Afridi tribe wants freedom from Pakistan

[Admin Khan]

Dozens of Afridi tribe elders, who arrived in eastern Nangarhar province from the Pakistani side of the border, on Sunday urged the Afghan government to help them get rid of injustices they faced in the neighbouring country.
The tribesmen visited the Border and Tribal Affairs Directorate in Jalalabad and sought Afghan government's help in addressing their problems they faced in Pakistan.
Rujat Khan, a tribal elder, from Tera Maidan area of Khyber near the Afghanistan border, said the Pakistani government recognised them as Afghans and thus intimidating them.
“I urge my government (Afghan) to set us free from Pakistan, because we cannot tolerate the injustices the Pakistani government is bent on against our families,” he said.
Yaqoub Khan, another tribal elder, coming all the way from Khyber Agency’s Bara tehsil, told Pajhwok Afghan News around 200 tribal elders from Bara, Jamrud and Terah valley, had arrived in Nangarhar to inform the government about their problems.
He said in Pakistan they pushed to the margins. “We love our homeland Afghanistan and want to be annexed with it.” Several other tribal elders would soon come to Afghanistan to meet President Hamid Karzai and share their concerns with their own president."

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[JAMALUDEEN]

Not so long ago, they were protesting against the Pakistani government as well.. Is Pakistan coming to an end?

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 2 2013 (IPS) - –“We demand an immediate end to the military operation in Khyber Agency because it has not brought any results during the past three years,” says Iqbal Afridi from the Pakistan Tehreek Insaf party. “The military operations are killing the local population while the militants remained unharmed.”

Afridi from the Khyber Agency unit of the party led by former cricketer Imran Khan spoke with IPS near the Governor’s House in Peshawar, the northern Pakistani city adjacent to the Khyber Agency region in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Party members had brought bodies of 18 local people reported killed by Pakistani security forces in nearby Alamgudar village.

Thousands of local tribal people, including students, civil society members and leaders of political parties joined the bereaved families in the protest against the army.

“The military operations have brought lives of the eight million population in FATA to a standstill,” Afridi said. “The seven tribal agencies have remained under curfew and the population has become completely idle.”

Juma Khan Afridi from the family of some of those killed told IPS what happened. “We were asleep when security forces scaled the walls of our home. They asked the women to get aside,” Khan Afridi, a student of the same family told IPS. He said he survived because he put on a veil and stood with women.

This is not the first time the army has killed innocent people in Khyber Agency, he said. “It is because of the growing anger that bereaved families brought the coffins of their dead relatives to protest.”

Wazir Muhammad, political analyst at the University of Peshawar, said people of FATA had been bearing the brunt of the U.S.-led war on terror for the past four years, but had remained silent due to fear of reprisals by the army.

The protest by Hazara communities in Quetta in Balochistan over their dead had given strength to local tribal people in FATA, he said. More than 100 people, including 83 Shias were killed in two bomb explosions in Quetta Jan. 11. The relatives there had refuse to bury their dead immediately in protest.

Only after braving three nights in Quetta’s freezing temperatures next to their slain loved ones did the families of the bombing victims end their protest and bury the bodies amid strict security measures in a Hazara graveyard. They did so after the government imposed governor’s rule in Balochistan.

“Anger is growing over the acts of terrorism everywhere in the country. The people are rightly protesting over the army’s killing of the innocent,” Muhammad said.

The Khyber Agency incident has opened a new chapter of protests against the army. “It is for the first time that people have chanted slogans against law enforcement agencies for their failure to provide protection. It will continue in the future if the army doesn’t mend its ways,” Umar Farooq, whose younger brother was among the dead, told IPS.

“It was not just the brutal killing – the army took away the slain bodies from the site of the protests and buried them on their own. Being Muslims, we wanted to give bath and have funerals before lowering them to the graves.”

The killings come after a dubious army record. In 2009 the Pakistan army, he said, was shown in a video to be shooting from close range at seven boys in Swat. The army had argued that they were Taliban but they looked innocent and juvenile, he said.

“The incident caused international outrage and the U.S. – the main sponsor of the Swat Operation – briefly withheld aid,” Farooq said.

In October 2010 the U.S. sanctioned six units of the Pakistani military operating in the Swat valley under the Leahy Law – which requires the U.S. State Department to certify that no military unit receiving U.S. aid is involved in gross human rights abuses. The law requires that when such abuses are found, they must be thoroughly investigated.

Despite pledges, Pakistan did not take any action to hold the perpetrators accountable as required under the law.

In several instances in Swat, Balochistan and the tribal areas, U.S. aid to Pakistan has continued in apparent contravention of the Leahy Law.

Human Right Watch said in its 2012 report that conditions had deteriorated markedly in the mineral-rich Balochistan, with disappearances of civilians, and an upsurge in killings of suspected Baloch militants and opposition activists by the military, intelligence agencies and the paramilitary Frontier Corps.

“The government appeared powerless to rein in the military’s abuses,” it said. Human Rights Watch recorded the killing of at least 200 Baloch nationalist activists in 2012.

In April 2010, the Pakistan army chief, Gen Ashfaq Kayani, apologised for the deaths of dozens of civilians during air raids near the Afghan border. The civilians were members of a pro-government tribe which had resisted Taliban influence.

On Jan. 17, shortly after the last killings, the army was severely criticised in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly. Lawmaker Saqibullah Khan said such incidents were bound to create anger against the army among the people, and should immediately be stopped.

“The federal government should immediately stop military operations against militants as these have failed to establish peace. They have become the main source of creating problems for the civilians.”

Member of the National Assembly from the Awami National Party Bushra Gohar told IPS that the military campaigns have displaced 1.2 million people in FATA and had adversely affected the lives of tribal people. “Since 2005, we have started military operations in most of the seven tribal agencies of FATA, but militants are gaining strength while the poor people are suffering.

“We demand an end to the military operation in FATA,” she said. (End)


http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/02/pakis...-against-army/

[Karachi]

It was a bound to happen and it is good for them. The tribals have been suffering for so long. Pathetic state of Pakistan, which allows their so called own territories to be bombed by drones, doesn't need anyone's sympathy. I wonder what Talal has to say about this.

[Karachi]

Not so long ago, they were protesting against the Pakistani government as well.. Is Pakistan coming to an end?

It looks like it will break for sure and perhaps it is for the better. We will have to wait and see

[Michin Khel]

We have to keep in mind that last month a military operation was initiated in tirah which ended in the initial week of this month. Tirah people suffered from this operation and they hate Pak army but have they opted for secession from Pakistan?, .........i am not sure about it,it might be temporary fever.and anger .....
Afridi jirga was bombarded by Pakistani air force in 1951 when it was going to take decision on pakhtunistan.....After that they didnt pursue Pakhtunistan....Ajab khan afridi and his brother were participating in pakhtunistan movement from behalf of Afghanistan but they had no impact or influence on afridis. The Afridis of nowadays have huge economic interests in Pakistan and are the most integrated people in pakistan among tribal people of FATA......Afghanistan has to be careful about this, are these tribal elders firmly determined , would carry on with demand till the end?.....or they can succumb to a mouth watering offers of Pakistan?

[Kushan Prince]

I thought the Afridi's were the most Pro Pakistani?

[gadoonwal]

Afridis going in the right direction and i hope other pashtuns follow the same.
Pakistan can never ever be friend of pashtuns,pashtu and their culture.
Pakistan treat pashtuns like the isrealis treat palastanians.
Freedom from pakistan is the only way for pashtuns.
Good bye to jinnah ,s fake indentity of pakistan.

[Pukhtoon007]

i wonder how much of the afridi population agree with this sentiment
but either way this is good news even if it comes to no fruition
i hope this news sets a precedent in this post 9/11 era

[hamid954]

Afridi wants freedom.

[Michin Khel]

Why this news is no where else on the web?

[Pukhtoon007]

well why would the pakistani media report this. and most of the afghan media is controlled by tajiks ...i mean that could be one reason, the other reason is that the tribal leader dnt wield much power and they probably are in a minority so the news wasnt deemed worthy to report

[Michin Khel]

well why would the pakistani media report this. and most of the afghan media is controlled by tajiks ...i mean that could be one reason, the other reason is that the tribal leader dnt wield much power and they probably are in a minority so the news wasnt deemed worthy to report

“I urge my government (Afghan) to set us free from Pakistan, because we cannot tolerate the injustices the Pakistani government is bent on against our families,”. We love our homeland Afghanistan and want to be annexed with it

I think Afghan authorities/media have made up the bolded part of statement. Afridis may have simply approached the afghan authorities for some kind of help and pressure on Pakistani government and Pajwak news saw the chance in it to make a spicy news out of it or they were simply signaled by Afghan government. Its not the first time, Afghan government is feeding such propaganda to its people ever since 1947, whenever naive Afghans met pro-pakistani pashtuns, they always got shocked and disgusted.......
Afridi protests like this


If you can read urdu , then read what is written orange card in the hand of little girl.......This is the extreme reaction that you would expect from afridis who are not associated with taliban/LI. We are talking about a tribe highly integrated into fabric of Pakistani society and economy. If these 200 afridi tribal leaders are really into such thing and that motivated then they should have announced it in a press conference or should have called for a representative jirga of afridi tribe.

You are carrying around pakhtunistan flag and my assessment might frustrate you but truth is better than false hopes........wait, were you on the pashto.org/chaikhana of that mokadaar idiot?

[ډګروال]

“I urge my government (Afghan) to set us free from Pakistan, because we cannot tolerate the injustices the Pakistani government is bent on against our families,”. We love our homeland Afghanistan and want to be annexed with it

I think Afghan authorities/media have made up the bolded part of statement. Afridis may have simply approached the afghan authorities for some kind of help and pressure on Pakistani government and Pajwak news saw the chance in it to make a spicy news out of it or they were simply signaled by Afghan government. Its not the first time, Afghan government is feeding such propaganda to its people ever since 1947, whenever naive Afghans met pro-pakistani pashtuns, they always got shocked and disgusted.......
Afridi protests like this


If you can read urdu , then read what is written orange card in the hand of little girl.......This is the extreme reaction that you would expect from afridis who are not associated with taliban/LI. We are talking about a tribe highly integrated into fabric of Pakistani society and economy. If these 200 afridi tribal leaders are really into such thing and that motivated then they should have announced it in a press conference or should have called for a representative jirga of afridi tribe.

You are carrying around pakhtunistan flag and my assessment might frustrate you but truth is better than false hopes........wait, were you on the pashto.org/chaikhana of that mokadaar idiot?

this is typical pakistani tactic.
they always try to delegitimise the news by calling it Afghan.
i saw this on defence.npk and there they are raising this same issue.

the fact it is not on pakistani media is because pakistani media is fully controlled and especially the news that comes from pukhtunkhwa goes through certain filters and checks.

i also thought that afridis were some fo the most pro pakistanis but if they are fed up with the napak state than im sure other tribes are more fed up.

Momand are already in war with pakistan,so are the afridis yousufzais wazir mehsud marwat etc.

[ډګروال]

well why would the pakistani media report this. and most of the afghan media is controlled by tajiks ...i mean that could be one reason, the other reason is that the tribal leader dnt wield much power and they probably are in a minority so the news wasnt deemed worthy to report

it was reported on pahjwok which is a pashtun media source.
i dont know why it is getting under the skin of you pathans , seems that tribal elders till have honour left. How are they in minority while it is also afridis who are fighting the napak army?

[Khostai]

After a few days this all will be over, I guess this is not the first time something like this happens.