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Blaming the West
for Sunni Unrest
Kimia Sanati
http://ipsnews. net/news. asp?idnews= 36810
TEHRAN, Mar 5 (IPS) - As a Shia
majority country with several large ethnic groups like the Kurds, Arabs and
Baluchis that follow the Sunni faith, Iran has for years been vulnerable to
unrest, riots and terrorist attacks that officials routinely attribute to
foreign powers.
''Iranian intelligence services have acquired information that show the
United States, Britain and Israel have been behind the unrest in various
parts of Iran, including Khuzistan, Kurdistan and West Azerbaijan in the
past few years," Mostafa Pour Mohammadi, Iran's intelligence minister was
quoted as saying by the Aftab News Agency.
A car bomb attack last month by the separatist 'Jundullah' (also called
Popular Iranian Resistance Movement) in the south-eastern city of Zahedan,
that killed 13 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),
triggered clashes between security forces and guerrillas of the 'PJAK', a
separatist Kurdish party, around the city of Khoy in north-western Iran.
''In the past one and a half years and following air raids on PJAK bases in
northern Iraq, clashes with the Iranian military have increased. The clashes
used to occur at border points mostly, but the recent encounter was more
intense and occurred inside Iranian soil,'' the Aftab News Agency quoted
Abed Fattahi, representative of Oroumiyeh in Parliament, as saying.
An IRGC helicopter crashed on Friday, 17 km inside the Iranian border,
killing its two high-ranking commanders and seven other military staff. The
guerrilla group that claimed responsibility has connections with the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has bases in Turkey and northern Iraq.
The same group had blown up the Iran-Turkey gas pipeline, last September.
IRGC statements said technical problems forced the helicopter to make an
emergency landing after which it exploded, but, in a statement released
after the crash, PJAK claimed to have downed the helicopter using SAM-7
missiles. Both sides also claimed to have inflicted heavy casualties on the
other.
"Enemies, particularly the U.S., Britain and the Zionist regime, seek to
create insecurity along Iran's south-eastern and north-western borders
through their mercenaries, " Brig. Gen. Rahim Safavi, Chief Commander of
IRGC, was quoted by Fars news agency as saying. ''But the Iranian armed
forces are fully prepared to suppress any move by the anti-revolutionarie s
and alien-affiliated bandits and gangs with maximum power," Safavi said.
In spite of the public hanging of a Jundullah terrorist responsible for the
Zahedan bombing only a few days after the incident, calm has not returned to
the south-eastern region. An attack on law enforcement forces in Sistan and
Baluchistan on Tuesday by 'armed bandits' left one dead and another wounded,
a military commander told Mehr news agency on Wednesday. Four others were
transferred back over the border to Pakistan, he said.
Ethnic conflict in Kurdistan and in the Kurdish-populated cities of West
Azarbaijan province in north-western Iran date back to the days following
the Islamic Revolution of 1978. In July 2005 pictures of the tortured body
of a young Kurdish activist shot dead by government agents in Mahabad in
north-western Iran set off riots which quickly spread to other Kurdish
cities in Kurdistan and Oroumiyeh provinces. But these were quickly
suppressed and more than a hundred Kurdish activists arrested.
"Kurds, many of them Sunnis, have been fighting for many years for their
civil rights. Their ways are now becoming more civil oriented rather than
being a continuation of armed encounter with the central government like in
the past. PJAK and Komele, both rather small leftist parties, still carry on
with armed struggle, something that many other Kurdish rights activists now
find irrelevant and useless," a Kurdish journalist in Tehran told IPS,
asking not to be quoted by name.
''Freedom of expression and freedom to use our mother language in education
are among the demands of the Kurdish people. There are several million Kurds
in this country but there is not one high ranking Kurdish government
official. It is next to impossible for a Kurd, especially a Sunni Kurd, to
rise in rank to high positions. And elections are never free. There is a
screening procedure, not only for Kurds or other minorities but for all
citizens, that serves as a powerful tool to bar the opposition from entering
elected bodies like the parliament or city and village councils,'' he said.
Shiite Azeris, Iran's largest ethnic minority, have their own issues too. In
May 2006, a cartoon allegedly insulting to Azeri speakers that appeared in
the official government gazette sparked demonstrations and riots in Tabriz
that quickly spread to other cities and towns and left several dead.
Khuzistan in south-western Iran is another problem zone. Home to two million
ethnic Arabs, the province has a huge share of Iran's oil fields. Badly
stricken by the war between Iran and Iraq (1980-1988), the province is one
of the less developed regions of the country and there have been several
incidents of popular riots as well as terrorist bombings by Arab separatist
groups in the past two years. The attacks, on oil pipelines and in urban
areas, have brought about death and destruction, particularly in Ahwaz, the
province capital.
"A total of 40 people were jailed in connection with bombings and 22 were
sentenced to death. Some of these men had no role in any of the actual
bombing operations but had possessed bombs. One was a minor at the time of
his arrest and another man had been in jail two months before the alleged
bombing took place," Emadeddin Baghi, founder of Iran's first death penalty
abolition society and Chairman of the Society for Defending Prisoners'
Rights, told IPS.
Of the 22 Arabs sentenced to death for involvement in the Khuzistan
bombings, 12 have been hanged, three of them on the day of the bombing in
Zahedan.
''Even according to Iranian laws those who possessed bombs but never used
them couldn't be executed. The men had no access to legal counselling so we
found volunteer lawyers to represent them. The lawyers themselves were then
charged with acting against national security and prosecuted. They were
acquitted later but the atmosphere of trepidation took its toll and the
lawyers lost their initial impetus. Our lobbying failed, too. We couldn't
stop the executions,' ' Baghi added.
On one of his famous nationwide tours, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
disclosed a secret highly guarded till then. There existed a Supreme
National Security Council decree in effect for many years, Ahmadinejad told
his audience, not to make any major government investments in western and
south-western Khuzistan. The decree had now been annulled, he said.
Arab separatists, accused of being fostered by foreign powers, the British
in particular, have long been claiming that the government was intentionally
neglecting development of their native province. The Ahmadinejad disclosure
was considered a proof of their allegations.
''Extremist Wahabis and groups like al-Qaeda definitely play a role in
unrest and terrorist attacks in Sunni populated provinces. In spite of lack
of solid evidence, it is quite possible that countries like the U.S. are
also keen on flaming unrest in these areas to weaken the central government.
Historic ethnic, religious and economic discrimination against the people of
these regions also provide the fuel for the foreign flintstone,' ' a
political analyst in Tehran told IPS, asking not to be quoted by name.
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Lawyers Take to
the Streets of Islamabad
March 22, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org
By UZMA ASLAM KHAN
Lahore, Pakistan.
Down No-Constitution Avenue
A
week ago Tuesday, Islamabad sounded like a whistle factory. Clusters of
policemen screeched themselves silly on their whistles, lest any mortals
dare to 'gather'. It was four days after Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad
Chaudhry was declared 'non-functional' by General Musharraf, and the first
time the judge was to be publicly seen. No one making circles off
Islamabad's barricaded Constitution Avenue in search of a police-free zone
would have called the street by its given name. What constitution? The one
mocked in 1999, when Musharraf sacked an elected Prime Minister and declared
himself 'chief executive'? Or mocked again in 2002, when he held 'elections'
that made him 'President' and, for the first time in Pakistan's history,
gave the religious parties control of two provinces? Or, the constitution
that has been forgotten completely in the many grim years since he has waged
a war against his own people, in the name of fighting 'terror'?
Last Tuesday, as the Chief Justice arrived
at the apex court to defend himself, lawyers and political party workers
gathered in his support on a scale the General could not have foreseen, and
could not prevent. Within hours, the whistles turned to tear gas, and
batons.
But over a week later, the country is
still whistling back. Lawyers are boycotting courts; judges are resigning;
protests and rallies continue; criticism in the press is fierce.
We are looking for a kind of justice. The
kind that will remove this dictator and grant us democracy. And the kind
that calls American Democracy by its proper name.
* * *
That name was made clear when, with the
help of CIA dollars in excess of aid to the Contras in Nicaragua, an Islamic
fundamentalist dictator, General Zia ul Haq, was promoted in Pakistan to
fight the Soviets in Afghanistan (1979-89). Under Zia, with US assistance,
the Mujahideen were recruited from several countries to fight the
Communists. Their hardcore interpretation of Islam then was a boon, not a
bane, so much so that President Ronald Reagan called them as noble as his
founding fathers. That equation should be stamped on every American flag
hoisted in every public and private space on the Empire's soil.
The fallout of the 1980s Afghan War on
both Afghanistan and Pakistan was devastating. Pakistan teemed with drugs
and arms, and a nasty ethnic war ensued between the indigenous people and
the migrants who'd settled in Pakistan after the partition of India. General
Zia introduced Sharia'a, Islamic law. Our history books were
rewritten, scientific inquiry stifled, artistic expression censored, and the
right to theological debate completely eradicated. An amended, draconian
version of the Blasphemy Law, first introduced by the British in the
nineteenth century, was now passed by ordinance, as were other laws that
still exist today, such as the infamous Hudood Laws that target women.
And all of it was happening under the
tutelage of American Democracy.
The country envisioned by Pakistan's
founding father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was one that celebrated the
multiethnic, multilingual, and multireligious makeup of Pakistan. It was to
be secular, not Islamic. In fact, the creation of Pakistan in 1947 was
opposed by the religious parties, who called Jinnah a heretic. That should
be stamped on every Pakistani flag.
But the generation that grew up under
General Zia, my generation, has only ever known our country as a client
state of the US Empire.
* * *
It is rumored that Justice Iftikhar's
unpopularity with the current US-backed military dictator (but also, given
the heat being turned up on Busharraf by the Democrat-dominated Congress,
US-back-stabbed), is in part because of his sympathies with the families of
suspected Pakistani 'terrorists' being illegally detained in military
torture cells across Pakistan. Whether this is true, and to what extent, is
not entirely clear. What is clear is that many of those who've disappeared
have nothing to do with Al Qaeda. They are being held either for no reason
other than as evidence of 'peformance' for the Empire, or because they
threaten the General's internal interests particularly in Balochistan, the
largest and poorest of Pakistan's four provinces. And, not surprisingly, the
province that is richest in natural resources, particularly in minerals and
natural gas. And, not surprisingly, one that has repeatedly waged a
separatist war against successive Pakistani governments, both civilian and
military.
There is a long history to separatist
ethnic movements within Pakistan, ever since the country's birth, because
many groups doubted the likelihood of Jinnah's vision of an equally
representative, multiethnic state being realized. The Baloch and the
Pashtuns (and later the Sindhis) felt, and continue to feel, politically and
economically marginalized. Balochistan has been the most neglected of the
four provinces. Its mountainous, arid terrain is vastly inaccessible by
road. Its literacy rate is the lowest in the country. Its representation in
the armed forces negligible, in industry and commerce even less.
In 1953, when natural gas deposits were
first discovered in Sui, in the Baloch district of Dera Bugti, the first
province to be supplied with the gas was the Punjab. Quetta, the capital of
Balochistan, did not receive any till 1986. Even today, of its twenty-six
districts, only four are supplied with gas, even in winter, when the
temperature drops to below freezing. The federal government earns Rs 84
billion annually from the gas fields, while Balochistan receives a pittance
(between 5- 15 billion rupees in royalties). This is its only major source
of income. It has good reason to feel it is not a partner but a colony.
In effect, Balochistan is to Pakistan what Pakistan is to the United States.
Balochistan is also strategically
positioned. It borders Afghanistan and Iran. US attacks on Afghanistan have
been launched from bases in Pasni and Dalbandin, both in Balochistan. Should
the United States decide to use military means to tame Iran (the country it
once described as one of its two eyes in the Middle East; the other being
Israel), who will have to help? Balochistan, of course. And Pakistan will
comply. (It wants to be an eye but readers must imagine its anatomical
position.) Along the way, Pakistan might launch yet another military attack
on its own province, to quash the separatists who somehow don't feel
integrated. Back in 1998, in the Ras Koh Mountain and the Kharan Desert,
both in Western Balochistan, Pakistan conducted nuclear tests. We were not
shown the people in the mountain and the desert cheering as they choked.
Aside from natural gas, the province is
rich in gold, copper, and, most importantly, uranium. Near the Ras Koh
Mountain, where the nuclear tests were conducted, the rising US rival China
is currently operating gold and copper mines (only?). China's share is 74%
and the federal government's 25%. Balochistan gets 1%.
China has also been involved in the
biggest and most controversial 'development' project in the Balochistan
province, not in its mountains but on its Arabian Sea coast: the
construction of a deep-sea port in Gwadar, a small fishing village and one
of Pakistan's three naval bases. Billed as a 'trade corridor' for China,
Central Asia, the Gulf, East Africa, Iran, and India, Gwadar Port is
popularly perceived as a Chinese Naval Outpost, constructed at
record-breaking speed (three years) in response to Beijing's fears of
post-9/11 US presence extending east from the Persian Gulf, into countries
bordering China.
The decision to construct the port was
entirely the central government's. The labor was almost exclusively Chinese:
only one-sixth of the laborers were Baloch, and they were on daily wage.
Even payment of these minimal wages has been sporadic. Thousands of local
Baloch tribesmen and tribeswomen have been displaced; many others have been
removed for fear of 'terrorism.' It's a no-go area for the Baloch, on its
way to becoming a 'free trade zone' for the rest of the world. When the
second phase is completed, in another three years, it will be able to
receive oil tankers with a capacity of around 200, 000 tons.
Given the utter disaster of the 2003 oil
spill, caused by the Greek oil tanker, Tasman Spirit, this should ring alarm
bells across the entire country. What happened in 2003? The tanker beached
outside Karachi, split, spilled 28,000 tons of crude oil into the Arabian
sea, destroyed our marine life (including two species of rare turtles, the
Green Turtle and the Olive Ridley), littered Karachi's beaches with dead
fish, blackened the sand in sticky crude still seen and smelled today, blew
toxic fumes across the city, made residents sick with diarrhea and vomitting,
and put 90, 000 fishermen out of work. How did the government respond? It
admitted it wasn't equipped to deal with 'such accidents' and then
concluded: 'The situation is not that bad.'
Four years later, we open our shores to
more disasters, because we are suddenly equipped to deal. Let it not be
forgotten that nothing came of the claim the Pakistan National Shipping
Corporation (PNSC) was supposed to file against the Greek company Polembros,
who owned the all too spirited Tasman Spirit. Is it really likely to take up
such claims in the inevitable future?
The official inauguration of Gwadar Port
is the day I write this, March 20th.
Baloch opposition has been fierce. The
Gwadar Garrison is so tightly policed that victims of this frequently brutal
opposition are whoever-can-be-targeted. Early in 2006, three Chinese
engineers of another development project were murdered. A year earlier, two
Chinese workers were kidnapped, and one killed. The government responds by
'rounding up the militants.' The Baloch respond by blowing up a Sui gas
plant. Ad infinitum.
The Pakistan Human Rights Commission, and
Amnesty International have been pleading for the release of the 4,000 men
and women 'terrorists' arrested in Balochistan alone since September 11,
2001. The numbers are expected to be even higher. (From this province alone,
then, more Pakistanis have been killed than those who died on 9/11.
No, there is never any point in exchanging number with number, unless you
are the number that doesn't count.) Baloch men and women have also been
arrested outside the province, most often in Karachi. Among those who have
gone missing are an MD of a Bahrain-based Balochi-language television
station; a Baloch poet; Baloch political activists and their families;
Baloch students and their families. Some are known nationalists, others are
not (but are likely to become so). Only 200 have been taken to court. None
are proven Islamic terrorists. A few are released: all tell horrific stories
of torture.
Before Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was
declared 'non-functional,' he'd ordered the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI),
the most powerful institution in Pakistan, to locate the missing. While this
is hardly likely to be the main reason for the judge's 'suspension,' his
concern for the detained men and women was a little bit of hope. A little
bit of hope goes a long way in Pakistan. That the judge is now himself being
detained (albeit under far better conditions) without charge has made his
cause real.
At last, in a client state that has always
put the interests of others before its country's, we can say what kind of
justice we are looking for.
Uzma Aslam Khan
is the author of
The Story of Noble Rot (PenguinIndia 2001) and
Trespassing (Flamingo/ HarperCollins UK 2003; Metropolitan/Henry Holt
USA 2004). She lives in Lahore, Pakistan.
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The Need for Change in Iran Versus War
by Martin Zehr
March 1, 2007
http://www.opednews.com
THE NEED FOR CHANGE IN IRAN
VS. THE NEED FOR WAR IN IRAN
As rhetoric increases and more is revealed concerning the possible US
invasion or bombing of Iran, it is worth it to stop and escape the
inflammatory tirades that too often characterize "progressive" articles. As
the Bush administration carries out its policies, it is important that we
define ours, and begin to act politically. The first step is to get House
Bill 508 passed. This bill to withdraw from Iraq is the first step in
defining a winning strategy for the future.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-508
Those who vote against it should be seen by Greens and Libertarians as
states that should have particular attention paid to them in the next
Congressional elections.
The next step is to begin to
understand that the Islamic Republic of Iran is no friend of working people
and no model of governance for the people in the region. The Iranian
Thermidor has seized control of the 1979 Revolution and has acted as an
instrument of repression and brutality in the region. There should be no
minimizing this. Those forced to endure these attacks have responded
politically and organizationally. The groups they have built include: the
Peoples' Mujahadeen (PMOI), Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), Al-Ahwaz
Arab Peoples Democratic Popular Front (AADPF), the Workers' Communist Party
of Iran (WCP-I) and others.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/world/iran/links.htm
Opposition to US military intervention is the principle in regards to the
conduct of US foreign policy. Recognition of human rights is the
international standard for all governments in the world. One is not
dependent on the other. Every government needs to end capital punishment,
promote non-violence, provide equality for women, promote nuclear
non-proliferation and not interfere in the internal affairs of other
nations. The means by which we propose to enforce these standards are on the
horizon waiting for leadership and a new vision. But, the seed is planted
every time we challenge Israel for its militarism while opposing the
policies of Hamas and Hezbollah. Being consistent is as important as
maintaining non-violence. There can be no peace without justice being
incorporated into our proposal.
Political leadership means the ability to define the political agenda and to
find the means to make it happen. As a party of opposition, the Green
Parties in states throughout the US and the world have sought to elect a new
generation of leaders. "The Green Party of the United States and its
affiliated state parties seek to influence policy-makers and elect public
officials at all levels of government. The responsibility for the conduct of
foreign policy does not merely rest in the hands of the President. Those who
send troops from their states, fund deployments and defense appropriations
and review the Constitutionality of such actions of the Executive Branch are
likewise obligated to act in a manner which provides for the common defense
and promotes the general welfare." DRAFT GREEN PEACE PLAN FOR SOUTHWEST
ASIA, M. Zehr (not an approved GPUS or state party document)
"The Green Party Platform promotes a peaceful and non-violent diplomacy in
the resolution of conflicts around the globe. We seek to use the resources
of the United States through diplomacy and not force. We seek to speak out
in behalf of the victims of war- the women subjected to violence and abuse,
the civilians targeted in the cross-fires of opposing forces and the
children held in the arms of their parents dying an early death. We seek to
avoid the environmental destruction that accompanies wars. We seek to avoid
the acts of inhumanity that inherently characterizes war." DRAFT GREEN PEACE
PLAN FOR SOUTHWEST ASIA, M. Zehr (not an approved GPUS or state party
document) We need to look the realities squarely in the face and not flinch
our willingness to come up with observations that are accurate. Denial is
not an option, neither for us, nor for the armed actors in SouthWest Asia or
the nations that arm and promote them.
"The power of the US deserves to be used on for the benefit of all humanity.
Our politics are based on the premise that we are engage in an activity to
promote the healing of the suffering of the world's peoples, not promoting
the ever-powerful military-industrial complex with its insatiable appetite
for devastation and destruction. Our vision is to build a generation of
Americans working with people around the globe in the construction of peace.
Our task is to focus on the consequences of industrialism on the planet's
ecosystems, atmosphere, climate and resource depletions.
"It is time for us to: "Come home America". Come home and invest in the
public infrastructure that we need to function once again so that we need
not gaze upon the hopelessness of a New Orleans resident dying on a roadway
from heat prostration and thirst. In America?! Come home and invest in the
massive task of economic transition to renewable energies so that we do not
ever have to send our sons and daughters ever again overseas to war for any
natural resource. Our children are our most valuable natural resource. It is
time for real change and not just empty rhetoric; real action and not just
election eve promises. The Green Party intends its foreign policy to promote
the unity of the peoples of the world in the great tasks that confront us
all. Join us and change reality for the sake of this generation and the
future generations to come." DRAFT GREEN PEACE PLAN FOR SOUTHWEST ASIA, M.
Zehr (not an approved GPUS or state party document)
We define our interests as mutual and common interests with all human
beings, and living beings, for a sustainable future, a peaceful world and a
mutual effort of all peoples and nations. The task is to address the means
to work together and to have the ability to translate our vision into a
reality. The Iranian government no more defines the Iranian people than the
US government defines the American people. Change in Iran is no less
desirable than change in the US. But, there is no support, no rationale and
no reason for invading Iran or subjecting its people to destruction by bombs
made in the US. The people of Lebanon have suffered greatly by such illusory
tactics by Israel and nothing good has come from it.
As a model let us learn from the British anti-war movement when they accept
Al-Ahwazi opposition groups into their coalition. "Members of the British
Ahwazi Friendship Society (BAFS) will be joining the
Stop the War demonstration in London...."The regime cannot assume that
opposition to war means support for its foreign policy objectives. Most
anti-war activists agree that the Tehran regime is oppressive and
undemocratic, but they say it is up to the people to decide its replacement
not foreign governments. Many fear that a military attack on Iran would give
the Iranian establishment more excuses to repress minority rights activists,
trade unionists, feminists and students. "Senior members of the British
anti-war movement have backed the Ahwazis' rights and have called for an end
to Iran's anti-Arab execution campaign in Ahwaz. We hope that by publicising
the oppression of Ahwazi Arabs at this demonstration, more
progressive-minded people will support the Ahwazi movement."
http://www.ahwaz.org.uk/2007/02/ahwazi-opposition-activists-support.html
In the same manner, it is worth our while to recognize the Kurdish national
movements for independence, as well. As the Kurdish people begin to
demonstrate their legitimacy as a nation to the people and nations of the
world, it does not require any interference from the US, Turkey or Iran that
intrudes on their right to self-determination. A free people deserve to have
a free nation. Let the people of Iran and Kurdistan take the initiative to
create their own nation in their own vision. We stand unequivocally united
and move forward together and seek the better vision for our children's
children, so that we might all live in peace and provide mutual support for
the peoples of the world.
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