Page 1 of 2 Drama in a theater of despair
By Ajai Sahni
Gilgit-Baltistan ranks among the most beautiful places in the world. It is,
however, a region of the enduring oppression and despair. This dark corner of
Jammu and Kashmir, administered by Pakistan since the partition of British
India in 1947, [1] has largely remained outside the spectrum of international
attention and concern.
Harsh controls over the entry and movement of the press, both domestic and
international, choke off information flows within and from the region, even as
the population is silenced by an overwhelming military and intelligence
presence, illegal detentions and "disappearances". Periodically, however,
Islamabad orchestrates a charade, largely for the benefit of the fitfully
apprehensive international community, and in efforts to divide and dilute
increasing sub-nationalist sentiments and demands, variously, for human rights,
autonomy or independence.
A fifth "package drama" since 1971 has recently been announced by Pakistan
Prime Minister Yusuf Gilani. This comes after the October 2007 "comprehensive
package" - introduced by then-president Pervez
Musharraf, purportedly to "help bring the region at par with the rest of the
country" - failed to secure the slightest improvement in this unhappy land.
It is significant that the Musharraf package came as a damage-control exercise
after the passage in the European Union parliament of a devastating report by
the EU rapporteur, Baroness Emma Nicholson, which, while deploring "documented
human-rights violations by Pakistan" declared unambiguously that "the people of
Gilgit and Baltistan are under the direct rule of the military and enjoy no
democracy". Nicholson’s report was scathing, both on sheer oppression of the
people, on the complete absence of legal and human rights and of a
constitutional status, as well as on the enveloping backwardness that had
evidently been engineered as a matter of state policy in the region
Over the past two years, echoes of the Nicholson report continue to reverberate
in the international discourse, even as there are growing concerns regarding
the re-location of Islamist extremist and terrorist groups in Gilgit-Baltistan,
and a growing restiveness in the region's predominantly Shi'ite population. It
is against this backdrop that Gilani signed the "Empowerment and
Self-governance Ordinance, 2009, for Gilgit-Baltistan", on August 29.
Through the ordinance, President Asif Ali Zardari explained to a delegation of
leaders from Gilgit-Baltistan, the government had given "internal freedom and
all financial, democratic, administrative, judicial, political and
developmental powers to the Legislative Assembly of Gilgit-Baltistan".
How, then, does Manzoor Hussain Parwana, chairman of the Gilgit-Baltistan
United Movement (GBUM), which demands "full autonomy" for the region, describe
the Gilani "package" as an "Ordinance for Advancement of Slavery"? And why has
the ordinance been rejected as an outright fraud by virtually all political
formations struggling for constitutional, political and human rights in
Gilgit-Baltistan? Why do leading parties even in Pakistan condemn the ordinance
as a "unilateral decision of [the ruling] Pakistan People's Party", while
others reject it as an attempt to "annex these regions through a presidential
ordinance and by imposing governor’s rule?"
The reality quickly reveals itself in the most cursory examination of the
provisions of the ordinance. It ostensibly gives Gilgit-Baltistan its own
"elected" Legislative Assembly and chief minister, but takes away with one hand
what it endows with the other. It is in the governor that all real power is
vested, and this would be an "outsider", appointed by the president of
Pakistan.
Significantly, the people of Gilgit-Baltistan, since they have been granted no
constitutional status in Pakistan, do not vote to elect the president, the
prime minister, or the members of the National Assembly. The chief minister may
not select his own council of ministers, but must act in this regard on the
"advice" of the governor. Critically, the Gilgit-Baltistan assembly cannot
discuss or legislate on any issues relating to defense, foreign affairs, and
crucially, finance, security and the interior. The ordinance awards no
constitutional rights, guarantees or freedoms to the people. In effect, nothing
has changed in what the region’s only weekly, K2, describes as "Sarzamin-be-Ain",
the "Land without a constitution".
On examination, it is clear that the new "package" only brings "a change in
nomenclature rather than genuine political reforms". It offers little that is
concretely different from the Musharraf "package", and has quite rightly been
dismissed as old wine in new bottles by a wide consensus of political leaders
across Gilgit-Baltistan. Indeed, premonitions of the puppet assembly were
already visible in the Emma Nicholson report:
The Northern Areas
(Gilgit-Baltistan) Council, set up some time ago, with the boast that it is
functioning like a "Provincial Assembly", screens, in reality, a total absence
of constitutional identity or civil rights ...
Creating a
Legislative Assembly under an Islamabad-dominated Gilgit-Baltistan Council, and
allowing the "election" of a chief minister, cannot, consequently, conceal or
alter the circumstances that have been closely documented in the Nicholson
report:
The people are kept in poverty, illiteracy and backwardness.
The deprivation and lack of even very basic needs provision can be easily seen
- 25 small hospitals serviced by 140 doctors (translating into one doctor per
6,000 people) as compared to 830 hospitals and 75,000 doctors in the rest of
Pakistan, an overall literacy rate of 33%, with especially poor educational
indicators for girls and women; only 12 high schools and two regional colleges
in Gilgit and Baltistan, with no post-graduate facilities; apart from
government jobs, the only other employment being in the tourism sector, which
is obviously problematic A few locals are able to secure government jobs but
even then they are paid up to 35% less than non-native employees; there is no
local broadcast media.
Indeed, the new ordinance simply
reinforces the constitutional limbo within which Gilgit-Baltistan exists,
continuing with the substantive provisions of the Musharraf package, in
continuity with the succession of "Legal Framework Orders" under which the
region was ruled over the preceding four decades. The new order is just another
attempt to perpetuate and conceal the "political atrocities on the people in
the occupied region", and to "buy time and hide violations of human and
political rights".
It is useful, within this context, to review the contours of the occupation of
Gilgit-Baltistan. When the British granted Independence to India, the 565
"Princely States" - including Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) - technically became
"sovereign states". Consequently, following the collapse of British paramountcy
in 1947, the entire Gilgit agency was restored to the then-Dogra King, Hari
Singh, who eventually acceded to India.
Pakistan, however, fomented and supported a rebellion in the region, and seized
control, consolidating its administration through a succession of ruses, such
as the Karachi Agreement of 1949, under which entirely unrepresentative
officials signed "letters of accession" and "ratified" Pakistani administrative
control over the region. Crucially, a Supreme Court judgement in 1999 took note
of the legal and constitutional anomalies, as well as the denial of basic
rights and development, in Gilgit-Baltistan and explicitly directed the
Pakistan government, among other things,
... to initiate appropriate
administrative/legislative measures within a period of six months from today to
make necessary amendments in the constitution/relevant
statute/statutes/order/orders/rules/notification/notifications, to ensure that
the people of Northern Areas enjoy their ... fundamental rights, namely, to
be governed through their chosen representatives and to have access to justice
through an independent judiciary inter alia for enforcement of their
fundamental rights guaranteed under the constitution. (Emphases added).
A decade later, Pakistan has failed to meet even the minimum requirements of
the clear and specific direction of its own Supreme Court.
The region continues, consequently, to be "directly administrated by fiat from
Islamabad ... The bureaucracy, primarily drawn from the North-West Frontier
Province and Punjab, has intensified the sense of alienation and negated any
semblance of self-rule in the Northern Areas." Balawaristan National Front
(BNF) leader, Nawaz Khan Naji, notes, "In every department, the chief is from
Pakistan, the other, secondary positions are locals."
These legal and constitutional anomalies have been compounded by what the
non-governmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) describes as "a
distinct pattern of brutality and violence towards citizens". The Pakistani
administration has long been involved in a campaign that seeks to alter the
demographic profile of the region, and to reduce the local Shi'ite and Ismaili
populations to a minority.
In the Gilgit and Skardu areas, large tracts of land have been allotted to
non-locals, violating the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan
(UNCIP) resolutions and the Jammu and Kashmir State Subject Rule, and outsiders
have also purchased vast landholdings. One unofficial estimate suggested that
over 30,000 Gilgit residents had fled the city and its suburbs just between
2000 and 2004, in the wake of orchestrated incidents of sectarian strife,
followed by discriminatory and repressive action by state forces.
Three different sects of Islam, Shi'ite, Sunni and Ismaili, are prevalent in
Gilgit-Baltistan, with the Shi'ites dominating, unlike other parts of Pakistan,
where Sunnis constitute the overwhelming majority. With the very small
exception of Chilas, Darel and Tangir villages of the Diamer District, Shi'ites
constitute the clear majority across the rest of the region.
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