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Pakistan’s Che calls for a revolution

SALEEM SHAH reports on how people are rebelling against the state of permanent terror and violence afflicting Pakistan’s society

A POPULAR protest movement has emerged in Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent weeks. 

Manzoor Pashteen, a charismatic 25-year-old leader of “Pashtun Tahafuz Movement” — the Pashtun Protection Movement (PTM) — is a veterinary surgeon, whose handsome image adorns posters and more recently has appeared at mass protest rallies wearing a red Mazari cap, traditional headwear of Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. 

The red Mazari cap is an emblem of the new Pashtun protest movement. 

For Pashteen’s followers he is their very own Che Guevara. Che remains a massively popular, iconic figure in Pakistan and Pashteen is depicted on posters sporting a Che-style red beret with slogans of revolution and freedom in the Pashtu language.

Afghan parliamentarians donned Mazari caps last month in a demonstration of solidarity with the PTM during sit-ins and rallies in several Afghan cities.

Pashteen’s followers are mainly secular young people in both Pakistan and Afghanistan rebelling against the state of permanent terror and violence afflicting Pakistan’s society and especially the tribal areas.

The PTM originated in Karachi in response to the police killing of 28-year-old Naqeeb ullah Mehsud on January 13. Mehsud’s killing sparked a huge civil rights movement of Pashtuns across Pakistan.

The protests started in Karachi, but the movement gained national prominence when Pashteen led a “long march” to demand justice for Mehsud and punishment for his police killers. 

The march from Dera Ismail Khan in Waziristan, Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Area, reached the capital Islamabad on February 1 where over 15,000 people joined a 10-day sit-in.

PTM public meetings across Baluchistan last month were attended by tens of thousands, attacking the brutal role of the army and Pakistani state.

In the Baluchistan regional capital,Quetta, a public meeting attracted over 50,000 Pashtuns, Balochs and Hazara people.

The PTM rally in Peshawar, Pakistan’s sixth-largest city, on April 8 drew 80,000 people, an unprecedented number at any political rally in Peshawar in the last three decades. PTM claims over 20,000 more were unable to get into the event.

The Peshawar rally was chaired by a woman and several women addressed the rally from the main stage, which is rare in Pakistan’s traditional Pashtun areas. 

Hundreds of women participated in the rally, many bearing pictures of missing relatives and volunteering to join PTM.

The Peshawar protest on April 8 was an important mark of PTM emergence into Pakistani political life. 

Peshawar has been the main base for the CIA, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence-trained mojahedin and the Taliban since the 1980s. It is also home to large numbers of Afghan refugees.

Those participating at the rally included Pashtun nationalists, some Marxist parties, students, trade unions, professional associations of doctors and engineers and many members of Pakistan’s other ethnic groups from Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan provinces.

Speakers at the rally called for an end to extrajudicial killings and for those responsible to be brought to justice.

Thousands of missing persons have been arrested and “disappeared” by Pakistan’s security and intelligence agencies in recent years.

PTM is demanding the right to a fair trial for all arrested persons and has called for a judicial commission to investigate deaths of an estimated 60,000 people from Pakistan’s tribal areas and an apology from the state.

The Pakistani army has laid mines across whole areas of Pakistan’s tribal belt, particularly Waziristan, in clear contravention of international law. PTM demands removal of these minefields.

Culture, businesses and homes have been devastated by Pakistan’s pro-imperialist governments, which target Pashtuns as terrorists, while promoting Islamist terror groups in the region.

PTM has emerged as a popular protest movement specifically to challenge and resist the Pakistani state’s policy of demonising Pashtuns.

As a result of Western imperialist strategies aimed at Afghanistan since the 1980s, the whole of Pashtun territory has been turned into a war zone. Local people are routinely beaten up, insulted and abused by soldiers at military checkpoints.

Press and media are banned by government order, which treats Pashtuns as a people under military occupation. PTM is calling for an end to this media blackout.

Some of the slogans at the PTM rally in Peshawar included “End state sponsored terror and violence,” “Stop discrimination against Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan — we are one and the same people,” “Stop extrajudicial killings and release the missing people,” “Peace in our land,” “Stop the international proxy war in Afghanistan,” “Work and jobs for our people,” “We want revolution” and “Our land is not a war zone.”

Since the “long march” reached Islamabad in February, Pakistan’s government has repeatedly assured PTM it accepts their demands, but nothing has been done so far.

At the Peshawar rally PTM speakers warned the government that, if their demands were not acted on, the movement could turn violent.

The rally warned the government that, unless the four-decade policy of war against its own people is abandoned, it will result in a full-scale popular uprising.

The movement has united Pashtuns for peace and against imperialist wars across the so-called “Durand line,” the legacy of British imperialism that divides Pashtuns and forms Pakistan’s western border but which remains unrecognised by Afghanistan.

The PTM leadership is asking for international guarantees for their safety because it does not trust the Pakistani state.

A movement demanding national and class-based rights in Pakistan has potential to trigger drastic political changes. In particular, PTM aims to eliminate the culture of dynastic leadership in Pakistani politics.

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