Afghan children running away from the scene of the recent suicide attack in Kabul. Photo: Reuters

Afghan citizens have been going through long periods of war for over the past 30 years. By now, millions have been displaced, hundreds of thousands killed or disabled, and the major infrastructures seriously damaged. Nevertheless, the war had a different shape. There was the regime and there were the rebels. The lines were pretty much clear.

But this picture has changed after the first suicide attack took place in Afghanistan. Most of these attacks are planned in crowded areas of the major cities. Kabul, for instance, looks more like a military base rather than a city. Its appearance has changed. Its dynamic has changed. Its people have changed.

Apart from the demographic shift in Kabul in the past decade, one of the major reasons that keep people on edge is suicide bombings. These attacks do not require the investment and management of a small brigade let alone an army. They don’t require a big budget. All is needed is a few number of brain-washed fanatics, some explosives, and a good plan. At the same time, however, they consume significant resources in order to be prevented.

On the other hand, a plan of this small caliber leaves a very deep impact. It leaves uncertainty. It worsens unpredictability. It shatters the trust in security and it causes an increasing sense of constant instability. And this is this feeling of constant instability that is a killer. People just become unable to think or manage how to stay safe, how to keep children away from violence, and how to plan for future. This is because suicide attacks can happen anywhere at any time. They have this element to dash people’s hopes and wreck their nerves.

It is true that our people have shown resiliency and that is how they survived. However, it has come with a heavy cost that we must not ignore. Along this painful journey, relationships have shattered. Extremism has become stronger. Violence has become more prevalent.

Therefore, the mere element of resiliency in people doesn’t mean the government stop taking proper measures to put an end to these attacks or at least manage them in an efficient manner. The simple yet compelling question is: how can we expect our children, the next generation, to be non-violent, open-minded, and law-abiding citizens whereas they are exposed to such horror and trauma too much and too often?

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Imagine that you live in Afghanistan. Your ancestors have lived there for hundreds of years, but you are a minority. In fact, you are a minority two times over, because the religion you practice is different from the one most people practice, and the way you look is different from the way most people look.

Many of you escape, but millions of you don’t. So many of your people are killed that you believe fewer than half survived. Even statues that look like you are attacked.

For the next century, those of you who survive are relegated to the bottom rungs of society. The king has made it difficult for your people to gain admission to university and places a ceiling on the rank you can achieve in the military. Later, a group that calls itself The Students, or the Taliban, will take over the country and declare it every Afghan’s duty to kill your people.

Imagine, though, that you are one of the lucky ones, and you escape before the king or The Students can get you. You go to a country next door.

Country #2

Iran is a country where, mercifully, everyone is the same religion as you — Shia. You think you will be welcomed there. There, you are still an ethnic minority, but you are no longer a religious one.

Then there is a revolution, and then a war, and then the ending of a war. People emerge from the tumult and remember that their economy is not very good. There are sanctions. And your people, the different-lookers, are the target of most of the rage. There are not enough jobs for everyone, so why should your people get to take them?

You are not the only immigrants, but you are immigrants people can see are immigrants just by looking. In your country of refuge, you are now an enemy of the people.

You must leave again.

Country #3

Some of you go to Iraq. There, Shias are not in power, but at least there are many of them. Plus, there are important Shia sites in Iraq, so while you feel physically alien, you can make-believe you are spiritually home. Iraq has a powerful and fearsome dictator, but no matter; you are safe.

Until you are no longer safe. The dictator embarks on a foolish war and becomes an enemy of peace, a cancer in the region. Iraq is a pariah state and its dictator a paranoid man who fears that those who aren’t like him will soon betray him. He hates Iran, and knows your people were there. And even though you were driven from Iran, you are spying for them, the dictator thinks.

You must leave again.

Country #4

In Syria the situation is reversed — there are far more Sunnis than Shias, but the Alawites, a kind of Shia, are in power.

You find homes near a shrine, and you settle again. Finally you are safe and free, even though you are four countries from your own and have no papers so you cannot leave.

Then a popular uprising envelops the region and the president of this new land watches heads of state fall all around him. He resolves to stay. He cracks down on those opposing him; he is merciless and decisive. He is killing militants and people suspected of being militants. Soon he is killing so many civilians it is hard to believe he is not killing civilians on purpose.

It is a terrible thing you are seeing, but that’s not the worst of it. The worst of it is that the president doing all this killing belongs to your religion. The people dying are the Sunnis.

The Sunnis are angry, traumatized, and full of fire. They have seen the bodies of their loved ones broke open, and when they look up from the carnage, they see you, the different-lookers. The people who believe like he believes, the man behind the slaughter.

The victims think: You like this evil man. His family let you live in this country, so surely, you are helping him. You are providing him information. Or maybe you’re not now, but soon you will. And so some of the victims arrive at your doorstep to drive you from your home.

There are about 1,000 of you left. You’ve now been kicked out of your houses, you live in a parking lot next to a shrine, and you are watching mortar rounds fall closer and closer to your family.

And then you’re watching mortar rounds hit your family. You are watching your people die in a fourth country. You want to flee, but you can’t. You don’t have papers, remember? The moment you leave the country, you are illegal.

So you are sitting in a parking lot watching your people die, because even though you haven’t chosen sides in this civil war, you’ve been assigned one.

Residents from the Hazara community pray as they visit their relatives’ graves in Quetta, Pakistan on March 1, 2013. (Naseer Ahmed/Reuters)
You are Hazara. Your name actually means “thousand,” and you are reliving your own founding myth. You look Asian because your ancestors in Afghanistan were Buddhist pilgrims, or because you descended from Genghis Khan, or both — this is a contested historical point.

You are Muslim, but you are Shia. What this means is that in Afghanistan, you believed in the right God, but the wrong way. In Iran you believed the right way, but looked wrong. In Iraq, and now in Syria, you were wrong in both ways.

You have never been too comfortable in the places you live because you’ve always looked different. And you have always been under suspicion because you believe differently. Those of you with features mild enough to pass as other ethnicities often try to.

But now you are trapped. You’ve moved west and west and now if you moved any further west you’d be in the Mediterranean Sea. You have survived a massacre in Afghanistan, a revolution in Iran, a tyrant in Iraq, and now, a civil war in Syria. You have always been the first to suffer, but you’ve always been able to go a little further west. Now you can’t.

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Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) seems to have lost from PB2 Quetta-2 seat for Balochistan assembly while Majlis-e-Wahdatul Muslimeen (MWM) seems to have unofficially won. Despite being victorious in bagging Hazara Shia popular vote, HDP has technically lost the PB2 Qta-2 seat in Quetta City, Pakistan. Now let’s analyze the post election scenario as what kind of socio-political scene may Hazara Shia likely face in near future in Pakistan?

Many believe that it is not only the HDP, which has allegedly lost the election from PB2 Quetta-2 but all those who believed in democracy, enlighten education, political integration, social harmony, religious tolerance, pluralism and above all the trust of state on Hazaras being a loyal citizens of Pakistan.

MWM seems to have technically “secured” PB2 Quetta-2 seat; however it remained unable to bag the majority votes of Hazaras Shias in Quetta City. It was non-Hazara Shia actors who played well in bringing MWM to impose on Hazara Shia under the covert role of “farishta” —establishment. MWM being an extreme Shia religious party will likely help promote more religious hatred, religious extremism, religious intolerance, religious violence, social disharmony, political mistrust, political immaturity, irrationality and madness in the society in near future.

Let’s analyze deeper as what MWM can give further damage to the political image of Hazara Shias in Pakistan while representing the constituency where Hazara Shias inhabit along with other ethnic groups mostly Sunni religion. MWM will surely play active role to not only counter the political activities of HDP in the province but also promote maligning the political image of Hazara Shias nationally and internationally for being known as a pro-Iran party in this region.

The history will never forgive all those who either intentionally confused Hazaras or played direct role in promoting MWM in the election without realizing the long lasting socio-political negative consequences of MWM, which will ultimately turn the soft image of Hazaras to extreme religious pro-Iran image in coming months.

Religious hatred will get promoted to the new extreme level in the society under the leadership of MWM. Non-Hazara religious Shia extremist Mullahs will get roots in the Hazara society. Establishment on the sideline will help promote Shia religious group such as Imamia Students Organization, Sipah-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Mehdi to get root among young Hazaras which will ultimately push them to get involved in sectarian violence. Then establishment will turn Hazara genocide, which is going for the last 12 years into sectarian violence and will show to the world that Hazaras are involved in the alleged killings of other innocent citizens in Quetta City, Pakistan, which they had never been before.

Khana-e-Farhang Iran’s political ideas will get materialized through MWM in the society. Photos of Imam Khumaini will go public on the national media and Hasan Nasrullah type politics will get penetrated to further malign Hazaras in Pakistan. Religious extremism and hatred will finally bring violence in the society and violence means more deaths. Moreover, MWM’s political activities will further widen the rift between Syed and Hazara in the society.

Soon after taking oath being a legislator, MWM candidate will start representing Shias especially Hazaras to all official and unofficial gatherings which will further disgrace the political image of Hazaras in Pakistan. Political activities of MWM will legitimise the claims of Lashkar-e-Janghvi and other Sunni militant groups—Hazaras being Iran proxies in Pakistan—will provide ample reasons to attacks on Hazaras in Pakistan.

Hazaras with the pro-Iran image on the media will find hard to find jobs in government departments especially in Pakistan Army and Police departments. The question of trust and loyalty will be raised on Hazaras in Pakistan.

An alleged emergence of the MWM being a pro-Iran party will no doubt make the survival of Hazaras very difficult in Pakistan, whose high command seem to be allegedly controlled from outside. It is now therefore responsibility of all political personalities, democrats, liberals, professionals and educated class of Hazaras to urgently get united to challenge the great conspiracy being hatched to further push Hazaras to the dead end in Pakistan.

According to Jang News Karachi, two unidentified terrorists on motorcycles approached the Katarko school and knocked at the closed door. Upon opening the small window in the gate for inquiry, the assailants opened fire with AK-47 killing two Hazara security guards/watchman – Chaman Ali s/o Ali Hassan (45) and Hafeezullah s/o of Ghulam Hussain (40) – while critically injuring Mohsin s/o Safdar (20). The deceased and the injured were shifted to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

All three are residents of  Yaqoob Shah Basti in Monghopir, which has recently become the hub of Taleban terrorists and a virtual no-go area for the ordinary citizens of Pakistan.

Whenever I’ve wanted to learn something about a culture I’d read the stories the people told each other. Not the stories others tell about them, or what’s been written about them in history books, but the ones which have been passed down from generation to generation. They could be anything from myths to family histories, but they all contain elements of what a people believe in and their view of the world’s history. The more stories you read the clearer a picture you begin to develop of how a people live and what matters to them.

In this era of globalization and cultural homogenization I think its even more important than ever to understand the things which distinguish various peoples from each other. It’s become far too easy to make pejorative statements about an entire race or creed because we’ve not taken the time to understand the various nuances and distinctions among the wide variety of people who make up the population of a country let alone a religion. In the West we are especially guilty of making these types of generalizations when talking about countries outside North America and Europe. One of the most glaring examples of this is Afghanistan.

If ever a country has been the plaything of Western powers it’s been this remote country bordering Pakistan and Iran. From the British and Russians manipulating its rulers back in the 19th century to the Russians and Americans using it to fight the Cold War in the 1980s and today’s supposed ongoing war on terror being conducted by occupying NATO troops, peace is something that breaks out between what has been an almost constant state of war in the country for almost two centuries. Yet in spite of our countries’ direct involvement with the affairs of this nation, we know little or nothing about it.

In the hopes of learning more about the country and its people I requested a copy of The Honey Thief written by Najaf Mazari and Robert Hillman published by Penguin Canada. Mazari immigrated from Afghanistan to Australia in 2000 escaping the Taliban. Technically speaking this book isn’t about the people of Afghanistan, mainly because there is no one group of people who can be said to be Afghanistan. The country is divided along ethnic lines both geographically and socially, and Mazari is Hazara. The Hazara now live, predominately, in the central mountainous region of the country known as the Hazarajat.

While the Hazara are the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, one of the first things we learn from Mazari is they have been one of the most persecuted. From the 19th century well into the 20th century they were the victims of what amounts to systematic genocide by the ruling Barakzai family of Afghanistan. When whole villages weren’t being exterminated by government soldiers their land was been taken from them. When the members of the royal family weren’t busy plotting against each other, they were buying the loyalty of their soldiers and friends by giving them Hazara land.

While the history of persecution obviously colours and shapes the lives of the Hazara people it’s only one thread running through the narrative of the people. The stories in The Honey Thief are filled with details which will never find their way into history books. We learn about their ingenuity and their will to survive in spite of what the world throws at them. In “The Snow Leopard,” a British photographer is taken into the mountains by a Hazara guide in search of Snow Leopards to photograph; we are given a guided tour of the environment they live in. We learn how the valleys in mountain ranges are used to grow food and how if a valley doesn’t have good soil, they will carry soil from other areas into the valley in order to grow crops.

We also learn a little of their philosophy regarding the world around them. In the book’s title story, “The Honey Thief,” a young man is apprenticed to a bee keeper to learn the delicate mysteries of collecting honey. His new master tells him how he became a bee keeper after he was caught stealing honey by the young man’s grandfather. It was thought, he explains to his new apprentice, since he was able to steal honey from the bees without being stung he would make a good bee keeper because bees hate it when people steal the honey they’ve worked so hard to collect. The bee keeper goes on to explain to his young charge that bees, like all domestic animals, are slaves to men, and we steal from all of them.

This tale isn’t meant as a morality lesson, rather a lesson in the realities of existence. Be aware of exactly what it is you’re doing in order to survive, and you will understand why others act they way do in response. Is it any wonder chickens will attempt to hide their eggs or bees attempt to sting us when we keep them enslaved and steal from them as well? This is quite a bit more sophisticated and honest understanding of the relationship between man and the beasts we use for food and domestic work than we hear expressed by most people.

While the stories are both profoundly beautiful and moving they also serve to fill in the details of everyday life among the Hazara people outsiders would only learn after years of observation. While they might have a natural mistrust of strangers, especially those from other ethnic groups, once a person has shown his or herself to be harmless they will be accepted. Or, unlike other subsistence people whose lives depend on what they can produce from their fields or by the labour of their own hands, they understand the value of education. If the chance arises they will send their children, both boys and girls, to school.

While every Hazara child learns from their parent basic precepts of respect and obedience for their parents and their God, they also recognize there are exceptions to every rule. In the story “The Music School,” a mute teenager learns how to give voice to his thoughts with a musical instrument. He is desperate to tell the young woman he loves how he feels about her, but his teacher has forbidden him to play in public until four years have passed from when he began his lessons.

Fearing she will have found someone else in that time he disobeys his teacher, plays for the young women and wins her heart. When he goes to return his instrument to his teacher’s house he fully expects to be punished and probably be forbidden from studying anymore. Instead his teacher gives him six gold coins to help him start his new family and tells him to take the instrument home and bring it back the next day for another lesson. As the young man is leaving, stunned by his good fortune, his teacher says to him “God is patient with the obedient, but he treasures the disobedient.”

Trying to write out stories which have only previously been told aloud is one of the hardest tasks facing a writer. However Mazari and Hillman have done a remarkable job with this collection of capturing the immediacy which exists between the storyteller and his or her audience. In fact, there are times when reading these stories you can hear them being told to you in your mind’s ear. There’s something about the writing style they’ve employed which makes them read like they’re being spoken aloud to you. The more you read, the more this world comes alive until you can almost picture yourself amongst a community as they gather to hear their stories.

Mazari finishes the book off with a collection of recipes for various Hazara dishes. The instructions for preparing the dishes are stories in of themselves as the various asides offer us even further insights into the people’s attitudes towards life. The Honey Thief goes a long way towards belying the impression we’ve been given of the people of Afghanistan as either savages or ignorant peasants desperately needing to be saved by the West. Stories like this collection should be required reading for every journalist or politician prior to them making public statements about Afghanistan.

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If you are a poet and want to contribute to our projects, please contact Kamran Mir Hazar at email:
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KARACHI, Pakistan — Stranded in a dingy hotel in the heart of this port city, waiting for the smuggler’s call, Hussain felt at once trapped and poised for freedom.

Behind lay his hometown, Quetta, the city in western Pakistan that has become a killing ground for Sunni sectarian death squads that hunt Shiites. So far this year they have killed almost 200 people, and Hussain was nearly one of them. Lifting a pants leg, he displayed an eight-inch scar from a bomb blast in January.

But great danger also lay ahead. Hussain was headed for Australia, where thousands of his fellow ethnic Hazaras, Shiites who have borne the brunt of the recent violence, have sought refuge. The illegal journey — across Southeast Asia by air, ground and sea at the mercy of unscrupulous human traffickers — would be long and perilous. Several hundred Hazaras had died on that route in recent years, most when their rickety boats foundered at sea.

For Hussain, it was worth the risk.

“I’d rather die in the boat than in a bomb blast,” he said, twisting a cup of coffee nervously in a restaurant near the hotel. “At least this way, I get to choose.”

Hussain, 25, is part of a growing exodus of young Hazara men who are fleeing Pakistan as it has become apparent that their government and military cannot, or will not, protect them from violent extremists.

In Quetta, where most Pakistani Hazaras live, the attacks are led by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a fanatical group that views Shiites as heretics. With their distinctive Central Asian features and historical links to anti-Taliban forces, the Hazaras make an appealing target. After a decade of intermittent attacks, bloodshed is suddenly surging: two Lashkar suicide bombings this year killed almost 200 people, up from 125 in 2012.

That toll set off a long-overdue security crackdown, but the attacks resumed last Tuesday with a suicide attack on a Hazara politician that killed six people. To young men like Hussain, whose family runs a clothes shop, the next bomb is only a matter of time.

“We can live without the basics of life — gas, electricity and so on,” said Hussain, who asked to be identified by just part of his name in the hope of avoiding arrest on his journey. “But we can’t live with the fear.”

Hussain’s older brother was shot and killed by militants in 2008. His own brush with death came on Jan. 10, after a powerful blast ripped through a snooker hall near his house. As Hussain rushed to help, he was caught in a second explosion that killed rescue workers, police officers and journalists. He blacked out.

“I don’t remember the sound of the blast,” he said. “Just the feeling, like a sort of sonic pulse.” He awoke in the hospital with 36 stitches in one leg and learned that three of his closest friends were among the 84 dead.

It was becoming clear that the Lashkar killers could operate with impunity. “They take their time. They select. Then they shoot,” he said.

The final straw came on March 7, when the military summoned Hussain and other Hazara traders to a meeting in Haideri bazaar, a popular market. As soldiers stood guard outside, an army colonel offered the merchants some sobering advice: they needed to buy handguns, he said.

Some people reacted angrily, and began berating the military officers, demanding better protection, Hussain recalled. But he went home to make a phone call. Two years earlier, his younger brother had left for Australia, where he had gotten a job in a fast food restaurant. Now Hussain needed to hear his voice.

“Just come,” the brother said.

Three days later, Hussain had agreed to pay $6,000 to a trafficker and was on a flight to Karachi, on the first leg of a journey across Asia that would be as emotionally wrenching as it was sudden.

In the plane, he found himself comforting a weeping 16-year-old boy, also Hazara, who said he had been forced to leave by his parents. In the shabby Karachi hotel, he shared a room with “Master,” a 41-year-old shoe trader from Quetta, also bound for Australia.

With thinning hair and a quick grin, Master, who would give only his nickname, had an avuncular manner. But when conversation turned to the three bewildered daughters, aged 7, 9 and 13, he had left behind in Quetta a day earlier, the smile faded and his eyes welled up.

“I will bring them to Australia,” he said in a cracking voice. “This country is no longer for us Hazaras.”

As with many other Hazaras aiming for Australia — from Afghanistan as well as Pakistan — their starting point was Karachi. From there, the journey is arduous and uncertain. Refugees first fly to Thailand or Malaysia, often via Sri Lanka, after their agents bribe immigration officers and Pakistani border officials. The trek continues by land and sea across Malaysia and Indonesia, in cars and trains, dodging police patrols, overnighting at flophouses.

Some migrants are arrested by police officers and border guards along the way and deported back to Pakistan; others are extorted or abandoned by the traffickers, or robbed on the roadside. In many cases, they end up paying thousands of dollars more — in bribes to crooked border officers or supplemental fees to smugglers — so they can keep pressing toward Australia.

The last leg is the most treacherous. In Indonesia, migrants buy tickets aboard small, overcrowded boats bound for Christmas Island, a small Australian territory about 240 miles off the Indonesian coast, where they apply for political asylum. There, they join other boat people — Sri Lankans, Iranians, Afghans, Iraqis.

Safe arrival is by no means guaranteed. Between late 2001 and last June, 964 asylum seekers and boat crew members from various countries are known to have lost their lives on this passage, said Sandi Logan, a spokesman for the Australian government’s Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

Habibullah, a 22-year-old student from Quetta, was nearly one of them. Last October, he joined 34 Hazara men on a boat bound for Christmas Island. Within 24 hours, the boat had sunk in a storm. Mr. Habibullah, who has only one name, says he was the sole survivor, picked up by an Indonesian fishing boat after three days clinging to floating debris.

In a harrowing written account of those events sent by e-mail, and in a phone interview from Indonesia, Mr. Habibullah described a traumatic ordeal.

He spoke of long hours in the water, whipped by waves and fearing sharks, desperately calling out to distant passing ships. But most anguishing, he said, was the sight of fellow passengers slipping under the waves, some calling out to their wives or parents.

Mr. Habibullah, suffering extreme thirst and sharp kidney pain, sustained himself by thinking of his home in Quetta. “I remembered my past, surrounded by my parents,” he wrote. “And I realized they were with me.”

It is impossible to confirm Mr. Habibullah’s account independently. But Hazara community leaders in Quetta confirmed that several men accompanying Mr. Habibullah had died, and some of their photographs have been published on blogs.

Mr. Habibullah sounded despondent. Conditions at the government detention center in Indonesia were grim, he said, and he was struggling to gain an asylum hearing from the United Nations refugee agency. Nine months after leaving home, and having spent $15,000 on bribes, transportation and smuggler’s fees, he had not reached Australia.

Still, he understood why other Hazaras wanted to make the journey. “It’s worth it,” he said.

The Australian government has tried to deter the boat people. Last year, it began transferring asylum seekers to detention centers on two remote Pacific islands while their cases are heard. Human rights groups and United Nations officials have condemned conditions at the camps, and Australian news media have reported several suicide attempts there in recent months.Responding to the criticism, Australian officials say they have increased their humanitarian refugee quota to 20,000 this year, a 40 percent increase. At the same time, in countries like Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, the Australian government has started an advertising campaign seeking to persuade potential refugees to stay at home.

Yet still they keep coming. In the first weeks of April, according to official figures, the Australian Navy intercepted 10 boats carrying 760 people, most bound for Christmas Island. The majority of cases from Afghanistan and Pakistan were ethnic Hazaras, whose numbers have grown to about 25,000 people in Australia, officials say.

Before leaving Karachi, Hussain and Master took a stroll along the beach, dipping their toes in the Arabian Sea and meandering among the young families on the sand.

Hussain stressed that if not for the extremist threat, he would not be leaving Pakistan. Ten months earlier he had married his sweetheart, a local teacher, whom he had left behind. His family made a good living from its clothes business. And patriotism ran in the family — his grandfather had served in Pakistan’s army.

“This could be the last time I see Pakistan,” he said, staring out at the waves.

His younger brother had warned him of a daunting journey ahead — “Expect it to be hell,” were his words — and so he was relying on the religious items around his neck: a small leather pouch containing two folded Koranic inscriptions, from his father and his wife, and a black pendant inscribed with the words “Y’Allah Madaat” — “Oh God, help me.”

Over the following weeks, he sent several messages: from Bangkok, where he was staying in a cramped room with 16 other refugees (“Waiting, waiting, and so on,” he wrote), then, in late March, from Indonesia.

Master had been arrested in a car headed for a port in Malaysia, Hussain said. But he had managed to escape, and had arrived in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, where he would seek a boat to Australia.

This month, a boat carrying about 90 people, most of them Hazaras, sunk en route to Australia. Hussain was depressed, but undeterred. “I’m looking forward,” he wrote. Then he added: “May God help me.”

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“It is our religious duty to kill all Shias… in all of Pakistan, especially Quetta, we will continue our successful jihad against the Shia Hazara and Pakistan will become a graveyard for them.” -A letter of intent circulated by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) in 2011

Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons
The Pakistani Hazara are undergoing systematic ethnic cleansing and, according to prominent politician Abdul Khaliq Hazara, nothing short of a “genocide.” In Quetta, Pakistan over 180 Hazara have been brutally murdered in two separate bombings in January and February of this year. These acts of terror, committed by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), a terrorist group with links to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, are but the latest instances in the history of persecution endured by this predominantly Shiite Muslim community.

The Hazara can be distinguished by their language, a variant of Persian called Hazaragi, by their physical features, as they closely resemble Mongolians and East Asians, and by their cultural traditions, which are most similar to Turkic peoples. Scholars speculate that the Hazara are descended in part from the Mongol warriors of Genghis Khan, who invaded Central Asia in the 13th Century. However, in the wake of this recent targeting by Sunni extremists, the Hazara have been defined primarily by their Shiite Muslim faith.

Tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims­–divisions that date back to the 8th century­–have often resurged in discrimination and sectarian violence across the region. In the 19th century, for example, the Sunni Pashtun Amir Abdur Rehman ensured that “more than half of the entire Hazara population was massacred or driven out of their villages” in Afghanistan. Some Hazara managed to escape to the city of Quetta in the Balochistan province of modern-day Pakistan, where their struggle for peace continues today.

The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the self-professed perpetrator of the most recent attacks, operates primarily in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The mission of the LeJ is to cleanse Pakistan from what it sees as “impurities” in the faith via targeted violence against Shiites, and specifically the Hazara Shiite population. In the letter of intent quoted from above, the LeJ issued a warning to Pakistani Hazara: leave Quetta by the end of the year or face death. Since 2012, Amnesty International has reported the deaths of around 500 Shiites in 91 attacks throughout Pakistan, a significant portion of whom were Hazara.

Although the LeJ cites religious motives for its attacks on Hazara, there are political and historical dimensions to the conflict as well. After the 1996 takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, many Hazara allied with the United Front (or Northern Alliance) when full-scale civil war erupted. As a result of their political opposition to the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, it has been speculated that the Hazara assist U.S. security efforts in the region. Considering the pervasive animosity towards the West in these countries, any perceived association with the U.S. is stigmatizing.

In response to anti-Hazara violence, the Pakistani government has been incompetent at best and complicit at worst. Despite an official ban of the LeJ in Pakistan in 2001 and its inclusion on the official U.S. list of terrorist organizations in 2003, the group functions with de facto impunity throughout Pakistan. The Hazara have been confronted in their places of work and worship, but they are no more safe in public spaces: armed men have been known to confront Hazara, regardless of gender or age, in marketplaces or on public buses, and shoot them point-blank. The government has not only failed to prevent these crimes, but it has also failed to consistently apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators. Many Hazara are murdered “in broad daylight” and often “gunmen do not even bother to cover their faces” because there has been no demonstration of state retribution.

According to Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi, a policy and defense analyst based in Islamabad, it is possible that the government overlooks attacks by the LeJ because there are other, more direct threats to state authority—like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)—that need to first be addressed. “The preference of the Pakistani state is to first go after those groups that challenge the Pakistani state, and just ignore the other groups. And that gives [groups such as the LeJ] enough space,” Dr, Rizvi explains. He also notes that strains of support for the LeJ and other extremist activities are widespread in the government because, historically “these militant groups have been allies of the state.” Consequently, the Pakistani military has adopted a “policy to appease and accommodate extremists.” Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch reiterates these connections and points out that the LeJ fighters have an “historical alliance” with Pakistan’s military establishment that dates back to when they jointly supported the Taliban in Afghanistan after the Soviet retreat in the 1990s. In other words, considering this history, it is likely that many military and government officials are sympathetic to the LeJ’s anti-Hazara mission.

Whether it’s a product of inadvertent facilitation or active involvement, the state is effectively enabling these hate crimes. As Aziz Hazara, the vice president of the Hazara Democratic Party, has stated, “The government is responsible for terrorist attacks and killings in the Hazara community because its security forces have not conducted operations against extremist groups… But our people are very peaceful people. We only demand this is my right, a human being’s right, we want security and nothing else.”

For Pakistani Hazara, there is little hope of escaping these grim circumstances. Their home in Quetta has become inhospitable. There are limited opportunities to make a living or go to school due to discrimination and violent attacks. Hazara enrollment at the University of Balochistan has dwindled from 300 students to none after a series of threats that culminated in a student bus bombing in June 2012. Many Hazara have surmounted numerous obstacles in a search for refuge from this terror. Hundreds have ventured to Australia, for example, despite the enormous costs and risks of such a dangerous journey. Various other nations and the international community at large could be doing much more to assist Hazara asylum-seekers, but the root of the problem must also be addressed. In order for the violence to stop, the Hazara community’s status as a distinct political and ethnic entity must be defended by the government of Pakistan. It is the state’s responsibility to seek out and prosecute the perpetrators of these attacks and ensure that the military is taking the appropriate measures to prevent this violence. Thousands of innocent lives are at stake.

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(Reuters) – A prominent leader of Pakistan’s ethnic Hazara minority narrowly escaped a suicide attack that killed six people on Tuesday, underscoring the growing threat militants pose to secular politicians in the run-up to next month’s general elections.

The blast in Quetta was the worst attack since a series of bombings in the city at the start of the year killed almost 200 people, briefly drawing global attention to a growing campaign of persecution of the Hazaras by sectarian militants.

The 500,000-strong community in Quetta has been subjected to an escalating campaign shootings and bombings by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), a militant group dedicated to attacking Pakistan’s Shi’ite Muslim minority, which includes the Hazaras.

Khaliq Hazara, the chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party, the main Hazara political organization, said the blast occurred shortly after he had finished addressing a small outdoor election meeting in a Hazara enclave in the east of the city.

“I was doing my campaigning in my own community,” Hazara told Reuters. “The government should give us security.”

Hazara, who is running for a National Assembly seat at the May 11 elections, said he suspected the bomber intended to kill him and his advisers. “We were the target,” he said.

LEJ’s spokesman claimed responsibility for the blast via telephone from an undisclosed location, though he did not specify whether the HDP leader was the target.

The HDP is a secular party that has emerged to press Pakistan’s government to take greater action to protect Hazaras from attacks that have killed hundreds of people in Quetta in recent years. The party’s previous chairman was shot dead in the city in 2009.

The proximity of the blast to the HDP gathering will fuel fears that Islamist militants are determined to disrupt campaigning by secular parties ahead of the polls, Pakistan’s first transition between elected civilian governments.

The suicide car bomber detonated his explosives-laden vehicle after being stopped at a nearby checkpoint manned by the paramilitary Frontier Corps, according to a security official. He said a member of the force was among the dead.

The blast occurred shortly after three smaller, hidden bombs exploded at various locations in the city, wounding nine people, police said.

LEJ’s activists subscribe to the hard-line Takfiri Deobandi school of Islam, which is followed by a small minority of Pakistanis. The most violent members see it is a sacred duty to kill Shi’ites, who are known in Pakistan as Shias.

Hazaras are both Shi’ites and members an ethnic minority who originally migrated from Afghanistan, leaving them vulnerable to a double layer of discrimination.

LeJ’s campaign of violence against the Hazaras has placed the community under siege in Quetta, leaving many people afraid to venture out of Hazara enclaves and disrupting business and education. Thousands of Hazaras have fled Quetta to seek asylum in Europe and Australia rather than face LeJ’s death squads.

In a separate attack on Tuesday, a bomb exploded in the commercial capital Karachi near a gathering of activists of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), the dominant political party in the city. Police said two people were killed.

The MQM, a secular party, is locked in a battle with various rival contenders for influence in Karachi, including Pakistan’s Taliban movement, which has sought to gain a foothold in various districts on the outskirts of the city in recent years.

The worst attack on an election event occurred last week when at least nine people were killed in bomb attack on a rally held by the Awami National Party in the north-western city of Peshawar.

The ANP, a secular party, is locked in a bitter struggle with Pakistan’s Taliban movement, which has staged numerous attacks on its members over the years and has vowed to step up its campaign in the run-up to the polls.

QUETTA, Pakistan, April 23 (Reuters) – A prominent leader of Pakistan’s ethnic Hazara minority narrowly escaped a suicide attack that killed six people on Tuesday, underscoring the growing threat militants pose to secular politicians in the run-up to next month’s general elections.

The blast in Quetta was the worst attack since a series of bombings in the city at the start of the year killed almost 200 people, briefly drawing global attention to a growing campaign of persecution of the Hazaras by sectarian militants.

The 500,000-strong community in Quetta has been subjected to an escalating campaign shootings and bombings by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), a militant group dedicated to attacking Pakistan’s Shi’ite Muslim minority, which includes the Hazaras.

Khaliq Hazara, the chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party, the main Hazara political organisation, said the blast occurred shortly after he had finished addressing a small outdoor election meeting in a Hazara enclave in the east of the city.

“I was doing my campaigning in my own community,” Hazara told Reuters. “The government should give us security.”

Hazara, who is running for a National Assembly seat at the May 11 elections, said he suspected the bomber intended to kill him and his advisers. “We were the target,” he said.

LEJ’s spokesman claimed responsibility for the blast via telephone from an undisclosed location, though he did not specify whether the HDP leader was the target.

The HDP is a secular party that has emerged to press Pakistan’s government to take greater action to protect Hazaras from attacks that have killed hundreds of people in Quetta in recent years. The party’s previous chairman was shot dead in the city in 2009.

The proximity of the blast to the HDP gathering will fuel fears that Islamist militants are determined to disrupt campaigning by secular parties ahead of the polls, Pakistan’s first transition between elected civilian governments.

The suicide car bomber detonated his explosives-laden vehicle after being stopped at a nearby checkpoint manned by the paramilitary Frontier Corps, according to a security official. He said a member of the force was among the dead.

The blast occurred shortly after three smaller, hidden bombs exploded at various locations in the city, wounding nine people, police said.

LEJ’s activists subscribe to the hard-line Takfiri Deobandi school of Islam, which is followed by a small minority of Pakistanis. The most violent members see it is a sacred duty to kill Shi’ites, who are known in Pakistan as Shias.

Hazaras are both Shi’ites and members an ethnic minority who originally migrated from Afghanistan, leaving them vulnerable to a double layer of discrimination.

LeJ’s campaign of violence against the Hazaras has placed the community under siege in Quetta, leaving many people afraid to venture out of Hazara enclaves and disrupting business and education. Thousands of Hazaras have fled Quetta to seek asylum in Europe and Australia rather than face LeJ’s death squads.

In a separate attack on Tuesday, a bomb exploded in the commercial capital Karachi near a gathering of activists of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), the dominant political party in the city. Police said two people were killed.

The MQM, a secular party, is locked in a battle with various rival contenders for influence in Karachi, including Pakistan’s Taliban movement, which has sought to gain a foothold in various districts on the outskirts of the city in recent years.

The worst attack on an election event occurred last week when at least nine people were killed in bomb attack on a rally held by the Awami National Party in the north-western city of Peshawar.

The ANP, a secular party, is locked in a bitter struggle with Pakistan’s Taliban movement, which has staged numerous attacks on its members over the years and has vowed to step up its campaign in the run-up to the polls. (Writing by Matthew Green; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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