Six Pakistanis And One Indian Were Gunned Down to Impress America
By Greg Bearup in Punjab
09 May, 2004 by the
The Guardian
The gaudy mansions of those who've "made it" look out of place in a sea of poverty, surrounded by dull, red-brick huts, wallowing buffalo and the stench of open sewers. Fatima Bibi is a sweeper in one of these houses, working not for money, but for a bowl of rice or some flour.Her employers in this small Punjabi village were once poor too, just like her. Now they live in relative luxury, with a satellite dish and a new fridge, because their son went "to New York to drive taxis".
Macedonia's interior minister Ljube Boskovski listens to a question during a press-conference in Skopje in this October 3, 2001 file photo. Macedonia charged the former interior minister and six security force officers with murder on April 30, 2004 in connection with a 2002 ambush of what it said were innocent migrants set up to look like 'Mujahideen terrorists.' The victims, migrants passing through Macedonia and looking for work in Europe, were pin-pointed, kidnapped and killed in what security forces claimed was a coup against global terrorism. The dead men included six Pakistanis and an Indian. Their bodies were filmed with handguns stuck in their waistbands. REUTERS/Ognen Teofilovski/File
But Fatima's son wasn't so lucky. When 20-year-old Ijaz set off for Europe early in 2002 he carried the hopes of his family. Ijaz was the second youngest of the widow's nine children. He ended up "collateral damage" in the war on terror, gunned down by police in the Balkan state of Macedonia, who claimed that he and six others killed were terrorists.Last week Macedonian officials admitted that this was a lie, and that the shooting was a staged murder, part of a clumsy plot to try to impress the US.
"My son, my beautiful son," wailed Fatima, clutching a photograph of Ijaz. "He was a good boy who just wanted to make things better for his family. How could they shoot him down, like a dog? He was a good Muslim, but he had no time for politics." This week in the Macedonian capital, Skopje, warrants were issued for the arrest of the former interior minister, Ljube Boskovski, in relation to the shooting of Ijaz and the six others.
Several senior police officers have been charged with murder. After a lengthy investigation, the Macedonian authorities have admitted that the six Pakistanis and one Indian were simply illegal immigrants, trying to get to Greece to find work on the Olympic sites, or anywhere else. "This was the act of a sick mind," Mirjana Konteska, a Macedonian official, said. "They lost their lives in a stage murder [so the police and officials] could present themselves as participants in the war against terror."
The seven were picked up as they entered Macedonia through Bulgaria. They were detained for several days before being driven to a spot en route to the US embassy. Then they were shot.
Mr Boskovski claimed that his forces had foiled a major terrorist attack on the US embassy, and that bags of guns and uniforms were found on the "mojahedin fighters".
There were inconsistencies in the story from the start. The police originally said they had been ambushed, but could not explain why seven heavily armed terrorists were killed, while the police received no injuries. They then changed their version of events to say that they had ambushed the terrorists to prevent them attacking the American embassy. But the inquiry found otherwise. The men were shot dead in cold blood. To cover their tracks, the police placed bags filled with guns and uniforms next to the bodies.
"I told him not to go," Fatima said, her last words to her son. "But he was determined and we'd sold our house to pay the smuggling agent." As she kissed her son goodbye she slipped two plastic copies of Koranic verses into the pocket of his coat. One was the Surah Yaseen, to keep him safe while traveling, and the other was the Naat De Ali, to give him courage - just as Catholic mothers would give their departing sons a symbol of St Christopher. Some of the other mothers had done the same. The Macedonian police would later claim the items were terrorist literature.
The deal with the smuggler was that 125,000 rupees (£1,250) would be paid when Ijaz made it to Turkey, and the remaining £2,500 when he arrived in Greece. Ijaz, with the other young men, had valid documents for Iran, but fakes for the trip from there through Turkey, Bulgaria, Macedonia and on to Greece.
Ijaz's family was already heavily in debt because he had made the journey the year before, only to be deported from Greece. But they thought he would be safe and, at worst, deported again.
The family rattled off the names of boys from the village who had made it: Ansar had a good job in a Milan factory, Mudassar was cleaning fish in Canada. Almost every family in the district has, or has attempted, to send someone to the west. "We are very poor," Fatima said. "The education our children get is not good enough to get a job. The only way is to leave. Life is good for the ones who have children in Europe and America. They have big houses and cars. They have money to marry their daughters, and then weddings like emperors. My husband died not long after my last child was born [her ninth]. My life has been very hard. Ijaz was so happy to be going to Europe. He would tell me how much money he was going to send home. He would say I would not have to sweep floors again."
A Pakistani human rights lawyer, Ansar Burney, raised money which allowed the six families to pay off their debts, and he fought a long battle with the Macedonian authorities to have the bodies returned to Pakistan. He has now lodged a claim with the international court of justice in The Hague for $2m (£1,118,000) compensation for each of the six families. He said he would also act for the family of the Indian worker killed in the attack.
"Who knows what other atrocities have been committed in the name of the war on terror," Mr Burney told the Guardian. "This whole affair has just been so incredibly evil." A spokesman from his office said the Pakistan government had been "unhelpful" when they first tried to get the bodies back from Macedonia. "Once they heard the word 'terrorist' they ran a mile. They didn't want to do anything that would upset the Americans."
In another village, not far from Fatima's, there are still more grieving families. "I have four daughters and only one of them is married," cried Rizia Bibi. Her son, Umar Farooq, 20, was killed. Rizwan Nawed, the brother of 22-year-old Subtain Nawed, who was also killed, said he had a cousin who made it to Greece more than 10 years ago and is now a shopkeeper. "His family has bought more land and a tractor and they can afford to send their children to schools that will get them to university," he said. "One person can change the life of all the people - it only takes one to get out and the future is paved with gold."
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004