GILGIT & BALTISTAN, CHINA & NORTH KOREA
by B.Raman
Before the recent Agra summit, Gen.Pervez Musharraf,
Pakistan's self-reinstated Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), self-styled
Chief Executive and self-promoted President, had held a series of
consultations with political and religious leaders of Pakistan, including
Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), on his negotiating strategy at
Agra. As we had mentioned in our reports on the subject available at
www.saag.org , significantly, he did not
invite any representative of the Pakistan-Occupied Northern Areas (Gilgit
& Baltistan) for these consultations.
Reports available since then indicate that his decision
not to invite anyone from the Northern Areas was due to the fact that
Gilgit was in a serious state of unrest for a fortnight from the last week
of June,2001, due to protests from Sunni organisations over the decision
of the local administration to introduce different text-books in the
schools for the Shias, who are in a majority in Gilgit, and the
Sunnis. Embarrassed by the outbreak of the violence before the
summit, the Pakistani authorities stopped all movements between Gilgit and
the rest of Pakistan and imposed strict censorship on the publication of
the details of the incidents in Gilgit.
The riots in Gilgit started on June 23,2001, when there
were clashes between the workers of the extremist Sunni organisation Sipah
Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and law enforcing agencies following the arrests of
some SSP leaders, who demanded that Shia students should study the same
books as are prescribed for Sunni students by the Sunni Ulema and not
separate books approved by the Shia clergy.
The Sunni traders started a shutter down strike in
protest against the arrests of the central Khateeb and Ameer
Tanzeem-e-Ahle-Sunnah-al-Jamat, Maulana Nisar Ahmed, and the President of
the Gilgit branch of the SSP,Himayat-ullah, along with other religious
scholars on the night of June 22.
To disperse rioting SSP members, the police first baton
charged and when the SSP cadres retaliated by pelting stones, they fired
tear-gas shells intermittently for nearly two hours, which resulted in a
large number of casualties. A curfew was imposed and para-military
forces were deployed to enforce it.
Thousands of protesting activists of the
Ahle Sunnah blocked the roads in Gilgit City and Kohistan to prevent the
movement of reinforcements, which were then rushed to the affected areas
by helicopters, The Army then forcibly removed the demonstrators from the
roads and used bulldozers to remove the barricades erected by them.
Subsequently, about 500 activists of the
SSP surrounded the Gilgit City Police Station, demanded the release of the
arrested Sunni leaders and defied an one-hour ultimatum to disperse issued
by the Army.Brig.Zahid Mubashir, the Station Commander at Gilgit, then
rushed to the Police Station and tried unsuccessfully to persuade the
demonstrators to disperse. Later, he withdrew the Army to the
barracks and let the local Police handle the inflamed situattion.
Meanwhile,another crowd of demonstrators led by Maulana Luqman Hakim,
leader of the local unit of the Jamaat-ul-Ulema Islam (JUI) and two
members of the Northern Areas Council Sumbal Shah and Saif ur Rehman Khan
surrounded the local airfield and refused to allow any aircraft to land or
take off. They demanded the transfer of Muhammad Ali Shahzad, a Shia,
who is the Deputy Commissioner of Gilgit, for allegedly permitting the
Shias to have their own text-books.
The Army cut off all telephone
communications inside the Northern Areas as well as between the NA and the
rest of Pakistan. Despite this, the news of the demonstrations
spread to the rest of the NA resulting in demonstrations in other areas
too and also in the Kohistan District of the North-West Frontier Province
(NWFP). The demonstrating mobs blocked the350-km-long Karakoram
Highway at many points.
Gen.Musharraf thereupon rushed Abbas
Sarfaraz Khan, his Minister in charge of the POK and NA Affairs, to Gilgit
to take control of the situation. Normalcy could be restored only by
the first week of July.
Gilgit had seen similar unrest in 1988,
but one of the causes of the unrest then was the demand of the Shias for
an independent Karakoram State. Musharraf, who was asked by
Zia-ul-Haq to control the situation, brutally suppressed the Shia revolt
with the help of Osama bin Laden and his Sunni tribal hordes brought in
from the NWFP.
In its issue of May,1990, "Herald", the
monthly journal of the "Dawn" group of publications of Karachi,
wrote as follows: " In May,1988, low-intensity political rivalry and
sectarian tension ignited into full-scale carnage as thousands of armed
tribesmen from outside Gilgit district invaded Gilgit along the Karakoram
Highway. Nobody stopped them. They destroyed crops and houses,
lynched and burnt people to death in the villages around Gilgit
town. The number of dead and injured was put in the hundreds.
But numbers alone tell nothing of the savagery of the invading hordes and
the chilling impact it has left on these peaceful valleys."
Gen. Musharraf started a policy of bringing in Punjabis
and Pakhtoons from outside and settling them down in Gilgit and Baltistan
in order to reduce the Kashmiri Shias to a minority in their traditional
land and this is continuing till today. The "Friday Times"
of October 15-21, 1992, quoted Mr. Muhammad Yahya Shah, a local Shia
leader, as saying: " We were ruled by the Whites during the British
days. We are now being ruled by the Browns from the plains.
The rapid settling-in of Punjabis and Pakhtoons from outside, particularly
the trading classes, has created a sense of acute insecurity among the
local Shias."
This time, since the revolt was apparently by the Sunni
minority against the educational concessions given to the Shia majority in
Gilgit, the Army handled the situation without resorting to firing and
whenever the situation in any area became serious, did not hesitate to
withdraw instead of using excessive force.
The reports available so far indicate that the unrest
was mainly directed against the Shia officers of the local Administration
and that there were no attacks by the Sunnis on the Shia civilian
population.
In this connection, the following backgrounder on the
situation in the NA published last year by the "Dawn" of Karachi
should be of interest:
"Though outwardly calm, the
Northern Areas of Pakistan are simmering with a crisis that has all the
ingredients of boiling over the rim: the over 2 million people of the
Northern Areas spread over an area of 72,500 sq km are politically
unrepresented in Pakistan and thus facing obvious neglect as all the
governments have linked their fate to the resolution of the Kashmir
dispute. This discontent and anger, if not appeased, can erupt into
a national crisis with far reaching consequences.
"The region classified as 'Northern Areas' comprises five districts:
Gilgit, Diamir, Baltistan, Ghizer and Ghanche. It had voluntarily
acceded to Pakistan on Nov 1, 1948, liberating itself from the Dogra Raj.
Yet, Islamabad considers it to be a disputed territory and links its
future to that of Kashmir. The people of this area have neither been
granted any civil, human and constitutional rights, nor do they have due
representation in the legislature.
"The area has always been governed directly from Islamabad through an
appointed Chief Secretary, armed with the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR)
laws. Although there is an elected Northern Areas Council to
regulate its local affairs, the locals believe it to be just a 'rubber
stamp'. Besides the Chief Secretary and a Minister for Northern
Areas and Kashmir Affairs and his six officers, who sit in Islamabad, the
area has no other legal representation. All these people are
non-locals, including the Judicial Commissioner against whose judgements
there is no right to appeal.
"Fifty-three years down the line and exposed to an era of digital
communication, the people of the Northern Areas are getting
restless. Though committed to the denominators of Pakistan's
security and integrity, they have started questioning Islamabad's policy
of keeping them unrepresented and backward till Kashmir's fate has been
determined. Their demand makes sense as even the internationally
accepted disputed territory of Kashmir has an assembly and an independent
legal status.
"The feeling of alienation among the inhabitants of these areas is
growing as Islamabad continues to turn a blind eye to their misery; they
feel the government is trying to solve the Kashmir issue at their
expense. The frequent protest demonstrations and various efforts by
the locals in an attempt to attract the attention of Islamabad is too
obvious a distress signal to ignore. Rallies marking 'day of
deprivation' are held in many pockets across Gilgit and Baltistan.
"In May 1999, the Supreme Court of Pakistan in a landmark judgment
ruled: "The NA are a disputed territory and the Government of
Pakistan has no claim over it." In the same breath, the apex court
asked the Federal Government to grant the region its due status within the
next "six months". Nothing has come of it so far.
The rift is taking its toll on the region in the form of grave national
and international consequences.
"The unrepresented status of the NA has resulted in its alienation
from the national mainstream, causing deprivation and socio-economic
backwardness. Strategically located, this serene and beautiful
region is among the most poverty-ridden parts of the country.
Lacking a strong socio-economic infrastructure, the region is not
developed. Despite strong nationalistic feelings among the people of the
NA, they would like to enter into a legal and constitutional arrangement
with Pakistan. The Northern Areas are as important to us as Kashmir;
and this fact should be recognized by the authorities.
"On the international front, the indecisive status of the NA is a
source of embarrassment. It hinders the development work. The
pending Basha Dam, the gold mining project of the Australians and other
such projects are examples of how the donors shy away from the region
owing to its lack of constitutional and legal status.
"Similarly, tourism has failed to get a boost for which even the
essential infrastructure is missing. "It is ironic that the
world is more worried about the falling trees; they are sad that our white
leopard are vanishing day by day; the dead bodies of our Markhor frightens
them; they are going all out to preserve our ecosystem. But nobody
ever thinks of the people of this land," says Raja Hussain Khan
Maqpoon, Editor of Gilgit-Baltistan's weekly newspaper K2.
"While it is true that this area has some of the finest wildlife in
the world which is in urgent need of protection, the fact that the people
living here are facing abject poverty cannot be ignored for long.
Much as they would like to preserve their heritage, it is becoming very
difficult for them to cooperate with the concerned agencies in the face of
non-existent basic facilities such as electricity, drinking water and
elementary health care. Remoteness has added to their misery.
"Gilgit and Baltistan, which lie to the north of India, were part of
the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) before 1947. In order to
distinguish them from the valley proper, Jammu and Ladakh regions, they
used to be called the Northern Areas of Jammu and Kashmir. After the
1948 war over Kashmir, the Government of Pakistan issued a proclamation on
April 28, 1949, separating the Northern Areas of J&K from Azad Kashmir
and placing them under the administration of the Federal Government under
the name of Northern Areas of Pakistan.
"Since then time has stood still for the locals owing to total
neglect by successive regimes in Islamabad. For almost five decades,
the area has been under virtual Martial Law. Under the Frontier Crime
Regulations, framed by the British during the colonial days, every
resident of the area has to report to the local police station once a
month and all movements from one village to another have to be reported to
the police station.
"Frustration arising out of unemployment is forcing the youth to come
out on the streets. As they have no access to courts they never receive
any redress. Lack of educational institutions has practically closed
all avenues of government jobs, thus negating their chances for upliftment.
Money earmarked for development projects often end up in wrong places, so
the economy is mainly dependent on agriculture. But like feudalism
everywhere, most of the land is owned by a privileged few with no respite
to the common man.
"Hunza is a comparative exception. A high level of missionary
movement and the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme has brought about a
unique mix of modern education in the most primitive of places.
Then, the border town of Sost, just below the Khunjerab Pass, also does
well by the trade of electronic goods with China.
"However, it is time Islamabad played its cards with prudence and
foresight. Cruising along the international front with Kashmir is
fine, but it should not be done at the cost of the Northern Areas.
They should be granted their due status and rights, to which they were
entitled at the time they acceded to Pakistan."
Shaheen Sardar Ali, a prominent lawyer
of the Peshawar bar, has co-authored a book titled "Indigenous
Peoples and Ethnic Minorities of Pakistan" (Curzon Press) on the mess
created by the ideological principle that only religion was the basis of
nationhood. She attributes the ethnic and linguistic troubles of
Pakistan to the blindly monistic claim that if one is a Muslim one can't
be a Sindhi, Balochi, or Kashmiri etc and draws attention to the following
facts:
It is Article 21 of the 1974 Interim
Constitution Act passed by the 48-member Azad Jammu and Kashmir unicameral
assembly in 1974 which tells us how 'azad' is Azad Kashmir although the
leader of the majority in the House is called Prime Minister unlike his
counterpart in Held Kashmir. The article explained the role played
by the Government of Pakistan in the affairs of Azad Jammu and
Kashmir. It is in fact the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Council based in
Islamabad which runs Azad Kashmir. The Prime Minister of Pakistan is
its Chairman and a Secretary of the Ministry for Kashmir Affairs actually
runs the territory on a daily basis. The Council has Azad Kashmiri
members, including the President and Prime Minister, but it is the Prime
Minister (of Pakistan) who orders everyone around. His power derives
from the fact that he gives Azad Kashmir its annual budget and can
actually dismiss the government of the state if the fancy takes him.
Azad Kashmir has a High Court, but all
appeals against its decisions lie in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, which
makes sure that nothing is adjudicated in the state contrary to the policy
of the Federal Government. One example of this came in the shape of
cases in 1993 and 1995 ( Malik Muhammad Miskeen and Others vs. Government
of Pakistan, through Secretary Kashmir Affairs and Northern Affairs
Division, Islamabad and Others [PLD AJ&K] and Federation of Pakistan
vs. Malik Muhammad Miskeen and Eight Others [PLD SC]). In 1949,
Pakistan decided to take over the administration of the Gilgit-Baltistan
territory which is legally a part of Azad Kashmir. It concluded an
agreement with the Government in Muzaffarabad and simply delinked it from
Azad Kashmir to call it the Northern Areas. Later on, when it
(Islamabad) sorted out its frontier with China, some of this territory was
ceded to China with the proviso that the settlement was subject to the
final solution of the Kashmir dispute. The cases at the Azad Kashmir
High Court challenged the authority of the Federal Government to take away
the Northern Areas and wanted the territory returned to the administration
of Muzaffarabad.
It is understandable that the High Court
found for the petitioner. The Azad Kashmir Government was hardly
sovereign to sign an equal treaty with Pakistan. On the other hand,
Pakistan admitted that the Northern Areas were a part of the state.
The Court ordered that Gilgit-Baltistan be returned to Azad Kashmir,
whereafter Islamabad went to the Supreme Court in Islamabad in
appeal. Here the case was decided on political grounds, the Federal
Government strangely taking the position that the case was not based on
legality but politics.
The book concludes: 'The judgement
became the cause of serious concern for the Governments of Pakistan and
Azad Jammu & Kashmir and they appealed to the Supreme Court. The
contention that the Northern Areas formed historically part of the state
of Jammu and Kashmir was not - indeed could not - be denied by either
Government. That the Northern Areas were being looked after by the
Pakistan government administratively by virtue of the 1949 agreement
between the two governments was not disputed either. The arguments
at the Supreme Court were mainly confined to technicalities of the
petition. The Government of Pakistan contended that the issues
raised were basically political in nature and hence not amenable to
discussion and judgement before a court of law. It was further
argued that the High Court of Azad Jammu & Kashmir lacked jurisdiction
in this matter as it could not issue a writ to the Government of
Pakistan. In short the Supreme Court overturned the judgement handed
down by the High Court of the state of Jammu & Kashmir without going
into the substantive details of the case'.
Other points to emerge from the book and
other comments in Pakistan are: "And how has the Government of
Pakistan acquitted itself of the responsibility of administering the
Northern Areas or the region of Gilgit-Baltistan? Here too the Northern
Areas Council has no independence and is run by the same Ministry that
runs Azad Kashmir. What a politically unsteady Islamabad has done to
the Northern Areas is clear, if you study the developments in the region
since 1988 when the first big sectarian killings occurred there. The
book modestly states that the ulema began to be given more importance than
the people, which caused the Islamised administration of Islamabad to
retreat before the rising Sunni storm against the two communities (Shias
and Ismailis) that formed the majority in Gilgit-Baltistan. Gilgit
joined the other centres of Shia concentration in Pakistan, like Jhang and
Parachinar, when its population were brutalised by the Deobandi assault,
carrying a clear stamp of anti-Shia Afghanistan. The Aga Khan
Foundation projects in Gilgit were attacked and bombed while Shia-Sunni
marriages were stopped by force by the warrior priests. "
While the Government of Pakistan has,
since 1975, allowed at least a façade of democracy and autonomy to
Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), it has kept the NA under tight federal
control, imposing an iron curtain in the area. The reasons are its
strategic location adjoining China and the clandestine use of the
Karakoram Highway for the movement of Chinese nuclear material and
missiles.
Drawing attention to this in a paper
titled "The Northern Areas: Behind Pakistan's Iron Curtain"
published in the September 1996 issue of the "Strategic
Analysis", the monthly journal of the Institute of Defence Studies
And Analysis, New Delhi, this writer had said: " The Karakoram
Highway is also used for the movement to Pakistan of Chinese nuclear and
military equipment like the M-11 missiles, equipment for the nuclear power
station being constructed with Chinese assistance etc. The two
countries do not transport such sensitive equipment by sea to avoid
detection by the USA."
This has now been corroborated by the
"Washington Times" story of August 6,2001, regarding the
movement of Chinese missiles to Pakistan by trucks. "The
Hindu" of Chennai (August 7) has quoted the "Washington
Times" as follows: "American satellite monitoring of the area
detected a shipment on May 1 on the China-Pakistan border. By US
intelligence estimates, it was one of the 12 consignments sent by ship and
truck since the beginning of the year."
In the past, Pakistan had been receiving its clandestine
missile consignments from North Korea by sea. Since the appointment
of Mr.Richard Armitage as Deputy Secretary of State in the current Bush
Administration, Pakistan and North Korea have been worried because in a
paper on US policy options towards North Korea submitted to the US House
of Representatives on March 4,1999, Mr.Armitage had, inter alia,
recommended as follows: "Should diplomacy fail, the United States
would have to consider two alternative courses, neither of which is
attractive. One is to live with and deter a nuclear North Korea
armed with delivery systems, with all its implications for the
region. The other is preemption, with the attendant
uncertainties. Strengthened deterrence and containment. This
would involve a more ready and robust posture, including a willingness to
interdict North Korean missile exports on the high seas. Our posture
in the wake of a failure of diplomacy would position the United States and
its allies to enforce 'red lines.' Preemption. We recognize the
dangers and difficulties associated with this option. To be
considered, any such initiative must be based on precise knowledge of
facilities, assessment of probable success, and clear understanding with
our allies of the risks."
It is understood that during the visit
of the Chinese Prime Minister, Mr.Zhu Rongji, to Pakistan in May,2001,
Islamabad had taken up with China the question of allowing future missile
consignments from North Korea to come to Pakistan by road via China and
the Northern Areas.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd),
Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute
For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: corde@vsnl.com
)
