Adil Najam
Pakistanis have gotten used to feeling unsafe and afraid. Today they are feeling even more unsafe and afraid. And that is no accident.
Afraid and unsafe is exactly how the butchers who tortured and then murdered Syed Saleem Shahzad want us to feel.
Those who brutally murdered journalist, and author of the recent book Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, Syed Saleem Shahzad clearly wanted to silence him. But the calculated and staged ‘delivery’ of his murdered body was meant to do more than just silence a journalist. It was an attempt to silence a society.
The message to Saleem Shahzad was cold and bloody and brutal. The message to Pakistanis – and not just journalists, but all who may dare to ‘speak up’ – was equally cold and bloody and brutal. Of course, nothing can compare to the fatal, ultimate and irreversible wounds that were inflicted on Saleem Shahzad. But the chill that ran down the spine of all Pakistanis was also real. Let us not doubt for a moment that this was a calculated act. That this chill is exactly what his murderers wanted to deliver.
Murder, as an article in Dawn pointed out, is “the severest form of censorship” on he who is murdered. But it is also the most chilling of messaging for all others. What was delivered to Pakistanis today was not just the dead body of a journalist, but the proverbial “horse’s head” (as in The Godfather) – a promise to impose censorship “by all means necessary.”
The article in Dawn, by Adnan Rehmat, makes for chilling reading itself:
… Syed Saleem Shahzad has joined the unacceptably long list of over 70 journalists who have been killed in the line of duty in Pakistan since 2000. How has Pakistan become the most dangerous country to practice journalism?
… The violence that has engulfed Pakistan for the last decade did not leave the media immune to its consequences. While there have been journalists who have been killed in bomb blasts in markets, processions and funerals across the country, caught in the wrong place and wrong time, the last three years have seen a rise against target killings of journalists in Pakistan. At least 17 have been killed this way.
The number of journalists who were target-killed grew sharply after the media stopped self-censoring themselves too much in the wake of the footage of a girl being flogged by the Taliban in Swat, which proved a turning point in the media losing its fear of the Taliban. This was the beginning of a more unrestrained narrative on terrorism which injected grim realism in reporting. The consequence of the media finding that the public was receptive to this kind of reporting promoted a culture of risk taking which first generated warnings from the Taliban to the media to “behave.” When there was no major change in the behavior and attitude of the media, the killings began.
… While over 70 have been killed, a staggering 2,000-plus have been injured, arrested or kidnapped – a large number of them by the military regime of General Pervez Musharraf. But while the militants had been hounding and hurting the journalists since 2002, the “Musharraf treatment” added a new dimension to the policy of intolerance for media openness and pluralisms. In one single instance nearly 120 journalists were arrested in Karachi in one fell swoop and in another single incident about 140 in Islamabad by Musharraf’s thugs. It is this state sanction for this kind of intolerance of media independence that has now allowed the level of impunity where many journalists have been killed with the suspicion for most falling on the security establishment.
The fact that the killers of not even one Pakistani journalist killed has been found, prosecuted and punished has meant the media has been an easy target.
Saleem’s death is not ordinary even among the long list of journalists killed in Pakistan in recent years. Because his last news story attempted to establish that the security establishment had been in talks with al Qaeda to negotiate a deal that would prevent attacks on it, it is reasonable to assume that this claim was linked with his kidnap, torture and murder. He had told a friend a day after the report was published that this was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg and that he would be filing a couple of major stories that would rattle many.
Whether it was the security establishment that killed him or the declared terrorists, the fact is he was killed for daring to attempt to share information that affected the country and its people… Saleem’s death signals that dirty secrets will not easily be allowed to be shared with the people of Pakistan.
Details in the accompanying news report in Dawn add even more chilling details to this context:
It was confirmed by the capital police as well as its counterparts in Mandi Bahauddin that a body buried in a local graveyard at Mandi Bahauddin was suspected to be that of (Saleem) Shahzad, an Islamabad-based journalist who had gone missing from the capital on Sunday evening. He had disappeared en route to a news channel’s office in Sector F-6 from his house in F-8/4.
Shahzad, who was the bureau chief for the Hong Kong-based Asia Times, an online publication, and the Italian news agency Adnkronos (AKI) and had worked for the Dawn Media Group’s evening newspaper Star for over a decade, was known for his investigative reporting on militancy and Al Qaeda. He had moved to Islamabad after Star closed down in 2007. His book, “Inside Al-Qaeda & the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11”, had recently been published.
After his disappearance, the Human Rights Watch alleged that Shahzad had been picked up by the ISI and that the intelligence agency had threatened him last year as well when he had reported on the quiet release of Mullah Baradar, an aide to Mullah Omar, who had been captured by Pakistan earlier. Ali Dayan, Pakistan researcher for HRW, also made public an email that Shahzad had sent then with the instructions to make it public in case something happened to him. The email provided Shahzad’s account of a meeting he held with two ISI officials on October 17, 2010. After he disappeared on Sunday, there were allegations that he had been picked up by the ISI because of his recent story on the PNS Mehran base attack. Shahzad had reported that the attack took place after the Navy identified and interrogated a few of its lower-level officers for their ties with Al Qaeda.
… On Tuesday it came to light that the body found at Head Rasul a day earlier was of the missing journalist. He was identified from the photos taken of the corpse on Tuesday during the postmortem at District Headquarters Hospital Mandi Bahauddin. The police force’s efficiency knew no bounds on Tuesday. First the police force of Sara-i-Alamgir found an abandoned Toyota Corolla, which belonged to Shahzad, near the Upper Jhelum Canal. The vehicle, which had gone missing along with the journalist, had a broken window and a damaged ignition switch, hinting at car theft. The police also found two CNICs and press cards, as well as other documents pertaining to Shahzad. They then contacted the Margalla police in Islamabad.
Once the police from Islamabad examined the car and determined its owner’s identity, they were informed by their counterparts that the Mandi Bahauddin police had found a body a day earlier. According to the details collected by Dawn, some passersby spotted a corpse in the water on Monday. The Head Rasul police shifted the body to the DHQ. Unusually quickly for Pakistani police, all legal formalities were completed, the autopsy was conducted on the unidentified body and it was handed over to Edhi Centre for burial. It was interred at the local graveyard temporarily.
According to the police, the postmortem report said that Shahzad had been subjected to severe torture. The report said he had 15 major injuries including fractured ribs and deep wounds on the abdomen. It was also evident that the journalist’s hands and feet had been tied as there were marks on his wrists and ankles. However, his hands and feet were not tied when he was found. The police said that the victim had been killed in the early hours of Monday.
The Mandi Bahauddin police told the capital police that there was no mortuary at the DHQ and Edhi Centre to keep the body; hence the pace at which it was buried. The family, which was contacted by the capital police, identified him from the photographs, clothes and cards. Shahzad leaves behind a widow and three children.
There is little that one can add to these descriptions. And it seems hallow to simply say that we should refuse to feel unsafe and afraid. How else can one possibly feel today?
Except that there is that other horrible truth staring us in the face today. A truth that Syed Saleem Shahzad – who himself must have felt far more unsafe and afraid than any of us can possibly feel – was no doubt aware of and probably acted upon: Feeling unsafe and afraid is no cure for feeling unsafe and afraid. It leads only to an even greater insecurity and fear.
well “get out of WoT” isn’t really an option as terrorists have their bases, HQ’s and suicide training squads in Pakistan, and are targeting and killing Pakistanis every week.
The first suicide attack in Pakistan was in 1995 on Egyptian embassy in Islamabad, it was planned by Ayman Zawahiri, yet that same Zawahiri has been hiding in Pakistan for last 10 years, alongwith his buddy Osama. The weakness of the Pakistani state, coupled with the foolish “strategic depth” policies of the ISI, has brought Pakistan to this ruin.
@aqil: so the solution to being in the “state of paralysis” is to indefinitely remain in the “state of paralysis” by maintaining the conditions that keep us there? that is really quite brilliant. plus, isn’t it disingenuous to suggest that more energy, and precious time, is being wasted in arguing for dissociating from gwot (by people like me) than is being spent on harping (by people like bangash and yourself) that our alliance with the americans has nothing to do with the rampant terrorism in pakistan?
your say that the militant’s battle has nothing to do with american presence and that they will continue to fight and terrorize the people of pakistan even after the americans leave.granted; they won’t. first of all you have to understand that people like me are not “asking americans to leave”. they are welcome stay in the region as long as they like on their own, continue to spend hundreds of billions each year fighting these dumb wars, and go bankrupt the process.
all that i am asking is for the “pakistani establishment to get out of gwot” so this “state of paralysis” that we have in not confronting terrorism with full force is brought to an end once and for all. then it is between the terrorists and the people of pakistan; and i have absolutely no doubt about who will prevail.
but perhaps you and bangash have no such faith. in your view, we must not waste our time and energy in thinking of ways to fight our battles by ourselves.we must never aspire to solving our problems with our own feeble hands. nay, we must remain beggars, perennially dependent on americans or chinese or saudis or whoever else, to solve all our financial, technological, and security problems.
i feel ashamed to be a part of such an imbecile nation.
I don’t think at least I believe that if the US forces leave the region then the Talibans will lay down the arms at once.
But I do believe that so long as the Pakistani military and govt. continues to be seen as doing ‘America’s work’ there will NOT be peace.
I have my reasons to believe in that position.
One very clear example:
In the spring of 2009 the Pakistani military launched an offensive inside Swat after a video of a woman’s flogging by the Talibans inside Swat surfaced. That galvanized the Pakistani nation and they gave full unconditional support to the military on that campaign. The military officials felt really proud of that national support. Even the news media went fully behind the military. The result was one of the most successful campaigns so far.
In all that ‘America’ was largely absent.
The same principle needs to apply elsewhere. But it is not. Whether call it the failure of the current democratic govt. or of the ‘think tanks’ or of the media or of the bloggers like us we don’t have a national consensus–and there can’t be one–unless we clearly identify–just like what happened in Swat in 2009–that it is Pakistan’s own war. But that consensus is not developing largely because there are enough voices who say that the war is America’s war. America needs to be out of this equation.
In my opinion the GWOT was always a war of covert operations, intelligence sharing, immigration-checks, and police action. That’s where it needs to go to. Not some 140,000 troops to occupy tribal societies.
However, IF there is even half-a-truth in the various ‘conspiracy theories’ that the real intention of America is not to go after the terrorists (anymore) and that the real intentions are about some new ‘Great Game’ in the region then…we really need a paradigm shift. Even for us ‘liberals’. Going from that point of view will give a much much complex narrative.
I am now open to either sides of the debate.
Good points Aqil. I believe those are are currently claiming that US presence in the region is the cause of terrorism, will shift to some other foreign actor when the US leaves. They will then claim that Indian presence in Kashmir is the cause of terrorism in Pakistan or the Israeli occupation of Palestine. We will have to wait 100 years or more before we can act against terrorists who brainwash Pakistani children to become bombers and conduct press conferences on Pakistani soil.
@Razia:
The idea of a neutral peace keeping force is not a bad one, though neighbouring countries or any other country with a stake in Afghanistan (such as the US, India, Saudi Arabia, Russia) should be kept out of it because they will have a conflict of interest.
That said, setting aside wishful thinking, is there any solid reason to assume the Taliban would be willing to give up violance and accept the Afghan constitution only if the American/Nato forces are replaced by some neutral Muslim countries?
Bhandara may be right in the sense that as long as the US is present, many Pakistanis will continue to label it as An American war instead of recognizing the fact that we need to mobilize against militancy for our own interest. However, the problem is that it becomes a self-fulfilling professy; when instead of confronting these militants, we spend all our energy arguing that it’s America’s war and that no progress can be made unless the US leaves because we will not fully oppose these monsters before the Americans are out of here. It basically means that if the US does not leave for another decade, we will let the militants play havoc with our country for another 10 years because somehow we hate the Americans more than we love our country. If our media, military and politicians with screwed up sympathies for Taliban had not been confusing the public by hiding behind this logic, perhaps we would not have been in such a state of paralysis.