Pakistan Election Violence Reverberates in New York

By Jehangir Khattak
The story was originally published in the voicesofny.org 

Supporters of ANP protesting in front of the UN headquarters. (Photo by Jehangir Khattak via Voice of NY)

Jamal Khan drove 45 miles from his home in White Plains, N.Y., to 46th Street and First Avenue in front of United Nations headquarters in Turtle Bay, Manhattan, on April 26. He wanted to add his voice to the condemnation expressed by more than two dozen supporters of Awami National Party (ANP), who had gathered to protest bomb attacks on its candidates ahead of May 11 landmark elections in Pakistan.

Khan, who runs a fried chicken business and has been in the U.S. since 1991, shouted slogans in unison with his comrades. “We want peace”; “Stop killing Pashtuns”; “Stop terrorism” and “Stop target killing ANP candidates” were some of the demands that reverberated against a background of  traffic and nearby construction noise. The protesters were referring to Taliban violence against the ANP’s predominantly Pashtun (also spelled “Pakhtoon”) leadership.

ANP is a Pakistani political party with a support base in the country’s mostly Pashtun northwest. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has announced plans to target three major secular parties — the ANP, the Pakistan People’s Party, to which President Asif Ali Zardari belongs, and the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement. Around 60 people have died in bomb attacks on ANP, PPP and MQM campaign workers and leaders across Pakistan since the beginning of April.

The Al-Qaeda-affiliated TTP, an umbrella group of over two dozen Taliban outfits, is based in the North Waziristan region of the restive Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) corridor along Pakistan’s porous border with Afghanistan. It is blamed for the scores of terrorist attacks that have claimed the lives of over 40,000 Pakistanis since 2004.

The protesters converged in front of the UN in response to a call from the U.S. chapter of the ANP. Unlike Khan, the majority of the participants had travelled from Brooklyn’s Coney Island Avenue, of ‘Little Pakistan’ fame. Almost all major Pakistani political parties maintain their presence in the United States mostly as non-profits. Some of these non-profits often raise campaign funds for their parent parties in Pakistan.

“Stop the killing of ANP leadership and innocent Pakhtoons in the Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan,” said Taj Akber Khan, organizer of the protest who is also president of the U.S. chapter of ANP, reading from a resolution over a megaphone. The interim government, said Taj, should provide a peaceful environment for holding free and fair elections by taking action against those committing “these evil acts.”

“We want to bring to the attention of the international community the organized violence against secular parties in Pakistan,” Taj told party supporters. The UN, he demanded, should press Pakistan’s interim government to create a conducive atmosphere for campaigning.

“Right now, electioneering is just taking place in Punjab (Pakistan’s most populous province) but candidates in the other three provinces (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and parts of Sindh) cannot reach their electorate,” he said, fearing that fair elections might become a distant reality under such conditions. ANP says it has lost over 700 of its leaders and supporters over the past few years in attacks by extremists.

The protesters raised slogans against terrorism. (Photo by Jehangir Khattak)

The small but noisy protest in front of UN headquarters received big coverage in Pakistan’s mainstream television channels, since it coincided with a powerful bomb explosion in the country’s southern port city of Karachi. Eleven ANP supporters were killed and 50 injured when a bomb exploded near a small campaign gathering for the ANP candidate for the Sindh province’s legislature, of which Karachi is the capital. The Taliban instantly claimed responsibility for the attack.

Taliban attacks are a new phenomenon in Karachi, which has seen political, sectarian, ethnic, militant and criminal violence for the past many years. According to a report by the United States Institute of Peace, the violence has claimed more than 7,000 lives since 2008.  The Taliban violence has induced old political rivals – the MQM and ANP – to join hands against a common enemy. The two parties have rivaled each other for years to win political space in the port city.

Just hours after the protest in Turtle Bay, Taj Akbar joined local leaders and supporters of the MQM at a restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens, to condemn the attacks. Pakistan Club, USA, a Queens-based community organization, hosted the event.

Pakistan Club USA members and supporters of MQM at the event to condemn election violence. (Photo by Mohsin Zaheer)

“When candidates cannot run their election campaigns freely, how can the elections be fair?” Anees Siddiqui, of the MQM, asked a small audience at the Kabab King restaurant located at 73^rd Street and Broadway in Jackson Heights. The event’s host, Raees Warsi, shared Siddiqui’s sentiments.

Extremists dictating election results?

The Taliban do not believe in a secular democratic system, claiming Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and thus their brand of Sharia should be the supreme law of the land there. The Taliban explained on April 29that it was targeting the three parties because of their secular ideology and support for military operations against the group.

But not everyone sees this as the sole reason for their latest bloody campaign against pro-democracy political parties.

Arif Ansar, the founding CEO and chief analyst at Washington DC-based think tank PoliTact, believes the violence is connected to wider trends in the Middle East.  “The liberal space is continually shrinking and nationalist and conservative forces are resurgent in the Middle East, as they have been in Pakistan,” he told Voices of NY in response to an email query. “There are different reasons for this, but one of them is the war on terror. It may also be linked to the dysfunction of the liberal autocrats that triggered the Arab Spring.”

Ansar fears that the violence could have far-reaching domestic, regional and international implications. “It can decisively shift the balance in favor of conservative, nationalist and religious elements in the elections. These forces were already resurgent due to factors such as war on terror and the failure of secular parties to govern and deliver.”

Ansar believes that if the conservatives or religious elements come into power as a result of this shift, they will exert influence on the reconciliation process in Afghanistan and the direction of Pakistan’s relations with India and the U.S.

Many in Pakistan and the community here in the U.S. fear that the upsurge in violence could delay the elections. But Arif Ansar doubts there will be a delay. “Barring some major tragedy, like assassination of a major political leader, there is little chance of this happening,” he says, adding that even the murder of Benazir Bhutto failed to stop the 2008 elections. He says the international community also wants these elections on time “irrespective of how imperfect they may be.”

The impact of violence on the election results makes many Pakistanis nervous, including Khan, who is a native of Swat valley in the country’s mountainous northwest, an area which was liberated from the Taliban in 2009 after a military operation.

“I don’t think elections will be fair. The militants are sidelining the Pashtuns from the national mainstream,” he said, while blaming the country’s security establishment for failing to provide adequate protection to the election candidates.  Explaining the urgency that drove him to join the small protest, leaving his business to his employees, Khan said: “The stakes are higher than the profits from a day’s business.”