of Islamic values. According to one artist, the government forces them to shut the ‘danda’ (business) during the whole month of Ramadan and in the first ten days of the Moharam, the first month of the Islamic calendar. “Why are we expected to shut our businesses during Moharam when even the Shias opt for only two days of holiday during the holy month?” asks one such performer.
The days and nights in the red light area are divided into many parts. During the day time, it looks like a normal town where untidy children are seen playing and running all around. At night, it becomes more crowded as musical performances begin. After 01:00am, the police start forcing ‘everyone’ to leave the area. Ironically, this should not be confused with the professional commitment of the police but must be seen differently.
The reason for the police’s haste to compel the regular customers to run is because the next hours are exclusively reserved for highly powerful politicians, bureaucrats and influential people. These people treat the police just like than a dog, observers the researcher. The powerful people come to the red light town to drink wine, discuss mutual business and quench their sexual thirst till morning. In the morning, life in the shanty town once again returns to normal as kids return to their routine sports.
Among the prostitutes, some are wealthier than the others. Some live amid extremely poor conditions. A few of them sell their flash for as little amount of money as Rs. 100 or Rs. 10. Incredible but true. Some of them do not have their own “Khotas” or “Bhataks”. Hence, they have to rent someone else’s place for the night on hourly basis. In return, they pay something like 10% of the income to the owner of the place.
The last two chapters of the book are highly informative as they trace back the roots of prostitution in different societies of the world. Prostitution is one of the oldest professions in the world. It has never been viewed as a “descent profession” anywhere in the world but it has always existed almost everywhere because of its persistent demand. In many of the world armies, prostitutes were officially provided to the forces to have sex in the absence of their own families.
During her research, Dr. Fouzia develops intimate relations with the prostitutes and their families. They start treating her like their daughter. At one stage, she becomes so much obsessed with her work that she decides to rent an apartment in Shahi Mohalla and reside there to undertake more of an anthropological approach in her research. The book demonstrates the steadfastness of a Pakistani educated researcher who spends several years in a notorious place to see the childhood of the daughters of prostitutes, the growth of these girls and eventually their entry into the profession and their subsequent lives.
The author finds herself in a dilemma during the book when Shahid, the brother-turned-father of one little prostitute girl, Lila, offers her to work for them. Shahid informs the author that there is a great demand for English speaking girls in the profession. Hence, they offer the writer to build relations with them to bring them educated English-speaking girls from Lahore or Islamabad. She politely declines the offer saying that the purpose of her presence in the town is not to indulge in the profession but to research the lifestyle of the prostitutes.
According to the researcher, “since Vedic times (c. 1000BC), India was known to have had courtesans who were highly accomplished in music and dance. The Aryans had a tradition of providing these beautiful women as “pleasure gifts” to alien kings as a mark of affection and hospitality.”
Taboo rightly argues that it is hard to eliminate prostitution. Prostitutes are victims of all forms of repression and discrimination at the state-level as well as at the level of the society. Even if movements meant to eliminate prostitution are launched, they often result in adding to the miseries of the prostitutes by displacing them from their homes, discriminating them socially and depriving them of their livelihood. It is, therefore, important to hate prostitution but not the prostitutes. They are equal human beings who inherited this profession or were trapped in this business by varying circumstances. Only a right and civilized approach can bring an end to this menace in our society.
While it may be possible to forcefully dismantle prostitutes’ towns, like Shahi Mohalla in Lahore, and relocate them in a different monitored town but what about the men who go to these women? It is the men who encourage prostitution to a large extent. Hence, a change in the attitude of the men is also required if one desires to see reduction, if not a complete end, in the exploitation of women under the disguise of prostitution.
Book: Taboo: The Hidden Culture of a Red Light Area
Author: Dr. Fouzia Saeed
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Karachi
Pages: 324
Price: Rs. 350
Jee tara Qambar Jan! July 15, 2009
Posted by Malik Siraj Akbar in Malik Siraj Akbar.add a comment
Qambar you made me cry
Qambar you made me sigh
Qambar you took me too high
Qambar you taught me how to die
Zardari uncle please don’t snatch our smiles! July 15, 2009
Posted by Malik Siraj Akbar in Malik Siraj Akbar.Tags: Asif Ali Zardari, ban on anti-government SMS in Pakistan, Malik Siraj Akbar, Pakistan, PPP
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I am truly appalled by a recent official decision to punish people who send anti-government SMS or e-mails. This is a disappointing decision coming from a democratically elected government. This clearly shows the level of intolerance among Pakistan’s so-called democrats. We know who fears these text messages? Guess who? Lol. You are all smart guys and girls.
If absurdity is the only yardstick to assess one’s political maturity then the current rulers of Pakistan truly qualify to run this country. In fact everyone in Pakistan has a bit of authoritarian tendencies. We endlessly criticize the political and autocratic (mis) rule of the Pakistani military officers. Yet, an egoist dictator lives inside all of us.
I remember I once was working as a young journalist with a Quetta-based English daily. The owner of the newspaper was a popular political figure of Balochistan who had hired an outstanding journalist as the working editor to run the paper.
One fine morning I received an e-mail from this working editor which had been CCed to almost “everyone and anyone in the newspaper establishment”. The letter, at the very beginning, stated that it should be treated as an official “warning”.
“HIS NAME [OF THE NEWSPAPER OWNER] IS [LET’S SAY] AJAZ BAL”U”CHISTANI AND ANYONE OF YOU WHO MISSPELL HIS NAME AS “ BALOCHISTANI” WOULD BE INSTANTLY FIRED FROM YOUR JOBS. THIS SHOULD BE TAKEN AS A FORMAL NOTICE.”
For a moment, I was taken aback. So did it mean that “Mr. Baluchistani”, who claimed to run a newspaper that preached tolerance, democracy, freedom and all abstract nouns to the people of Pakistan, was such an egoist that he was prepared to fire anyone in the newspaper who misspelled his name with an “O” rather than “U”?
There are many of us who behave like Mr. “Balochistani”. [Oh shit. I think if I were working with him today, I would have been kicked in the ass and fired from my job by now]. We all act like dictators provided that we get a chance to do so.
I telephoned this boss of mine on his cell phone when I was working at mobile company in Islamabad. These were the days the gadget had newly arrived at the ‘land of pure’.
“How dare you call me on my cell phone? Don’t you know I use this phone only to communicate with my counterparts from other companies not with my subordinates?” he protested. “I have strictly instructed you all to approach my PA [personal assistant] for appointments before you meet me.”
True, a remarkable period of Pakistan’s political history has been raped by the military but the democrats also did not behave democratically either. Nawaz Sharif thrashed Najam Sethi, the editor of the Friday Times. Musharraf put Geo and many other news channels off the air. Now Zardari is restricting our right to smile. He does not want the people of Pakistan to share jokes that have not been officially approved.
We are all egoists. We are all dictators. We all want to forcefully rule over people weaker than us. We take pleasure in enforcing our views on the others. We die if we see others happy while we are sad. We are growingly becoming intolerant. Sadly, we are gradually becoming animals. Worst still, such behaviors are being encouraged by a democratic government in Pakistan.
Another Insurgency Gains in Pakistan July 12, 2009
Posted by Malik Siraj Akbar in Malik Siraj Akbar.Tags: Baloch, Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), Balochi, Balochistan, Balochistan Governor, Carlotta Gall, Frontier Corps, GeneraL Pervez Musharraf, Ghulam Mohammad Baloch, John Solecki, killing of three Baloch leaders, Lala Munir Ahmed, Malik Siraj Akbar, Mekran, Missing people of Balochistan, Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi, Quetta, Role of the intelligence agencies in Balochistan, Sher Mohammad Baloch, Syed Ehsan Shah, the Baloch insurgency, the brother of Ghulam Mohammad Baloch, The New York Times, Thump, Turbat, Uunited Nations High Commission for Refugees
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Asif Hassan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Another Insurgency Gains in Pakistan
THE NEW YORK TIMES
BY CARLOTTA GALL
Published: July 11, 2009
TURBAT, Pakistan — Three local political leaders were seized from a small legal office here in April, handcuffed, blindfolded and hustled into a waiting pickup truck in front of their lawyer and neighboring shopkeepers. Their bodies, riddled with bullets and badly decomposed in the scorching heat, were found in a date palm grove five days later.
People in Turbat say nationalist sympathizers are detained.
Local residents are convinced that the killings were the work of the Pakistani intelligence agencies, and the deaths have provided a new spark for revolt across Baluchistan, a vast and restless province in Pakistan’s southwest where the government faces yet another insurgency.
Although not on the same scale as the Taliban insurgency in the northwest, the conflict in Baluchistan is steadily gaining ground. Politicians and analysts warn that it presents a distracting second front for the authorities, drawing off resources, like helicopters, that the United States provided Pakistan to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Baluch nationalists and some Pakistani politicians say the Baluch conflict holds the potential to break the country apart — Baluchistan makes up a third of Pakistan’s territory — unless the government urgently deals with years of pent up grievances and stays the hand of the military and security services.
Hundreds, possibly thousands, of Baluch were rounded up in a harsh regime of secret detentions and torture under President Pervez Musharraf, who left office last year. Human rights groups and Baluch activists say those abuses have continued under President Asif Ali Zardari, despite promises to heal tensions.
“It’s pretty volatile,” said Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi, the governor of Baluchistan. “When you try to forcibly pacify people, you will get a reaction.”
The discovery of the men’s bodies on April 8 set off days of rioting and weeks of strikes, demonstrations and civil resistance. In schools and colleges, students pulled down the Pakistani flag and put up the pale blue, red and green Baluch nationalist flag.
Schoolchildren still refuse to sing the national anthem at assemblies, instead breaking into a nationalist Baluch song championing the armed struggle for independence, teachers and parents said.
For the first time, women, traditionally secluded in Baluch society, have joined street protests against the continuing detentions of nationalist figures. Graffiti daubed on walls around this town call for independence and guerrilla war, which persists in large parts of the province.
The nationalist opposition stems from what it sees as the forcible annexation of Baluchistan by Pakistan 62 years ago at Pakistan’s creation. But much of the popular resentment stems from years of economic and political marginalization, something President Zardari promised to remedy but has done little to actually address.
In interviews, people in and around Turbat said the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies were still doggedly pursuing nationalist sympathizers.
A case in point, they say, is that of the three political figures who were killed: Gul Muhammad, Lala Munir and Sher Muhammad, all prominent in the nationalist movement.
Government officials say the men were being prosecuted for activities against the state but deny any involvement in their deaths. People are not convinced and say that while the men supported independence, they were not involved in the armed struggle.
Mir Kachkol Ali, the men’s lawyer, who witnessed their abduction, said the killings represented a deepening of the campaign by the Pakistani military to crush the Baluch nationalist movement. “Their tactics are not only to torture and detain, but to eliminate,” he said.
The insurgents, who say they are led by the Baluchistan Liberation Army, have escalated their tactics, too. A prominent example was the kidnapping in February of an American citizen, John Solecki, the head of the United Nations refugee organization in the provincial capital, Quetta.
The abduction was carried out by a breakaway group of young radicals who wanted to draw international attention to their cause and to exchange their captive for Baluch being held by the security services.
Mr. Solecki was released in April after the intervention of Baluch leaders, including Gul Muhammad. Baluch leaders speculate that the intelligence agencies may have killed Mr. Muhammad and his colleagues to provoke the kidnappers into murdering the American, which would have branded the Baluch nationalists as terrorists.
Instead, “the killing of these three has centralized the national movement of Baluchistan,” Mr. Ali, the lawyer, said.
He and others said they had no doubt that the intelligence services were responsible.
The three men were in his office on April 3 when a half-dozen armed men seized them, he said.
“They were persons of the agencies,” Mr. Ali said. “They were in plain clothes, but from their hairstyles, their language, we know them.” Mr. Ali has lodged a case with the police against the intelligence agencies for the abduction and murder of the three.
Nisar Ahmed, a shopkeeper and friend of the political leaders, said he saw them pushed into a pickup truck. He also said that the armed men appeared to be intelligence agents and that they were escorted by a second vehicle with 10 more armed men, also in plain clothes, who looked to be from the Frontier Corps paramilitary force.
While the insurgency remains strong in other parts of Baluchistan, the military has largely crushed the resistance around Turbat since March 2007, yet armed men are still in the hills and continue to be rounded up, residents here said.
Yousuf Muhammad, the brother of Gul Muhammad, one of the slain political leaders, said that in February he was hung by his hands from the ceiling for 48 hours in a Pakistani military camp.
“They came to arrest Gul Muhammad but they found me,” he said. Another brother, Obeidullah, said Gul Muhammad had received threats from people in the intelligence agencies warning him to stop his work. The latest came 10 days before his death, he said.
A group of students in the nearby town of Tump said they were rounded up and held in various army camps without charge for seven months in 2007. Some said they were suspended by their hands or their feet until they passed out, were beaten and were held in solitary confinement. Each showed a blackened mark where a toenail had been pulled out.
The arrests and disappearances have hardened attitudes, townspeople said, particularly among the young.
Even the governor, who is the president’s representative in the province, expressed exasperation at the Zardari government’s inaction in addressing the needs of the population. Many Baluch are increasingly cynical about the government’s ability to change things.
Sayed Hassan Shah, the minister for industry and commerce in Baluchistan, said his party was now demanding provincial autonomy.
“This is our last option,” he said. “If we fail, then maybe we have to think of liberation or separation.”
The First Night of Torture Cell July 11, 2009
Posted by Malik Siraj Akbar in Malik Siraj Akbar.Tags: Baloch, Baloch insurgency, Baloch Students Organization (BSO), Balochistan, Balochistan National Party, Balochistan University of Management Sciences and Information Technology, Bashir Zaib Baloch, Disappeared people of Balochistan, Dr. Allah Nizar, GeneraL Pervez Musharraf, General Zia-ul-H, Ghulam Mohammad Baloch, Malik Siraj Akbar, missing persons of Balochistan, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, Qambar Chakar, the Baloch Republican Party (BRP)
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By Malik Siraj Akbar
“Sometimes when my uncles got together, they would go into a corner and talk about a mysterious thing called sex. It sounded wonderful. I prayed that it would not go away before I grew up.”
[The Other Side of Me, Sidney Sheldon]
I was born during Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime. Normally many of us in Pakistan these days take pride in citing such coincidences. It looks like leaving a ‘positive impression’ on one’s readers or listeners that ‘yes, I grew up during the gruesome martial law days. I was born as a Muslim and the State of Pakistan forced me to be a re-born Muslim.”
I was only five when Zia, the ultra-Islamic dictator, perished in an air crash in August 1988.
Yet, Zia’s legacy continued. I was brainwashed and spoon-fed a lot of Islamic stuff at home as well as at school. While children of our age elsewhere in the world delightedly harped about cartoons and music, we spent a considerable amount of time discussing with our compatriots about Life after Death. We coveted Janaat (Paradise). We endlessly speculated about the beauty of the Hoors
(the beautiful women promised to the ‘faithful men’ who would qualify to Paradise).
Among all topics that we kept guessing about the First Night of Grave (Qabar ki Pheli raath) topped the list. We spent hours and hours discussing how the first night inside the grave would possibly feel like. Would we wake up inside the grave once we are buried? Would we converse in Arabic, even if we can’t speak that language, with Munkir Nakeer, the angels, according to the Islamic belief, assigned to inquire the dead man about his life performance? Will we have the same memory and senses while we interact with the angels? These questions increased as I grew up.
Then there was the 1990s when I entered my teens. Pakistan had resumed its journey towards democracy. We were entering an age of ‘liberalization’ and openness of the society. Our VCRs (Video Cassette Recorders) played Indian movies. We mimicked all that we watched. Now, the interest of people of my age slightly diverted from hardcore religion to more intrinsic affairs such as girls, beauty, romance, marriage and sex.
The next mysterious thing my peers and I kept on talking about at the college cafeteria at recess time was the first night of wedding which is so beautifully called Sohagrat in Hindi/Urdu. “What actually happens on that particular night,” was the starting question that continued for years with “possibilities” and “strategies.”
The first night of Grave.
The first Night of wedding
The first night of Grave
The first night of wedding
Wedding. Grave. Grave. Wedding. Grave. Wedding. The first night. ? ? ? ?
……………………
I entered my 20s with another martial law in place. Pervez Musharraf, the military ruler, had publicly declared war against the people of my province, Balochistan.
“I will hit you [the Baloch leaders] in a way that you don’t know what hit you,” thundered the General on a TV channel.
The state intelligence agencies began to whisk away people and put them into torture cells. It was the first time we, as university students, had heard about the agencies. Agencies were a new but fascinating topic for us to discuss inside our hostel rooms. Agencies were a new phenomenon. Discussing about them was just like talking about ghosts. Some of us believed in their existence. The others did not.
“But I don’t believe that the agencies do exist,” said one of my friends as we sipped black tea in my Room No 10 at the 2nd Block of University of Balochistan in Quetta one winter evening.
“Why don’t you believe in agencies,” I slapped.
“What the fuck is wrong with you guys?,” my friend almost shouted, ” What is it that you guys keep talking about? Agencies. Agencies. Agencies. I don’t believe in agencies. You guys are simply out of your minds. It is ridiculous when you say some people dressed in plains clothes come like a UFO (unidentified flying object) and take people away. And people suddenly go ‘missing’,” he argued.
As time passed, discussions whether agencies exited or not echoed in Balochistan’s class rooms, hotels, shops, mosques, homes and even kitchens.
While we debated the existence of ‘Faristhas’ (Angels), as we locally called them, the latter rapidly captured the whole of Balochistan. Their influence increased. They began to engineer elections. They approved and disapproved transfer and posting of all officials. They tapped journalists’ phone calls and invited them for ‘friendly advice’ in cantonment area. They followed political leaders’ movements. They whisked away five thousand people. Put them into torture cells. Denied them access to judicial justice. No body knew where they had gone. We called them ‘disappeared’ people. There were so many of them that it was hard to keep a right count on all of them.
………………………………
Now many of us believe in the existence of agencies. But that is not what we keep talking about.
The first night of Grave.
The first Night of wedding
The first night of Grave
The first night of wedding
No. No. These days we do not talk about the first night of grave or wedding. We imagine about the first night of torture cell. We keep talking to ourselves and our friends how the first night of torture cell would feel like. Many Balochs are certain about being taken to a torture cell one day or the other. So all that we keep talking about is what questions the hosting intelligence agencies would ask. How severe the torture would feel like. How much space the small and dark cabin ‘reserved’ for one’s confinement would occupy?
Today, I met a lot of people who talked about Qambar Chakar’s first night at torture cell. “What do you think they could have asked him,” asked a class fellow of Chakar. The other said, “do you think they have beaten him up severely? “ Do you think he has met Zakir Majeed and Chakar Qambarani inside the torture cell?
I don’t know, guys.
I have experienced none:
The First Night of Grave
The First Night of Wedding
The First Night of Torture Cell
Qambar Jan tho kuja hey? July 11, 2009
Posted by Malik Siraj Akbar in Malik Siraj Akbar.Tags: Admission policy of BUITMS, Baloch, Baloch Republican Party, Baloch Students' Organization (Azad), Balochistan, Balochistan University of Inform, BRP, BSO leader goes missing, Chakar Qambarni, Chief Justice of Pakistan Ifthakar Mohammad Chaudhary, Dr. Imdad Baloch, Ghulam Mohammad Baloch, Jalil Reki, John Solecki, Kachkol Ali Baloch, Malik Siraj Akbar, Qambar Chakar, Quetta, Quota system at the BUITMS, Shahzaib Baloch, United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Zakir Majeed
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By Malik Siraj Akbar
If I have ever been truly inspired by a leader of the Baloch Students’ Organization then it is not Dr. Allah Nizar Baloch or Bashir Zaib Baloch but Qumbar Chakar. In him, I have always seen a future Ghulam Mohammad Baloch. For English readers, he was (oh sorry, is) a “super star” and for the Balochi readers, I could simply describe him as a “Blaheen Mard” (Big man).
Qambar, 20, is an extraordinary agitator, cogent speaker, deeply committed political activist and a highly organized and punctual activist who could proudly take credit for arranging most protest rallies for the restoration of quota system at the Balochistan University for Information Technology and Management Sciences (BUITMS), recovery of all the missing Balochs and several other issues.
He spoke a fluent English and made our work easier whenever a foreign journalist was in town to learn more about the Baloch students’ movement. In May 2009, I introduced him with Canadian journalist Matthieu Aikins of the National Post with whom he had a detailed interview. Qambar spoke so beautifully that Aikins started his article with a quote from him.
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=1593832
Fresh reports suggest that this amazing Baloch activist has been whisked away by the personnel of the Frontier Corps and the intelligence agencies. They say Chakar, also an Economics student, had gone to attend classes at the City Campus of the BUITMS and latter on proceeded to the Takato Campus of the University to meet with the Vice Chancellor to speak about the issue of the district-based open merit admission policy. On his return from the college, Chakar, who was accompanied by five other friends of his hailing from the Baloch Action Committee, was stopped at Chaman Pattick area by a convey of security forces.
“They (personnel of the security forces) had come in eight vehicles and asked Qambar to get out of the Alto car,” said one eyewitness, “once Qambar walked towards them, we saw them putting a hand grenade in Qambar’s pocket.” According to the eyewitness, the FC officials shouted at Qambar pointing at the hand grenade: “What the hell is this? You Baloch terrorist! We have to take you in custody.” They slapped, manhandled Qambar and took him away to an unknown location while sparing his other colleagues.
Pakistan’s most prominent newspaper, Jang, this morning reports, though very briefly, that a BSO activist has been arrested by the police while carrying a hand grenade.
One close friend of Qambar says if latter was truly carrying a hand grenade with him then how he could not be caught by the security scanners installed at the BUITMS where the Baloch student had gone to meet with the Vice Chancellor.
However, such tactics no longer surprise anyone. We all know the nature of the ridiculous cases the state functionaries have made in the past against the Baloch people in this militarized province. We do not have a short memory to recollect how Dr. Imdad Baloch, a former chairman of the BSO, and his colleagues were resurfaced after seven months of disappearance in 2005. They were implicated in a case of stealing a washing machine somewhere in Dera Ghazi Khan while they had never visited DG Khan in their whole life time.
Presently, no one knows the whereabouts of Qambar Chakar. It is believed that he is being detained by the FC and the intelligence agencies in one of the torture cells where, according to the Baloch nationalists, around five thousand Balochs, including more than a hundred women, are languishing simply because of their dissenting views.
“We strongly denounce the extra judicial arrest of the Baloch student,” said Kachkol Ali Baloch, Balochistan’s former leader of the opposition. “The State is taking benefit of our powerlessness. Our leaders are being brutally killed and younger ones are being subjected to enforced disappearance by the state agencies. We call for a UN intervention in Balochistan.”
In fact, the issue of enforced disappearances in Balochistan has remarkably intensified with the arrival of an utterly powerless Pakistan People’s Party government following the historic general elections of February 2008. It clearly seems that the hawkish Punjabi Establishment based in Islamabad is still unwilling to relinquish powers in Balochistan.
The resource-rich province is still under the control of the army and the intelligence agencies that indulge in grave violation of human rights. Ironically, most human rights organizations operating in Pakistan deliberately snub their illegal operations in the country’s largest province for the reason that they do not want their funding to be stopped. The national media and human rights organizations have also skirted the plight of the Baloch since the arrival of the PPP government.
The extra-judicial arrest of the Baloch political leaders, mainly the political activists, has been taking place very systematically. There is not an iota of doubt that the establishment wants to eliminate or enervate the Baloch movement by all possible means. Islamabad wishes to subjugate the Baloch people to such an extent that they give up their demand for self-rule. Such tactics, I am surely, are only going to increase anti-Pakistan sentiments among the Baloch youth.
Qambar Chakar’s abduction is not accidental. It was surely preplanned. Previously, the central vice chairman of the BSO, Zakir Majeed Baloch, was arrested and taken to an unknown location in a similar attempt. Likewise, another key leader of the BSO, Shahzaib Baloch, who presides over the Quetta chapter of the organization, was arrested in April and kept in illegal solitary confinement for more than two months. The most pathetic thing about such official behavior is the denial of judicial justice to these ‘missing persons’. They are not produced before any court of law to prove their innocence.
The list of the missing persons does not end here. Among the fresh victims, two prominent names are that of Jalil Rekhi, the central information secretary of the Baloch Republican Party (BRP) and Chakar Qambarani, a member of the BRP central committee. They have been missing for more than five months now.
It is highly regrettable that the restored Chief Justice of Pakistan Mr. Justice Ifthakar Chaudhary, who was believed to be sacked by former military dictator General Pervez Musharraf due to his proactive role in recovering the missing persons, has taken a U-turn in his approach towards the missing persons. The Chief Justice of Pakistan has not only softened his attitude but also completely skirted the plight of the Baloch youth who are illegally pushed into torture cells and subjected to inhuman treatment.
Mr. Chaudhary, is this what millions of people in Pakistan marched for? No Sir. They wanted the restoration of a man who had the spunk to bring the intelligence agencies under control. If you fail to deliver justice then your opponents certainly get an opportunity to say that you politicized your suspension merely to gain personal popularity. I know you did.
The international community, mainly the human rights organizations, have to take notice of the unabated violation of human rights in Balochistan. The main reason for the kidnapping of the American head of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), John Solecki, in February this year was predominantly the issue of ‘missing persons.’ The people of Balochistan are tired of the state repression. Their beloved ones are going missing every other day. The international community did not stand up to its promises with the Baloch people regarding the issue of enforced disappearances while negotiating with the Baloch leadership about the release of John Solecki.
In the meanwhile, the Baloch students, who tried to protest the extra-judicial arrest of Qambar Chakar, were shelled by the police this morning at BUITMS. Qambar Chakar deserves a good response from his political friends. While free, he had actively campaigned for the release of everyone. It is the time everyone joined the rallies being organized for Chakar’s release. Qambar is a man of high spirits. He had told me many times that he knew that the intelligence agencies and the FC were chasing him.
When I asked him for a meeting last time so that I could write a story on Zakir Majeed, he said he was willing to meet me anywhere I wanted. “What about the Press Club,” I asked. He laughed and said, “but the press club is surrounded by ‘their men’,” as he referred to the agents of the agencies. I said okay we could sit somewhere safe. He said he was not afraid of coming downtown. It was just he had begun to take precautionary measures to ensure his own security. I said it was a very wise decision.We wish young Qambar Chakar all the best. He is a brave boy. He surely knows that “ah pa sarani goda ga….”
On target killings of Punjabi teachers in Balochistan July 9, 2009
Posted by Malik Siraj Akbar in Malik Siraj Akbar.Tags: Baloch, Baloch nationalist movement, Balochistan, killing of principals in Balochistan, Malik Siraj Akbar, Quetta, target killing of school teachers in Balochistan
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http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=200979\story_9-7-2009_pg7_13
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Punjabi settlers biggest victims of Bugti aftermath
* Civil society in Balochistan has remained silent over killings due to fear of nationalist backlash
* Pashtuns parting ways with dominant Baloch allies following violence
By Malik Siraj Akbar
QUETTA: The sympathies that the Baloch nationalist movement had acquired during the rule of former president Pervez Musharraf now seem to be diminishing, following the targeted killings of Punjabi teachers, professors and principals in the province.
The recent killings of three principals and a schoolteacher in less than two months came as a shock for the entire nation, especially due to their ethnic nature.
While the Taliban in the NWFP have resorted to torching girls’ schools in order to deprive a generation of Pashtun girls from education, a nationalist militant group in Balochistan is currently bent on targeting and killing Punjabi educationists to push the province back into medieval times.
Fear: Unlike the situation in the NWFP, the civil society in Balochistan has remained a silent spectator, simply out of fear. When Musharraf’s government launched a military operation against Baloch leaders and killed Nawab Akbar Bugti, a chorus of condemnation rang out in support of the Baloch people from all corners of society. The Baloch leadership was assured complete support by politicians, intellectuals and scholars of other provinces.
However, it seems the biggest victims of Bugti killing’s aftermath have been Punjabi settlers in Balochistan.
Militant groups in Balochistan had earlier asked Punjabis to leave the province, a warning not taken seriously until a number of Punjabis were killed.
As things stand today, property rates in Punjabi-dominated localities of Quetta have fallen remarkably as Punjabis hastily sell their homes to try and escape the insurgency-hit province.
In the second phase, which commenced with the killing of three Baloch leaders in Turbat in April this year, a hitherto unknown militant segment of the Baloch nationalist movement has warned schoolteachers and principals to refrain from playing the national anthem and hoisting the national flag on official buildings. In case of non-compliance, the violators have been threatened with death.
In the backdrop of these challenges, the principals of Balochistan Residential College at Khuzdar, Government Commerce College Quetta and Government Pilot Secondary School Mastung, all Punjabis, have been killed, while the provincial government watches silently.
Distancing: As the killings of teachers intensify, the Pashtuns, who constitute the second largest ethnic group in Balochistan, appear to part ways with their erstwhile political allies, the dominant Baloch people. Pashtun political parties have vocally opposed the target killings in Quetta and demanded the Baloch nationalists openly condemn these killings and disassociate themselves with the elements responsible.
Similarly, members of civil society, human rights activists and intellectuals from other provinces have been perturbed by these targeted killings.
Such friends of Balochistan are now reasserting a “calculated support” to the Baloch case against the state, rather than their “unconditional support” to the aggrieved Baloch people.
“The government, as well as the Baloch civil society, has observed criminal silence over the targeted killings of Punjabi teachers,” complains a senior professor at the University of Balochistan.
“If Punjabi professors and professionals are not protected and compelled to leave Balochistan, many key institutions in the province will remain shut or at least dysfunctional.” He said the government and nationalists ought to separate education from politics. “Teachers serve the humanity regardless of their own religious, national, lingual and racial affiliations. They need protection and respect if a society is keen to progress,” he stated.
It was learnt that at least 14 teachers of the Balochistan Residential College, all Punjabis, have requested for transfers. There have also been similar reports of several PhD-holders prominent professors at the University of Balochistan planning to permanently leave the province.
If Balochistan is to be prevented from utter chaos, experts recommend, all the stakeholders in Balochistan and Islamabad should urgently keep politics aside and devise a strategy to protect Balochistan’s teachers. “If the government and the nationalists fail to sit together and address this dire situation, Balochistan’s educational institutions will be deserted for good. The major loser, if such a situation emerges, would be Baloch children, not Punjab, whom the Baloch nationalists hold responsible for everything,” an education expert said.
Back to Young Leaders’ Conference (YLC) July 3, 2009
Posted by Malik Siraj Akbar in Malik Siraj Akbar.Tags: Faisal Qureashi of Samaa TV, Farhad Karam Ali, Hussain Dada, Kamran Rizvi, Karachi, Malik Siraj Akbar, Mehreen Shoaib, Nadeem Chowan, School of Leadership, Sheraton, Shireen Naqvi, sponsorship for YLC, Tahla Iqbal, Train the Young Trainers (TTYT), What makes a leader, YLC, Young Leaders’ Conference
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An unadulterated sense of déjà vu overwhelmed me as I walked yesterday evening inside the sprawling Darbar Hall at Sheraton Hotel in Karachi to attend yet another successful episode of the Young Leaders’ Conference. (I could effortlessly figure out the success of the event from the enthusiasm one could see from the first look at the energetic participants).
Overlooking the stress caused by an the unprecedented seven-hour long delay in my flight from Quetta to Karachi, it was absolutely refreshing to see YLC never losing its charm and ability to reshape lives.
I had attended the YLC for the first time in 2003 and then in 2004 as well. This year, I had been invited to speak on biography session with the theme HOW I MADE IT BIG.
Amid global recession indefatigable cycle of terrorism in the country, it was, understandably, not a bed of roses to organize the leaders-producing prestigious event. The School of Leadership (SOL), its zealous organizers and the ever-enthusiastic young facilitators once again did a remarkable job by brining around 300 participants from diverse parts of the country. The presence of 300 young boys and girls aging 18 to 25 has evidently back-seated terrorism and provided positive attitude a leading role.
It was wonderful to meet after six years my YLC mentors Kamran Rizvi, Shireen Naqvi, Saima Khan, Nadeem Chowan, Farhad Karam Ali, Nadeem sahib, Shujja uncle, adorable Mehreen Shoaib and the Young Facilitators of our time like Talha Iqbal ( the team leader for this year’s YLC), Umair and Hussain Dada.
As always, YLC has not changed. It keeps motivating young souls, fuelling passion and providing a meaningful life vision. During the evening session, Kamba’s presentation on AVIRA (Awareness, Vision, Inspiration, Responsibility and Action) was highly thought-provoking.
While interacting with some of the YLC participants, I came to know that the young boys and girls in Pakistan stand for a “change”. They are all passionate to lead. They are not as pessimistic as the ‘leaders’ of this country. They have faith in themselves. They rightly learnt from TV celebrity Faisal Qureshi that change occurs only when decide to we change ourselves, before making futile efforts to change others..
