Pakistan_ A Hard Country - Anatol Lieven [210]
All the same, much of the treatment of women in the Baloch tribal society of today is nothing short of appalling, even by Pakistani standards; and, what is more, some of the most atrocious actions against women in Sindh and southern Punjab are carried out by local tribes of Baloch origin. Quite apart from ‘honour killings’, as described in the first chapter of this book, the giving of minor girls in marriage as part of the settlement of feuds is still commonplace.
I must confess that several times during my visit to Balochistan I found myself muttering the famous words of General Sir Charles Napier, then Commander-in-Chief in India, when informed that suttee (the burning of widows) was an ancient Rajput custom:
You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, I do not have General Napier’s power, or at least three Baloch politicians would find themselves dangling from lamp-posts – if Quetta had lamp-posts, which of course it doesn’t outside the cantonment. No, make that four or five.
These particular thoughts were inspired by a particularly ghastly case of ‘honour killing’, which occurred on 13 July 2008 in Babokot village, Nasirabad District, near the borders of Sindh. Three teenage student girls of the Umrani tribe were shot by order of a tribal jirga for trying to marry men of their own choice rather than their family’s, and then buried while still alive. Two female relatives who tried to save them were killed as well. It is alleged that a chieftain of the tribe, Mir Abdul Sattar Umrani, chaired the jirga which ordered the killings.10
According to a police official with whom I spoke, his brother, Balochistan Minister of Communications Sadiq Umrani, put strong pressure on the police not to investigate. Amusingly – if your sense of humour runs that way – on 13 August 2009 a court in Sindh finally issued an arrest warrant for Sadiq Umrani and his brothers; not, however, for the case of the buried women, but for the alleged murder of five people of the Palal tribe of northern Sindh, including a woman and two children, in a dispute over land in 2008.
Sardar Israrullah Zehri, a PPP senator of Pakistan’s upper house of parliament, defended the burial of the Umrani women, saying that ‘these are centuries-old traditions and I will continue to defend them. Only those who commit immoral acts should be afraid.’ The Zardari administration later made him Minister of Posts. The acting chairman of the Senate – another Baloch chieftain, Sardar Jan Mohammad Jamali – described the killings as having been blown out of proportion by the media.11 All of these politicians belong to the PPP, a party dedicated, according to its programme, to women’s rights, social progress and the rule of law. None has been expelled from the government or the party.
Another Baloch minister (for Sports and Culture) from a Sardari family, Mir Shahnawaz Khan Marri, told me:
The burying of those girls alive was a conspiracy against Balochistan. There is no report on who killed them and why. The Supreme Court has not produced a report. It has not been proved yet that they were killed. These kinds of things are designed so as to create a scenario against Balochistan. The Afghans are here, they get millions of dollars to create subversion here, all different international agencies are working here ...12
After this, the minister plunged into a rant lasting more than five minutes, during which a paranoid account of the conspiracies of the outside world against Balochistan somehow ended with the statement that ‘I don’t believe in