Pakistan Conflict Monitor

Gilgit-Baltistan: Disputed Northern Areas Go to Polls

'Pakistan's Disputed Northern Areas Go to Polls', Reuters, 12 November 2009

EXCERPT: "Voters in Pakistan's mountainous far north went to the polls on Thursday to elect an assembly for their district as part of an autonomy package that has angered old rival India. Pakistan's Northern Areas have never officially been part of the country, instead they have been a part of the Pakistani-controlled portion of the disputed Kashmir region since shortly after Pakistan's independence in 1947. In August, Pakistan announced a plan aimed at giving more of a say to the people of the strategic region, renamed Gilgit-Baltistan, with a first step being an election for an assembly. People of the sparsely populated region turned out in force to cast their votes. 'It's our basic right to have our own assembly and our own representatives,' said Mohammad Owais, a 40-year-old shopkeeper standing in a long queue at a polling station in Gilgit, the region's main town. 'Today we have been given this right.'"

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Related articles:
Vote count underway as polling concludes in GB elections, The News International, 12 November 2009
Kaira denounces rigging charges in GB election, Associated Press of Pakistan, 12 November 2009
Gilani announces GB package ahead of polls, Daily Times, 11 November 2009
Rs12 billion set aside for uplift of Gilgit-Baltistan, DAWN, 30 September 2009<

Talibanization of Gilgit-Baltistan and Sectarian Killings

'Talibanization of Gilgit-Baltistan and Sectarian Killings', Institute for Defence Studies & Analysis, 19 October 2009

EXCERPT: "The authorities in Gilgit-Baltistan were not quite done celebrating the proclamation of the Empowerment and Self-governance Ordinance of 2009, when a bomb rocked Gilgit town on September 27 sparking off the latest bout of Shia-Sunni riots. Gun battles in the aftermath of the blast have led to the death of more than twelve people, including Raja Ali Ahmed Jan, a prominent leader of the Pakistan Muslim League. The incidents, culminating in a short-lived peace in this Pakistani occupied Shia region of Jammu & Kashmir, have led to the detention of several civilians as well two policemen. Some of the arrested are allegedly linked to those who assassinated Deputy Speaker Asad Zaidi and his companions in Gilgit in April 2009. Zaidi was the third-most high profile Shia politician, after the revered clerics Agha Ziauddin and Allama Hassan Turabi, to become the target of sectarian violence – a menace that has troubled Gilgit-Baltistan socially and economically, since the 1970s. Agha Ziauddin’s death in January 2005 caused widespread clashes leading to a six-month long curfew and emergency, and loss of more than two hundred lives. Allama Turabi, shot dead in Karachi on July 14, 2006, hailed from Baltistan and was the President of Tehrik Jafaria of Pakistan (TJP). His death has been termed as detrimental to Shia rights’ movement in Pakistan. In the sequence of events, as one looks back, eighteen people including the Director of the Agriculture Department of Gilgit died in 2008 as a result of Shia-Sunni clashes. However, by far, 2009 has seen more sectarian killings than the previous two years put together."

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Related articles:
Terrorists would be hunted in every nook and corner: Kaira, The News International, 12 October 2009
Gilgit-Baltistan autonomy, DAWN, 9 September 2009

Related reports:
Pakistan's divide and rule policy in Gilgit-Baltistan, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, 9 October 2009