Inviting Musharraf to Yale a bad idea

My heart aches when I see prestigious U.S. universities host talks by villains and felons of history from far off lands, in this case Pakistan’s last and fourth military coup leader, Gen Pervez Musharraf, who was invited by the Yale School of Management to talk on US-Pakistan relations.

The reason is my original homeland is France-sized Balochistan — the land of the Baloch — in southwest Asia. This is the land where Gen. Musharraf, as army chief and self-styled president launched a brutal military crackdown, which is continuing to this day. Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest southwestern province where people desire secession from Pakistan.

The short story is the then-Balochistan governor and chief minister Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, who was clamoring for Baloch peoples’ sovereignty over their natural resources and sea ports, threw the gauntlet at Gen. Musharraf for violating Baloch rights. It happened so that on the wintry night of Jan. 2-3, 2005, a women medic Dr. Shazia Khalid was raped by army Captain Hammad.

Gen. Musharraf regime forcibly dispatched Dr. Khalid away instead of bringing the alleged rapist to justice. Since the rape happened in the tribal jurisdiction of Nawab Bugti, who was the head of the largest tribe called Bugtis, Nawab Bugti demanded justice for the raped doctor. According to Baloch folklore, two tribes Rinds and Lashars fought a 30-year-old war after the honor of a woman was violated. Gen. Musharraf, defended Captain Hammad instead, and launched a military attack on Nawab Bugti’s home on Dera Bugti. According to the Baloch Republican Party, which is now led by Bugti’s political and tribal successor Swissexiled Nawab Brahumdagh Bugti, 72 innocent civilians — including 33 children and women of the minority Hindu — were killed. Bugti himself was assassinated Aug. 26, 2006, with more than two dozen comrades.

“Well done boys,” Gen. Musharraf told the commandos who led the operation. To this day, Gen. Musharraf is unrepentant and remorseless over the unjustified killing while the Pakistan army operation continues unabated. As many as 1,800 Baloch people were forcibly abducted, killed and dumped while conservative estimates as many as 8,000 Baloch are victims of enforced disappearances in Balochistan. In March, a member of the Bugti tribe Ali Afzal Bugti, a U.S. citizen, was freed from Pakistan’s ISI custody after 10 months of torture.

Pakistan army continues to violate at least two dozen of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human rights in Balochistan as the Baloch people struggle against the $54 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor that they believe will turn them into a minority in Balochistan.

In their fight for freedom and justice, Baloch people have risen up in arms against Pakistan army, at least four times since March 27, 1948.

Above all, Pakistan army also tested nuclear weapons in my native Balochistan May 28, 1998, amid deafening slogans of Allahu Akbar.

Moreover, the Pakistan army that Musharraf led had time and again snatched the sovereign rights of the common masses of Pakistan, too.

Gen. Musharraf himself forced two elected prime ministers into exile, slain premier Benazir Bhutto and present premier Nawaz Sharif. The political tragedy of Pakistan is the world’s third largest Muslim country spent nearly half of its existence since independence under misrule of army dictators — Gen. Ayub Khan (Oct. 27, 1958, to March 25, 1969), Gen. Yahya Khan (March 25, 1969, to Dec. 20, 1971), Gen. Ziaul Haq (July 5, 1977 to Aug. 18, 1988) and Gen. Musharraf Aug. 18, 2018). Some of the political crimes — though military rule itself is a big crime against the sovereignty of any nation — is genocidal war in the former East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, that left three million Bengalis dead. As many as 200,000 Bangladeshi women were also raped during their independence struggle. In addition Pakistan army is known to have killed leading politicians and the judicial assassination of one the country’s best premiers Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is one example.

Pakistan army always foiled any betterment of relationship with India, even though civilians want to live in peace. In February 1999, then-Indian premier A.B. Vajpayee and his Pakistan counterpart, Nawaz Sharif signed the historic Lahore Accord, it was Gen. Musharraf and his close generals who launched the Kargil war to snatch Indian territory, bringing the two nations close to a nuclear catastrophe.

Again it was Gen. Musharraf who openly acknowledged supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan — the same Taliban carried out one of the deadliest attacks on Afghan army in Mazari-Sharif that left 170, mostly soldiers, dead.

Gen. Musharraf had also feigned ignorance about the where about of America’s most hated terrorist Osama bin Laden, while Bruce Riedel, a well-known analyst in Washington, D.C., wrote that a general close to Gen. Musharraf, named Gen. Nadeem Taj, who headed the infamous ISI, played a key role in providing sanctuary to Osama bin Laden.

According to the Baloch Republican Party, which is now led by Bugti’s political and tribal successor Swissexiled Nawab Brahumdagh Bugti, 72 innocent civilians — including 33 children and women of the minority Hindu — were killed.