MQM tells US they are outgunned in Karachi Tariq Butt Thursday, September 08, 2011 From Print Edition ISLAMABAD: The Muttahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM) told the United States that the Mohajirs were outgunned by the Pashtuns in Karachi and talked of a conspiracy by the Pakistani establishment designed to keep Punjabis in power, claimed an April 2009 secret US embassy cable, released by Wikileaks. The wire, headlined MQM principles and conspiracy, covers a meeting of US Embassy Charge d’Affairs Gerald Feierstein with MQM leaders Farooq Sattar and Abbas Haider Rizvi. It said Rizvi became animated at the mention of his hometown. He reminded the US diplomat that he represented one of the most ethnically diverse districts in Karachi and, therefore, one of the most volatile. He claimed Taliban maintain safe houses and weapon stashes in Pashtun neighborhoods. Glossing over his own party’s reputation for political retribution, Rizvi claimed Mohajirs were outgunned by the Pashtun. Sattar and Rizvi again asserted the conspiracy of Pakistan’s establishment stoking ethnic rivalry, designed to keep Punjabis in power. The Charged d’Affairs met with Sattar and Rizvi to discuss their party’s stance against the recently signed Nizam-e-Adl Regulation, their ideas for a GOP (government of Pakistan) response and the potential for violence in the mega-city their party controls. Sattar said he had predicted the failure of dialogue with the frontier militants and advocated a strong military response. He asserted that, though part of the ruling coalition, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had not confided any counter-terrorism strategic plans and surprised MQM (and apparently PPP members too) with an April 13 parliamentary resolution, endorsing the regulations. He suggested that all major political parties approach the Army to request immediate action against the Taliban. Rizvi complained that fellow coalition partner Awami National Party (ANP) was fanning Pashtun ethno-nationalism in Karachi, and still moving forward with plans for a controversial May 12 commemoration of 2007 intra-party violence. Sattar requested Embassy intervention to get the ANP to call off the day’s events. He was seized with the national-level extremist threat precipitated by parliament’s endorsement and President Zardari’s signing of the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation on April 13. He proudly noted that his MQM band of 25 legislators was the only bloc to walk out in protest, though many other parties’ MPs privately applauded MQM’s principled stand, he claimed. Their defiance against the majority brought the MQM into direct and public conflict with coalition partner ANP, he added, and made them all targets for militants’ reprisal. Sattar said the militants felt emboldened to ignore the specifics of the deal, which brought Shariah to the Northwest Frontier’s (NWFP) Swat valley, was predictable. The GOP had re-created a princely state, relinquished its jurisdiction, and was groping for a plan. He admitted, however that his party was not privy to the latest discussions; though a coalition partner MQM “was not taken into confidence” before or since the April 13 resolution. Sattar’s focus on a national-level security response to the militant threat tracked remarkably with MQM Karachi Mayor Mustafa Kamal’s more parochial remarks to the Ambassador, made earlier. Turning to the security threats within the mega city his party controls, Sattar complained about the ANP’s planned demonstration on May 12, marking the second anniversary of inter-party violence. The Pashtun-based ANP was fanning ethnic tensions for electoral gains, he argued and repeated Kamal’s request for Embassy’s intervention with the ANP to cancel the event. Mounting yet another defence of his Mohajir-based party’s actions that day, Sattar concluded, “all parties should look forward, not back.” Sattar and Rizvi have been unequivocal and uncompromising on the floor of the National Assembly against the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation, and, if not before, then most likely now, their safety is at risk for such public stances. While their perspective is tinged with ethnic bias, their claims about what is happening just below the surface in Karachi are accurate, the cable said. Although the May 12 ANP demonstration was called off subsequently, the violent outburst on April 29 serves as an unneeded reminder of the potential for these ethnic tensions to boil over quickly. “Despite their claims of innocence, we expect the MQM, with its own violent history, is prepared for that possibility.”
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 17:18:05 +0000