Young Activists, Fed Up With Alleged
Abuses Challenge Pakistan’s Military, by Saeed Shah
BANNU,
Pakistan—A movement of young activists, tired of being caught up in the
crossfire of the war on terror in Pakistan’s northwest, is challenging the
country’s military.
The
group, from the Pashtun ethnic minority, is pushing back against what it sees as
systematic human-rights abuses by Pakistan’s powerful military and its
sincerity in combating all terrorist organizations.
The
movement is led by a political novice, Manzoor Pashteen, and powered by a blitz
on social media that circumvents a domestic media blackout on the group. The
mainstream media’s regulator is increasingly enforcing a legal provision
barring criticism of the military.
The
Pashtuns in the country’s northwest have been the front line in Pakistan’s
battle with extremism, with both the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban
made up largely of Pashtuns. But the activists say they want to show that
Pashtuns are peace-loving as a community.
The
group calls itself the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, or Movement for the Protection
of Pashtuns. Overall, Pashtuns make up an estimated 15% of the population and
predominate in the areas of the country that border Afghanistan.
At a
recent group seminar held for 300 invited guests in the northwestern town of
Bannu, more than 1,000 people pushed into a hot, airless auditorium. Dozens got
out their phones to stream Mr. Pashteen’s speech on Facebook Live.
“Since
2004, due to terror and in the name of terror, the common people have suffered
in our land,” Mr. Pashteen told the crowd, speaking in the Pashto language
of the area. “The constitution and law of this country needs to be respected.”
Local
students, forming a security cordon, struggled to hold the throng back from Mr.
Pashteen, a fiery speaker who has catapulted in recent months from an unknown
into a superstar for his followers. His trademark black and red “Mazari” cap is
now a symbol of dissent—so much so that Bannu’s University of Science and
Technology banned students last week from wearing it.
Beyond
Pakistan, Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. There, they
have demonstrated in favor of the movement, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani,
a Pashtun, has made a supportive statement.
Under American
pressure, Pakistan sent its army in 2004 for the first time into the
country’s tribal areas, which are populated by Pashtuns, as the place had
become a haven for Taliban and al Qaeda fighters who had retreated from U.S.
forces in Afghanistan. What followed was unremitting conflict, as a sliver of
the local population became radicalized, formed the Pakistani Taliban and took
control of the area, including parts of the adjacent province of Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa, also populated largely by Pashtuns. The Pakistan army
has countered with multiple operations ever since.
The
movement says it has had enough of the fighting in Pashtun areas. It alleges
that the Pakistani military is responsible for abductions, torture and
extra-judicial killings. It has gathered details of 8,000 “missing” Pashtuns.
And it says that Pashtuns are regularly harassed at army check posts. The
military denies these abuses.
The
group also accuses the Pakistani military of supporting some jihadist
groups—the so-called good Taliban that work as its proxies in Afghanistan—but
which terrorize the local population in their safe haven in Pakistan. The group
says that these “good” militants are allowed to drift back into areas in
Pakistan declared cleared by the military in Pakistan’s northwest, under the
guise of “peace committees.”
“Terrorism
as a state policy must end,” said Mr. Pashteen, in an interview.
Detractors
of the Pashtun group say it is playing into the hands of Pakistan’s enemies,
including Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies, by criticizing the country’s
military.
The
Pakistani military, which didn’t respond to requests for comment, says it is
acting against all extremist groups. The military denies human-rights abuses
and says it has quashed most of the domestic terrorist threat in recent years,
but it still has some 200,000 soldiers deployed along the border to guard
against militant groups based in Afghanistan. In turn, Pakistan says that
Afghan and U.S.-led forces inside Afghanistan haven’t done enough to combat
militants that threaten Pakistan from across the border.
“Peace
has just come to FATA [the tribal areas], and certain people have started a new
movement,” said Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Qamar Bajwa, last month in a
speech. “Some people from inside and outside the country are trying to damage
this nation, but I want to tell them, whatever you do, as long as the people
are behind this army, nothing can happen to Pakistan.”
The
movement’s members say they are also rebelling against their own Pashtun
society, which is traditionally led by elders. The new, more-educated
generations say they have seen their elders either killed by militants or
largely acquiescing to militants and the military. Concerned Pashtuns from
different areas have connected through Facebook, building an extensive network.
In a
country where people fear to criticize the military by name, 26-year-old Mr.
Pashteen’s blunt condemnation of the armed forces has unleashed a flood of
similarly direct criticism of the military from his followers. He also calls
out extremist groups, another feared topic.
“Who’s
been bombarding our areas? I have to take their name,” Mr. Pashteen said.
“These last 15 years, people have spoken in guarded language, but it wasn’t
listened to.”
The movement’s criticism of
the Pakistan military’s use of jihadist proxies echoes longstanding concerns in
Washington. But the group blames
the U.S. for fueling the conflictby giving billions of dollars in
aid to Pakistan’s military since 2001. Earlier this year, the Trump
administration suspended security assistance to Pakistan.
Although
Mr. Pashteen had been campaigning largely unnoticed for a number of years, a
movement coalesced around him this year, ignited by the case of an aspiring
Pashtun male model allegedly executed by the police in Karachi. The accused
police officer, who denies the charge, is facing trial. Thousands have
attended the group’s protest rallies across Pashtun areas of the country, but
also in Islamabad and the eastern city of Lahore, where non-Pashtuns also
joined the events.
Karachi,
where a protest is planned for Sunday, is far from the Pashtun historic
heartland but it has the biggest concentration of Pashtuns anywhere, with an
estimated 4 million living there. It is also Pakistan’s most violent and
diverse city, with a history of ethnic conflict. The movement says that Karachi
has seen the most cases of extra-judicial killings of Pashtuns.
Some
experts see the military shaken by the group’s criticisms. In late April, Gen.
Bajwa called in a group of retired Pashtun civilian and military officers for
consultation, said Saad Muhammad, a retired brigadier who attended.
The
army announced Friday a reduction in the number of check posts in North and
South Waziristan, two parts of the tribal areas most ravaged by terrorism.
However, the movement says it is concerned about the military’s overall
antiterror strategy, not just check posts.
“Deep
down, the army feels some of their grievances are justified, it feels they need
to talk to them,” Mr. Muhammad said. “If it deals with them harshly, other
powers in the region could take advantage.”
—Safdar
Dawar contributed to this article.
Write to Saeed
Shah at saeed.shah@wsj.com
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