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PTM is on a peaceful quest to free all Pakistanis from

oppression
The Pakistani state’s repeated attacks on us only strengthens our resolve.

Mohsin Dawar
Mohsin Dawar is an elected member of Pakistan's national parliament and a leader of the Pashtun
Tahaffuz Movement (PTM).

6 Dec 2019

Members of the Pakistan Pashtun community chant slogans during a rally organised by the PTM against human
rights violations in Karachi, Pakistan in May, 2018 [Akhtar Soomro/Reuters]

In his seminal work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Brazilian philosopher Paulo

Freire states: “Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to
recognise others as persons – not by those who are oppressed, exploited and
unrecognised.”

These days I have been thinking of his words often, as earlier this year the
Pakistani state attacked me and others from the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement
(PTM), killing over a dozen people and injuring scores of others. It had the
audacity to try and put the blame for the violence on us.

We, of course, were not the ones inciting violence. Our only crime was to try and
speak for a community that has faced decades of violence from both the state and
armed groups.

Decades of victimisation
I was born and raised in the region of Waziristan in the north-western part of the
country, close to the Afghan border. The majority of us are Pashtuns, who
constitute the second-largest ethnic group in Pakistan. Since colonial times, the
region was governed by the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), a draconian law
imposed by the British colonialists in the 19th century. It left the local population
with no recourse to courts and liable to be subjected to collective punishment for
over a century.

The law was finally repealed in 2018, when the region was merged with Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa province and its people were made equal citizens of the Pakistani
federation, at least on paper. In practice however, the inhabitants of this region
do not enjoy full citizenship rights and protections; discrimination and abuses
against us continue unabated. We are still targetted by police raids and security
operations which violate and kill people with impunity.

This violence I grew up with has its roots in the decision of the Pakistani state
and its US ally to transform Waziristan into an incubator for fighters in the
Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s.

The infrastructure that was built there to recruit and train fighters to combat the
Soviet army was later used by armed groups like the Haqqani Network and the
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to wreak havoc in both Afghanistan and
Pakistan. While the strategic decision to allow this vast region to become a
breeding ground for terrorists had destructive consequences across the globe, it
affected Waziristan’s local inhabitants, who were left at the mercy of violent
armed groups, the most.

With the start of the US-led “war on terror” in the early 2000s, the region became
a sanctuary for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants fighting an insurgency against the
international coalition in neighbouring Afghanistan. Pakistan launched repeated
attacks and air strikes on the region to “clear out” the fighters. But rather than
stopping “terrorist activities”, these assaults killed countless civilians and
displaced hundreds of thousands. Moreover, Pashtuns across Pakistan started to
be stereotyped as “terrorists” even though they themselves were victims of
terrorism.

In short, my people have been exploited and oppressed by the Pakistani state,
various armed groups and foreign powers for decades and our suffering is still
continuing today. But we are no longer willing to take the abuse, persecution and
discrimination we face on a daily basis, sitting down.

The PTM shot to prominence in January 2018, when a long march launched in
Karachi to protest against the extrajudicial killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud, a
young Pashtun cloth seller and model, attracted thousands of supporters. The
protests continued with a large sit-in in Islamabad and soon the PTM became a
strong voice for the people of Waziristan. I was one of the founding members of
the movement.

Since the PTM’s inception, our campaign for equality, dignity and peace has been
growing every day.

As our movement expands its reach, however, the Pakistani state intensifies its
attacks on us.

How our call for constitutional rights enraged the

military
In April this year, the PTM carried out its biggest political gathering to date in my
hometown of Miranshah, which is the administrative capital of North Waziristan
– the region that has seen the worst Taliban and state violence. As one of the
leaders of the movement and an elected member of the national assembly from
that area, I was acting as host. The aim of this gathering was to make the
Pakistani leadership understand that we have had enough of both militancy and
state violence.

Even though Miranshah’s population is just over half a million, the rally attracted
tens of thousands of people. The atmosphere was electric and the people were
hopeful.

Our message was simple: We want the state to honour the constitutional contract
that it has with us.

The constitution clearly recognises us as equal Pakistani citizens and disallows

our oppression and persecution. Thus the solution to all our problems – be it
justice for the thousands of “missing persons” who were abducted by the state, or
the end of extrajudicial murders, or the clearing of the landmines that were left
by the military or the ill-treatment that we are subjected to at military check
posts – lies in making the state recognise our constitutional rights.

As is the case with all of PTM’s rallies, at the end of the day the crowd dispersed
peacefully.

While we thought the rally was a big success, the state and the military had other
ideas. Clearly feeling threatened by the size of the gathering and our peaceful,
status-quo altering call for the constitution to be respected, on April 29, only two
weeks after our rally in Miranshah, the Pakistani military issued a statement
claiming that PTM is “being funded by foreign intelligence services” and told us
that “the time is up” for our movement.

We did not know back then, but this was the military’s declaration of war on
PTM.

From a peaceful sit-in to a senseless massacre

A month later, on May 25, residents of Doga Macha Mada Khel, a small village in
North Waziristan, launched a sit-in, accusing security forces of “persecuting” and
“torturing” civilians during a recent search operation allegedly targeting
“suspected militants”. The sit-in, which was taking place near the permanent
Khar Qamar military check post, was peaceful from the very beginning.

As the only elected representative of the region that includes the village, I felt
obligated to reach out to my constituents, support their protest and help their
voices be heard. With this in mind, on May 26, I visited the village with another
member of the national assembly, Ali Wazir, who is also part of PTM.

At the village, we were welcomed by a jubilant crowd of around 200 to 300

people. They garlanded us and together we started walking towards the sit-in
area. However, the soldiers at the checkpoint refused to allow us to join the
protesters. Tempers were raised, but I did my best to reason with the soldiers and
convince them to let us through. But as soon as we went past the check post, I
heard gunshots.

Initially, I thought the soldiers manning the checkpoint were firing warning shots
in the air. But the sounds of occasional gun shots suddenly turned into the
staccato of automatic fire, and villagers around me started to fall. Someone
pushed me to the ground and I was dragged into a ravine. When I looked back, I
saw blood-soaked bodies lying motionless on the ground and heard the cries for
help of the injured.

Later we learned that 15 people were killed and more than 40 were injured as a
result of the unprovoked attack. Wazir and eight others were arrested on the
spot, but I managed to escape the scene, with the help of other survivors.

For the next three days, we walked through the villages of Daigan, Mohammad
Khel, and Hamzoni to get to my village, Darpa Khel, near Miranshah, which is
approximately 30km from the site of the massacre. Throughout our journey, we
staged several protests to inform the public about the massacre and demand
accountability.

When we reached Darpa Khel, we started another sit-in. The military,

meanwhile, imposed a curfew on the village of Doga Macha Mada Khel that
lasted for eight days, and also surrounded my village. I eventually chose to
surrender to the authorities in the town of Bannu because I was scared for the
lives of the people in my village.

How victims became perpetrators 

In a display of brazen shamelessness, the authorities accused us, the victims, of
assaulting the soldiers manning the check post and causing the bloodshed. They
filed charges against nine people including me, Ali Wazir and Sanaullah
Pashteen, who was killed during the massacre. A few days later, Wazir and I were
also blamed for an IED explosion that injured four army officials in Doga Macha,
even though we were both in the state’s custody at the time of the attack.

In jail, we were kept in cells set aside for terrorists. This was quite ironic, as one
of our main demands from the authorities was for them to cleanse our region of
terrorists and put those men in these very cells. We were also subjected to
treatment usually reserved for the most hardened criminals and convicted
terrorists – we were denied access to books, television, newspapers and radio. We
were also deprived from participating in parliamentary sessions, which is our
duty and privilege as elected politicians. Even during the essential budget
session, our constituents were denied representation.

We remained behind bars for four months and endured every conceivable
pressure, threat and accusation. In late September, we were finally granted bail
because the authorities failed to back their accusations with evidence. However,
the charges against us are still in place.

While we were still in jail, the victims of the Khar Qamar massacre, who were
branded terrorists both by the authorities and the media following the incident,
were suddenly accepted as victims and their families were offered monetary
compensation. Interestingly, even the family of Sanaullah Pashteen, who was
accused of attacking the checkpoint alongside us, was deemed eligible for
compensation. The state offered the families of the deceased a payment of
approximately $17,500. People injured during the attack, meanwhile, received
around $8,000.

As we languished in prison, Pakistan turned into a larger prison for anyone

showing us sympathy. Very few of our fellow politicians raised their voices for us.
The local press was full of reports accusing us of treason and terrorism with no
space whatsoever given to our version of events. The only venue available for
people to share our version of events was social media, but those who used
Twitter and Facebook to support us and share our narrative were arrested and
charged with the crime of “cyber terrorism“.

But this oppression only strengthens our resolve. Frankly, we are at a point
where we do not have much left to lose. Just the act of venting our grievances is
an act of liberation and luxury for us. Just by speaking out, we are challenging the
fear of freedom instilled in our people through decades of oppression. Losing this
fear, and daring to demand freedom, is the first step in a process that will
eventually liberate not only us, the Pashtuns, but all citizens of Pakistan.

Freire says where there is oppression, both the oppressed and the oppressors are
victims, because the act of oppression takes away the humanity of the oppressor
too. He considers it the responsibility of the oppressed to liberate not only
themselves but their oppressors as well.

“The oppressors, who oppress, exploit and rape by virtue of their power, cannot
find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves.
Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently
strong to free them both,” he wrote.

The PTM has chosen the powerful path of non-violence to liberate the oppressed
Pashtuns in Pakistan, but in doing so, we will also liberate our oppressors so that
they can find the humanity that they have lost in their intoxication of power and
privilege.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not
necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Mohsin Dawar
Mohsin Dawar is an elected member of Pakistan's national parliament and a leader of the Pashtun
Tahaffuz Movement (PTM).

Mohsin Dawar is an elected member of Pakistan's national parliament and a leader of the Pashtun
Tahaffuz Movement (PTM).

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