Sectarianism explodes
Sectarianism rears its ugly head again in Pakistan, reports Iffat Idris from Islamabad
Getting back into the swing of things after a few weeks' holiday is always hard. President Pervez Musharraf's homecoming after a successful four-country tour abroad would have been difficult anyway -- thanks to on-going clashes with opposition politicians over the controversial Legal Framework Order. But the reappearance of bloody sectarianism on the streets of Pakistan made his return even trickier.
On Friday, 4 July three unidentified men entered an imambargah in the centre of Quetta during the weekly congregational prayers. Two of the men opened fire with automatic weapons, raking the packed congregation for 10 minutes. The third assailant then detonated a huge bomb outside the main prayer hall, killing himself. The two gunmen tried to flee the building but were shot by the private guards of the imambargah. One died on the spot, the second in the hospital. The death toll of worshippers at the Asna Ashari Hazara Imambargah was initially put at 34 but, according to the Edhi Welfare Trust, has since risen to 53. All those killed were Shi'ite Muslims, the majority belonging to the Hazara tribe.
In Quetta, angry members of the Hazara took to the streets to vent their fury. Mobs burnt vehicles, and attacked government and private buildings. A religious school in the Marriabad area of the city was razed. The police especially were targeted by furious locals. Security deteriorated to the point that paramilitary groups and eventually the army had to be called in to restore order as a curfew was imposed on the city.
The curfew was partially lifted on Saturday, when 32 of the dead were buried amidst tight security. Locals seized the opportunity to buy supplies, while stranded travellers headed out of the city. The security situation in Quetta remains tense, with the very real threat of reprisal attacks.
Feelings are running especially high among Hazaras, who already felt threatened due to a 8 June attack that killed 13 Hazara police recruits. The Shi'ite recruits were killed when their vehicle was fired on by unidentified men on motorbikes. While that attack may have occurred as an anti-government protest, there is no doubt that Friday's massacre had a sectarian motive.
Pakistan is accustomed to sectarian killings, but the scale of Friday's attack shocked the nation. Musharraf was in France when news of the massacre broke. He immediately condemned it and promised to take "stern action" against those responsible. The president also appealed to the Hazara community to show restraint. Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali made a hasty visit to the city to personally express his sympathy. By Sunday, 15 alleged members of banned extremist organisations had been arrested in the city.
The reason why Hazaras have little faith in the government's pledges is that every instance of sectarian killing elicit similar promises and little action. Public arrests are made, but those detained tend to be scapegoats rather than the actual perpetrators. On 22 February nine worshippers in an imambargah in Karachi were gunned down as they prayed. Those responsible remain at large. There are innumerable other examples of unsolved and unpunished sectarian-inspired murders.
Pakistani authorities are also apt to blame a "foreign hand" for sectarian, or indeed any kind of terrorist attack in the country. Such a strategy conveniently removes the spotlight from their own policing and intelligence failures. In reacting to the most-recent attacks too, the president, prime minister and information minister all alluded to the possibility of foreign assailants, assumed to be from neighbouring Afghanistan. But eyewitnesses at the scene, as well as the wider Hazara community, have rejected that possibility. They say the assailants spoke to each other in native Baluchi, and blame local Sunni extremists for the attack.
To be fair to Musharraf, he has shown greater commitment and made more progress in dealing with Pakistan's sectarian menace than any of his civilian predecessors. On numerous occasions he has publicly attacked what he describes as "the extremist minority". Several militant groups associated with sectarian violence have been banned, including the viciously anti-Shi'ite Sipah-e-Mohamed and Sipah- e-Sahaba.
But as a leading English daily pointed out in its editorial the day after the Quetta killings, "Mere condemnations and resolve of the kind expressed by the president and prime minister are not enough. They should prove by deeds that they are capable of rooting out the menace of terrorism, especially of the sectarian variety." The editorial also noted that all black-listing certain groups has done is drive them underground -- it has not dismantled them.
Sectarian violence in Pakistan is part of the country's wider problem of militant, extremist Islam. The roots of this conflict date back to the war against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. American funding and Pakistani assistance promoted the proliferation of a huge number of militant Islamist groups and religious schools inside Pakistan. Washington needed the Islamists to "wage jihad" against the Soviets in Afghanistan, while Islamabad needed them to bring in billions of American dollars. Hence both turned a blind eye to their radical ideology and methods.
The shortsightedness of that approach became apparent immediately after the Soviet Union's retreat. While radical Islamists in Afghanistan formed the Taliban, their brethren in Pakistan turned their attention towards Indian Kashmir or to domestic sectarian opponents. Each act of sectarian-inspired murder provoked a cycle of revenge. Civilian governments failed to curb the menace, either because they wanted the militants to fight for Pakistani interests in Indian Kashmir, or because they lacked the will and the strength to do so. That failure in turn allowed the religious militants to flourish.
When Musharraf seized power in October 1999, he thus faced a formidable foe: well-armed, well-trained and well- financed sectarian-Islamist organisations with a huge resource pool of recruits in the country's thousands of religious schools. Facing down such a foe was never going to be easy.
His task was made somewhat easier by 9/11 and the worldwide backlash against terrorism and extremist Islam. Musharraf could strike against sectarian groups knowing that international and domestic opinion was mostly on his side. Concurrently, religious parties, who would normally be expected to mobilise massive street protests against any government attempt to curb religious activism, were unable to do so.
The real threat for Musharraf is now not the religious-leaning political parties or public opinion, but the dedicated and highly effective underground sectarian groups. As Friday's attack showed, they want, and are capable of, horrendous carnage. Notably, the killing in Quetta was Pakistan's first sectarian suicide bombing. How to root out and crush these sectarian ideologues is what Musharraf has to figure out -- quickly.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 2 - 8 October 2003 (Issue No. 658)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/658/in1.htm