Caught in a cruel crossfire

Pakistan's Christians, among the most impoverished and persecuted sections of the population, were the latest victims to the can of worms which the war against Afghanistan has opened across its borders. Iffat Malek writes from Islamabad
On Sunday, 28 October, six bearded men burst into a Protestant service in Saint Dominic's Church, Bahawalpur, in south Punjab. Locking the doors behind them, they took AK-47 rifles out of their bags and opened fire indiscriminately. Eighteen people, including the priest and a number of women and children, were killed. Dozens more were injured.
The extent of the carnage was such that Pakistanis -- sadly, no strangers to violence on their streets -- were all stunned. Condemnation of the attacks was instant, with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf declaring that he was extremely shocked by the tragedy and promising to "track down the culprits and bring them to justice." Two federal ministers, one a Christian and the other the minister for religious affairs, were promptly dispatched to Bahawalpur to pay their condolences in person.
The fear of retaliation was palpable. While condemning the massacre, Christian leaders in Pakistan made a plea for restraint. All the main political and religious party leaders unequivocally denounced the killings, though many of them added that no Muslim could have carried out such acts. The usual charge that such an attack had to be the work of India's intelligence agency (RAW) was quick to follow.
At a time when the international media spotlight is firmly focused on Pakistan, it was no surprise that news of the killings spread globally and prompted criticism from the highest levels. Pope John Paul II described the event as a tragic act of intolerance. The archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, condemned the violence and appealed for people to recognise that the conflict in neighbouring Afghanistan was not one between Islam and Christianity.
Christians form about one per cent of Pakistan's population of 140 million. Many are concentrated in the country's largest province, the Punjab. While some enjoy wealth and good positions, in general, Christians form the poorest class in Pakistani society. They are typically employed as rubbish collectors, street sweepers and sanitary workers. Ordinary Pakistani Muslims look down on them and their limited socio-economic opportunities make them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. In many cases, the discrimination against Pakistani Christians is comparable to that suffered by the untouchables in India. Many Muslims will not, for example, let Christians share their eating and drinking utensils and they regard many of the jobs performed by Christians as unclean.
More serious is the way in which Christians are targeted through abuse of the blasphemy laws. Pakistan has some of the strictest blasphemy laws in the Muslim world. Charges of blasphemy can be made on the flimsiest of evidence -- even one man's word against another. The ease with which blasphemy charges can be made to stick has led to a spate of accusations against Christians. Often these are malicious complaints, with the real motive being personal enmity, land disputes and the like.
But violence against Christians has, for the most part, not been a big problem in Pakistan. Rioting that broke out in south Punjab among Muslims in 1997 led to a rampage that attacked Christian homes, churches and schools -- again, the result of anger over blasphemy accusations against some Christians -- but there were no killings. Sunday's massacre thus marks a huge escalation in the violence against Pakistani Christians. Archbishop Carey's reference to Afghanistan in his condolence message, along with reports by witnesses that the gunmen shouted "Graveyard of Christians -- Pakistan and Afghanistan," give a good indication of what prompted the escalation.
Tension in Pakistan has been high since the 11 September attacks in America, and even more since the US military campaign against Afghanistan started on 7 October. Few in Pakistan support the campaign, but most accept that their government had no choice but to cooperate in it. The religious parties and their supporters, however, have strongly condemned both the US and President Musharraf's government, and are now openly calling for its violent overthrow. Most of their protests have been directed against the government, but there have been fears that resentment could be vented out against foreigners and Christians.
Most foreigners have long since left the country, or are safe in the heavily protected capital Islamabad. Christians, though, have no such protection. Even before the Bahawalpur killings, many were complaining of harassment and said they felt vulnerable. An employee with an international organisation in Islamabad said her family felt so scared in their Muslim- majority neighbourhood that they moved to a Christian one. She said local religious leaders would point to them and say, "They're the ones -- they are responsible," referring to the killings of Muslims in Afghanistan.
According to local newspaper reports, the intelligence agencies had warned the government that Christians could be attacked. Some measures had already been taken to tighten security around Christian targets. There was one police constable outside Saint Dominic's Church on Sunday. He was killed first. But the fact that three others who should have been on duty with him were away "having breakfast" indicates that orders to tighten security were not always followed through.
The massacre in Bahawalpur thus appears to have been the work of people angry about the US campaign against Afghanistan. President Musharraf said the attack bore all the hallmarks of a trained terrorist organisation. In the days after it, police rounded up activists belonging to a number of militant Islamist organisations for questioning. A week later it was announced that those responsible for the attacks had been arrested -- again, members of an extremist religious group. Whether this is true or a case of police scapegoating remains to be seen.
But even if the police have caught the right men, the problems for Pakistan's government are far from over. Religiously- motivated violence is already a big problem. Dozens of people have been killed this year in sectarian and inter-sectarian attacks. Mosques and imambargahs (places of Shi'a worship) in Pakistan are regularly sprayed with gunfire and armed guards outside places of worship are the norm, especially during Ramadan and Muharram. The Bahawalpur massacre makes the task of dealing with religious violence even more difficult.
Pakistan's economy is already heading for a free fall, thanks to its position as a front-line state in the latest Afghan war. The negative reports of protests and demonstrations regularly aired by international news channels have only worsened Pakistan's image. The massacre in Bahawalpur will simply add to this image of instability and insecurity, and hence investors' lack of confidence.
The only consolation for the government is that -- unlike with previous Shi'a or Sunni killings -- this latest attack is unlikely to lead to a tit-for-tat cycle of revenge attacks. Appeals by Christian leaders for restraint will be heeded. That is not because there is no anger among the Christian community, but because the community is simply too small and vulnerable to go on the offensive. Needless to say, their sense of vulnerability has increased manifold since the killings in Bahawalpur.
Nonetheless, with growing opposition from the religious parties, a war on his doorstep, India making threatening moves in Kashmir and a looming economic crisis, the attack on Pakistan's Christians is an additional problem Musharraf could well have done without.
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