Violence in Iran

02-03-2007
http://www.thepost.com.pk/


Violence in Iran


The February 14 bombing of an Iranian Revolutionary Guards' bus in Zahidan, causing 18 killed and scores of injuries, and the February 28 ambush on Iranian forces near Pishin town that killed four and led to the kidnapping of two police officials, seems a new kind of violent trend that took many analysts by surprise. Iran, already in the limelight for nuclear-related tensions with the West, has been widely covered by the media for this internal violence for the first time in decades.

This may be a development out of the blue for some readers, but those keeping an eye on the local and regional conflicts across borders knew that the tempo for such extreme violence was building since years due to the alleged suppressive policies of the Iranian government against religious and ethnic minorities. A Baloch ethnic group, Iranian Resistance Movement, previously called Jondullah, accepted responsibility for these attacks in revenge for the recent wave of public hangings of Baloch youth in Sistan-Balochistan, which were the order of the day. In some cases this wave averaged dozens of youngsters per month on subversive and criminal charges.

Previously being a closed society, the Iranian authorities managed to suppress the flow of such information from reaching the world. The Iranian official version blamed the bombing and attacks on gangs of smugglers and criminals. This may be true, but the gangs of smugglers allegedly started operating across the borders apparently with the tacit approval of the authorities to export Iranian value added goods and commodities, specially petroleum products, to earn hard cash, during the decades-long economic embargo.

In this case however, it was not a simple group of smugglers but an organized political group of young militants headed by Abdul Malik Regi, in his mid-twenties, who inflicted terror on the authorities since a few years through organized ambushes as well as kidnapping of officials, among them a journalist. The journalist was, according to the group's spokesperson, killed mistakenly and they regretted that killing through their website.

Militancy in Sistan-Balochistan seems not to be proactive but reactive in nature and operating mostly independently. It appears to be the result of local issues and grievances against the local authorities, but lacks a coordinated network. After the ouster of the Shah, the ethnic minorities, including the Baloch, welcomed the new revolutionary group headed by Imam Ayatullah Khomeni. Some of them joined the mainstream political process but that euphoria was over within a few years as the revolutionary guards started targeting ethnic groups on the charge of being communists. The ethnic minorities again reorganized underground militant groups.

Credible sources say that more than 90 such organized militant groups are active in Sistan-Balochistan, small and large, with an average size of 30-50 and with the largest with around 80 members.

The groups' cohesion and bonding factor seems both sectarian and ethnic combined. The Baloch being different from Persians ethnically on the one hand, and a Sunni minority under Shiite majority rule, feel frustrated due to alleged unfair treatment. Though the infrastructure is far better in Sistan-Balochistan as compared to Pakistani Balochistan, the Baloch in Pakistan are reported to be far better off in terms of their socio-cultural empowerment than their counterparts in Iran, who were not treated at par with the majority community.

According to Mr. Nassir Buledi, spokesperson for the Balochistan People's Party (BPP) Iran, the Persians make up 40 percent of the total Iranian population and the remaining 60 percent are Baloch, Kurds, Arabs, Turks, Azeris, etc. In case a fair democratic federal republic is established, the minorities making up 60 percent of the population will outnumber the Persians, and hence will be able to establish ethno-sectarian minority-friendly policies.

It will not be out of place to mention that BPP Iran and other ethnic political parties are striving for a federal democratic Iran through peaceful means. But they never disowned the militant groups, who influence and indirectly dictate any negotiated deal due to their leverage and political clout on the ground.

The recent Zahidan bombing and ambushes may not be welcomed by the diplomatic quarters and intelligence community as violent methods are tantamount to causing havoc in civil society in addition to what it does to the designed targets. Given the lack of political awareness, combined with the perpetual consternation caused by the highhanded methods of the Revolutionary Guards, such actions cannot be ruled out in future as has been clear from the warnings issued by the Iranian Resistance Movement (Jondullah).

The world community needs to see this group not as a fanatic religious group but a minority nationalist group in Iran, where sectarian identity symbolizes ethnic identity. Specially when speaking of the Baloch, they are anything but religious fanatics.

In the past, Jondullah's predecessors like Dad Shah Mubarki in the forties and fifties organized similar militant groups and inflicted heavy casualties on the Shah's regime. But ill-informed and ill-equipped technically as they were, on March 24, 1957 they inadvertently killed an American military aid official Kevin and his wife Anita Carroll, traveling in an Iranian military jeep, and had to pay through their nose. At that time the Iranian intelligence agency SAVAK managed to misguide the US authorities and after a prolonged manhunt, Dad Shah was killed after eight months.

It was reportedly Dad Shah's brother Ahmed Shah's family's deportation from Pakistan to Iran that triggered the formation of nationalist groups in Balochistan, specially Makuran, and resulted in more coordinated across the border cooperation among Baloch nationalist parties in Iran and Pakistan.

The Iranian regime convinced the US and Pakistan about the future dangers based on that cooperation. That resulted in combined military action against the Baloch in the early seventies and we still face the effects of that heritage. After the Zahidan blast, the Pakistani ambassador in Iran was called for exchange of information. The Iranian authorities are building thick walls at selected points on the border and have warned the Pakistani Baloch on the border to leave the area. The violence, including rocket attacks, were reported continuing in the disturbed area till the writing of these lines.

Iranian diplomats are reported to be artful and highly skilled in maneuvering situations. The erstwhile SAVAK infiltration was reportedly deep rooted and believed to have affected even researchers like Selig Harrison who were made to believe many unfounded stories, including the killing of some influential and active Baloch players, who lived for decades after compilation of his book, In Afghanistan's Shadow. The information inaccuracy may be an outcome of the level of distrust for US policy makers among leftist groups and they might have avoided them out of fear that sharing of information may be lethal for them and US intelligence may hunt them down, being communist activists.

No wonder after the recent violence, the top priority of the Iranian state will be to establish the Iranian Resistance Movement/Jondullah and other organizations as radical fanatic terrorist groups. Iran will try to convince the world community to declare them terrorist groups, followed by eradicating them through expeditious military action in Sistan-Balochistan, which is already in progress.

However, the regional and international situation has U-turns and all need to realize that any future military action in that area will cause another humanitarian catastrophe in the shape of influx of war refugees into Pakistani areas, which are already volatile. Therefore, disturbance in that area may trigger a regional tension, which Pakistan and the allied forces in Afghanistan can ill afford.

All the stakeholders, including Iran and Pakistan, need to find some via media for stability in the region through non-traditional methods of conflict resolution, as traditional methods are costly in term of collateral and human cost and apparently proved futile so far.

The writer is a social researcher in Sustainable Development and Conflict Management Studies