Reposted from Limes | February 8, 2012 | Pakistan: la guerra del terrore in stile Isi

By Francesca Marino, photo: Giornalisti Calabria
Note: The text below is based on a google translation of the Italian original. Please refer to the original Italian for quotes and clarifications. Google translations are inaccurate and we apologize for all errors. Please visit Limes for additional coverage of this subject by Francesca Marino.

Map of Baluchistan, source: Limes

Rubrica Desh. A gruesome double murder in Karachi reveals the strategy of Pakistan's intelligence agency. Having rejected the idea of a military blow, the Inter-Service Intelligence (I.S.I.) does the dirty work: a genocide of the Baluch.

A chilling episode in Pakistan, even more chilling than a series of murders that occurred last year in Karachi, has sparked protests, demonstrations and resulted in two murders despite official attempts to remain more or less silent about the incident. Two women, mother and daughter, who returned to Karachi from the wedding of a cousin, were killed in cold blood in Clifton, one of the most elegant and protected neighborhoods in the city.

An ordinary crime? Not really. The vehicle in which the two women were traveling was stopped by a car and two motorcycles. From the car emerged a man dressed in black and masked. With the driver shot dead, he approached the vehicle in which the two passengers were seated. While the ladies removed their jewels and money, expecting a robbery, the man candidly announced that it was not a robbery: he was there to kill.

First, the daughter, before the eyes of the mother. And then her mother, left in a pool of blood. Their names: Zamur Bugti and Jaana Domki, sister and nephew of Brahmadagh Bugti, a leader of the Baloch nationalists. Zamur was the niece of Nawab Bugti, killed by the Pakistan army in 2007 on the orders of Musharraf in a firefight whose dynamics has never been clarified. The Nawab's body was buried in a rush like that of Osama bin Laden, and the family, as proof of death, were handed his watch and eyeglasses. Although the cave is still intact, according to the Armed Forces Bugti died in the collapse of that cave where he had fled.

Zamur was thirty-four years, the young Jaana only thirteen. She was the daughter of Bakhtiar Domki, a member of the parliament of Balochistan, who resigned in protest, accusing the Inter-Service Intelligence of the murder. A maid's daughter, in fact, was spared because she was to tell what happened. And the police, not far away, remained quiet while witnessing the entire scene.

Not only that: the little girl ran in terror to warn relatives of the victims, who arrived at the crime scene to find an undignified spectacle: the police, rather from seeking clues and conducting an investigation, were intent on robbing the victims of their jewels and money. According to investigators, who are investigating nothing, it's a clear message to Brahmadagh Bugti.

A mafia-style message, you might say, except that the Pakistani Mafia doesn't behave as servants of institutions, it has a sense of honor and never kills women and children in cold blood. This, according to public opinion and to anyone with whom you speak, is a typical ISI-styled message. According to military analysts, the power of military intelligence has grown to unprecedented levels of control and aggressiveness never shown even during the worst of Pakistan's dictatorial regimes. International bodies at various levels and backgrounds, have, in fact, called for its dissolution several times over the past two years.

The crowds rallied recently in Pakistan by the Difa-e-Pakistan, the Council for the Defense of Pakistan, bringing together more than forty member organizations with abbreviations belonging to Islamist parties and terrorist organizations, are even more disturbing, according to many, because they appear to be heading in the same direction, employing the same strategy, and seeing the first poisoned fruits of their efforts. Politically cornered, the government of Zardari and Gilani, received the final blow on the political front with Memogate while gathering clouds over the political scene in Islamabad grow more and more black.

With the idea of a traditional military coup discarded for a long list of reasons, everyone seems to hold dear the maintenance of formal farcical democracy in Pakistan. Flirting with fundamentalist Islamic terrorists is the tactic of Nawaz Sharif and "˜the rising' Imran Khan, while a real pall of terror has dropped over the country. Terror artfully managed and operated by the Army but, above all, by General Pasha and the Inter-Service Intelligence.

By enlisting former retired officers and new recruits, General Pasha created the parallel and secret organization that enables the agency to do all the dirty work without officially being on any payroll. The new structure of the ISI is characterized by the same renewed vigor and arrogance shown by leaders of the Difa-e-Pakistan, and in particular, by Mohammed Hafiz Saeed, who is wanted--accused of being the instigator of a long series of massacres: Hafiz Saeed, according to his latest statements, in no way excludes the idea of entering politics as a candidate in the next election.

Also, according to some military analysts, the accounts of various organizations, frozen in the past, could be released into the coffers of the Difa-e-Pakistan and their supporters, becoming rivers of money. Imran Khan was forced to deny the involvement of his party, declaring that "if anyone can prove that the ISI funds the Tehrik-i-Insaf, we are ready to quit politics forever."

The intrigues at the top correspond to the intimidation of and threats to journalists and intellectuals, who are forced to live as prisoners in their homes or to leave the country for months. And the murders and beatings of journalists are considered more uncomfortable than others. The cold-blooded murders, abductions of human rights activists belonging to humanitarian organizations and the blackmail and threats to ordinary citizens connect to corruption at the low levels of the organization.

. . . It is a renewed war against the citizens of Balochistan, nationalist or not"¦and this genocide is carried out by the secret services. There are thousands of students, politicians, human rights activists and ordinary citizens taken away and disappeared without a trace. According to Interior Minister Rehman Malik, they are not in the hands of the police or the army, but from information in its possession, in Dubai on a shopping spree. And the fact that they reappear almost every week as corpses, in various states of decomposition or atrocious mutilation at the edges of roads, sewers, or hung from tree branches, does not move his conviction an inch.

Despite Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif paying lip service to the issues of Balochistan during the election campaign, and hopes that the situation will become better for those Pakistan considers second class citizens, given the circumstances, it is more likely to be that the rest of Pakistan will be transformed into a great Balochistan.

Francesca Marino is a South Asia expert, a free-lance journalist and a writer. She writes for Limes - Italian Review of Geopolitics, for the daily Il Messaggero and the weekly L'Espresso and gives speeches and lectures at universities and other organisations all over Europe. She is the only female journalist to have interviewed, in person, Mohammed Hafeez Saeed, Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief, in March 2010. She wrote her first book on India (India in 100 immagini - laterza editions) in 2007 and recently in April 2011, with Beniamino Natale, a book on Pakistan called "Apocalisse Pakistan" - Memori editions. "Apocalypse Pakistan - Anatomy of the most dangerous country in the world" analyzes the political situation of Pakistan, a country that is a "key ally of the West in the war on terrorism," but also the state in which they hid and still hide the leaders of international Islamic terrorism.

Vist Limes for additional coverage by Francesca Marino.