Foundation of MQM
Please don’t consider this thread as hatemonger thread. This is just a historic perspective. In no way it is a personal attack or mockery of anyone. Some MQM lovers think that MQM was not formed by Zia-ul-Haq but I said it was. I want to remove any doubts from the minds of anyone about this fact.
First of all I was very much adult in 80’s, when the dictator’s rule was at peak, when AH came in to scenario of mobilizing Muhajirs in Karachi on the lines of ethnicity. I can still remember the mammoth crowds in mid eighties he had gathered propagating Muhajir cause in Karachi.
To remove the doubts of few that Zia-ul-Haq did not create MQM and Jehadi culture, I am giving the following links that confirm the above statement. If you can provide counter proof to counter this fact you are glad to do so.
Unless we learn to accept the reality on ground, how can this dark and marquee situation of the country will improve?
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070528/main8.htm
Afzal Khan writes from Islamabad
Former army chief Gen Mirza Aslam Beg has said that Gen Zia-ul-Haq was responsible for the formation of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), as he wanted to counter the opposition his regime faced in Sindh. Dr Imran Farooq of the MQM has denied the claim.
In an interview to the Voice of America, General Beg said “most certainly” it was Zia who had the MQM founded. He added that General Musharraf should be asked why he relied on the MQM so much. He said it was under the present government that the offices of MQM’s rival, MQM (Haqeeqi), were shut down and its people sent to jail. The MQM had now come to the aid of the regime in a show of loyalty, he said.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FA17Df07.html
Ethnic friction
Pakistan’s Punjabi-dominated military assiduously promoted the Mohajirs to counter rising ethno-nationalism among Sindhis. In 1972, a Mohajir taxi driver in the United States, Altaf Hussain, was persuaded by the army to return to Pakistan and float the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM). Keen on dividing Sindh on ethnic lines, General Zia ul-Haq allowed the MQM to form a network of professional militant bands with a hand in the drug trade of Karachi. In 1988, the city was rocked by unprecedented violence orchestrated by the army using the MQM in order to oust Benazir Bhutto from power.
http://www.dictatorshipwatch.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=409
After becoming president he worked for two goals only. a) to get rid of Bhutto and b) Afghan war. Pakistan army has been nervous only in front of two persons, one Jinnah and other Bhutto. But at the time of tussle with Bhutto, Army realised that they have to make sure that there be no person with such a towering and popular personality, therefore Zia and his agencies created MQM, by starting fights between Pathans and Mohajirs in Karachi, and thereafter all CNC’s have patronised and given blessing to MQM and its leader. This is “divide and rule” in practice.
During General Zia’s dictatorship, the MQM had emerged as a highly disciplined party with a well-organized and widespread grassroots network. The party structure virtually mimicked the organizational model of the previously dominant right-wing party the Jamaat-i- Islami.3 Almost all of the Muhajir members of the Jaamat switched their loyalties overnight, as the MQM effectively eliminated the Islamist party’s Karachi base. Tired of the traditional Muhajir stand which has usually revolved around fundamentalist support for a strong center and army and staunch opposition to India, many saw the MQM as a means of solving local issues that had been ignored by previous governments.
http://forum.atimes.com/post.asp?method=TopicQuote&TOPIC_ID=2141&FORUM_ID=22
The earliest political organization of Mohajirs, the All Pakistan Mohajir Student Organization (APMSO) founded in 1978 by Altaf Hussain, evolved into the MQM in 1984. Ethnic and religious divisions in Sindh were exacerbated during the years General Zia-ul Haq was in office (1977 to 1988, of these 1977 to 1985 under martial law) as he used them to suppress and divide democratic opposition to his rule. Ethnic strife between Mohajir and Sindhis who had initially jointly opposed the influx of Punjabis and Pathans into Sindh, rapidly increased in Karachi and Hyderabad from the mid-1980s. The MQM, led by Altaf Hussain, meanwhile consolidated its hold on the Mohajir community. In November 1987, the MQM won local body elections in Karachi, Hyderabad and other urban centres in Sindh.