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Ethnic tensions simmer in Pakistan

Pak militants kill 8 tribal elders

AFP, AP, Ghari Khuda Bakshdslamahad
At Benazir Bhutto's tomb the women wail "Wake up, Sindhi!" -but the country could add ethnic strife to its other woes if the people of Pakistan's southern province heed their call.
Sindh, the heartland of Benazir's opposition party, saw the worst of a wave of rioting that erupted after her assassination on December 27. leaving nearly 60 people dead and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage
Fuelling the anger of ethnic Sindhis - and feeding conspiracy theories -- was the fact that she died in Punjab province. Pakistan's richest and most populous prov ince and home to the military and intelligence establishment
Tensions between the array of ethnic and religious groups that call this nuclear-armed Islamic republic home have boiled over several times in its troubled history, but have been largely quiet for the past half decade.
There are fears however that in the run-up to Pakistan's delayed elections on February 18 the resentment among Sindhis -- and
attempts to capitalise on it by politicians in Punjab - - could stoke the fires of hatred again.
"Benazir Bhutto was the only leader who could unite the four provinces. Now there are chances of a civil war,” said Nazir Ahmad Arijo, a teacher paying his respects at the Bhutto family mausoleum in the village of Ghari Khuda Baksh.
"The evil forces are trying their level best to split Sindhis and Punjabis and give this tragedy an ethnic edge. They want to divide and rule, that is why they killed our leader," the32-ycar-old added.
Here when people talk of "the Punjab" it is often synonymous with the powerful army, dominated by Pakistanis from the central province.
It also expresses decades-old resentment against its economic and political clout, stemming from when the country's capital was moved from Karachi, the biggest city in both the province and the country, to Islamabad in the 1960s.
In Sindh the fury that saw hundreds of shops, banks and railway stations destroyed by mobs after Benazir died has eased, and many now are keen to downplay initial anger that saw some rioters chanting anti-Punjabi slogans.
"Many Punjabis were murdered with Mohtarma (honorific term for Bhutto) We don't feel anger," said fellow mourner Ishtiaq Ahmed. 20. referring to most of the 22 other people who died in the suicide and gun attack that killed her.
Meanwhile, suspected Islamic militants fatally shot eight tribal leaders involved in efforts to broker a ceasefire between security forces and insurgents in Pakistan's volatile northwest, authorities said yesterday.
The men were killed in separate attacks late Sunday and early Monday in South Waziristan, a mountainous region close to Afghanistan where al-Qaeda and Taliban militants are known to operate, a security official and the military said in a statement.
The suspected insurgents killed three of the men in a market in Wana, the region's main town, while the other five were killed in attacks on their homes, the security official said. The men were scheduled to meet each other on Monday in Wana to discuss the negotiations, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media.