We Are Hazara
July 20th, 2008Emergence of the Hazara
In the late 1500s, the first mention of Hazaras are made by the court historians of Shah Abbas of the Safavid dynasty and by Babur (Emperor of the Mughal Empire) in his Baburnama, referring to the people living from west of Kabul to Ghor, and south to Ghazni.[13]
[edit] 18th century
Elder Hazara man
In their modern history, Hazaras have faced several wars and forced displacements. Since the beginnings of modern Afghanistan in the mid 18th century, Hazaras have faced persecution from the Pashtuns and have been forced to flee from many parts of today’s Afghanistan to Hazarajat.[13] In the mid 18th century they were forced out of Helmand and the Arghandab basin of Kandahar.[13] In Dost Mohammad Khan’s rule, Hazaras in Bamiyan and the Hazarajat area were heavily taxed. However, for the most part they still managed to keep their regional autonomy in Hazarajat.[13] This would soon change as the new Emir, Abdur Rahman Khan, was brought to power.
[edit] Subjugation by Abdur Rahman Khan
As the new Emir, Abdur Rahman set out a goal to bring Hazarajat under his control. After facing resistance from the Hazaras, he launched several campaigns in Hazarajat with many atrocities and ethnic polarization.[13] The southern part of Hazarajat was spared as they accepted Abdur Rahman’s rule while the other parts of Hazarajat rejected Abdur Rahman and were supporting his uncle Sher Ali Khan and as a result had a war waged against them.[13]
The first Hazara uprising was in 1888. Abur Rahman’s cousin, Mohammad Eshaq, revolted against him and the Hazaras joined the revolt. The revolt was short lived and crushed as the Emir extended his control over large parts of Hazarajat. Heavy taxes were imposed and Pashtun administrators were sent to Hazarajat where they subjugated the people with many abuses.[13] The people were disarmed, villages were looted, local tribal chiefs were imprisoned or executed, and the best lands were confiscated and given to Pashtun nomads (Kuchis).[13]
Another uprising occurred in 1892. The cause of the uprising was the rape of the wife of a Hazara chief by 33 Afghan soldiers. The soldiers had entered their house under the pretext of searching for weapons and raped the chief’s wife in front of him.[19] The families of the Hazara chief and his wife retaliated against the humiliation and killed the soldiers and attacked the local garrison where they took back their weapons. Several other tribal chiefs who supported Abdur Rahman now turned against him and joined the rebellion which rapidly spread through the entire Hazarajat. In response to the rebellion, the Emir declared a “Jihad” against the Shiites and raised an army of 40,000 soldiers, 10,000 mounted troops, and 100,000 armed civilians (most of which where Pashtun nomads).[19] He also brought in British military advisers to assist his army.[19]
The large army defeated the rebellion at its center, in Oruzgan, by 1892 and the local population was severely massacred. According to S. A. Mousavi,
| “ | thousands of Hazara men, women, and children were sold as slaves in the markets of Kabul and Qandahar, while numerous towers of human heads were made from the defeated rebels as a warning to others who might challenge the rule of the Amir | ” |
An enslaved Hazara man in Abdur Rahman’s court, pleading for mercy.
In response to the harsh repression, the Hazaras revolted again by early 1893. This revolt had taken the government forces by surprise and the Hazaras managed to take most of Hazarajat back. However even after months of fighting, they were eventually defeated due to a shortage of food. Small pockets of resistance continued to the end of the year as government troops committed atrocities against civilians and deported entire villages.[19]
Abdur Rahman’s subjugation of the Hazaras during this period gave birth to strong hatred between the Pashtuns and Hazaras for years to come.[19] Massive forced displacements, especially in Oruzgan and Daychopan, continued as lands were confiscated and populations were expelled or fled.[19] Some 15,000 families fled to northern Afghanistan, Mashhad (Iran), Quetta (Pakistan), and even as far as Central Asia. It is estimated that over half the Hazara population was massacred or displaced during Abdur Rahman’s campaign against them. Hazara farmers were often forced to give up their property to Pashtuns and as a result many Hazara families had to leave seasonally to the major cities in Afghanistan, Iran, or Pakistan in order to find jobs and a source of income. Pakistan is now home to one of the largest settlements of Hazara particularly in and around the city of Quetta.[19]
[edit] Hazaras in the 20th century
In 1901, Habibullah Khan, Abdur Rahman’s successor, granted amnesty to all people who were exiled by his predecessor. However, the division between the Afghan government and the Hazara people was already made too deep under Abdur Rahman and as a result Hazaras continued to face severe social, economic and political discrimination through most of the 20th century.[13]
Mistrust of the central government continued by the Hazaras and local uprisings also continued. In particular, in the 1940s, during Zahir Shah’s rule, a revolt took place against new taxes that were exclusively imposed on the Hazaras.[13] The Pashtun nomads meanwhile not only were exempted from taxes, but also received allowances from the Afghan government.[13] The angry rebels began capturing and killing government officials. In response, the central government sent a force to subdue the region and later removed the taxes.
[edit] Soviet invasion to the Taliban era
During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Hazarajat region did not see as much heavy fighting like other regions of Afghanistan. However, rival Hazara political factions had internal conflicts during this period. The division was across the Tanzáim-e nasl-e naw-e Hazara, a party based in Quetta of Hazara nationalists and secular intellectuals, and the pro-Khomeini Islamist parties backed by the new Islamic Republic of Iran.[13] By 1979, the Iran backed Islamist groups liberated Hazarajat from the central Soviet-backed Afghan government and later these Islamist groups took entire control of Hazarajat away from the secularist groups. By 1984, after severe fighting, the secularist groups lost all their power to the Islamist groups. Later as the Soviets withdrew in 1989, the Islamist groups felt the need to broaden their political appeal and turned their focus to Hazara ethnic nationalism.[13] This led to establishment of the Hezb-e Wahdat, an alliance of all the Hazara resistance groups (except the Harakat-e Islami). In 1992, with the fall of Kabul, the Harakat-e Islami took sides with Burhanuddin Rabbani’s government while the Hezb-e Wahdat took sides with the opposition. The Hezb-e Wahdat was eventually forced out of Kabul by 1995 as the Pashtun Taliban movement treacherously captured and killed their leader Abdul Ali Mazari.
With the Taliban’s capture of Kabul in 1996, all the Hazara groups united with the new Northern Alliance against the common new enemy. However, it was too late and despite the fierce resistance Hazarajat fell to the Taliban by 1998. The Taliban had Hazarajat totally isolated from the rest of the world going as far as not allowing the United Nations to deliver food to the provinces of Bamiyan, Ghor, Wardak, and Ghazni.[20] During the years that followed, Hazaras suffered severe oppression and many large ethnic massacres were carried out by the predominately ethnic Pashtun Taliban and are documented by such groups as the Human Rights Watch.[21] These human rights abuses not only occurred in Hazarajat, but across all areas controlled by the Taliban. Particularly after their capture of Mazar-e Sharif in 1998, where after a massive killing of some 8000 civilians, the Taliban openly declared that the Hazaras would be targeted. Mullah Niazi, the commander of the attack and governor of Mazar after the attack, similar to Abdur Rahman Khan over 100 years ago, declared the Shia Hazara as infidels:
| “ | Hazaras are not Muslim, they are Shi’a. They are kofr [infidels]. The Hazaras killed our force here, and now we have to kill Hazaras… If you do not show your loyalty, we will burn your houses, and we will kill you. You either accept to be Muslims or leave Afghanistan… wherever you go we will catch you. If you go up, we will pull you down by your feet; if you hide below, we will pull you up by your hair.[22] | ” |
[edit] Hazaras in post-Taliban Afghanistan
Dr. Sima Samar, an ethnic Hazara, Chairperson of Independent Human Rights Commission of Afghanistan
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, British and American forces attacked Afghanistan and removed the Taliban from power and effectively saved the Hazaras from ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Taliban. Since then, the situation for Hazaras in Afghanistan has changed drastically and has much improved in a very short time. Today, due to the NATO involvement, Hazaras enjoy much more freedom and equality than ever before. Hazaras can now pursue higher education, enroll in the army, and have top government positions.[23] For example, Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, a Hazara from the Hezb-e Wahdat party, was able to run in the 2004 presidential election in Afghanistan. However, discrimination still lingers.[23] A clear indication of such discrimination is the current trend of allocating international help by the Afghan government. Hazarajat historically has been kept from any improvement by past governments. Since ousting the Taliban, there has been several billions of dollars purred into Afghanistan for reconstruction and numerous mega scale reconstruction projects took place in Afghanistan. But effectively a very small portion of international aid was allocated in central regions of Afghanistan Hazarajat.
For example, there has been more than 5000 kilometers of road pavement and construction in Afghanistan, of which almost none happened in central Afghanistan Hazarajat. Another indication of such discrimination is that Kochis (Afghan nomads from western Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan) are allowed now to use Hazarajat pastures in summer time. This practice started during the rule of Amir Abdurahman Khan for punishing Hazaras.
Living in mountainous Hazarajat where little farm land exists, Hazara people rely on these pasture lands for their livelihood and survival during long and harsh winters. In 2007 heavily armed Kochis moved into Hazarajat for grazing their livestock, and when the local people resisted, it is reported that they killed several Hazara people, mostly women and kids, looted and burnt several villages.[citation needed] Such a practice happened in 2008, and the government appears to approve this practice by disarming local Hazaras and allowing Kochis to remain heavily armed.[citation needed] It is also reported that Kochis acted for the Taliban army when they defeated Hazara resistance against Taliban in Hazarajat and massacred the local Hazaras.[citation needed] Hazaras suspect that Kochis have ties with the Taliban. Kochis like Taliban belong to the Pashtun ethnicity. Traveling with heavy armor and automatic weapons, and using military tactics like Taliban, support this theory.
The Hazāra are a Persian-speaking