Chairman: Today’s programme deals with Pakistan in turmoil as sectarian killings continue.
The reason for having this topic today is two fold: firstly the recent elections in Pakistan and secondly what has happened. The headlines in the newspapers were ‘Pakistan elections – how Nawaz Sherif beat Imran Khan and what happens next?’
Pakistan is a nuclear power, it has a huge population between 180 – 200 million. I don’t want to take the fire from our speakers but by way of introduction when we were preparing the leaflet we said that for the first time in Pakistan since its inception a democratic administration has survived a full term without being deposed. This was followed by generally accepted free and fair elections. On the blogsphere everyone is saying that these elections were neither free nor fair and that also is quite an interesting angle to look at.
A credit worthy situation is that the Election Commissioner of Pakistan released the figures which showed the percentage of the population that voted from 1988 to 2013. During the last election 55 percent of the Pakistani electorate voted – that is quite significant. Even in a mature democracy like the UK it is 55 percent. You are lucky if it goes to 65 percent. It is quite a credit with all the pressure and killings that were taking place by the Taliban and the threats that were made against the citizens. It is quite remarkable that the people did go out and vote and were not deterred by the threats that were being made.
Rubab Mehdi Rizvi: Thank you for the introduction. In response to my work as a financial regulator I would like to say that these rogue companies sometimes want to go to the court. I was responsible for more than 50 cases. The trend changed because for the first time the regulator went from the loosing to the winning end. When women get involved we do make a difference whenever we can.
The chairman gave a very nice introduction to what is going on in Pakistan. We are talking about a country that was made in the name of God. This was often said when we were children. But it is also a country that was made because of the discrimination that was being faced at the hands of the Brahmans. I am not saying that all Brahmans are extremists. The extremism was being faced by a minority at the hands of a majority. There was no freedom, no worship and there was intolerance towards a minority. The opening speech by Mohammed Ali Jinah was that you are free to go to your places of worship. You are free to go to your temples. When he made the speech he did not say that you are free to go to your masjids, you are free to go to your jamat khanas and you are free to do go to your imam barakas.
Sadly the first speech made by Qadi Azam has been lost by Pakistan. My heart breaks to say that it is not just the speech that has been lost. We have lost a considerable amount of spirit. I am talking about a country where around 21,000 Shias have been killed for their beliefs, for no other crime apart from the fact that they are Shias. This persecution started in 1963. A lot of people attribute this to Zia. He has a lot answer for. But the killing of the Shias actually started in 1963. What was alarming that in the Tira, which is a part Hepur, a large mob attacked a Shia procession. Around 180 Shia Muslims were martyred. Not only were they martyred. The hatred towards them is shown by what happened why they lay injured. I do not know the best word to define these people who call say they belong to my faith. They carried these empty vessels saying ya Hussein, ya Hussein. And when and injured person asked for water instead of giving water they murdered the person. Saying ya Hussein and carrying those empty vessels was literally an attempt to make sure that they have killed everyone.
After they decided to put all the bodies in a well and they were going to burn it but the police arrived. This is the first reported incident in which the Shia faced killings. These killings escalated during the time of the Zia regime. Now we are talking about a country where according to some reports we have 31,000 Shia assassinations and according to other reports we have 31,339 Shia assassinations.
According to reports from last year in 2012 and 2013, in these two years 1450 Shias have been killed. These killings are indiscriminate in their nature. Pakistan does not face sectarianism. There is no sectarianism in Pakistan. If there was sectarianism, there would be civil war. It is not people killing one another. If a bus or a truck full of explosives crosses all security checks and explodes and kills people who is to blame? Is it sloppy intelligence or is it deliberate neglect? I leave it to you.
Also it is important to notice that 6,000 police officers have been killed. The war on terror has cost us 47,000 lives and the Shias face so much discrimination. I remember getting a really interesting witness statement the day before yesterday. It was written by the daughter of an army officer who is a shaheed now. She said that when the Taliban caught the soldiers they separated the Shia from the Sunni soldiers and then they very brutally beheaded the Shia soldiers. Of the 47,000 people killed in the war on terror at least ten thousand have been Shias. That is very disproportionate if you compare it to the general population of the Shias.
The topic today is the elections. This was a very important election. One thing that needs to be appreciated is that for the first time after 1947 this was an election where one democracy was handing over power to another democracy. So in that sense it is history and all of Pakistan should be congratulated because since 1947 this has never really happened. But according to the reports of Amnesty around 100 people were killed during this election including the party workers of NQM, the People’s Party and ANP.
What I find disturbing is that whether you stand on the right or whether you stand on the left you have to be in touch with humanity. I do not really see any of the parties like ETI or PNLM condemn these killings. All the condemnation we have seen is that their own workers have been killed. As human beings if we are not going to speak for someone else when the monster attacks our house then we will also be left with nothing but the sound of our own scream.
At the start of the elections it is fair to say that it was not very fair. Some people were shot in the legs and they were expected to compete with everybody else. A very short review showed that what was disturbing about the elections was the 55 members of banned groups, who are also called terrorist suspects, contested the elections. A total of 120 people who belong to various sectarian parties contested the elections but the people who were listed on Schedule 4 of terror related activities were 55. Those 55 charged terrorists were allowed to contest the polls. The ECB could not be prevented from contesting the elections as this is a basic human rights principle. Nobody can be considered guilty until he is charged. They had a valid point and the ECB was not able to prevent these charged terrorists from contesting the polls.
What is disturbing is that right now they have been trying to find out, from the limited resources that they have, how many seats these terrorists gained. (Sorry I should not really be using the word terrorist – my apologies – terrorist suspects). One seat has been confirmed that of Abd Gugil from Gugawara. Apart from that they are still trying to work out how many seats have been gained by these terrorist suspects but the figures are not known .
We have been campaigning for a number of years because essentially it is very important that the Sunnis and the Shias come forward. I mean it is important that the original Jemat, in its true shape and form, not the hijacked form and the Shias take part. Before the elections it should have been decided that the Shia vote and the Sufi vote will not be divided. But unfortunately that policy was not implemented during the elections. What you saw was two Shias contesting the same seats.
I can just give you a very quick example. Because this is the case of one of my family members I am very confident about the facts. My father was contesting from NA49 as an independent candidate. Quite a few parties offered him the ticket and he decided to go independent. What is remarkable about this constituency is that it has mostly Shia populated area.
The resources were scant. A week before the elections the response from MWM was that this is a constituency with 192 polling stations. So they said something very sweet. ‘We will give you 25 people from MWM. Don’t worry we will give you 25 people and you will just have to pay them 5000 each on polling day. Not a problem’. In a constituency which has 192 polling stations what are you going to do with 25 people? There was a complete lack of resources. Five thousand for an independent candidate is a lot of money. And then very kindly the Sufis with a large following were able to take care of the polling stations.
But what was disturbing was the fact that just two days before the elections it was decided that the Shia vote is not going to be divided and that the Shias cannot make anybody stand next to a candidate you saw these telexes from Sajid Nafi Sahib asking everybody to vote for the People’s Party. And then there was a statement and rallying from Ustad urging people to vote alongside PTI. This was supposed to be a winning seat. He was going to have 45,000 confirmed votes, but a winning seat turned out to be a loosing seat. This what happened throughout the country apart from just a handful of seats. The Shias have not been in parliament.
God does not change or help people until they come forward and help themselves. I would like to congratulate Nawaz Sherif. As a Pakistani I am very happy because he is pro development and he is not a war monger. But as a Muslim my concerns are about sectarianism.
I would like to warn everybody that we have concerns about the kinds of people who are being elected by they terror suspects. We have taken up a case in the United Nations against institutional discrimination against the Shias in the fields of journalism and in the fields of haj quots to challenge the institutional discrimination. I look forward to all of us being able to perform our collective responsibility in taking steps in the right direction.
Dr Ejaz Hussain: The key issues affecting Pakistan’s foreign policy, planning and formulation in relation to the energy crisis, internal security, the economy and corruption. Foreign policy academically or espitomologically is a mechanism. It is a system by which states interact with other states. And they always put in front the national aspirations of the public elite. This is just a very rough definition which I took from the manual from which two great foreign secretaries of Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century used to operate.
I have been asked to discuss the foreign policy of Pakistan in the post election time in 30 minutes: I have ten points which means about two minutes for each point. Afghanistan is the core of Pakistan’s foreign policy today. The fourth tri-lateral dialogue was held in Brussels a month ago on the 22nd and 23rd April. The leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States did meet every six to eight months to discuss post 2014 Afghanistan: how the players, actors and stake holders would tackle the new Afghanistan when the 100,000 plus NATO troops withdraw from that land and leave behind a training corps of ten to fifteen thousand troops led by the USA under the UN umbrella.
Being a Pakistani I will definitely discuss Pakistan’s foreign policy from the perspective of a Pakistani. In the last trilateral talk it was discussed that Afghanistan would have 350,000 troops of the Afghan National Army to look after the affairs of the state. This is part of Barack Obama’s July 2011 state of the union address in which he divulged to the media how he would be pulling out US troops from Afghanistan. It is a long way to go. They had this ambitious plan that by 2013 they would be able to put in place 350,000 but they are very far from that.
In my last conversation with a very dear friend Henry Bulgarin who is the political adviser to the NATO secretary general. He said that so far only 65,000 troops had been raised. As you have seen there are attacks. The green on the blue. This is a very famous term which is being used. The people within the 65,000 are attacking the NATO troops and the Afghan national army troops.
This is the first point. The second point is that they had to augment the administration of Hamid Karzai. The next point is that they have to upgrade the joint patrolling in Helmud and other areas where a very strong British brigade is deployed and they are having many setbacks. So far there have been more than 500 casualties there and they are increasing. The entire patrolling is really under question. The next issue is the aerial patrolling – the reapers they are working with, the second generation of the drones. They are working well but as part of the exit strategy of the ruling elite in the Pentagon and the State Department, the USA has added another six billion dollars to the next generation of the drones which is MQX and they would like to 600 drones in Nomid area which is on the joint border of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. So before they leave they will make sure they have the latest drones. They are strengthening the Afghan airforce and they have given about seven MI25 helicopters. The training of the Afghan airforce is led by Lt General Mohammed Dabran is being carried out by the Indian force.
There was a discussion today when the Pakistani president was hosting the new Chinese Prime Minister in Islamabad. It was pointed out that India has no stake and no territorial link with Afghanistan. India comes through Tajikistan and Tajikistan is a very poor country whose economy has been strengthened by India. Obviously India has got a stake and it operates from the airfields in Tajikistan. So that is a pressure on Pakistan. The DGSI in the last talks in Brussels in April along with the Pakistan army chief voiced their concern. They voiced their concern and said that in view of the fact that Pakistan is hosting three million Afghan refugees for the last 30 – 33 years. So why is Pakistan not doing that? It is fully capable with F16 and F17 Thunder aircraft. Pakistan can patrol the 2600km Durrand Line which is a border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. They will have a very strong, a very powerful meeting in the Pentagon with the new defence secretary in the USA.
We are afraid as Pakistanis that maybe the déjà vu returns to Pakistan which happened after the Geneva Accord was signed in May 1988. So this is a growing concern and it is a clear and present danger for Pakistan’s national security. A very large number of those outfits which operate in Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar detonate the dirty bombs. They come from that part of Afghanistan. So our concern is that that should be stopped.
During the elections when Pakistan sealed the complete border there was a lot of opposition from the USA, NATO and the EU that Pakistan should not have sealed that border. Sealing that border really paid. Afghanistan is the corner stone of Pakistan’s foreign policy formulation at this time.
The second is not a foreign policy topic. This is the energy crisis. It has defence, security and foreign policy dimensions. In the metropolitan cities of Pakistan the people are without electricity or gas for at least 12 hours a day. So how can democracy operate there? How can development operate there? The Pakistani foreign office has spent a lot of time and put a lot of resources into the EU in Brussels. There is one sentence that all diplomats keep saying – -they should have access to the European markets and products. But 57 percent of manufacturing units have been closed during the past five years. So what can Pakistan market to the EU? Pakistan is not manufacturing anything. So definitely with astute diplomacy India made many gains in the EU. And they had very powerful, very astute diplomats like Rangin Matai and Dr Pagwati who is the High Commissioner in London and these people worked very hard. So let me say that the diplomats operate using the subtle art of lying patriotically for their country. To what extend do Pakistani diplomats represent Pakistan?
I was listening to Shams El Mulk who is a legend in Pakistan’s hydro power generation with 45 years of service. He reiterated that Pakistan’s future in the generation of electricity is in hydro power projects not in the gas or in oil. If the energy crisis is handled in Pakistan all the essential foreign policy ingredients would be placed in order themselves.
We are between two choices. They are not Hobson’s choices. They are the choices of a hungry Duke of Northumberland. They are thinking we are either getting gas from Iran or gas from Turkmenistan. Gas from Turkmenistan is called tapi. Tajikistan and India is also there and through Afghanistan and then to Pakistan. It is hard choice for Pakistan. The Americans are pushing. They don’t want Pakistan to get anything from Iran. So they have to strengthen the Saudi, the Wahabi selafi mindset in Pakistan again in the name of Nawaz Sherif.
During his lavish exile Nawaz Sherif was in Saudi Arabia. He was a Sunni 30 years thirty years ago when he was inducted into the Punjab government in 1982 and finance adviser. He was a Sunni. After that when he attached himself to the Doban school of thought and was radicalised he became a selafi. He even says his prayers like the Selafis do. So the Americans in the classical example, if diplomacy does not work, go through Saudi Arabia to coerce a Muslim country. They have a person there now with the Saudi agenda. And the American Saudi agenda will be accomplished in Pakistan through Nawaz Sherif. He already had two terms as prime minister but he did not deliver anything in Pakistan. So I am not hopeful or optimistic. I am pragmatic hardliner. I see that there is no clear-cut plan to rule Pakistan except for the same things he did in 1997 or in 1990 when he won the elections. There is a coeitre of independents joining in. Today 49 independents joined him. He is a megalomaniac and he is power hungry like any Pakistani politician. I do not support any Pakistani politician. Not Imran Khan who is independent. The thing is we have complete doubt vis a vis political leadership in Pakistan.
I have focused on Afghanistan as that is 80 percent of Pakistan’s foreign policy today. The CIA, pressure, the Pentagon pressure, the State Department pressure, the Saudi pressure and the regional pressure and sub regional pressure is focused on a single item: Afghanistan and energy. These issues with remain like a spectre on Pakistan’s foreign policy formulation for the next five to seven years.
Sheikh Musharaf Husseini: The situation of minorities in Pakistan in the context of Syria, Iraq and Bahrain where salafis have been making life difficult for Muslim followers of other thought: I do not know where we should start from. Do we start from the Middle East or do we start from Pakistan? Let us start with a little background about the Middle East since the Second World War, the creation of Israel, then the strengthening of Israel and after that the October War in which six countries were defeated by Israel. Their airforce their army and their navy were totally demolished. The Israeli army took the war to the Suez canal on the Egyptian side and to the West Bank of the River Jordan.
They crossed that river, then the Golan Heights, then the Sheba farms. Within ten days they were able to demolish the airforce and army of six countries and after that the strength of Israel was such that nobody could challenge it. And then we passed through different stages. We saw the era of Camp David. From Camp David we went on to see the war of Lebanon in which Israel was facing Hezbollah, an organisation, not a country. In that 34 days war Israel was unable to penetrate even four of ten miles into Lebanese territory. And for the first time they vacated the Sheba farmland by force. That was the situation. After that there was a decline and many things have been said about the power and the force of Israel which was the main driving force in the politics of the Middle East. That decline has been going since the war of Lebanon.
On the other hand we see that the Arabs were not bothered about the Palestinian cause which was a long standing issue. The present generation of the Palestinians was born in the camps outside their own homeland. The issue was to be addressed by the international community but it was not addressed.
In the meantime we foresaw the Iranian Islamic revolution which became a driving force and a support for the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian issue. Then the Shia population in Iraq faced Saddam. They were facing Iran where the Shia population was dominant. Syria was the only country that was supporting the Palestinian cause. Iran started supporting Palestinians and opposing the Israelis. Then the same issue came into the next government of Iraq and Lebanon forming what you can call a crescent, a dagger or a line of action. It happened there and it has affected policies. I think these countries, including Pakistan need to start from the battle for independence. They need to find their independence which they have lost slowly and gradually like a slow poisoning.
They have lost their independence. They don’t act like an independent state or independent entities. They have elections but most of their policies, whether internal or external, are dictated by the powerful countries of the world. And we can say that the Arab countries are coming together after what is called the Arab spring or the Islamic awakening. The people were fed up with the dictatorships in the Arab counties and they stood up against those dictatorships. They came out as they wanted to throw out the dictators. But the international players are still there and there are too many international players.
Analysts said that this was a natural thing and it was dictated by the power players of the world. Maybe it was like that but I would say that it went out of their control in different countries especially in Egypt. Nobody wanted a public uprising. It should be a revolt, it should be a revolution there after what they had seen in Iran and the way it was moving it was out of the control of those countries in Tunis and Libya although they were able to control that to some extent. In Yemen it is still going on. When they saw that things are going out of their hand they tried to slow down process but it still continuing. We do not where it ends. In Bahrain they have been able to limit that but the process of moving forward is very slow even though they are moving forward.
In these situations in the Middle East we have see that the Lebanese war had another effect. People are thinking and it was openly in the media that this was a test case before attacking Iran. They wanted to see how conditions were there. Because they were unable to fact that organisation they said we should have second thoughts about attacking Iran although all the options are still on the table as they were in the past.
They are still preparing for that. In the Gulf we have seen to many armies coming in and too many navies and aircraft carriers being brought into the Persian Gulf. The airforce of the Gulf countries has been enhanced and they have been told that this the situation is going from bad to worse day by day. This is the situation in the Gulf.
We have seen the escalation of sectarianism. Maybe that is a tool to divert that force instead of facing these countries directly. Why not bring them into the folds of sectarianism. Divide and rule has been an old phenomena to control the countries and the people and the public. That occurred just after the death of the Prophet when the division in Islam into two main schools of thought one going towards the Khalifa and the hadith and the other one going towards the imama. This resulted in a division and a split. And after that the governments in the Muslim world have been taking advantage of this division and they have been using them to rule – be they the Ummayads or the Abbasids. We saw that division had worked so why not apply the same division in Pakistan at the time of General Zia Al Haq a dictator who took power from Bhutto.
Elections were held before Zia in the time of Field Marshall Ayub Khan when he was president. The backing of the public was very strange phenomena for the powerful countries to see in a country where a leader had ideas to unite the public and unite the Muslim countries and form a Muslim bloc in the name of the Islamic Conference.
After Zia Al Haq’s time the Shia population was a good supporter of Bhutto and obviously they were opponents of General Zia Al Haq. He went to the sectarian side and there were certain parties which were created during the martial law period of Zia Al Haq. One of them is called Sehaya al Sehab. The sectarian divide increased and sectarian clashes happened at that time. Hate speeches against Shias were made across the country and the leader of Sehaya al Sehab was given a free hand to make anti Shia speeches.
I want to summarise and link what is happening in the Middle East and what is happening in Pakistan. For the past 20 years the Shias have just been defending themselves. Nearly 25,000 – 26,000 Shias are being killed across Pakistan. Most of them are doctors, engineers, politicians and government servants. This killing has been going on and anyone who came to power made no difference whether it was the martial law of Zia Al Haq, whether the government of Benazir Bhutto, whether it was the government of Nawaz Sherif, whether it was the martial law of General Pervez Musharaf who came into power saying I want to make two corrections in Pakistan – to stop sectarianism and develop the economy of the country. I don’t know about the economy but sectarianism went from bad to worse during his time. It is still continuing.
In the meantime General Mushraf took power from Nawaz Sherif and Nawaz Sherif was exiled to Saudi Arabia. That was information for me that he has become a salafi. Salafi is not denoted by praying. Salafi is denoted by your actions. A Muslim is identified by actions. A peaceful citizen is identified by an action. A supporter of a democratic country or democratic process is by actions. We see their actions and we see what is going on. In Pakistan the main power broker is the army and the judiciary.
I can’t see anything of the democratic process. They said it was a clear and very good election. We see so many videos coming out . And you will be surprised to see the level of rigging that happened during these elections. Rigging had three phases in Pakistan. Every party in Pakistan brought in their own bureaucrats, their own party and their own police. So there people were brought in. They nominated the returning officers in the election and in the polling stations.
Then there was the rigging on polling day – the stamping of the voting slips. After the elections rigging also occurred. In to many places there came reports that a person was winning in the night and in the morning number three was in place one.
There are two projects: Gawadar Port and the gas pipeline. I think if these two projects are properly accomplished the living standard of the general public will increase and they will come out of the poverty level. Gawadar is a link between China and the Central Asian states and then there is gas coming in. And many problems can be solved.
There was a hub of mafia around the world. Sometimes it was Beirut, then it was Hong Kong and Dubai. When our leaders used to meet each other they used to come to London. Now they don’t come to London, they go to Dubai which has become a hub. And nobody wants that hub to transfer from Dubai to Gawadar. Gawadar has the potential to become a hub for the mafia who are governing the countries today.
So that is a very important factor. I don’t see any strength in the Pakistan army or the establishment to face those enemies who are very strong. They do not have any rules or regulations. They have international backing because of the geo political situation of Pakistan and the situation in the Middle East and what is going in Syria because if the Syrian war is won by Assad I think that will be a very big defeat for the powers with the long beards.
Another thing which we see coming up in Bahrain is that the rightful will get stronger and in other countries they will get weaker. Every day there are new missiles being tested in Iran and it is going forward in the technological field and in other fields. They are coming up. That is another question mark. So Pakistan in itself is now getting into a situation where the parties, if they got the power, like Imran Khan. I do not side with any politician there. But Imran Khan means a change. The other politicians like Nawaz Sherif and the Peoples Party they have being going through musical chairs, turn by turn. But a new face of it comes and he is followed and supported by the youth there. They came for the first time if the youth come in it means fresh blood. Fresh blood means new ideas, new ways, a new part opening. I won’t say that Iman Khan might have been able to do that but many young people may have been able to do that.
The conditions in Pakistan and Syria have linked up and they are attached to everything that has happened. Just a re-election in certain polling stations or in certain constituencies is not the answer. All the movies and the videos that have been shown show that the elections was rigged 100 percent. There should be a proper re-election. But if the parties that are there hold a re-election it will be the same players with different faces. So we leave everything for time. If the people stand up for their power Allah will not change the condition of the people if they themselves do not change it. If they people stand up for themselves this can be very strong power. Thank you.
*Rubab Mehdi Rizvi is the forrmer European Coordinator Human Rights/Spokeswoman for the Ministry of Human Rights in Pakistan, Chair of the International Imam Hussain Council, and a qualified lawyer in England and Wales. She arranged ground breaking events on interfaith and intr afaith harmony, in the UK and Pakistan. These have been attended by Heads of States, diplomatic envoys, scholars from different religious persuasions and people from all walks of life. She is a qualified lawyer in England and Wales and worked with the financial regulator for two years, drafted legislation and dealt with a broad range of regulatory matters.
**Dr Ejaz Hussain is a career civil servant and human rights advocate. He holds an MA in International Relations from the University of Durham, a Postgraduate Diploma in Sociological Research from the LSE and a PhD in International Relations, King’s College, London. He is a member of several professional institutions. He worked as Assistant Editor of The News, in Lahore, Deputy Editor of the The Muslim, in Islamabad and Media Consultant, to the Government of Pakistan.
***Sheikh Musharaf Husseini is a graduate from the Islamic seminary in Qom. He has lived in the UK for many years and is an activist who teaches at a number of institutes and is a lecturer on Islamic topics including politics and international relations.
