The Geopolitics of Pakistan’s Shi’a Problem

One of the many paradoxes of the Persian Gulf is that, while Sunnis hold much of the political power in the region, Shi’a occupy the land that holds the region’s most strategic asset: its energy fields.

And so it is with Pakistan where the Punjab-dominated government recently faced large scale Shi’a protests in Balochistan after tragic sectarian bombings killed around 100 primarily ethnic-Hazara Shi’a, and injured more than 150 others. Islamabad has characteristically done almost nothing to combat the growing sectarian and ethnic violence in Balochistan as well in neighboring Sindh province. Last year was particularly stark; according to some estimates there were 173 incidents of sectarian violence resulting in 507 deaths in 2012 compared to just 30 incidents and 203 deaths the year before.

It was against this backdrop that the Shi’a rose up in protest after the most recent attacks, including by refusing to bury the bodies of those killed in the bombing. Surprisingly, the government quickly sprang into action by first suspending and, at the behest of the local Shi’a, dismissing the local governor. Additionally, Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf flew to Balochistan’s capital city of Quetta to meet with local Shi’a leaders. After holding meetings with these leaders, the government and the Shi’a reached a deal where the Shi’a agreed to end their protest in return for greater action against the anti-Shi’a militant groups that have terrorized them.

As Robert Kaplan and others have noted, Balochistan’s southern coastline, especially the city of Gwadar, has long been coveted by foreign influences owing to the fact that it was identified as suitable for hosting a deep water port back in the 1950’s.

For instance, the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was widely believed to be driven by Moscow’s desire to gain access to a warm water outlet in Gwadar. Following the Soviet Union’s collapse many of the schemes multi-national oil companies devised to export Caspian oil to Western markets envisioned the energy being transported by sea via Gwadar. In fact, PM Bhutto’s support for the Taliban’s rise in the 1990’s was partially driven by her desire to stabilize Afghanistan so Caspian oil could be transported through Afghanistan on its way to Balochistan.

Thus, the fact that the highest levels of violence in Pakistan outside the FATA are in Balochistan and the neighboring southern province of Singh should be a very large concern for Islamabad indeed.