People's guerilla war in Pakistan has begun
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| Has mass guerrilla war started in Pakistan? Understand from Justice Katju |
By Justice Markandey Katju
I had written articles recently predicting that a people's guerilla war will begin soon in Pakistan against the Pakistan military, since the latter have inflicted horrible atrocities on the people, and tried to choke the people's mouths by unleashing a reign of terror
It seems the people's guerilla war has begun even sooner than I had predicted
On Friday a guerilla attack on a Pakistan security convoy in Balochistan killed 14 soldiers
Thereafter there was an attack on a Pakistan Air Force base in Mianwali in central Pakistan destroying/damaging some aircraft, for which a new militant organisation called Tehreek-e-Jihad has claimed responsibility.
There have been 3 terror attacks in 24 hours in Pakistan
More such attacks on the Pakistani military and soldiers are bound to follow, as I had foreseen. For what else can the Pakistani people do when thousands of their compatriots, kith and kin have been arrested, tortured, and incarcerated in jail in horrible conditions on trumped-up, concocted charges, and many just 'disappeared' by the Pakistan Establishment ( which principally means the army ) after the events of 9th May ( which many believe were scripted and stage-managed), and the mouths of the people gagged by fear?
I had written that since the Pakistan military has tried to silence the Pakistan people by terrible atrocities, and are seeking to impose the hated Nawaz Sharif on them, keeping the immensely popular former Prime Minister Imran Khan in jail in inhuman conditions since early August, a people's guerilla war is bound to arise against the army, and Pakistan will be turned into another Vietnam or Afghanistan. Wherever there is oppression there is resistance.
A contributory factor is the order by the Pakistan government to Afghan refugees who have been living in Pakistan for 4 decades or more, to get out and go back to Afghanistan.
More than 1.7 million undocumented Afghans living in Pakistan have been told by the Pakistan authorities to leave Pakistan by November 1st, a decision which the Afghanistan Govt has called unacceptable.
Most of these Afghans who came to Pakistan came as poor refugees fleeing from a war-torn country, which had been invaded by the Soviet Union, and thereafter by the Americans, and occupied for decades. Against the invaders, the Afghans bravely fought a guerilla war, but millions with their families had to flee to Pakistan, with only their clothes on their backs.
Many of the Afghans living in Pakistan have been living there for 40-50 years, and some of them, by hard work, built businesses and acquired property. They no doubt came without visas or other documentation, but how could poor refugees be expected to have them? To now ask them to leave, and without their properties, is inhuman. Where will they live, and what will do in Afghanistan? Except for sentimental affinity, they may be having no roots there, having migrated a long time back. Many may not even have been born there.
It is like asking Bangladeshi immigrants who came into Assam 40-50 years ago without documentation to leave Assam. Or like asking millions of Mexicans who came into USA decades ago without documentation to leave.
People who say that those who came illegally should leave must understand that this is not a legal issue but a humanitarian one, as explained in this article
Evidently, the Pakistan authorities forgot that they are dealing with a people who had defeated Alexander the Great, the Mughal Empire, the British Empire, the Soviet Empire, and the American Empire, and turned Afghanistan into a graveyard of invaders.
The thick-headed, harebrained, moronic Pakistani generals will only understand when a lot of bodybags containing bodies of soldiers start piling up, amidst howling and wailing of their relatives, as it happened to Americans in Vietnam, or the Russians in Afghanistan.
(Justice Katju is a retired judge of the Supreme Court of India. These are his personal views.)
