Afzal Bangash: The Marxist maverick

Afzal Bangash: The Marxist maverick Dr. Mohammad Taqi The Statesman & Daily Times I count myself in nothing else so happy, As in a soul remembering my good friends (Shakespeare in Richard II) Reminiscing some of the stars of the secular galaxy of Pakistan and especially Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, is an obligation not just due to a family association or personal feel-good, nostalgic reasons. It is a must because the current generations - being fed a steady diet of religious extremism masquerading as non-denominational Islam - ought to get acquainted with the history of this land. In a country where first the state-controlled, and now the state-indoctrinated, media persons have systematically relegated both our saints and secularists to oblivion, while projecting larger-than-life images of the obscurantist characters from the Pakistan and Islamic studies textbooks, such recollections become a moral duty. One such distinguished progressive, secular person was the leader of the Mazdoor Kisan Party (MKP), Muhammad Afzal Bangash who died on this day (October 28th) in 1986. Somewhere in the middle 1986, Bangash returned from exile and took up residence on Kohat Road in Peshawar. The word spread around quickly and this scribe got to tag along with a group of friends and family who called upon him. For some reason, the conversation started in Urdu. But then Bangash asked “Tussi saray Hindko samajhdayo na?” (Do all of you understand Hindko?) Some nodded and others verbalised in an affirmative. He then quipped: “Bohat achha aiy, kyoonkeh mein Urdu bolna waan tey inj lagda aiy jhoot bol riya waan” (Great then, because if I speak in Urdu I feel I am lying). In one sweep he had thus made a case for the mother tongue; Bangash was not known for subtleties. Twenty-four years later a study by the British Council Pakistan recommended last month that the mother tongue be the medium of instruction in elementary schools. Afzal Bangash was above any chauvinism and parochialism though. He spoke and wrote in Urdu, Pushto and English and had great command of the Peshawari and Kohati dialects of Hindko. In fact he remained part of the Ulasi Adabi Jirgah (People’s Literary Guild) along with the Urdu poets Farigh Bokhari and Raza Hamdani. He shared the forum with progressive nationalist poets like Ajmal Khattak and Qalandar Momand on one hand and the religio-romantic nationalist masters like Amir Hamza Shinwari and Dost Muhammad Kamil on the other. The guild was founded by his mentor Kaka ji Sanober Hussain Momand, a revolutionary leader of the Indian freedom movement, after whom Bangash later named the MKP weekly “Sanober” that also carried Kaka ji’s verse on the cover. In fact Bangash detested labels and branding. While many characterised him as a Maoist, he took umbrage at the tag for he was the Marxist maverick who had officially documented his opposition to the Chinese invasion of Vietnam, in the MKP’s journal “Circular” and parted ways with his colleagues who had endorsed it. After the Afghan revolution Hafizullah Amin wanted Bangash to form a Pakistani party allied with his Khalq faction. Not only did he snub Amin but further admonished him for their aggressiveness and advised them to take the local culture and norms into serious consideration. As a son of the soil, Bangash was not fond of importing or exporting revolutions and believed in an indigenous struggle and means to his revolutionary ends. He was of the opinion that only the local circumstances can dictate such ways and means. To him the most essential tool was the revolutionary self-reliance meaning a combination of the mass mobilisation of the oppressed people through an astute leadership, culminating in the directly concerned people shouldering the burden of waging the struggle. In an agrarian society this meant that the peasantry was to be the vanguard of such a movement. But having served as Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah’s provincial campaign manager in her bid against Ayub Khan, in an election rigged by the General, Bangash was acutely aware of the deck stacked against the masses. He had been a member of the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) since 1948 and had seen the Quaid-i-Azam watch helplessly as the West Punjab Assembly flouted the recommendations of its own land reform sub-committee within six months of independence. Whether it was fixing the tenant’s share in the crop, the abolition of begaar (unpaid forced labour), making cheap credit available to the tenant or preventing their forced evictions, the legislative help was not on the horizon. Bangash was also elected as the first general secretary of the National Awami Party (NAP) in 1957 and was intimately familiar with the workings of such multi-class leftist fronts which in many instances meant the feudal nationalist elements holding sway over the party decisions. It was one such decision by the NAP leadership barring Bangash and others from working in the peasant committees that led to his parting ways with NAP and founding on May 1, 1968, the MKP – perhaps the largest revolutionary leftist party in Pakistan’s history that openly eschewed electoral politics. The MKP’s red flag with a white star became a symbol of resistance to the feudal lords in Hashtnagar (Charsadda), Peshawar, Mardan and Swat/Malakand. It drew support from not only the tenants, agri-labourers but also from white-collar people like lawyers. In fact Wali Khan’s nephew Faridoon Khan hoisted the MKP flag in his father Ghani Khan’s house and ‘de-classed’ himself to join the peasant uprising. After a tenant, Sardar Shah raised the MKP flag as a challenge against his landlord Usman Ali “Wawa” Khan’s eviction order, the scene was set for a mass uprising in Northern Hashtnagar and an armed struggle ensued. The peasant uprising lasted through three successive governments including that of the NAP. Along with its contemporary Naxalite struggle and the Peruvian and Nepalese peasant movements that followed it, the Hashtnagar peasant struggle provides a unique case study in an era when urban fascists are trying to claim the mantle of anti-feudalism. Bangash was well-versed in Marxist theory and many of his speeches and writings reflected this command but he was not a dogmatist. However, he did develop a methodology of ‘theory-practice-feedback-theory-practice’ to keep adjusting both the ideological framework and the means to achieve the ideological goals. He was highly proud of his comrades like Major Ishaq Muhammad, Prof. Eric Cyprian and Imtiaz Alam who contributed to both to theoretical and practical side of the struggle. During the recent judiciary movement some of his former associates like Latif Afridi and Justice Shahjahan Yousufzai demonstrated, from the bar and the bench respectively, the acumen and resolve of the seasoned campaigners that Bangash had trained by the dozen. Bangash did gradually move towards mainstream politics starting with the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) of which the MKP was a founding and highly functional component. He had great working relationship with Benazir Bhutto during that era. Along with Sardar Ataullah Mengal, Mumtaz Bhutto and Hafiz Pirzada, Bangash formed the Sindh Baloch Pashtun Front (SBFP) in 1985 to counter the establishment’s hegemony and proposed a confederal state. Upon his arrival back in Pakistan, he remained involved with the merger of the left-oriented parties and closed the door on a generation-long rift with Wali Khan. The MKP, a faction of the PNP, Rasool Bux Paleejo’s Awami Tehrik and the NDP thus came together to form the Awami National Party. Wali Khan became its first president while MKP’s Sardar Shaukat Ali was elected as its general secretary. The legacy of Bangash is that of highly secular, selfless devotion to the deliverance of the wretched of the earth from oppression and exploitation, if needed, by challenging through all means available, the Weberian concept of the ‘legitimate monopoly on violence’ as well the hegemony of the forces of tradition. He may not have achieved a political high office but being not the one to be suborned by such temptations, he remained loyally committed till last breath to the cause he championed. He was originally buried in his native Shadi Khel village, Kohat but later his mortal remains were transferred to Hashtnagar where he rests in peace along with his comrades and cadres. A newspaper column cannot do justice to a political life spanning more than four decades but younger friends should remember the words of Iqbal and Hafiz: سر خاک شہيدے برگہاے لالہ مي پاشم کہ خونش با نہال ملت ما سازگار آمد بيا تا گل برافشانيم و می در ساغر اندازيم فلك را سقف بشگافيم و طرح نو در اندازيم Sir e khaak e shaheeday barghaiy lala mi paashem Keh khoonash baa nehaal e millat maa sazgar aamed Biya ta gul barafshaanem o mai der saghar andaazem Falak raa seqf beshigafem o tarh e nau darandaazem I scatter the petals of tulips upon the dust of martyrs For their blood profits the sapling of the community; Come so that we may strew roses and pour wine into the cup; Let us tear open the roof of Heaven and think upon new ways. Thanks are due to Kamil Bangash, a former vice-president of the ANP and son of Afzal Bangash, for his help in verifying certain information and the priceless gift of Bangash Sahib’s portrait. The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com

Karachi’s civil war: politics by other means

Daily Times	Saturday, October 23, 2010

COMMENT: Karachi’s civil war: politics by other means —Dr Mohammad Taqi

It would be erroneous to assume that the criminal outfits of Karachi are just a function of the urban sprawl and disarming them, without a concomitant political solution, is going to be useful or even possible

About 90 people — 12 in just one instance — were assassinated in Karachi earlier this week and approximately 1,300 have been killed in various acts of violence in the city this year. These are not random or targeted killings: this is civil war.

Unlike interstate wars, a civil war is defined as “an armed combat within the boundaries of a recognised sovereign entity, between parties subject to a common authority at the outset of hostilities”. While all wars are hell, civil wars are particularly nasty and are aptly termed dirty wars as the common authority usually stands eroded and the combatants who deem every foul act fair, do not abide by the customary laws of war.

In most instances, a civil war is the continuation of politics by other means and must be understood in this context. An inaccurate narrative of the conflict and use of incorrect nomenclature and descriptive terms, especially by the media and analysts, may mask the political motives of the warring factions and make the already elusive solutions even harder to find.

Whereas an overexposure of the brutalities can desensitise a population, the attempts to sanitise the narrative are also counterproductive. Using euphemisms like target or targeted killing makes the conflict opaque to the people, hampers their understanding of the situation and, in a land where human life is the cheapest commodity, keeps them from demanding answers and definitive action from their elected representatives.

Historically, civil wars have been used to make cities and regions ungovernable, thus making the competing sections of the population and the rulers cede territory and political control. Traditionally, the root cause of many civil wars has been ethnic and religious antagonisms endemic to that region, but in Karachi’s case the continued prevalence of an armed conflict is the composite result of such hostilities, a steady accumulation of unresolved conflicts since at least the 1970s and the gradual emergence of new demographic and political realities.

Political instability — real or perceived — at the federal level indicates disorganisation, weakness and erosion of the state’s monopoly over the coercive and administrative apparatus. This provides a milieu as well as a cue for the various competing groups to contest with each other and the state for power and in the process worsens the perception of governmental weakness. In order to protect their interests, the major political players, therefore, respond to this perceived weakness by seeking means to project their soft and hard power.

In a multi-ethnic, mega city like Karachi, where an overt secessionist movement or insurgency does not exist, various ethnic — and occasionally religious — groups use systematic violence to project hard power. Violence is also used as a coercive adjunct to negotiating and obtaining concessions from opponents, competitors and partners. The so-called land-grabber, drug and extortion mafias or the gangs operating with impunity, serve as the coercive muscle that the different ethnic and political outfits use to demonstrate hard power.

Whereas the Mafiosi and gangsters are a problem by themselves, their importance lies in their association with various political outfits. In some ways these gangs are a revival of certain armed student outfits of the 1970s and 1980s that various political parties, especially the Jamaat-e-Islami and later the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), had used to bring the university campuses under their control. It would be erroneous to assume that the criminal outfits of Karachi are just a function of the urban sprawl and disarming them, without a concomitant political solution, is going to be useful or even possible. However, political rapprochement by itself would also be insufficient and ineffective.

This is precisely the predicament that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) finds itself in: damned if it takes a stern action and damned if it does not. The PPP’s central leadership, especially President Asif Zardari, is under pressure from its own Sindh and Karachi leaders, as well as allies like the Awami National Party (ANP) to call in the military in support of the civilian administration. So far it has resisted these calls because its other coalition partner, the MQM, is totally averse to the idea of an army operation.

The PPP thus faces a political dilemma at two levels. Firstly, and perhaps more importantly for the PPP and others, an army action has its own dynamics and may take a life of its own with consequences that in the long run could undermine the democratic process. Secondly, if the MQM were to exit the provincial and central coalitions, the Sindh government could sustain itself numerically, but the central government would lose its simple majority.

At a juncture when Mian Nawaz Sharif has kept completely mum about the Karachi situation while opting to castigate President Zardari, the PPP would not want to rely on his support to run a minority government. If the PPP’s central government is weakened, Mian sahib — who does not seem to be in a conciliatory mood — may nudge the things towards an in-house change or early polls.

However, the rise in the Pashtun population of Karachi and the resultant ascendancy of the ANP there is something that the PPP cannot ignore. The ANP and its predecessors like the NDP have had political roots in Karachi but the higher profile of the party is reflective of the changing demographics that make the MQM cower. Unlike the rather unnatural and uneasy PPP-MQM coalitions that historically have ended in failure, the ANP perhaps would be the PPP’s natural ally in the Karachi politics in the years to come.

In a situation where the PPP is finding it difficult to break the cycle of violence and an army action may not be in sight, a bolstered police and rangers action with a clear mandate must start in earnest, and soon. The public perception of the PPP’s weakness is seriously damaging its political base, especially in Sindh. However, for such an action to deliver even the bare minimum, the PPP will have to restrain its coalition partners. If the PPP leadership is able to demonstrate some crisis management skills, it could project the party’s soft power through its image restoration. Karachi’s perennial inter-ethnic problems are unlikely to evaporate soon but a proactive PPP could manage to keep them from spiralling into a full intensity civil war.

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com

Takfir: the ideology of hate

Daily Times Thursday, October 14, 2010

COMMENT: Takfir: the ideology of hate —Dr Mohammad Taqi

An ordinary Salafi may believe in the non-violent call to convert to their version of Islam but the Salafi jihadists are proponents of violent jihad. The doctrinal differences that set the jihadist group apart include practising takfir, i.e. labelling other Muslims as infidels or apostates

“It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that is pretty important” — Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

While some in the Pakistani media seem to have bought into Pervez Musharraf’s Facebook flight of fantasy and were focused on his ‘Desperate Housewives’-style, primetime soap performances, the peddlers of the ideology of hate struck again.

There were two major attacks: one against yet another symbol of South Asian religious diversity — the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine in Karachi — and the other before that, which killed the Islamic scholar and practising psychiatrist, Dr Farooq Khan. The assassination of Dr Khan is, by far, the more significant and more ominous of the two because he was a person who had dedicated his life to preserve and promote pluralist thought, which shrines like Shah Ghazi’s have epitomised for centuries.

However, the news media, especially the television networks, covered these two stories for just about 24 hours and after that moved on with the preferred national pastime of Zardari-bashing and betting on his exit date. But, given the open jihadist tirades of certain anchors, anti-Ahmediyya vitriol of a particular televangelist and outlets that air the interviews of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, this is hardly a surprise.

Last week, Ms Gulmina Bilal Ahmad, in her article ‘Historical distortions’ (Daily Times, October 8, 2010), has written eloquently about Dr Farooq, his thoughts and work and has alluded to those who are out to counter this thought. I did not know Dr Farooq except from a conversation we had at the humble yet dignified guest room of the late Professor Saeedullah Qazi, the then Dean of Sheikh Zayed Islamic Centre, Peshawar. His words are rather vague in my mind, but it is hard to forget his soft-spoken mannerism. What Farooq has done in his death — and Ms Ahmad has taken up in her column — is to open the debate about a virulent ideology hell-bent on eliminating anyone who does not conform to it.

In recent times, the biggest manifestation of this ideology has been the suicide bombings or the so-called ‘martyrdom missions’. While we focus on suicide bombings as the dastardly acts that have killed thousands, we have been somewhat remiss in assessing the role of the doctrine providing the religious-political and psycho-social ‘rationale’ of this foremost tactic in the global Salafi jihad.

The Salafi jihadists form an extreme fringe, even of the Wahhabiist-Salafist spectrum itself. An ordinary Salafi may believe in the non-violent call to convert to their version of Islam, but the Salafi jihadists are proponents of violent jihad. The doctrinal differences that set the jihadist group apart include practising takfir, i.e. labelling other Muslims as infidels or apostates (kafir) and concluding, therefore, that violence against the latter is permissible (halal or mubaah), condoning acts of violence against civilians and the use of suicide missions. Violent jihad is held at par with the basic tenets of Islam by the Salafi jihadists. The most explicit endorsement of killing Muslim civilians came from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who said in a 2005 audiotape message: “The killing of a number of Muslims whom it is forbidden to kill is a grave evil. However, it is permissible to commit this evil — indeed, it is even required — in order to ward off a greater evil, the evil of suspending jihad.”

Dr Farooq was not the first Islamic scholar to have differed with the hateful ideology of takfir and to have paid with his life for this dissent. Ironically, the grandfather of al Qaeda, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, was killed on November 24, 1989 in Peshawar, in a bomb attack by his own cohorts, for opposing takfir.

The late chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Syed Maududi, had also written against invoking takfir in religio-political polemics. I was told that one cannot find his books in Saudi Arabia and I did find this to be true, as far as the shops around the Holy Ka’aba and the Masjid-e-Nabvi go. This, perhaps, has something to do with his very favourable opinion of Imam Abu Hanifah in doctrinal matters, a tolerant view of the Shiite and a general condemnation of takfir.

Indeed, the key pan-Islamists such as Muhammad Abduhu and Rashid Rida — like Maududi — had tried a selective application of takfir against the relatively newer sects in Islam. They feared that indiscriminate use of the label would lead to endless strife (fitna) within the larger Muslim community and advised their followers that wrongly accusing another Muslim of being an infidel is a major sin in Islam.

However, even this self-serving and rather meek condemnation of takfir is not acceptable to the ardent takfiris who are quick to condemn even Maududi as a kafir. The jihadists and their apologists remain blind to the fact that these attacks, ostensibly against foreign occupiers, have killed more Muslims than any other group, have divided the country deeply and have reinforced the belief that the jihadists consider common Muslims as expendable. Moreover, suicide attacks — though not as common — did take place in Egypt, Algeria and Afghanistan even when there was no foreign occupier.

This suggests that, while challenging the appeal of the takfiri ideology is a crucial component of the counter-terrorism strategy, a scholarly discourse by itself is an insufficient antidote. What is needed is a holistic, multi-pronged approach to stymie the takfiri groups. Civilian law-enforcement officers have made great strides in understanding takfiri terrorism in Pakistan and have apprehended many of its leaders. However, no high profile leader has ever been put on trial or any madrassah shut down — let alone levelled — limiting the deterrence value of counter-terrorism operations.

The trial of the far-right extremist, anti-Islam Dutch parliamentarian, Geert Wilders, resumed yesterday in Amsterdam. He is facing charges of inciting hatred against Muslims. This has some of his friends on the US side of the pond, up in arms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali went on bewailing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the Netherlands, a 21st century democracy, has put free speech on trial. What has actually been put on trial, however, is hate speech.

The Dutch law may not make Geert Wilders love Muslims, but chances are that it will prevent him from inciting hate and potential hate crimes. One may woefully concede that for something like this to happen in Pakistan, many Dr Farooq Khans may be lynched first.

Smokescreen of sovereignty

Daily Times	Thursday, October 07, 2010

COMMENT: Smokescreen of sovereignty —Dr Mohammad Taqi

The world's patience with Pakistan is running thin and the establishment's gimmicks will come under increasing scrutiny, followed potentially by retribution. The ISAF action in the Kurram Agency then was not a surprise

“Son, do you not know who I am?” said in Urdu the man with a henna-dyed beard and the Holy Quran on his lap. Reading the perplexed expression on the young man’s face, he then answered his own question, “I am Jalaluddin Haqqani — Commander Haqqani.”

It was 1994 and this young sub-inspector of the Punjab Police had stopped a convoy of double-cabin vehicles on Peshawar Road, just outside Rawalpindi. With tens of armed jihadists seated in the trucks, the officer who led a small posse faced the dilemma of whether to insist on the checking that he had originally planned or not. After a short standoff, his problem was solved by a wireless message from ‘higher authorities’ to clear the cavalcade without inspection! The officer later confided that he still did not know who Haqqani was.

Mr Haqqani has since retired from active jihad on account of health reasons and his son Sirajuddin Haqqani has been carrying the mantle from their state-provided sanctuary in North Waziristan. It was multiple conversations of an ISI colonel with Sirajuddin that were tapped by the US in 2008 and led to a surge in the drone attacks ordered by George Bush.

In South Waziristan, the Uzbek terrorist ‘Sheikh’ Tohir Yuldeshev — abbreviated STY in Pakistani intelligence circles — operated with impunity for years before being taken out in a drone attack last year. Scores of Uzbek terrorists led by their Sheikh had remained functioning across FATA and as far as Buner last year.

Hardly forgotten is the 55th Arab Brigade comprising Arab-Afghans and operating from its bases straddling the Durand Line, which fought alongside the Taliban years after the last Soviet had left Afghanistan and six years before any Americans had appeared there. The Afghan-Arab ringleaders like Ayman al-Zawahiri still remain in FATA.

Just last month, the Afghan Taliban — entrenched with their Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) cohorts in the Kurram Agency for three years — were attacking the Shalozan Tangi tribes in the upper Kurram, northwest of Parachinar, at the foothills of Koh-e-Sufaid. The Khaiwas village fell to them days before Eid-ul-Fitr. When the Tangi tribesmen mounted a counter-offensive to retake Khaiwas after Eid, they were bombed by the Kurram militia and army helicopters. Eighty-six Tangi tribesmen died — eight were killed by army gunships.

The Pakistani establishment never bothered for a moment about ‘sovereignty’ when they were pawning away large swaths of FATA to these terror networks, which have harboured and unleashed terrorists that have killed thousands of innocent Pakistanis throughout the country.

I had noted last week that the world’s patience with Pakistan is running thin and the establishment’s gimmicks will come under increasing scrutiny, followed potentially by retribution. The ISAF action in the Kurram Agency then was not a surprise. Pakistan has abandoned its responsibility as a neutral state to prevent its territory from being used against other countries.

In Kurram’s case, the Taliban have been slaughtering Pakistani citizens for almost three years now but the state did not budge. It was the same group of Taliban that had engaged the ISAF forces last weekend. Given the strategic geography, ISAF could no longer ignore Pakistani inaction. NATO has apologised for the deaths of three Pakistani soldiers, and rightly so. It gains nothing tactically by killing foot soldiers. As General Musharraf’s confessions to Der Spiegel reiterate, it is the top brass that continues to nurture the terrorists and has failed to understand that using the jihadist proxies is no longer acceptable to the world at large.

It is only a matter of time before a large-scale terror attack on western and US targets succeeds. One lapse on the part of the counter-terrorism forces and we will have a repeat of 9/11, complete with its aftermath. And all indications are that such an attack would originate from the ‘sovereign’ Pakistani territory. As details about the German nationals killed in the drone attack in North Waziristan earlier this week emerge, the Pakistani state’s credibility as an entity willing or able to tackle the problem within its borders has hit rock bottom.

So what did — what my friend Kamran Shafi calls — the ‘deep state’ do? First, it has ratcheted up the brinkmanship by stopping the NATO supply line and then allowing orchestrated attacks on the idling trucks. This is reminiscent of the November 1979 burning down of the US embassy, while General Ziaul Haq went on with his gingerly bicycle ride in Rawalpindi. The mobs torched the embassy and killed diplomats in the heart of Islamabad, while the security agencies stood by. The idea was to teach the Yanks a lesson so they would do business with the general on his terms.

NATO’s immediate plans will not be affected by several days of supply stoppage and if the same were to continue, it would be forced to take up the expensive but available alternative routes. Any sane government, whose cash reserves are dangerously low and fuel reserves even lower, would not have embarked upon an adventure like this to become an international pariah.

But then again, thinking things through has not been the forte of those used to pushing Pakistan into geopolitical dead ends. And, as always, after painting itself into a corner, the establishment has now turned to the civilians to save its skin. Civilian leaders of all political hues are being coerced to join in the sovereignty chorus. Remember Mian Nawaz Sharif’s frantic dash to see Bill Clinton on July 4, 1999? Roping in the PPP or the ANP leaders like Asfandyar Khan to sing hymns of sovereignty is no different.

When Nadir Shah invaded India, he embarked upon an elephant ride. Seated on the elephant he told the mahout: “Anaanash ba dastam bideh” (hand over the reins to me). The mahout responded that it was he who drove the elephant. Nadir Shah declined the ride, one that he did not control himself.

Despite debacles at home, the international credibility of the Pakistani civilian leadership is still better than that of their khaki counterparts. There is no declared status of forces agreement between the US and Pakistan about the operations inside Pakistan. The civilian leaders would be ill advised to take ownership of an undocumented enterprise, over which they never had any control. They must refuse to be used as human shields. The world can see through the smokescreen of sovereignty; Pakistani politicians should too.

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com