CrisisBalochistan | July 30, 2011

Photo from one of many rallies held in Balochistan to call attention to cases of missing persons

Note from CrisisBalochistan: Today I received a letter from the mother of a missing Baloch youth that reveals an answer to a question I asked in my July 25th article (below): 'Do the Baloch have to look to hactivists like Anonymous and LulzSec for answers to questions that are a mystery to, apparently, only citizens?' For this mother, the answer appears to be 'yes.'

Human Rights Watch has just offered additional evidence of the unbelievable hurdles the Baloch face when trying to find news of their abducted relatives. Please read the HRW July 28th publication titled "We Can Torture, Kill, or Keep You for Years." In it Brad Adams, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch, observes, "Pakistan's security forces are engaging in an abusive free-for-all in Balochistan as Baloch nationalists and suspected militants 'disappear,' and in many cases are executed. The national government has done little to end the carnage in Balochistan, calling into question its willingness or ability to control the military and intelligence agencies."

Letter from the mother of an abducted Baloch son, July 30, 2011

Dear Wendy,

As a Baloch mother I am grateful to you for joining our voice with yours in order to make our voice a bit louder, and to help the civilized world hear us.

Years have passed since I have seen my sweet son. I miss him. But when at night I go to my bed, I pray that I may not see my son in my dreams because when I see him there, he is being tortured. My dreams are nightmares for me.

Not only do I suffer nightmares, but days have also become more painful for me. In the morning I travel to the Quetta Press Club for the hunger strike and in the evening I return home to face many questions from my family. When my granddaughter visits, she asks me, 'Grandmother, what does my papa look like? In my school all the children--they come with their papa. Why my papa doesn't come back? When you go today for a hunger strike, I hope today you will bring him back.'

I don't have an answer for her, because I don't know if my son is alive or if he has been killed by the brutal persons, both plainclothes and uniformed Pakistani Army personnel, who kidnapped him in broad daylight.

So today, I am requesting help to find answers to my questions, not for me alone, but for the thousands of mothers who are continuously looking at their doors, asking, 'When will my son, my daughter, my brother or husband return? Will he arrive alive? Or will he be returned to us dead and brutally tortured?

Today in the hunger strike camp, a missing person's brother said that Wendy has written an article about hackers and the work they are doing to disclose information about injustices. Maybe these hackers will uncover information that will reveal to us if our children are alive or dead. If they have been killed, we can increase our efforts to save those who are still alive, but facing brutal torture by Pakistan's military.

We hope that those hackers will see the pictures of our missing people and the pictures of brutal torture and, if they do, I am sure they will understand how the families of these people--mother, father, sister, wife or brother--all feel pain over them. We still have faith in this world and the millions who feel the pain of other human beings, but we also need information. We need to find our loved ones.

* * *

For background see:

When citizens look to hackers for help
By Wendy Johnson, July 25, 2011

Dawn.com: Was this [Lieutenant General Javed Zia's statement] a tacit admission that the ISI and the Frontier Corps have been involved in the extrajudicial killings, as independent and Baloch observers have repeatedly alleged?

The questions

If the tweets of support published in the timelines of hacktivists like @anonymous_IRC, @lulzsec, and @anonymous_sabu are any indication, hackers have won the imagination of many tweeples and activists around the world. Indeed, PC magazine reports that LulzSec even opened a hotline to take hacking requests. On June 15 LulzSec had 5,000 missed calls and 2,500 voicemails.

The activists in Balochistan left no messages that day, but for the Baloch who are frustrated by the refusal of authorities to investigate the abductions, torture and murder of its citizens, the idea of calling a hotline of hackers has its appeal. A look into the emails of the security agencies accused of these high crimes would conceivably yield some answers to burning questions. The Baloch have collected much forensic evidence related to the murders and abductions; they just have no government or judiciary that is willing to investigate and tie that evidence to the guilty. As hacking is traditionally regarded as a crime and not an act of civil disobedience, the Baloch would prefer for investigations to be conducted in a manner that international bodies regard as legitimate, but when tortured bodies appear at roadsides on almost a daily basis, it is understandable that many Baloch have lost patience with the system. This is also why many Baloch are earnestly soliciting whistleblowers within the Pakistani forces who recognize that they are operating within a criminal enterprise and wish to clear their conscience.

While news of the hacker hotline response delighted sympathizers, law enforcement agencies were not amused. In an interview with NPR, FBI assistant director Steve Chabinsky said "[Even if] hackers can be believed to have social causes, it's entirely unacceptable to break into websites and commit unlawful acts." The hacker response was as swift as the boats they sail. Anonymous and LulzSec released a joint statement that read, "governments that lie to their citizens and erode freedom "˜piece by piece', as well as the corporates and lobbyists which conspire with them, are also unacceptable... "We are not scared any more. Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea." The group added that "most people do not behave like bandits if they have no reason to".

While some admire hactivist efforts simply because the hackers challenge the status quo and others because hactivists "have promised to continue fighting governments and businesses they suspect of eroding personal freedoms," there are some for whom hactivists appear to be an only source of information regarding high crimes. The sad truth is that this should not be the case. The mysteries behind the murders in Balochistan, for example, do not run all that deeply.

The murders

The Baloch are in the middle of a fifth insurgency. Though some have never accepted the union with Pakistan, for many the struggles that were once for autonomy have now transformed into a fight for independence from what is regarded as an occupying power. Decades of wrongs by the central government (please see articles below) encouraged this transformation, but what fuels it now is inexpressible violence allegedly perpetrated by the State. And fear. Fear that if the Baloch cannot secure control of their own future, Balochistan will turn into a Swat Valley, overrun by the Pakistan military's radical spawn. (And to better understand why this fear is justified, read Zahid Hussein's most excellent book 'Scorpion's Tail' or the late Saleem Shahzad's 'Inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban.' To see that this radicalization is advancing, read: How Panjgur is losing the battle and Of Pakistani Death Squads, Baluch Masses and Slaughterhouses, or watch a video of Brahvi speakers blowing up NATO tankers: youtube.)

The Pakistan military has been unable to quell the Baloch insurgency and many blame the abductions and killings on military/security agency efforts to gather intelligence. That they are abducting people who have no immediate knowledge of the insurgency--activists, students, journalists, poets, laborers, etc.--is obvious because the military makes little headway against the insurgents. And what terrorizes the Baloch is that security agencies don't simply arrest persons they suspect of having knowledge of the insurgency, rather they abduct people, someone or some group then tortures these persons (employing methods that include drilling holes into skulls) and then dumps the bodies at roadsides. While the chain of custody in these killings is not clear, what is clear is that no one who disappears is ever produced in a court of law and many have been missing for years.

The clues

That information exists regarding political murders in Pakistan can be gleaned from news reports. On July 5, 2011, the New York Times reported that U.S. government officials accused Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (I.S.I.), of ordering the murder of journalist Saleem Shahzad in May. Such a claim could not have been made without reliable information and one speculates that similar intelligence either exists on the Baloch or could be gathered, for Saleem was abducted and dumped in the style of the Baloch killings.

That U.S. officials have knowledge of the threatening situation in Balochistan is also clear from news reports. On July 23, 2011, The New York Times published "Pakistan Spies on Its Diaspora, Spreading Fear," an account that describes an FBI investigation that "exposed one part of what American officials say is a broader campaign by the Pakistani spy agency, known as the ISI, to...stifle public dialogue critical of Pakistan's military..." The report says that "Several Pakistani journalists and scholars in the United States interviewed over the past week said that they were approached regularly by Pakistani officials, some of whom openly identified themselves as ISI officials. The journalists and scholars said the officials caution them against speaking out on politically delicate subjects like the indigenous insurgency in Baluchistan or accusations of human rights abuses by Pakistani soldiers. The verbal pressure is often accompanied by veiled warnings about the welfare of family members in Pakistan, they said."

In reality, the "politically delicate" subject of Balochistan is anything but delicate. CrisisBalochistan.com now logs recent abductions and murders in a database that is compiled from several Baloch websites, news reports and the database maintained by the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons. Except for a handful of entries dating prior to 2010, this partial list logs over 300 recent missing and dead. Recovered bodies generally show signs of torture--drilled skulls, burns, broken limbs, etc.--and are most often bullet-riddled.

I've been following the stories of these abductions in Balochistan since 2006. During that time, only a couple of admissions have been offered in public by Pakistan's authorities in relation to the abductions and killings. In 2010 Pakistan's Interior Minister Rahman Malik said of Ehsan Arjemandi, a Norwegian-Baloch citizen who had been plucked from a bus in Balochistan in 2009, that "Arjemandi had been arrested because he had been travelling in Pakistan with false ID papers, and that the arrest was part of Pakistan's efforts to stop foreigners from carrying out terrorist acts in Pakistan." Arjemandi has never, however, been produced in court or to family members or any lawyer. Arjemandi's human rights lawyer, Randi Spydevold, says "she had faced a brick-wall for one and half years now as she pursued the Pakistani authorities to release her client."

On July 23, the Daily Times reported that Pakistan's Commander of the army's Southern Command, Lieutenant General Javed Zia, said: the army "considers the killing of missing people an abhorrent act" but tried to take away the blame from the army high command by adding, "Certain "˜elements' who do not believe in the courts are involved in killing and throwing the dead bodies of missing persons...however, there is no such policy by army chief General Kayani."

This statement by Zia caused Dawn.com to then editorialize that: "Gen Zia also made another remarkable statement, going so far as to say that 'patriotic elements' had hit back against Baloch insurgents and those involved in desecrating the Pakistani flag. Was this a tacit admission that the ISI and the Frontier Corps have been involved in the extrajudicial killings, as independent and Baloch observers have repeatedly alleged?"

The answers

The Baloch have no doubt that this is the case. The abductions are most often conducted in broad daylight and in front of witnesses at FC checkposts. What they need is information tying their evidence to the perpetrators. Interior Minister Rehman Malik publicly acknowledged he knows where at least one of these abducted persons is. Lieutenant General Javed Zia acknowledged that certain 'elements' who don't believe in courts are involved. His is a declarative statement--a statement of fact. Lieutenant General Javed Zia presumably knows who these elements are. The United States government knew that Paksitan's ISI ordered the killing of Pakistan's famous journalist Saleem Shahzad.

The million dollar question is this: When will government officials with knowledge of crimes against the Baloch share this information with investigators and lawyers like Norway's Randi Spydevold? Do the Baloch have to look to hactivists like Anonymous and LulzSec for answers to questions that are a mystery to, apparently, only citizens?

***

For background reading:

The Guardian, March 29, 2011: Pakistan's secret dirty war
IPS News, June 23, 2011: "˜Ethnic Cleansing' Feared in Balochistan
Malik Siraj Akbar, September 25, 2009: How Panjgur is losing the battle
New Statesman, July 11, 2011: How Pakistan uses US military aid as a cover
Deutsche Welle, June 10, 2011: Pakistan's 'secret' war
The Express Tribune, July 9, 2011: Spinning half-truths on Balochistan
Huffington Post, July 7, 2011: Pakistan's Secret, Dirty Killings in Balochistan
The Express Tribune, June 14, 2011: Recalling Baloch history
The Express Tribune, May 23, 2011: The terribly sad state of Balochistan

Human Rights Reports:

Human Rights Watch, Jun 13, 2011: Pakistan: Upsurge in Killings in Balochistan
Asian Human Rights Commission, June 3, 2011: PAKISTAN: What is the score in Balochistan?
Amnesty International, June 3, 2011: Pakistan: Government must stop unlawful killings in Balochistan
Amnesty International, May 31, 2011: Pakistan must probe intelligence agencies as body of journalist is found

Exploitation of Minerals:
Dawn, November 25, 2010: Blood Gold: Exploitation of Mineral Wealth
Dawn, October 23, 2010: From Chile to Chagai
Dawn, September 30, 2008: Requiem for Reko Diq

On radicalization:
Malik Siraj Akbar, September 25, 2009: How Panjgur is losing the battle
CrisisBalochistan, September 7, 2010: Of Pakistani Death Squads, Baluch Masses and Slaughterhouses