Faheem Amir


Pakistan is bleeding. Sectarian violance, attacks against minorities, terror attacks, bomb blasts, US drone attacks and targeted killings have shaken the entire edifice of Pakistan.

There is no hope of peace on the horizon. More bloody days are coming, which will derail Pakistan towards utter chaos and destruction. It augurs very bad for the poor people of Pakistan, especially minorities, who are being killed without any reason. Many experts are saying that Pakistan is fated to bleed itself to death due to the poor policies formed by the corrupt, incompetent and unpatriotic political, and religious and leaders. Our venal leaders have created religious extremist parties to protect their own partisan interests. It is very tragic that these cruel leaders are still protecting the extremist groups, the groups which are killing innocent people callously. Islam, a religion of peace and brotherhood, is being misused, who are creating bad blood among the people of Pakistan. These leaders have divided Pakistani society along religious, ethnic, cast, economic, and sectarian lines, the lines which cannot be easily removed. The gulf is widening alarmingly in these testing times and the very existence of Pakistan is in jeopardy.

On the other hand, our leaders are enjoying their corruption. They are plundering the country. They are not willing to give protection to the poor people by crushing the extremists and other hidden elements who are involved in an unending spate of terrorist attacks in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the ethnic cleansing in Balochistan, the sectarian killings in Sindh, the killings and destruction of the properties of the minorities in the Punjab. They are giving protection to bandits, extortionists and murderers in Karachi and the Punjab. They are in intoxicated by power which make them utterly and callously unmindful of the tragedies that strike the poor Pakistani people on a daily basis.

Almost all the leaders are responsible for the tragic plight of the country and its people. They are not willing to break the present status quo. They are endeavouring their level best to keep the poor people shackled in a class-riddled system, a system which is formed to give them power and prestige.

Raoof Hasan writes in Pakistan Today: "Whether Nero played the fiddle or not while Rome burnt, the dictum truly applies to people who occupy the seats of power in Pakistan. The country has been bleeding bit-by-bit, but it has made scant impact on the rulers' inexhaustible infatuation with power. Pakistan appears to be in the grip of an endless mayhem, but its rulers remain engrossed in discovering ever-new methods to skin the country of its resources. Even more frighteningly, they remain busy in manipulating the institutions of the state to run away with the next elections. Be it the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) or NADRA, all these institutions are being used as pawns by the manipulative rulers in the greater game of strengthening and prolonging their vice-like grip on the seat of power. In this evil pursuit, all the political mafias are together. They are together to block the advent of change - a change that may bring relief to the poor and the downtrodden, the sick and the needy, the illiterate and the deprived, the underprivileged and the disenfranchised, the grief-stricken and the fear-afflicted, the exploited and the abused. They are together in keeping the people captive within the parameters of their evil machinations. Their heartlessness is reflected in the devious schemes they formulate and the demeaning methods that they intend to employ in buying the entire election protocol".

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is killing innocent Shias in Pakistan freely. Around 300 Shias have been killed in a series of attacks during the last three months.
Last week about 65 people were killed and many injured in bomb blasts in Karachi.

The Daily Times writes: "The day we think that we have had enough of killing, another bomb blast kills more people. There is no guarantee of peace or harmony, not now when the country is witnessing genocide of Shias across its length and breadth. Since January, this blast in Karachi was the third attack on Shias. The pattern has been identical, bombing a markets or a residential area to ensure indiscriminate bloodshed. The Alamdar Road, Kinari Road and now the Abbas Town bomb blasts killed women, children and men of every age. So far 100 people have been reported killed and many more injured... An inquiry report has been hurriedly put together by the law enforcement agencies and the day ended with a promise to bring the culprits to justice. An identical pattern of addressing terrorists' attacks, without leaving any hope for the survivors or the rest of us to at least believe that tomorrow will be a better day. How long are we going to continue with this cold, indifferent attitude? When would it dawn on us that our security is under threat and that we need a comprehensive, all-encompassing and collective effort to remove the threat? When would we stop evading the reality that we are under siege from the terrorists? The United Nation's anti-genocide envoy has listed Pakistan among the countries with a 'dangerous escalation in ethnic and religious tension'. The recurring targeted attacks on Shias reflect the failure of the state to protect its people, especially the vulnerable class. So far, besides some cosmetic actions and a few token arrests, no consequential step has been taken against the criminals who are not only known but have been brandishing their deeds openly. These unusual circumstances require extraordinary actions by the state. Our legal system and the corresponding judicial process has in fact been an escape hatch for the terrorists. They have been set free for lack of evidence and a witness protection mechanism.
Why can't we, as has been done by all those countries that had terrorist threats, redo the legal system and if need be suspend the fundamental rights given in the constitution, to try and punish the culprits. What would be catastrophic if the state agencies do not get their act together is a possible sectarian civil war. Can we take the tolerance and restraint of Shias so far for granted? What if they too decide to confront the situation with as much force as is being applied against them? Even international intervention is possible.

The United Nations member states, in 2005, have adopted the principle called R2P, which holds states responsible for shielding their own population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and related crimes against humanity and requires the international community to step in if this obligation is not met. So if domestically we fail to make laws and take practical steps to eliminate crimes against humanity, internationally there is enough room to remind us that we are going wrong in our strategy to protect the vulnerable and punish the criminals. It is time to apply wisdom. How will elections take place in such a hostile atmosphere? The security apparatus of the country including the intelligence agencies must act now and fast. Their slack and incoherent attitude has already made the enemies powerful. The caretaker setup would have to be on guard to keep the law enforcement agencies functioning. The responsibility is indeed high on them as it is on the outgoing government".

The Associated Press also quotes: "The violence against Shiites has ignited a national debate - and political arguments - about a burgeoning militancy in Pakistan...The unrelenting attacks also have focused the nation's attention on freedoms that Pakistani politicians give extremists groups, staggering corruption within the police and prison systems and the murky and protracted relationship between militant groups and Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies."

"The government doesn't have the will to go after them and the security agencies are littered with sympathizers who give them space to operate," Hazara Democratic Party chief Abdul Khaliq Hazara, told The Associated Press in a recent interview in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan where some of the most ferocious anti-Shiite attacks have occurred..."I have a firm belief that our security agencies have not yet decided to end all extremists groups," said Hazara. "They still want those (militants) that they think they can control and will need either in India or Afghanistan," he said referring to allegations that Pakistan uses militants as proxies against hostile India to the east and Afghanistan to the west. The army has a history of supporting militant Islamists using them as proxies to fight in Kashmir, a region divided between Pakistan and India and claimed by both in its entirety. Pakistan is repeatedly criticized by the United States and Afghanistan for not doing enough to deny Afghan insurgents sanctuary in the tribal regions that border Afghanistan. Angry at the criticism, Pakistani army officials say they have lost more than 4,000 soldiers - more than NATO and the US combined - fighting militants.

Yet, police officials in Balochistan and the capital, Islamabad, told the AP that Pakistan's intelligence agency had ordered them to release militant leaders who had been arrested. The militants were not necessarily affiliated with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, said the officials, who asked not to be identified because they feared losing their jobs. Even the judiciary has queried Pakistan's security agencies for information about their alleged ties to militants. Today, the SSP operates in Pakistan's Punjab province under a new name, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat. It runs scores of religious schools unencumbered by government restrictions. The schools churn out students, who graduate with a loathing of Shiite Muslims, a willingness to be foot soldiers for other Sunni militant groups and ambitions of making Pakistan a radical Sunni state. Zahid Hussain, whose books plot the rise of militancy in Pakistan, linked the latest round of sectarian carnage in Balochistan to lashkars, or tribal militias, established with the support of Pakistan's intelligence agencies to crush a burgeoning secessionist movement. The militias, Hussain said, draw heavily from local religious schools or madrassas, which are heavily financed by donations from Gulf and Arab countries and are run by hard-line clerics with close ties to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. "That provides a deadly and unholy nexus (between) forces fighting the Baloch separatists and those waging war against the Shia community," Hussain wrote in a recent column. It also implicates Pakistan's intelligence agencies, even if indirectly, in the carnage - an allegation they deny. In a column assailing the Punjab government's "dangerous liaisons" with militants in its province, Hussain said: "Pity the nation where the blood of innocents comes cheap and murderers live under state patronage."

The venal leaders of Pakistan, except Imran Khan, are reluctant to criticise the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi because of the fear of being killed by the militants of this group.

They are cowards, selfish, and unpatriotic who just want to protect their own partisan interests. These inept leaders have not learned a lesson from the separation of East Pakistan. They should learn lessons from history. Allama Iqbal has aptly said:" Nations are born in the hearts of poets; they prosper and die in the hands of politicians".

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