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Old Tuesday, May 29, 2012
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The farce of tribal jirgas

May 29th, 2012


A tribal jirga in Kohistan in the Hazara division of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has done something that reminds us of the days of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan and gives us a glimpse of a future Pakistan impacted by growing intolerance and bigotry. A tribal council of elders has condemned four women and two men to death for “staining the honour” of their families. A video presented to the jirga purported to show the alleged crime of ‘mixing’ of the sexes in violation of the law of ‘gender segregation’ during a wedding party while the accused allegedly dancing together.

After this shameful episode of ‘rough justice’, the convicted men fled the scene while the women were caught and locked up in a room in preparation for their execution. The Hazara administration is shocked by the ‘trial’ by jirga and the indifferent nature of the evidence presented for conviction: the video coverage actually shows the ‘convicts’ singing and dancing separately but they are shown in a single sequence. The reason behind this farce was not difficult to locate. It was a rival’s scheme to destroy a stronger and more affluent family. A member of one of the victim’s family stated: “Since our family is affluent and owns vast acres of forestland, orchards and agriculture farms in the village, our rivals hatched a plot to deprive us of them”.

Since Kohistan of Hazara is a tribal area, ostensibly there is nothing one can do about what has happened. There was no defence for the poor women who could not run away like the men, which reminds us that even the trial conducted by an official of the Khyber Agency recently condemned Dr Shakil Afridi for treason without giving him the right to defend himself. The cruel fact in Hazara is that a jirga, not an officer, has delivered the verdict and the victims are lucky that the sentence was not summarily executed. The jirga, however, has provided for that: It has tasked 40 young men to kill “the fornicators” and the tribe has raised a fund of Rs400,000 for litigation that may ensue once the local administration has taken cognisance of the shameful matter.

Tribal law is traditionally without ‘due process’. It is called ‘quick justice’, often condoned with the adage ‘justice delayed is justice denied’ and wrongly equated with Islamic sharia. What jirga means in essence is a kangaroo court, in which the local influentials satisfy their instinct of vengeance and avarice. Pakistan has kept its tribal areas under a special dispensation where justice through jirga is legally recognised. In the settled areas also, there is a tendency to bypass the legal system under the Constitution through the panchayat. The panchayat is illegally functioning in Punjab and one cannot forget what happened to Mukhatran Mai when a powerful tribe got her gang-raped through an illegal council of elders some years ago; even the Supreme Court could do nothing to undo the horrible bestiality visited on her.

The Taliban unleashed what they said was Islamic justice on Afghanistan, for nearly a decade, with the help of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, which recognised the Taliban government while the world shrank in horror. After the Taliban were gone, the Afghans expressed hatred of them by up to 85 per cent in an opinion survey. In Swat, the people were uninstructed in the requirements of justice and favoured the ‘quick justice’ they equated with Islam till they were brutalised by the warlord Mullah Fazlullah who was imposed on them by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan that was established by the al Qaeda. When Fazlullah was finally ousted by the army, the people of Swat realised their error and repented. The Hazara-Kohistan jirga has used the jargon of na-mehram from Islamic jurisprudence to shield itself.

The truth is that Pakistan is being ‘re-tribalised’ under the influence of growing Talibanisation. Kangaroo courts are functioning in Pakistan’s vast ungoverned spaces where the state once nurtured its deniable jihadis. They are also raising their ugly heads in Punjab and Sindh because of the retreat of the state from its constitutional jurisdiction.


Sorting out the mess in Balochistan
May 29th, 2012


At last, some effort has been put together to sort out the affairs of Balochistan. Following an initiative by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) in calling a conference on the province, all major parties of Balochistan assembled on May 26, in an attempt to tackle the matter and find some solutions. The gravity of the situation appears to have been understood at last and alongside the usual rhetoric, we seem to finally have witnessed some real thinking. This is encouraging given that there has been a dearth in the need to find some sort of lasting resolution to the problems of Balochistan, which has consequently resulted in a failure to move forward in any direction.

The SCBA needs to be congratulated for its role, with mainstream parties from Balochistan also joining other groups present for the historic occasion. What was most crucial of all was the 15-point declaration agreed on at the end of the discussion. In the first place, it emphasised that the solution to Balochistan’s multi-faceted problems must be a political and not a military one. This is an argument the Baloch themselves have been purporting for years. In order to see lasting peace in Balochistan, it is essential that first the province must be demilitarised. The damaging role the military has played there is known to all who have studied the troubled history of that territory and the many tragedies that have unfolded there over the decades, especially in the recent past.

These tragedies were also referred to in the declaration. The issue of missing persons — which in so many ways lies at the heart of the matter; the continued mysteries surrounding the deaths of Nawab Akbar Bugti and Balach Marri, the threats to the women of the Bugti family and other matters were all raised. It is important that these be discussed and the veil of secrecy surrounding them be lifted. Now that matters have been laid out on the table, it is more likely that the major political parties will look at them more earnestly. The fact that Balochistan lies at the heart of our federation was also acknowledged during the conference. This is encouraging and perhaps, the first much-needed step that can genuinely lead to solutions and an end to the crisis in the province.
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