Sindh is the historical land of the most gracious civilizations on this planet: The Indus Valley Civilization, where the ancient city of “Moenjo Daro” stands still. It’s the cradle of human civilization and culture, the first democratic city-state of the world, which pioneered trade, navigation and the first ever code of laws. Even Hammurabi’s codes and Moses’s ten commandments were derived from the ancient codes of Indus. Sindh is the land of Philosophy of Lord Shiva and Goddess Shakti which cited the first ever theories of evolution of mankind and human civilizations to the ancient world; whose wisdom, knowledge, culture, civilization and arts are well known to the world today, is forcibly deprived of its geographic, economic, political freedom today and is ill-fated to be subjected to severe illiteracy, social frustration, indecency, religious extremism; where vulnerable religious minorities like Sindhi Hindus, Shias, Christians, Ahmadis are suffering severe atrocities and humiliations. The condition of people of the oppressed Sindhi and Baloch nations is pitiable who are being routinely victimized by savagery and offensive aggression of state institutions.
It the worst form of offense, contempt and disrespect to basic human rights to forcibly occupy, genocide and exploit the people, lands, and resources of the historical natural nations. It’s the worst political economic destruction and human rights violation throughout the history of mankind which could only be termed as the national genocide. This is the plight of today’s Sindh which has been the custodian of human harmony, religious coexistence, pioneer of civilizations due to her economic prosperity and richness of mental faculties.
The historical free land of Sindh was enchained in the slavery of mighty remnants of British, the Punjabi army in the name of the theocratic state of Pakistan on 14th of August 1947. Till then, Sindh has been suffering the enforced slavery, atrocities, exploitation, oppression and occupation of Pakistan. A historical free land whose history and civilization dates back to prehistoric times is deprived of its national identity, geographic, politico-economic authority, the right to freedom of expression and freedom of organization, national and human rights, liberties of social cultural customs and religious practices, education, health and right to activism. This is the current scenario of 21st century’s Sindh, where political activists for freedom are abducted, enforcedly disappeared, detained for months and years, inhumanly tortured, extra-judicially killed and their mutilated bodies dumped along roadsides by state’s security agencies. Political parties are banned and bounties offered for the heads of political leaders to restrain them from playing their political role for their nations e.g. my party JSMM is illegally banned by the State.
The condition of education in Sindh is worse than ever. Academic institutions are deliberately subjected to corruption, mismanagement, bureaucracy, outdated syllabuses, lack in qualified faculty, books in libraries and funds etcetera. Buildings, offices, and hostels of schools, colleges, and universities have been converted into the permanent colonies of paramilitary forces like Rangers. Higher education institutions are converted into Rangers’ concentration camps through building walls around them. Sindhi youth is deprived of access to modern philosophic and scientific knowledge under the continuous harassment, psychological stress, helplessness, and insecurity created by the presence of these paramilitary forces.
A state which imposed upon us ideologically, politically and economically in the form of religion and forced occupation is playing a draconian, fascist role against the human and national political economic rights of Sindh. I clearly address it to the world today, that, I am speaking of that Sindh today, which has been suffering an entropic condition of continuous humiliation and contempt of human rights violations, from the very first day of the making of Pakistan and which is still going worse. Whose waters have been stolen by Punjab leaving the whole agricultural lands barren and 70% of its population poor? It leaves furious impacts over the entire ecology of Sindh, endangering various indigenous species of fauna and flora. Adding to this calamity, two major drains called LBOD & RBOD carrying the industrial wastes from Punjab are constructed, spreading various viral diseases and making two million acres of agricultural lands infertile.
Children of mineral rich Sindh are dying out of the inappropriate diet, poverty and diseases. Allocation of hundreds of thousands of acres of forest lands to army and deforestation by them has caused a great rise in the temperatures. Various dams and canals are built on the river Indus despite the reservations of Sindh. Hundreds of thousands of acres of land in Badin and Thatta districts are salinized because of continuous rise in sea levels due to an inadequate waterfall in the sea at Indus basin because Punjab is not convinced to release adequate and necessary water to sea through Indus River.
It’s the story of Sindh which is paying its price of joining Pakistan after Bengal. These sufferings are mainly caused by Pakistan and its two-nation Islamic theory which is imposed upon the historically secular and democratic land of Indus civilization—which is being now pushed into the hell of fundamentalism and extremism by establishing a wide web of Madrassahs under the surveillance and bidding of Pakistani state which are totally contrary to our historic national attributes.
Beside this state is storing its hazardous nuclear warheads and crude materials in trenches in the mountainous region of Sindh despite the strong concerns and opposition from the people of Sindh. Therefore, we appeal international community to immediately stop Pakistan from storing its nukes in Sindh.
Currently, Pakistan is trying to drag China in a plan to dominate the Arabian Sea in the name of China-Pak Economic Corridor involving construction of megacity projects in the coastal belt of Sindh which will invite millions of more alien settlers in Sindh converting its indigenous Sindhi nation into a simple minority in their own homeland, which too, is a grave violation of human rights, rather its open enmity and terrorism of state against the national interests of Sindh and against which we are raising voice in Sindh and we too raise concerns on international forums and appeal honorable international community to take serious notice of these critical conditions of human rights and national rights of Sindhi nation.
CHINA–PAK ECONOMIC CORRIDOR: Strategic military aggression of China over the region, stimulant of endless political-economic unrest, military tensions and strategic confrontations in South Asia
China-Pak Economic Corridor in its essence is such an economic, political, military and strategic nexus of China and Punjab which will bring up very dangerous results for the entire region and world. China, with the help of Pakistan, intends to extend its economic political and military dominance over the Sindhi (Arabian) sea, rather, it intends to hold and supervise the entire international trade encompassing this oceanic trade route, which includes the trade of the European, African and Arab world. It’s more a strategy of the economic and military dominance of China in the name of economic development, which on one side she has adopted in South and East China Oceanic regions and extending it from Kashgar to Gwadar on the other side. Now China is adopting an aggressive strategy to work on the plan in South Asian region, which is too condemned internationally. Punjab’s political-military think tank and military establishment has realized the truth that it holds no more reliable resources and power to hold its colonies i.e. Sindh and Baluchistan because their independence movements are rapidly gaining roots in their territories and international recognition. Thus Punjab, being a landlocked nation, who has become too weak in its political and military power to overcome the national freedom movements of the Sindhi and Baloch oppressed nations, needs not only the resources but lands and seas of the Sindh and Baluchistan because a country whose military and political might has collapsed and economy has worsened, making it a failed state has triggered its establishment (political and military think tank) to extend its hand towards China to attain more military and monetary power in the cover of FDI as monetary as well as military assistance to be able to hold its direct military occupation and aggression over oppressed nations through barbaric, fascist bloodshed and genocide. And it has already started. Pakistani fascist military and its intelligence agency ISI have intensified worst military operation of history against the people of Balochistan and Sindh. They have been raiding the houses of Sindhi people, whisking away every person whom they fear of resisting their plans, bombarding the villages and towns in Baluchistan, abducting political activists and commons, torturing them in military torture cells and extra-judicially killing them. Hundreds of Sindhi political activists and commons have been abducted in recent weeks including, intellectuals, journalists, writers, human rights activists, teachers, laborers, students etc.
In this perspective Chinese political role is totally imperial and against the interests of the oppressed nations. It will be a great mistake and ill sightedness of Chinese economists that they are shipping their capital on such a cargo which is already drowning in the sea of extinction and which has to throw its arms in front of the political resistance of Sindhi and Baloch nations just like it did in Bengal (East Pakistan) in 1971 followed by a disgusting expulsion. What will happen of the Chinese capital then? And what will happen to its moral and national reputation by becoming the partner to the crime of occupation and aggression with the fascist, theocratic state of Pakistan? Today or later Chinese economists and military strategists must have to think of it because Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM) and Sindhi people are raising voice against the Chinese plan of aggression and occupation over the lands and seas of the oppressed nations, on both regional political grounds as well as international diplomatic forums.
The prime function of CPEC is to import the bulk of crude substances from Arab, Central Asian and African countries which will pass through the Arabian Sea and terrestrial logistic route of Gwadar and Karachi ports heading towards China through Kashgar. It’s to remember that Karachi is situated a 12 km away from the international European oceanic trade route; thus the Chinese-backed Pakistani supervision of this route will obviously result in the endless military as well as political confrontation by pushing India into an economic stress through armed interruption of the route by Pakistan. This confrontation will only end up in the devastation of Pakistan.
Therefore, China-Pak Economic corridor and Chinese economic military dominance in the region is the stimulating force of various regional as well as international inhuman disorders including colonial exploitation, bloodshed, genocide and permanent slavery of the oppressed nations, uncertain strategic military power dynamics of the region turning it into the battlefield of global confrontation between economic and military superpowers of the world, triggering regional territorial disputes and armed tensions, disrupting global political harmony and peace, rise in human rights violations and state torture to an unexpected scale, oppression of political nationalistic voice of Sindh and Baluchistan (which is already happening), rise in support and funding of fundamentalist forces in the region by Chinese and Punjabi imperialism to abuse it against the separatist movements resulting in a great threat to secular and democratic voices on international level, countries bordering Pakistan will be on the hit list of the Islamic terrorists then (as recent regional news reports show the secret meetings of Afghan Taliban with Chinese authorities on the behalf of Pakistani military head), and the most important of all narratives is that the nations chained in the forced annexation of Pakistani federation (Sindhi, Baloch, Pashtun, Balawaristani, Kashmiris) will suffer to the verge of extinction because there is no any example in the history of the world that imperialist forces have ever worked to empower and develop the oppressed nations through investing in the projects like CPEC, while they (oppressed nations) have already been enduring the worst situations like genocide, enforced disappearances, extra-judicial killings, military operations to make them admit that the oppressors [Chinese Punjabi (Paki) imperialisms] are working for their welfare. This is too a question of grave concern that why is Punjabi imperialist military establishment caring so intensely for the rights and development of the nations whom they have exploited and oppressed for more than 60 years? And that too, in such a way that by torturing and killing their youth, women, children, and elders.
This project is a conspiracy against our homelands, national interests and generations to come, and the new political economic and military doctrine of the Punjabi imperialism to build a Greater Punjabi State in the name of Islam and Pakistan which will never be endured by the loyal and conscious sons of Sindh and Baluchistan. Its irony of the fate to admit that entire Punjabi nation including their intellectuals, so-called progressives, religious groups, political and military establishment are on the same page. This is the biggest misfortune and irony of the Punjab that there does not exist any one of the Punjabis to stand against this international conspiracy and its colonial designs, aggression oppression and occupation over the oppressed nations squirming in its hands.
Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz is striving politically against this China-Pak conspiracy project which is conspired to convert Sindhis and Baluchs into a minority because this project includes some other fierce folds too, like the construction of mega city projects i.e. Zulfiqarabad and Gwadar aimed to deprive them of their right to their resources. Conspiracy of converting them in ethnic minority will obviously result in non-Sindhi so-called democratic representation of Sindhis in the so-called democratic institutions of Pakistan dominated by alien settlers safeguarding the interests of Punjabi imperialism and depriving the native Sindhis to hold the significant majority to represent the national interests of the native people of Sindh and thus negating even the Sindh’s democratic right to oppose the imperialism and conspiracies in a democratic pattern. It will also result in the sectarian and ethnic split among the dwellers of Sindh disturbing their unity and hence exterminate the voice for their freedom. Therefore, JSMM holds her clear political stance over the issue that it will pose great risk and danger to the global peace. Pakistan intends to trickily trap China in its conspiracy of bloodshed and the genocide of oppressed nations and permanent occupation over Sindh and Baluchistan, which will be great damage to the moral reputation of China on the international level. To fulfill its nefarious designs Punjab will nurture and shelter the fundamentalist forces in the region to abuse them against nationalist freedom movements of the oppressed nations but as its side effects, it will be a great threat to the secularist and liberal democratic values in the region too. The entire region will burn in the fire of religious terrorism. The oppressed Sindhi, Baluch, Pashtun, Balawaristani and Saraiki nations will be expelled out from their lands to build Punjabi settlements through military might. To mislead the world from reacting on human rights violations and genocide of Sindhi, Baluch, Pashtun and Saraiki nations Pakistani intelligence agencies will ignite the fire of ethnic, lingual and sectarian terrorism and civil wars in their territories. This region is moving towards devastation and mass destruction due to the imperialist designs of Punjabi Agencies. It is only being done with the consensus and interests of Punjab and there seems no space for the existence and well-being of the oppressed nations at all but only destruction, slavery, disgust and devastation for them. Thus we are determined to struggle till victory or death, using every mode of political resistant struggle for our national survival and existence. From the grounds of Sindh to every international platform, JSMM is raising her voice over every atrocity, conspiracy committed against Sindh and Baluchistan like CPEC; and is determined to strive against it.
We appeal entire international community, United Nations, EU, USA, UK, Germany, France, India and all the other civilized nations of the world to stop China from bringing up the devastation on world in the name of CPEC and funding the fascist theocratic state of Pakistan which is the womb and vector of the Islamic terrorism in the world. The World must step forward to save the oppressed secular Sindhi and other nations of the region by supporting them in their struggle for national independence, in order to save the Asian continent and obviously Asia is the emblem of global peace if it is at rest the entire world would entertain peace and tranquility.
By Shafi Muhammad Burfat
The writer is Chairman of the Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz, a political party fighting for rights and freedom of Sindh. He lives in exile.
THE PASHTUN TIMES