Human rights
Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
Dear readers, kindly take a moment to ponder the fate of the people who have no recourse to justice and no media coverage of the excesses committed against them by a government that is capable of manhandling the Chief Justice in full public glare just because he refuses to be cowed down by a government that orders a police assault on the premises of LHC to batter the peacefully protesting lawyers and to ransack their chambers. A government whose uniformed police vandalize a TV station because it doesn?t like the coverage.
?Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.? In authoritarian states the state functionaries at all levels act tyrannically and harshly to sustain their mentors and masters. It is all too easy for them to tyrannise people because all their acts have the sanction of the state, which protects their brutalities, illegalities and excesses. They possess the right to act inhumanly to keep people in line. They also tend to become more brutal any at signs of a ?meltdown? as seems to be the case in the present crisis. Incidentally, meltdowns are irreversible.
The consistent implementation of an oppressive policy by the state is aimed at creating an environment of acquiescence and resignation among people and succeeds to a certain extent. But this also creates animosity and bitterness simply because there is no recourse to justice and no remedy for the injustices and excesses.
Undeniably it is the ubiquitous police along with numerous clandestine agencies, the so-called ?custodians of law?, who are employed in suppressing and intimidating the populace. Sadly, the people have to seek justice from those very people who are responsible for injustices.
Police has always been used to create an environment of persecution and harassment to make people acquiesce to the wishes of the state. It helps the state in carrying out its agenda of stifling and smothering dissent against injustices and of imposing its unlawful will. The past few days have clearly shown to what extent the police are used as a deterrent against dissent. Now for a minute imagine what must be happening in Balochistan, where no media access is possible!
Repression, army operations, extra-judicial killings, police brutality, forced disappearances may seem like clichés from a political pamphlet, but in Balochistan?s context they signify the stark reality of a situation with which the people have had to continuously contend and survive since partition.
The policy of unbridled oppression and repression has always been implemented with a vengeance in Balochistan. There is long list of disappeared persons, incarcerations without trial and the innumerable staged ?encounters? in cities. The countless ?encounters? that transpire in remote areas remain unheard of.
The brutality and injustice of all that is perpetrated there, in the name of the ?writ of the state?, is expressed by the agony and anguish of a 13-year old Baloch girl Shirin, who has threatened to immolate herself unless her father Gohram, who has been missing since last August after being picked up by the LEAs at a check post, is found.
The president says that missing people have joined banned outfits. Durrani says there are no restrictions on the CJ. Hundreds of equally ridiculous examples can be quoted. The state is guilty of blatant deception.
Recently the federal government accorded approval to the posting of 20 police officers of grade 17 in different districts of Balochistan as ASPs. 19 police officers belong to the other three provinces and only one belongs to Balochistan. The breakdown was, 11 of Punjab, 5 of Sindh, 2 of NWFP and one each of FATA and Balochistan. Three officers refused to proceed, which indicates that the situation in the province is quite dangerous.
These appointments have exposed the consistently inflexible policy of strong arm tactic approach that Islamabad has always relentlessly pursued and intends to pursue in Balochistan. These postings confirm that there is to be more extensive and intensified suppression of people, with more disappearances, more illegal detentions and more extra-judicial killings.
Evidently the government doesn?t believe that the Baloch police officers would be willing to carry out their bidding. They fear that their loyalties may eventually lie with their people and they may turn a blind eye to what are termed as anti-state activities. They can hope to keep the population in check only with a very compliant police. These postings are a logical extension of the existing policies of repression and despotism let loose in Balochistan.
Among the numerous brutalities committed by the state, the most unjust, illegal, inhuman and appalling action that puts people in harm?s way and hurts them most, apart from army actions, is when the state personnel decide to act as judge, jury and hangman, when they carry out an unwritten but officially sanctioned policy of eliminating suspected people. This horrendous practice has become the hallmark of the law (of the jungle) enforcing agencies here. There is no known prosecution of the perpetrators of this inexcusable crime.
Asad Marri and Ahmed Marri of New Kahan were such victims at the end of last year. Asad was a student and Ahmed Khan was a gang-man in the Road & Building Dept. Accused of being armed and firing at police, they were shot outside the camp. Their crime: they were Baloch.
A national daily had reported on February 28th, 2005 that ?Quetta DIG Pervez Rafi Bhatti said that the raids were on a ?fort? owned by tribal chief Nawab Khair Baksh Marri in the Marri Camp area. He said 1,500 policemen were involved in the operation. A Pakistani flag was hoisted atop the fort.?
This flag hoisting had taken place after the police had conquered the ?fort? at New Kahan. They had claimed that it was rid of all the weapons and subversive materials it was supposed to be hoarding. How then Asad Marri and Ahmed Marri could be having weapons since this camp was rid of them and the ?writ of the state? had been established there?
Certainly these two could have been pursued and arrested. They weren?t in a maze of forests or streets where they could have disappeared. I suppose this is asking too much since the entire province seems to resemble one huge Guantanamo Bay. Since there are demands for implementation of the Geneva Conventions at the real one, something like that should at least be applicable here too. I have taken Asad Marri?s case symbolically to demonstrate the treatment meted out to dissenters in the cities of Balochistan.
A glimpse into happenings in remote areas is also necessary. The Post correspondent Azizullah Khan recently reported that, ?Marri tribesmen claimed that operations were launched by the security forces in Kahan and areas bordering Sibi and Kohlu in January. Marri elders addressed a press conference and said their areas were destroyed and the people were maltreated during a ?military activity? in Jalri, Kohshar, Baadrah, Babar Kachh and adjoining areas on 19th and 20th of January 2007. They said that about 38 people were killed, hundreds were injured and about 126 were arrested, including women and children during the four-day activity that started on January 19.?
The detained women belonged to a family of suspected ?Farraris?. This hostage taking is as despicable as it is disgraceful. This attempt to stigmatize the honour of men who are resisting injustices is contemptible and reprehensible. The use of such base tactics instead of breaking down determination, will only steel the resolve of the people.
The people of Balochistan continue to suffer immeasurably due to excesses. I should remind those who forget the lessons of history and persist with inhuman policies that:
?The mills of God grind slowly but they grind exceedingly small.?
The writer has been associated with the Baloch national struggle |
