Sectarian violence is an unpredictable menace in Pakistan: for weeks, even months at a time, nothinghappens; then all of a sudden there is a sectarian massacre. No one can tell when or where the sectarianmenace will strike next.
On July 4, 2003, it struck a Shi'a imambargah (mosque) in Quetta, the capital of the Balochistanprovince. Worshippers at the Asna Ashari Hazara Imambargah were in the middle of Friday prayers when two menentered and opened fire with automatic weapons. A third assailant then set off a suicide bomb. Dozens ofworshippers were killed on the spot, while others died later in hospital. The total death toll was over 50.All those killed were Shi'as of the Hazara community.
Earlier, on June 8, Shi'a police recruits, also from the Hazara community, were gunned down as they were beingdriven back to their barracks in Quetta. Prior to this, the last major sectarian attack in Pakistan hadoccurred in Karachi in February, when nine Shi'as were gunned down as they prayed in a mosque.
As all these incidents indicate, the primary victims of sectarian violence are members of the minority Shi'acommunity. Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, has been an especial site of sectarian Shi'a killings. Such isthe scale of the problem there that hundreds of professional Shi'as have packed their bags and moved abroad,though Sunnis have also been targeted by extremist Shi'as. Furthermore, the sectarian menace has graduallyspread from Karachi to other provinces - notably Punjab, and now Balochistan. Across the country, the totaldeath toll in sectarian killings over the past decade runs into several thousand.
While seeking an explanation for Pakistan's sectarian menace, it is noteworthy that, for decades, thecountry's Shi'as and Sunnis lived side by side without any major problems. Sectarian killings are a relativelyrecent phenomenon in Pakistani society. Their roots, thus, lie not in religious differences, but in politicaland social developments within Pakistan and the region. They are intimately tied up with the country's widerproblem of militant extremist Islam.
The origins of sectarian violence in Pakistan can be traced back to the war against the Soviet occupation ofAfghanistan. American funding and Pakistani assistance promoted the proliferation of a huge number of militantIslamist groups and madrassahs (seminaries) 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 thinking became apparent immediately after the Soviet Union's exit. While radicalIslamists in Afghanistan formed the Taliban, their brethren in Pakistan turned their attention towards IndianKashmir or to sectarian opponents inside Pakistan. Each act of sectarian killing provoked a cycle of revengekillings. Civilian Governments failed to curb the menace, either because they wanted the militants to fightPakistan's corner in Indian Kashmir, or because they lacked the will and the strength to do so. That failurein turn allowed the religious militants to flourish and grow in strength.
External factors other than Kashmir also promoted sectarianism. For a period, Shi'a and Sunni sectarian groupswere sponsored by Iran and Saudi Arabia respectively. These two rivals fought a proxy war in Pakistan. Theirsupport abated as relations between Tehran and Riyadh improved, but the sectarian groups found other sourcesof sustenance. They derived ideological inspiration (not to mention a base from where to train and launchtheir operations) from the ultra-orthodox Taliban that came to power in Afghanistan. The Taliban had stronglinks with madrassahs in Pakistan, so it was little wonder their hard-line thinking influenced peoplethere.
The end-result of all this was that when Musharraf seized power in October 1999, he faced a formidable foe:well-armed, well-trained and well-financed Islamist-sectarian organizations, with a huge resource pool ofrecruits in the country's thousands of religious madrassahs. Dealing with such a foe was never going tobe easy.
His task was made somewhat easier by 9/11 and the worldwide backlash against terrorism and extremist Islam(not to mention the Taliban) that it unleashed. Musharraf could strike against sectarian groups knowing thatpublic opinion was mostly on his side. Religious parties, who would normally be expected to mobilize massivestreet protests against any Government attempt to curb religious activism, were now unable to do so.
Pakistan's decision to cut support for the Kashmiri separatist movement also boosted its drive againstsectarianism. As seen, many sectarian groups emerged or were tolerated because of their connections withgroups fighting in Indian Kashmir. Once Islamabad decided to abandon the latter, it no longer had to put upwith the former.
The first clear sign of a shift in the Government's attitudes came in a televised speech by General Musharrafto the nation on 12 January 2002. The Chief Executive announced a campaign to eradicate the sectarian menace.He banned three sectarian groups, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Tehreek-e-Jafria Pakistan (TJP), and theTehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM), and put the Sunni Tehrik on notice. He also announced a reformprogramme for religious madrassahs - breeding grounds for religious extremism and sectarianism.
Implementing the anti-sectarian drive, however, has been easier said than done. As a leading English dailypointed out in its editorial the day after the Quetta killings: "Mere condemnations and resolve of thekind expressed by the President and Prime Minister are not enough. They should prove by deeds that they arecapable of rooting out the menace of terrorism, especially of the sectarian variety."
Aside from the massive scale of the task - there are thousands of madrassahs, tens of thousands ofunregulated arms - there are very real problems with regard to the capacity of the security forces. Wheneveran incident like that in Quetta takes place, police are quick to make arrests - but those detained are usuallyscapegoats. Very few of the people actually responsible for sectarian killings have been captured orconvicted. Improving the dismal record of the intelligence and security forces requires a huge investment inequipment and training - not easy for a country like Pakistan with limited resources.
The other knee-jerk reaction among many Pakistanis, especially those in authority, is to blame a 'foreignhand' for sectarian violence. The July Quetta massacre, for example, was initially blamed on Afghan nationals.Accusing outside forces is a convenient way of deflecting attention (and criticism) from the authorities'clear failings. But it does not help deal with the actual problem, which is primarily domestic in origin.
There is also a growing suspicion that the Government's strategy could be fundamentally flawed. Banning groupsdoes not render them ineffective - rather, it drives them underground and makes them even harder to trace andcurb. As the attack in Quetta showed, it only takes a handful of dedicated extremists to wreak wide-scalecarnage and destruction. Unless the Pakistan Government can find a way to deal with these dedicated sectariankillers, the threat of sectarian violence will continue to cast a dark shadow over Pakistani society.
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Dr Iffat Idris is an Islamabad-based political analyst. Courtesy, South Asia Intelligence Review of theSouth Asia Terrorism Portal
