Hazara
The Hazara (Persian: هزاره) are a Persian-speaking ethnic group residing in central Afghanistan (referred to as Hazarajat) and northwestern Pakistan. The Hazara are in central Afghanistan surrounded by the Uzbeks to the north, the Nuristanis and Pashtuns to the east, the Baluchi to the south and the Turkmen to the west.
The Hazaras are probably indigenous people mixed with Turks and Mongols. Their language is Hazara. The Hazara are predominantly Shia Muslims and are the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, comprising 24% of the population. Large numbers of Hazaras can also be found in the neighboring states of Iran and Pakistan, mainly as refugees, as well as in diasporas around the world. The Hazara are considered one of the most oppressed groups in Afghanistan, and their persecution dates back decades.
History
The inhospitable region of Hazarayat was independent in the 19th century, ruled by various local chiefs, with their own armies, in some cases as many as 2,000 men. The main chiefs were Mir Yazdan Bakhsh of Behsud, Mir Sadik Beg of Sarjangala and the chiefs of Jaghori, Sangi Takht and Miran. At this time, tributes began to be paid to the king of Afghanistan in exchange for free trade. In 1880, Abd el Rahman came to the Afghan throne and opted to subdue the region. Over 60% of the Hazara population was massacred or displaced during Abdur Rahman's campaign against them, resulting in 300,000 to 2.5 million deaths. More than 500,000 Hazaras fled to Iran and what is now called "Pakistan" and a smaller number fled north. The Hazaras were enslaved (thousands of Hazaras were sold into slavery) and many fled the country. Slavery was not abolished until 1923. For years the Hazara held a subservient position in 20th century Afghanistan.
The Hazaras have been politically organized since the 1960s, forming three factions: the Islamists, the base of what would later become the Hizb-e Wahdat party, whose leaders included four generals: Husain Ali, Khudaidad Hazara, Akbar Qasimí and Muhammad Asif. The second tendency was conservative and nationalist, and it was liquidated between 1978 and 1979 by the communists. The third group was communist or socialist, and among them the notorious Abdul Karim Mesaq (Finance Minister in 1978 and from the Khalk faction of the party), Sultan Ali Keshtmand, several times minister and between 1981-1988 prime minister (from the Parcham faction).) and others.
Elements close to Maoism and other radical positions were eliminated by the communists between 1978 and 1982. In March 1979 a rebellion in Hazarayat encouraged by Iranian agents (the Hazara are Shiites) allowed the population to take over some towns. On May 1, 1978, Bamiyan rebelled but the revolt was crushed although the rebels besieged the city while the rest of the country fell into rebel hands. The Hazaras of Kabul revolted on June 23, 1979 without success. Hundreds of Hazaras were arrested to prevent further rebellions.
In September 1979 an assembly of Hazarayat signatories, meeting in Panjaw, led to the creation of the Shura-e Itifaq (Council of the Union) to administer the Hazarayat, with Sayed Ali Behishti as its leader. The "Shura" he established his own administration, recruiting soldiers, collecting taxes, issuing identity cards and passports, and even established offices abroad (Pakistan and Iran). Administratively it was divided into 8 military districts and 36 civil districts. Most of the trained leaders of the "Shura" they were intellectuals and landowners; but the clerics took control, eliminated the landlords and executed many of them and several intellectuals. Thus control passed to pro-Khomeini clerics in Iran.
The Hazara in Kabul revolted again in February 1980 (She-e Hoot Uprising). Finally the revolt, which spread to several districts, was controlled. Various Islamist groups emerged: Harakat e Islami (founded in Iran in 1979) by Muhammad Asif Mohsini; Sazman-e Mujahidin-e Mustazafin (Organization of the Warriors of the Dispossessed) founded in Iran in 1979; the Sazman-e Nasr (Victory and Organization) founded in Bamiyan in 1979; the Sepah-e Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards Corps) of Muhammad Akbarí, founded in Iran in 1981; and Sheikh Buzoki's Hizbullah, founded in Iran in 1981; Ali Behistí was expelled from his headquarters in Waras (Ghor Province) under pressure from Sazman-e Nasr and Sepah-e Pasdaran in 19, and the new leadership of the country did not consider ethnic differences but religious ones. To discuss the future of the country, a large assembly met in Punjab, Bamyan, in 1988, and agreed to the creation of a national Islamic party, the Hizb-e Wahdat Islami Afghanistan (in Dari Hezb-e Wahdat Islami Afghanistan), under the direction of Abdul Ali Mazari.
After the Soviet withdrawal on February 15, 1989 and the establishment of Najibullah's policy of national reconciliation, the Islamic parties created an interim government (AIG) but the Shiite Hazaras did not participate if they were not given at least 20% of representation, for which they were excluded. Following the seizure of power by Islamic groups in 1992, President Burhanuddin Rabbani ordered the removal of Hazara strongholds on June 7, 1992, killing dozens of Shiite Hazaras. This led Mazarí to ally himself with Hekmatiyar, leader of the Hizb-e Islami (in Dari Hezb-e Islami ), who faced his rival Rabbani in a bloody struggle for power. In 1994, Rabbani accused the Hazara of causing the cholera epidemic in Kabul and launched an attack in Hazarayat, which was repeated in 1995.
Shia politicians, many of them Hazara allied with Rabbani, especially the Moshinid leader. In a climate of open confrontation between Rabbani and the Hizb-e Wahdat/Hezb-e Wahdat, with military fighting in Kabul, Mazari requested the cooperation of the Taliban leader Mullah Omar. He called Mazari to a meeting at his Gulbagh fiefdom, but once there he took Mazari and his companions prisoner and transferred them to Charasyab, near Kabul, where they were assassinated on (March 12, 1995). Mazarí was succeeded by Muhammed Karim Kalilí who reorganized the leadership of the party, and began an offensive that expelled the government troops of President Rabbani from Hazarayat in a few months (summer 1995). Since then the Taliban have barely been able to penetrate Hazarayat. Afghan Shiites were part of Rabbani's government, which only remained a few strongholds in the north, but the Hazara Shiites as a people remain de facto independent. The fall of the Taliban regime after the attacks of September 11, 2001 has maintained the situation.
Following the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021, which ended the war in Afghanistan, concerns grew that the Taliban regime would resume its persecution of the Hazara as it did in the 1990s. Niamatullah Ibrahimi, professor of international relations at Melbourne's La Trobe University, explained that despite reassuring appeals from the Taliban, "the Hazara fear that the Taliban will predictably reinstate the same policies of the 1990s. The Hazara played an important role during the democratic political process, within civil society and in human rights groups". International organizations have warned that, since the final offensive of the Taliban on Kabul in the summer of 2021, the episodes are being reproduced of ethnic cleansing on Hazara people, including women and children. All this has been causing a massive exodus of people of this ethnic group to countries like neighboring Pakistan.
Flag
Those who consider the Hazara people to be of Turkish origin adopted a flag with the Pan-Turkish color (light blue) with a white emblem, an acceptable flag also for those who consider the people to be of Mongolian origin, but the country uses a green flag with a white symbol.