By Gagandeep
Pakistan was created with an intention of providing homeland and safe heaven for the Muslims minority under British India. While Pakistan owe its identity as a Muslim nation but bulk of its activities have been targeted towards Muslim brethren. Prime minister Imran Khan has been vocal about Islamophobia being spread by the Western World, however, he has ignored to look at his own country’s abominal performance while dealing with Muslims within the nation, genocide perpetrated by his country on Muslims of erstwhile East Pakistan before it became Bangladesh and also while accepting the stand of the Chinese government on the Uyghur Muslims. Black September is one such incident which brings the duplicity in Pakistan’s revisionist attitude. Fifty one years ago on 17 September 1970, 25000 Palestinians were killed in Amman, Jordan. While the bulk of blame was apportioned to King Hussein of Jordan, the entire operation was conducted by an ambitious Brigadier from Pakistan Army who later rose to become the military dictator from 1977 to 1988. General Zia ul Haq was then a Brigadier posted to Jordan.
The precursor to Black September was the Palestinian activities in Jordan. After the formation of Israel in 1948 a large number of Palestinian migrated to Jordan and over time they formed a resilient minority. The fear of Palestinians disrupting the ruling Hashemite dynasty in Jordan had persisted for years and King Hussein of Jordan dreaded that the Palestinians could threaten his monarchy. Palestinian revolutionaries had steadily started challenging the government and there were assassination attempts on the king himself. The 1967 Arab Israel war had taken its toll on Jordanian army and air force. They had been enfeebled by Israel due to heavy losses in terms of men and material and needed to rebuild its armed forces. While US and UK supplied equipment to reconstitute the military, Jordan approached Pakistan for providing the training assistance. Brigadier Mohammed Zia-u-Haq was selected by the Pakistan Army to head the training team.
On September 17, 1970 Palestinian fighters operating from the refugee camps around Amman targeted Jordanian armed forces. Syrian tanks also entered Jordan backing the Palestinians near the town of Irbid. Zia effectively took charge of the Jordanian counterattack and in a span of eleven days massacred 25,000 Palestinian. The streets were strewn with dead corpse all around of numerous unarmed Palestinian. The ghastly act prompted the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser to call on King Hussein to Cairo on 26 September 1970. He pushed for the ceasefire, which was signed the next day.
Killings of 25,000 Palestinian raised lot of hackles in the Arab world and in the UN also. Pakistan facing the heat ordered a court of inquiry against Zia ul Haq but he wriggled out of it unscathed. British-Pakistani writer Tariq Ali in his book The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power, quotes Moshe Dayan, the famous Israeli military leader and statesman, regarding Black September. He said that the action by the Jordanian army led by Pakistani trainers “killed more Palestinians in 11 days than Israel could kill in 20 years”. Thanks to his role in this action, Zia ul Haq, came to be remembered as the Palestinian killer in his own country.
A report filed by United Nations Commission titled, “Pakistan-Religious freedom under attack”`, stated that the Pakistan government’s biased legislation has led people with “extremist mindsets” to launch assaults on religious minorities. Emphasizing the increasing “weaponisation and politicisation” of the blasphemy laws and anti-Ahmadiyya legislation, the commission stated that these laws are incentivising Islamist groups to attack religious minorities on political grounds. The hybrid government under the regime of Imran Khan led by Pak Army has been claiming to be a champion of Muslims. However, he has failed to understand that his own Army has been orchestrating the divide within Muslims to retain its influence over the masses. The persecution and killing of fellow Muslims be it Shia, Ahmadis, Baluchis, Pashtuns merely because they belong to a different sect, or to a different region in Pakistan is rampant. Terrorism as a tool of statecraft and Jihadist as strategic assets have been used in Afghanistan. Its recent support to Taliban against Afghanistan muslim majority shows Pakistan duplicity in dealing with Muslims. Pakistan has been correctly argued as a failed state with no regard for values, culture of democracy. It is a threat not only to religious and ethnic minorities within Pakistan and in the illiegally occupied territories of India, but if left unchecked by the international community, it will grow on to become a threat to the international peace and harmony.
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