The Khan-e-Kalat family has always been playing a dominant role in politics

Prince Karim, a provincial leader of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), has filed his nomination papers as an independent candidate. However, his aides say he is expected to get a PPP ticket. Prince Karim is not new in the political arena. He was previously elected to the Balochistan Assembly in 2008, and remained a minister in the cabinet of chief minister Nawab Aslam Raisani for about five years. However, he was a harsh critic of the chief minister throughout his tenure in the cabinet.

Prince Umer Daud Khan, the younger brother of the exiled Khan-e-Kalat Mir Suleman Daud Ahmedzai, has filed his nomination papers as an independent candidate on PB-37 (Kalat-cum-Soorab). Earlier, Umer was affiliated with PML-Q.

Royal ladies in the assembly

Prince Karim’s wife, Rubina Irfan, was also a member of the provincial cabinet, after being elected on a reserved seat for women in 2008. She belongs to the family of Nabi Bukhsh Zerhri and Qadir Bukhsh Zehri, a prominent industrialist and political family, which was affiliated with the Pakistan Muslim League in the 1960s.

Prince Irfan’s two sisters gained fame in the recent parliamentary history of Balochistan. One of his sisters, Shama Parveen Magsi, is the wife of Governor Nawab Zulfikar Ali Magsi, while the second sister, Rehana Baloch, is married to Prince of Kalat, Yahya Jan. Parveen, who is affiliated with the PPP, was also a provincial minister in the cabinet of chief minister Raisani from 2008 to 2013.

A look at history

Prince Agha Abdul Karim Baloch, father of Irfan Karim and younger brother of Khan-e-Kalat Mir Ahmed Yar Khan, had revolted against his brother’s decision of accession of Kalat State to Pakistan at the request of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah in 1948. Abdul Karim took refuge in Afghanistan to wage an armed resistance against Pakistan. However, he ultimately surrendered to Pakistan in 1950.

The Khan-e-Kalat family has always been playing a dominant role in politics. However, it had to face a tough time during the last two decades at the hands of JUI-F and the Zehri brothers.

Current Khan-e-Kalat, Mir Agha Suliman Daud, went into self-exile in the United Kingdom after the assassination of Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006 and decided to form a government in exile of Balochistan. Before that, he convened a grand jirga of all the notable tribal chiefs of Balochistan, Punjab and Sindh to discuss the situation particularly the killing of Akbar Bugti.

While it was unanimously decided that the Baloch would move the International Court of Justice for the restoration of the Kalat State in the light of the instrument of annexation, Mir Daud was eventually left alone in the struggle.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 22^nd, 2013.

Although Khans of Kalat introduced and developed the institution of army but as regards the recruitment of army men, there was no specific critarion. Every able-bodied tribesman was supposed to take up arms in an emergency. Major Pottinger in a visit to court of the Khan of Kalan in 1810, seeing a register reported Baloch armed strength to be 250,000 men.

Baloch people are patriarchal in nature. They pay a deference successively to their elders or headman, of the household (paro), tent or of the village, of the clan and of the tribe. These chiefs are the main custodian of the Baloch society. They are the martial administrator as well as judicial head. They enjoy distinct superiority over their fellows and are never challanged in their unlimited powers.

In this perspective of the Baloch society a chiefless tribe, if any, occupied in the lowest position devoid of any honor, safety and protection. The social tie among the members of one tribe implies unconditional sincerity to the members of clan fellow. The chief of a paro (sub-clan or family) is usually its eldest member and is known as Wadera. The chief of a clan known as Muqaddam or Tukkri is either nominated by the sardar (tribal chief) or is elected by the Waderas. However, this mostly use to be a hereditary institution and election or nomination is made from amongst the descendants of the former Mugaddam or Tukkri.

Mir Gul Khan, Akbar Bugti, Khair Bakhsh Marri, Sardar Ataullah and Mir Ghaus on the balcony Bakhsh during a NAP Rally at NAP Headquarters

The tribal chief or “Sardar” is always hereditary and is mostly the eldest son of a deceased Sardar. However, if the eldest son is undeserving or disliked, election amongst other sons or brothers of the deceased can be made. This election is made by Tukkries or Mugaddams. Once the election or nomination has been made it is unanimously accepted by all and for ever. It had been very rare that people have revolted against sovereignty of their chiefs.

The tribal system has given rise to the institution of Jirga. Jirga or its equivalents “Punchayat” of India or “Baradari” of India and Punjab had been an essential part of all primitive societies. In this ancient institution, elites gather together and dispose of the disputes of people in accordance with the prevailing customs, keeping in view, the seriousness of the crime and the respective faults of the parties. The decisions handed down by the Jirga (mostly Sardars) are fully respected by all members of the society and are fully enforceable.

Disputes with another tribe have always been a common feature of all tribal societies. The offence committed by an individual is considered to be committed by whole of the tribe and the affected one is not an individual but the whole tribe. It is responsibility of the Sardar or Tukkri to take revenge, on behalf of the tribe, even though the chief himself or his family members may not be directly affected.

The history of Balochistan is full of inter-tribal feuds, conflicts and disputes. Mostly tribal conflicts give rise to wars. The war between Mir Chakar of Rind tribe and Mir Gohram of Lashari tribe was also of the same nature. Raman, son of Gohram and Rehan, a nephew of Mir Chakar went to a horse race. As per decision of some Rind elders, Rehan was declared winner; Raman Lashari was not satisfied with the decision and thus attacked the horses of Gohar, a lady who had sought refuge with Mir Chakar Khan Rind. This attack was taken as an attack on Rind tribe and Lashari tribe was attacked in revenge. This led to wars extending for thirty.years and costing thousands of lives. In the recent past, Marri and Bugti tribes fought for twenty years, costing hundred and thirty lives. Similarly Bugti and Jakhrani tribes, in a feud of thirty years, lost two hundred lives.

The inter-tribal disputes have given rise to the institution of “Mairh” or “Marka”. Usually these feuds continue for years till either one party is completely destroyed or the party at fault realizes and accepts its crime. If crime is accepted, tribal elites of the accused side go to the elites of the other party to settle the issue. The elites of the other side either forgive them or impose a reasonable fine. The sending of tribal elites to the other party to settle an issue is known as Mairh. The importance of the institution of Mairh can be realized from the fact that twenty years long Marri-Bugti war was settled just in three days.

People of Balochistan have resisted enforcement of criminal procedure code or police administration, just because they feel a sense of security in this apparently backward system of Jirga and Mairh. Even by the mid-1990s, out of an area of 134,000 square miles, police system was applicable only to 220 square miles while rest of the Balochistan was ruled under the old system.

LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) central leadership finds itself in a fix after its Balochistan chapter president Sardar Sanaullah Zehri lodged an FIR against Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) chief over the murder of his son, brother and nephew.

Sanaullah Zehri. PHOTO: EXPRESS

Following the incident, the PML-N and BNP-M have stopped their negotiations and almost refused to sit again for seat adjustment in Balochistan.

PML-N Balochistan leadership has conveyed its message to party president Nawaz Sharif to either strike a deal of seat adjustment with BNP-M or save his party in Balochistan.

Zehri, while talking with The Express Tribune, said that when he joined the PML-N, he raised the party’s flag in the troubled province where he encountered tragic incidents, including the assassination of his young son, nephew and brother.

Sanaullah Zehri said that BNP-M, which spoke against the federation, is responsible for the killing of his beloved ones. He added that he does not understand why his party (PML-N) is keen on striking a seat adjustment deal with BNP-M.

In addition, Zehri indicated that if his party (PML-N) insists on joining hands with the killers of his family, then he would quit the party. Zehri added that Nawaz Sharif has to decide either to stand by the party or with groups who are against the country.

Seat adjustment

Prior to the attack on Zehri, PML-N and BNP-M had held only two meetings. According to details, Zehri, Lashkari Raisani, Yaqoob Nasir and Abdul Qadir Baloch represented PML-N while Dr Jahenzeb Jamaldini, Nawab Amanullah and Agha Hassan Baloch represented BNP-M.

Both parties discussed seat adjustment but could not arrive at a mutually acceptable formula.

A few days before the deadly attack, Nawaz Sharif had sent two senior party leaders, Mushahidullah Khan and Ayaz Sadiq with a mandate to strike a deal with BNP-M.

The officials said that both leaders supported seat adjustment and their next meeting was to take place shortly, but due to the attack, the dialogue process did not proceed.

Dr Jamaldini of BNP-M said that PML-N Balochistan leadership is divided and there are three hopefuls for the office of chief minister – Sanaullah Zehri, Lashkari Raisani and Changez Marri.

Zehri enmity

Sanaullah Zehri is the head of his tribe. However, Mir Amanullah Zehri announced himself as the chieftain of the Zehri tribe. Amanullah is an active member of BNP-M Central Working Committee.

Amanullah’s son Riaz Zehri was killed in 2009 by unidentified miscreants in district Khuzdar. He pointed fingers at Sanaullah Zehri for the tragic incident.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 23^rd, 2013.

Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province, is no ordinary piece of land; its geographical location and its untapped mineral reserves make it a target of special interest among players of regional politics including the US, India, former Soviet Union, UAE and even Afghanistan. All these countries have one converging interest in Balochistan; the province should become an independent state in their geo-strategic interests. Located very close to the oil lanes of the Persian Gulf and having a common border with Iran and Afghanistan, Balochistan is strategically very important. Commanding almost the entire coast of the country – 470 miles of the Arabian Sea, and boasting of a deep sea port recently completed with Chinese assistance at Gwadar, Balochistan comprises 43 per cent of Pakistan’s total area but is home to just over five per cent of the population, 50 per cent of which are ethnic Pakhtuns. Balochistan has always been ruled autocratically by sardars (tribal chiefs) who have kept their people backward, illiterate and deprived.

These sardars have been extorting billions each year from big corporations, federal government and equal billions in the name of development funds. They remain up in arms against the government to keep the funds flowing. Their other sources of funding are money from regional players channeled as donations. Mainly three sardars of Bugti, Marri and Mengal tribes have been in revolt against the federation from time to time. These sardars used to inflame nationalist sentiments and demand for greater provincial autonomy and control over the province’s natural resources developed into a demand for independence. The armed insurgent group,Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has been active in acts of terrorism to keep the province destabilized for various long-term and short-term objectives which serve the interests of sole civil power and the states under its influence.

According to Institute for Study of Violent Groups, BLA was formed in 1999 and has 500 active members. Like many guerrilla and terrorist groups, the BLA has a structure comprised of both paramilitary and cellular components. The majority of the organization is composed of various units assigned to different training camps under various leaders, but some are assigned to urban cells and are responsible for the planting of explosives and reconnoitering targets. Some of the cells are ad hoc and once a BLA member has completed a mission, he may return to his paramilitary unit. There is no shortage of weapons in Balochistan available to the militants; many are regularly supplied from across Pakistan-Afghanistan border courtesy a host of “consulates” established for this very purpose. Other weapons are left over from previous conflicts in Afghanistan.  Common weapons in the region include Russian Kalashnikovs, RPGs (rocket propelled grenades), and various types of land mines.

Pakistan has always asserted that an “outside hand” is playing a role in the Baloch insurgency, though conclusive determinations are difficult to come by. One of the most widely cited examples of outside aid occurred in 1973 when Pakistan authorities entered the Iraqi embassy in Islamabad and uncovered a small arsenal of weapons, including 300 submachine guns and 48,000 rounds of ammunition. Akbar Bugti extended a helping hand in dismissal of ANP government and was made governor as a reward. He is the one who supervised the worst military operation against the insurgents. The government claimed that the arms were destined for Balochistan; these accusations were never proven.

The BLA is not believed to have an organized recruitment effort in place; rather, the group is capitalizing on popular sentiment in the province and giving Balochs with nationalist tendencies a way to fight back at the government. The chief means of attracting poor, uneducated Baloch youths are the dozens of training camps believed to be in operation in the province. The group’s targeting and tactics are designed to reduce the economic incentive for the central government’s presence in the province.  Accordingly, sites where natural resources are harvested by the government are the most common target; these include natural gas pipelines and oil fields.  Soldiers and civilians working in government capacities in Quetta are also prominent targets, in addition to journalists.  The BLA has shown equal proficiency with both bombings and armed assault, though it appears that members prefer the use of RPGs as opposed to planted explosives, some of which appear to have been planted by younger members with little or no insurgency experience.

The insurgents and their sponsors may have disintegration of Pakistan and establishment of an independent state of Balochistan as their long-term objective but their short-term objectives are very clear; closing down of deep-sea port of Gwadar and failing Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project. India and UAE have direct stakes in the first objective whereas the US does not want to allow the pipeline project to go ahead. Gwadar port has both strategic and commercial implications for UAE and India. Chinese involvement in building the port, aimed at generating economic activity in Balochistan and facilitating the Chinese to import oil and raw materials from the Middle East and Africa and export goods through a land corridor extending from Gwadar to China’s Sinkiang province, became the sore of many eyes. An oil refinery in Gwadar and recovering huge mineral deposits in the province to serve as the precursor of another enormous economic opportunity – a trade corridor for Central Asia, particularly for its oil and gas.

Dissident sardars rose up in arms in an effort to destroy the project and its profound impact on Balochistan’s economy for fear of losing their hold on the people. In a sustained campaign, aided and abetted by outside interests opposed to Gwadar port, fears were expressed that this was an effort to colonize Balochistan. In this backdrop, a low intensity insurgency festered in Balochistan for a few decades now.

India began meddling in Afghanistan in the mid-1970s in the post-Bangladesh era. By fostering an insurgency, India tried the same model in Balochistan – exploiting the disaffection between the state and the dissident sardars. The aim was to deny Pakistan the energy resources, bleed it economically, and fragment it ultimately. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) – the most active insurgent group today, made its debut in 1973. Arms from the former Soviet Union found their way into the province and many insurgents were clandestinely trained and educated there. Down the road India became concerned at the development of Gwadar port which, besides making the Baloch people economically independent, was to be of strategic importance to the Pakistan Navy. India did not like the Chinese presence at Gwadar as this was to interfere with its desire of controlling the Indian Ocean region with its upcoming blue water navy. Leaders of Baloch insurgencies have publicly listed India among their sponsors. Brahamdagh Bugti, a BLA leader, said that he accepted assistance from India and Afghanistan to defend the Baloch nationalist cause.

Baloch Media Network quotes Wahid Baloch, President of Baloch Society of North America, as saying, “We love our Indian friends and want them to help and rescue us from tyranny and oppression. In fact, India is the only country which has shown concern over the Baloch plight. We want India to take Balochistan’s issue to every international forum, the same way Pakistan has done to raise the so-called Kashmiri issue. We want India to openly support our just cause and provide us with all moral, financial, military and diplomatic support.” Not to be left behind was the former RAW agent B. Raman who wrote this to Sonia Gandhi: “struggle for an independent Balochistan is part of the unfinished agenda of the partition”. With Afghanistan coming under US occupation, Mossad, MI6 and the CIA jumped into the fray with an agenda of Greater Balochistan, providing new partners to India.

Small pockets of local resistance mushroomed into organized foreign funded, armed groups, which were discretely supported by the three dissident tribal chiefs. As a hub for joint operations, India established a ring of 26 consulates along the Balochistan border in Afghanistan and Iran that began funding, training and arming the dissidents.

Interestingly, major stakeholders of insurgency are not the common people of Balochistan. The insurgent groups are led by the scions of the three rebel chiefs who are in line to succeed their aging patriarchs. The movement offers no substitute to the Sardari system. By creating instability through acts of terrorism they hope to chase the Chinese away and create obstacles for the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, which is opposed by Washington.

According to the analysis of Baloch Media Network, the selection of targets and use of modern weapons demonstrates quite clearly that the dissidents have been trained by military experts. Insurgencies of this magnitude cannot last without very large funds that the insurgents cannot raise on their own. According to an estimate the financial outlay for BLA alone is 50-90 million rupees per month. Reportedly, massive cash is flowing into their hands from Afghanistan through American defence contractors, CIA foot soldiers and free lancers. The Americans have developed an interest in Balochistan for several reasons. It is the only available route for transportation of oil and gas from Central Asian and Caspian Sea region after alternate routes via Russia or China were not found feasible. Then Balochistan itself had an estimated 19 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves and six trillion barrels of oil reserves in addition to gold, copper and other minerals, making it attractive for exploration. Like the Indians, the Americans also did not like the Chinese breathing down their neck in Gwadar – so uncomfortably close to the oil lanes of the Straits of Hormuz and the US bases in the Indian Ocean, although at no point did Pakistan and China contemplate Gwadar to become a Chinese military base. Balochistan shares a long border with Iran along Iranian Balochistan, which is inhabited by a large Baloch population.

Look at the demand of Baloch sardars which was accepted for political expedience; remove army cantonments and garrisons from Balochistan. The armed forces are virtually absent from Balochistan yet they are held accountable for act of brutality unleashed by the terrorists. The BLA have all the characteristics of a foreign funded terrorist organization. It has massacred thousands of innocent civilians simply in order to spread fear and keep the province destabilized to serve foreign interests. Its victims include Punjabi settlers and even Baloch youth itself. Its tactics are the very same employed by Mukti Bahini in East Pakistan insurgency. They kill, loot and vandalize in the garb of security agencies’ personnel and successfully manipulate the obliging media. Yet it has not been declared a terror outfit because it is sponsored by CIA, MI5 and RAW besides intelligence agencies of UAE and Afghanistan. The reasons are obvious.

Articles Source: http://urdumail.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/attack-on-zehri-convoy-baloch-separatists-out-to-sabotage-elections/

Footprints of India in Balochistan & Karachi

Under the garb of remedying political and economic grievances of East Pakistan, he formulated six points formula and fanned Bengali nationalism. Unearthing of Agartala conspiracy case in 1968 turned the secessionist into a hero in the eyes of Bengalis. Indian media was instrumental in lionizing Mujib.
Breakup of One-Unit Scheme, one-man-one-vote and change of separate electorate to joint electorate by Gen Yahya Khan so as to appease the agitating Bengalis gave the Awami League (AL) electoral victory in a platter. Year-long election campaign allowed Mujib to use high-handed tactics to not only intimidate the people of East Pakistan but also inflame Bengali nationalism. Indian media and secular Bengali intellectuals presented West Pakistan as a villain and publicized Mujib’s six point program as a panacea for all the problems of East Pakistan, which in actuality amounted to secession. All criminal and illegal acts of AL thugs were ignored under the policy of appeasement.
After sweeping the elections through massive rigging, Mujib and his henchmen became more arrogant and uncompromising. They stubbornly maintained that new constitution will be framed strictly in accordance with six points and refused to accommodate viewpoint of second largest party PPP. The situation became uncontrollable in Dacca on 1 March after Yahya unwisely postponed inaugural session scheduled in Dacca on 3 March on the insistence of Bhutto and hawkish Generals. It sparked horrible conflagration and let loose genie of Bengali nationalism.
On the afternoon of 3 March, Mujib demanded immediate return of troops to barracks and to hand over security of Dacca to him, or else his men would resist them. He also demanded cessation of flow of reinforcement from West Pakistan and disarming of non-Bengalis. Eastern Command Commander Lt Gen Sahibzada Yaqub capitulated to his wrongful demands, which was a blunder. Gen Gul Hassan said that to allow Mujib to restore calm was ‘somewhat like leaving a virgin in the care of a habitual rapist’.
A state within state was created and Bengalis took orders from Mujib only. Everywhere the chanting of ‘Joi Bangla’ could be heard. New Bangladesh flag was hoisted. Mujib’s hostile tantrums amounted to virtual independence. In order to provoke Gen Yahya to use force and thus give an excuse to start a popular civil war aided by India, a planned massacre of non-Bengalis including Biharis and pro-government Bengalis and rape of West Pakistani girls was unleashed. Their properties were torched and valuables looted. The madness continued till 25 March filling the roads and streets of Dacca and other major towns with blood. Stench of the dead bodies littered on the roads unattended became unbearable and it became difficult to breathe. Over 100,000 people, mostly Biharis were hacked to death. Stories of ‘torture to death’ are too horrifying and blood curdling to narrate and have been narrated in hundreds of books.
Non-Bengali and loyal elements butchery continued with unabated venom. None came to the rescue of the hounded. They were baffled and found themselves at the mercy of hounding wolves. They had no weapons to fend for themselves and no place to hide and as such got slaughtered like sheep. Even our media was blanked on the ill-conceived ground that broadcasting of atrocities would evoke a severe backlash against Bengalis in West Pakistan. The biased western media team located in Dacca turned a blind eye to the carnage of non-Bengalis. It also turned a blind eye to India’s meddling and induction of 90,000 Indian soldiers in West Bengal in March 1971.
The troops confined to barracks kept hearing the savageries committed on men in uniform and their families with impotent rage. Attacks on Army pickets were stepped up and the Army jeered at. Soldiers were spat upon and called Yahya dogs.
Sizeable number of men in Khaki and their families particularly those serving in East Pakistan Rifles (EPR) and East Pakistan Civil Armed Forces were hacked to death. By such acts, the Army was being deliberately provoked to lose patience and to take punitive action. This would have given Mujib and his henchmen a weapon to whip up anti-Army emotions thereby dubbing the Army as an occupation Army. It would have paved the way for civil war thereby fulfilling the requirement of India.
Yahya’s regime was subjected to extreme criticism for its procrastinating attitude and its passivity to confront Bengali defiance against the state. All those who mattered in West Pakistan and pro-Pakistan Bengalis exerted extreme pressure on President Yahya to take punitive action against the dissidents. Even Bhutto prodded him to use full force regardless of casualties before it was too late.
During the ten-day negotiations in Dacca in March 1971, Yahya team trying to find a way out of impasse remained totally defensive and apologetic and had no card to play. They kept giving in and got nothing in return. No political leader including Bhutto could soften up Mujib. The Mujib led team on the other hand maintained a highly belligerent and uncompromising posture. It was amply clear that AL simply didn’t want a constitutional agreement conducive to the retention of national identity. His mentors had briefed him not to agree on any point or concession offered at any cost.
Matiur Rahman in his book ‘Bangladesh Today’ writes, ‘It was indeed most mind boggling to note that while Yahya Khan and his team persistently offered power to Mujib, the latter constantly hedged, refused to agree to any settlement, shifted his position from six points and refused to accept any formula within the framework of a united Pakistan’. Mujib had made up his mind to part ways and that too through violent means.
It was on the evening of 24 March 1971 when Yahya got convinced that Mujib didn’t want anything short of confederation that he gave green signal to Gen Tikka Khan to save the federation. Orders to unit commanders were passed verbally on the morning of 25th March. The toughest challenge was in Dacca where the outcome of crackdown would have decided the fate of East Pakistan. The city and its suburbs housed heaviest concentration of armed rebels followed by Chittagong. As per foreign press reports, there were 200,000 weapons with the militants in East Pakistan.
Despite extremely heavy odds, the troops numbering 12000 went into action and by early morning of 26th, Dacca was cleared of miscreants and in next few days all other critical towns were also taken over since the rebels had fled. Reinforcement from West Pakistan were rushed in only when it was found that EBR, EPR and Police had also rebelled and rebellion had got transformed into a well-planned civil war supported by India.
When the prejudiced foreign journalists were ousted from Dacca by Gen Tikka, the jilted journalists got settled in Calcutta and played into the hands of Indian media. Indo-western-AL media cooked up fabricated stories of all kinds of atrocities and quoted highly bloated figures of those killed in Army action on 25th March and subsequently. All this was done to smoke-screen the large-scale atrocities committed by AL urchins and anti-social elements. The next round of killings and rapes was undertaken by Mukti Bahini after 23 November 1971, later joined by Indian forces. Raping of Bengali girls and women at a mass scale was undertaken by Indian Army and BSF soldiers in the refugee camps in India during their confinement period of over nine months.
It is ironic that today the AL led government at the behest of India is demanding apology from Pakistan for the so-called war crimes, and is convicting aged Jamaat-e-Islami members through Kangaroo courts, who had played their honorable part to save their motherland, but is completely ignoring the barbarities of its own members against Biharis and West Pakistanis and their collaboration with hostile India.
Can we notice the footprints of India in Balochistan and in Karachi where quite a few similarities with former East Pakistan crisis can be discerned? Are we alive to the two brewing lavas which are primed to burst? The only thing which probably has frustrated the designs of our adversaries is that the Army kept itself aloof. Hence the story of ‘genocide’ couldn’t be played. ‘Missing persons’ story played up in Balochistan didn’t prove so tantalizing to evoke an international outcry, particularly when ground checks negated the stance of propagandists.
(The writer is a retired Brig, a defence analyst and a columnist)
asifharoonraja@gmail.com

Thursday, January 17, 2013 – Balochistan is the west-most province of Pakistan. It is the largest province with regard to the territory it consists of but the smallest with regard to the number of its population. Balochistan is also the least developed province of this country though it is the richest province if we look at the natural and mineral resources available there, known and yet undiscovered. Still the poor conditions of its population caused by their own tribal leaders, and the negligence by the federal government made it and so far remain a province in turmoil throughout.

The 1952 discovery of natural gas at Sui in east Balochistan only compounded matters. Balochis saw little dividend from their natural wealth and political alienation led to full-blown conflict in the 1970s that saw direct military rule imposed on the province. The strategic situation of Balochistan bordering Iran and Afghanistan and its long coastline promising access to the Arabian Sea from the very beginning has drawn foreign attention and interference of the world powers with rumours floating about some planned geographical changes. Soviet Union was trying to find their access to ‘warm waters’ here since the seventies and the CIA has had its hand in it ever since. After two decades of relative calm, increased gas exploitation and political backsliding from Islamabad fanned the flames of discontent again. Taking advantage of this ‘hidden hands’ created turmoil in a situation when Islamic militancy offered itself as a vehicle to anybody who would pay. In 2004 a new circle of violence started when on Ashura 13 people were killed and many injured in an attack on the ashura procession as a revival of anti-Shia attacks. A new insurgency broke out again in 2005. Widespread violence was only temporarily halted by the brutal killing of the Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti a year later, and the calamity of the huge floods that swept Balochistan in the summer of 2007.

Since then the Balochistan problem has never received proper attention of the current government. The weak PPP government and its adhoc governance that took a heavy toll of all provinces proved lethal for Balochistan. Though killing and especially anti-Shia violence was going on no action was taken. When the Supreme Court took suo moto notice of the situation and gave a verdict that the provincial government of Nawab Raisani is not functioning properly and should be dismissed, again the federal government did nothing and allowed the crisis to go on and deepen further. The imposition of governor’s rule in the restive province of Balochistan of yesterday is a clear indication of the inability and incapability of the federal and provincial governments to do their job and provide law and order to the people, protect their lives and properties and prevent a further deterioration of the political and security situation in the whole of Pakistan. It shows also that the Supreme Court’s verdict that had been delivered some months ago was right in terming the Raisani government a failure and demanding its immediate removal. The implementation of this Supreme Court verdict – as of so many others- has been avoided by the federal government. Instead they allowed Raisani and his companions not only to hang on but to take a fresh vote of confidence to sideline the Apex court verdict and are therefore, morally and legally responsible for the death and destruction that has taken place not only four days ago, but since the issue of the verdict on Balochistan.

The situation in Balochistan is another proof of the incapability of the PPP to rule this country. The insincerity of the PPP has allowed the situation to deteriorate to this point which is endangering not only Balochistan but Pakistan as a whole. It also shows that Islamic militancy that has been surging under the influence of the American war in Afghanistan, and Pakistan’s alignment with it has now gone out of hand. Foreign funding to fan sectarian feelings helped some extremist and terrorist forces with their determination to pursue their nefarious designs, their organization and discipline and their access to weapons and explosives have defeated the hapless, outnumbered and untrained security forces be it police or FC or otherwise, whatever measures to restore normalcy were taken half heartedly have proved counterproductive so far.

And even today it is unique to see that the country is ruled by the Bhutto/Zardari dynasty, who claim to be Shias themselves; still hundreds and thousands of Shias have been killed mercilessly in this country all over with the Shia killing in Quetta, only the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The three days long dharna with more than 85 coffins containing the dead bodies of their slain relatives raised the people of Pakistan to support the plight of the Hazara community of Quetta that is the plight of the whole nation.

There is no justification left for PPP-led coalition government to stay in power, to claim to represent the will of the people. It is there callousness that today people have to sit in the street with the dead bodies of their murdered relatives in their laps to demand justice in Quetta. Thousands have joined in Karachi, in Lahore and other places all over Pakistan. A long march is underway to support these demands for a change in present political system to save the state of Pakistan, not only change the government but change the leadership of this country. The schools were closed in Karachi and Islamabad and people felt hesitant to leave their homes even for business on Monday. The federal capital Islamabad is under siege and the mobile services are switched off throughout. Is this what a well-governed country looks like? If the ruling junta had little concern for the well being of Pakistani nation and not only for protecting their personal ego an amicable settlement would have been possible long ago.

The causes of grievances in Balochistan are twofold. On one side there are tribal leaders who want no socio-economic development in the area; on the other side is the government, which is reluctant to go against tribal leaders and prefers to doll out annual development funds among the ministers and members of provincial assembly to retain power and complete their tenure. Democracy which the rulers consider as indispensable has totally failed to deliver peace and prosperity to the large majority of the citizens and the ongoing turmoil from East to West and North to South is before every naked eye in Pakistan. Grievances among the people of Balochistan have not been addressed for the last few decades. So far common Balochis have seen little dividend from their natural wealth and their political demands are real and just. That has led to growing support for any revolutionary movement in the whole of Pakistan and to the welcoming of any savior for the nation however dubious he might be. After 66years of fruitless experiments with ‘democracy’ of feudal lords, a benevolent despot seems to be the only answer to resolve the present and the longstanding crisis without loss of a moment because time waits for none. God bless Pakistan.

Balochistan is a land blessed by nature but ravaged by the emphatic greed and criminal empathy of man. With its natural resources worth hundreds of billions of dollars it ranks amongst the world’s potentially richest regions, but its inhabitants live in abject poverty. Over 63 percent of its population languishes under the poverty line, 85 percent have absolutely no access to clean drinking water, and 70 percent have never seen the inside of a school. Natural gas from its fields powered the industrial and development juggernaut of the country for decades, yet it remains the country’s most under developed federating unit. It saw at least two major military actions (locals count six) against the people when they agitated for their rights. As if all this was not bad enough, those raising voices against this injustice have been going ‘missing’ by the hundreds. Consequently, the locals have turned upon ‘settlers’ who are predominantly of Punjabi origin, in a bid to settle scores with what they perceive as the oppressive Punjab-dominated establishment. Balochistan is caught in a vicious cycle of violent lawlessness.

The possibility of its breaking away never loomed larger. Can Balochistan be saved? Rather, can Pakistan be saved by resolving the Balochistan crisis? Yes, provided our political leadership adopts Balochistan as a numero uno priority, thinks prudently rather than emotionally, and moves without wasting another single day.

A day in Balochistan’s life is a lot more than a typical 24-hour time band. It is a lifetime. Another person could go ‘missing’, further stoking the fires of hatred and disenchantment. A day could see one more settler losing his life, or property, adding to the crippling climate of insecurity and fear. We have wasted enough days already.

The government must start talking, and to everyone. Even those elements, who currently have no desire to engage with the government must be approached. It will even have to talk to players who ostensibly have nothing to do with the crisis. We have a situation where one segment of insurgents is motivated by genuine grievances while another is pushing ‘foreign’ agendas for self-serving vested interest.

Balochistan, unfortunately may no longer be a purely internal matter of Pakistan, as put by Prime Minister Gilani in his latest interaction with newspaper editors. The premier went into a huff when asked about the inevitability of engaging India, Afghanistan and the United States to end their meddling in Balochistan by withdrawing their overt and covert support for the insurgents. Spewing the usual rhetoric about the US Congress Committee on Foreign Affairs “crossing the red line” by discussing Balochistan, the PM thundered that there was no need to talk to “any outsider”. If only life were that simple.

2012 is not the 70’s when a similarly strong insurgency had petered out. Then, the Baloch insurgents pouring into Afghanistan had not received tangible support either from Afghanistan, the Soviet Union or the Americans. This time it is different. India has jumped into the fray, a payback for our 90’s jihad in Kashmir, amongst other considerations. And it is not just financing the insurgency movement in Balochistan, it is also investing billions of dollars in Afghanistan and influencing Pakistan’s increasingly anti-Pakistan narrative. Afghanistan for its own part is unhappy because it perceives us to be promoting anti-Kabul elements. The US is peeved because of our certain stances in the ongoing war on terror. Whether they are correct from Pakistan’s national perspective is not the question here. The ease of international travel, sustenance, and critical exposure of ‘Baloch rebel leaders’ at critical global forums could not have been possible without the active support of the United States.

Foreign players are fishing in the troubled waters of Balochistan. We need to start clearing our own waters to minimise such exploitative opportunities. We must foster a conflict free environment and create a convergence of interests with the interfering powers. To have peace in Balochistan, it is imperative that we have peace in and with Afghanistan. That India and Pakistan move away from a destructive narrative to a constructive dialogue. There has to be more profit in peace than in acrimony. And the US too must gain more from playing with us rather than against.

The prime minister would be naïve to believe that the Balochistan crisis was altogether bereft of external influences and could be resolved without courting the foreign players active in the background. When Khair Biar Murree openly states that the Baloch would rather be dependent on the Americans than Punjabis, then there is clearly an underlying reality, which must not be ignored.

First of all, however, we need to start putting our own house in order. All political stakeholders must be aggressively pursued and be brought back into the Balochistan dialogue. To cite one example, Akhtar Mengal was the chief minister Balochistan during Nawaz Sharif’s power days in Islamabad but today he is living in exile in the UAE, forced into adopting a separatist stance by the compulsion of circumstances. Everyone like him, the Bugtis, Murrees etc must be made a stakeholder in the system otherwise they will naturally favour carving out their own new system based on a ‘new’ Balochistan.

The government should also announce a general amnesty. Surely questions will arise about differentiating between crimes against the state and the citizens (read: settlers) but the government could take care of that part through generous compensations. It would not be an ideal solution for the grieved but compromises may have to be made for the country’s larger good, and that is why it is essential that such compensations are extremely generous.

Will development initiatives and amnesty bring insurgents down from the hills and back from Afghanistan and spell success? No, because a pull factor alone will not work in Balochistan as it must be complemented by the push factor, which I’ll discuss a little later. Development work must begin in earnest. Immediate additional resources and incentives must be allocated for Balochistan. The multi-billion-rupee Aghaz-e-haqooq-e- Balochistan package never realised its potential and nobody knows what happened to the Rs250 million development funds given to every member of Balochistan assembly. This trend must cease. Excellent recommendations have been made by different parliamentary commissions on Balochistan, which if implemented would yield immense political dividends.

The rule of the FC must give way to the rule of law. The only thing that should go missing from Balochistan is lawlessness, and not its people. The nature of resistance is always decided by that of the oppression. For a positive and meaningful change to happen, Pakistan will have to change its own paradigm of being a security state to a secure one.

A strong pull factor could be created but it cannot deliver without the push factor involving Afghanistan, India and the United States. The spectre of an independent Balochistan, with its strategically located long coastline and trillions of rupees worth natural wealth, is too tempting an option for the agitating elements to give up without ‘persuasion’. The public and international face of this insurgency is none other than the younger crop of the traditional ruling sardars and chieftains, used to being the most important stakeholders in the power equation. They will only come back to the negotiating table if deprived of the material and political support of their international backers. And India, Afghanistan and the US will create this critical push factor only if Pakistan develops mutually beneficial bilateral relations.We need the three to end their open and secret support for the insurgents and thus push the angry Baloch leadership towards an honest and fair dialogue with the Pakistan government.

Is Baluchistan the next Bangladesh?

I believe to the contrary Pakistan has shot itself in the foot, which is bound to be effectively capitulated from the hip once the full gangrene sets in. Baluchistan was believed to be under full control of Pakistani army and an indivisible part of Pakistan. Not any more the world and in particular the ever growing enemies of Pakistan are smelling the rat. And are bound to dig deeper to expose what is really happening in Quetta.  Let us not forget that once the Iranian Baluchistan gets connected to the problem, a whole new liberation movement will erupt on the horizon, then how would Pakistani Army convince Americans that they need more funds to quell the justified rebellion?

Manmohan has taken the getaway route of no dialogue once the declaration is printed in black and white but the Baluchistan sentence is now struck firmly relegating Kashmir into a darkest alley. And another world is now waking up to see what Baluchistan is all about, exactly like what is happening in the Chinese grab deal in Urumchi of former East Turkmenistan.

Quetta and Urumchi are now firmly interlinked on the rebellion for Independence map.

Unbelievably, the words of Barack Obama are definitely proving to be an accelerating catalyst inspiring the lowest ranks of miserably oppressed populations of Central Asia. They are beginning to believe in what he says.

How ironic that China and Pakistan, both supporters of each other’s policies and who are amongst some of the most oppressive regimes of poor playing on religious and ethnic cards to hang on to power, are both facing the dawn of new reality together.

We know that Pakistanis are now fighting the Pakistani Army everywhere in their own country quite conveniently labelled as religious extremists under the guise of fooling Americans but is it really true that their only identity is born and bred Islamic terrorists? Not at all.

It will be too late before the world realises that in reality this is the war between the oppressed and the oppressor with religion and ethnic unrest used to camouflage to quell a mighty rebellion into making.

The revolution will need only one Bastille of Baluchistan and East Turkmanistan to ignite and just wait and see how the chinks of the Armour fall out of both China and Pakistan.

Since the high profile hearing on September 27, 2012, where Mr Akhtar Mengal presented his six-point roadmap for peace and stability, 109 innocent civilians and political activists have been killed along with four journalists.

Although the conflict in Balochistan has shattered the lives of ordinary citizens, it is an undeniable fact that ‘organised chaos’ has overwhelmingly empowered paramilitary forces and intelligence agencies. In fact, there is an undeclared emergency in the province, where the Baloch political process has been systematically stagnated and criminals and extremists are allowed to flourish and take control of society.

Despite the Supreme Court’s efforts and intentions, it seems unlikely that Balochistan’s bloodletting will stop in the near future. Since the Constitution is regarded as a mere piece of paper and overlooked by the ‘supreme authority’, i.e., the military establishment, the Court’s order will not discourage perpetrators of human rights violations to get away with their destructions.

Nevertheless, in Balochistan, the majority of the populace is discontented with the state system and its institutions. In such an environment, where distrust between the Baloch and Islamabad is high — the Balochistan National Party’s (BNP) leader, Akhtar Mengal, took a very courageous political decision to briefly end his prolonged self-exile so as to facilitate delivery of speedy justice to the victims of a decade-long conflict.

The BNP chief was overloaded with facts and truths about the endless miseries of the Baloch people by the militarised state and about the gross human rights violations of his people by the non-Baloch security apparatus.

Despite Balochistan’s small population, countless Baloch political leaders have been produced before civil and military courts as ‘traitors’ and offenders, thereby incarcerated because of their political opinion. Nevertheless, this was the first time in the history of Balochistan-Pakistan relations that a political leader from Balochistan, accompanied by 40 senior Baloch-Pashtun leaders, appeared in the Court as a complainant against the state rather than as a culprit.

Along with Akhtar Mengal’s verbal statements, the BNP submitted a comprehensive nine-page declaration and a 70-page dossier in the Supreme Court on September 27. Both statement and dossier encompass historic facts about the troubled relation between Balochistan and Pakistan, including details of systematic political, economic and human rights violations in their homeland. Akhtar Mengal talked passionately and factually before the Supreme Court about Balochistan’s state of affairs, including the epidemic of enforced disappearances of political activists.

The honourable chief justice and judges graciously received Mr Mengal and repeatedly indicated that Baloch leaders have shown respect for the rule of law and reminded the federation (government) to respond likewise. However, despite the Court’s meaningful advice to the federation (civil-military establishment), it has struck back with repeated rhetoric. The federal government injudiciously denied all charges of proxy death squads, military operations, missing persons and displaced Baloch.

Although the BNP’s six-point confidence building measures are not a recipe for permanent peace, if implemented, they could lead to a conflict-resolution process. Peace prospects between the Baloch and Islamabad are swiftly fading. The Supreme Court’s slow motion process is unlikely to dent the establishment’s anti-Baloch policy. The purposeful killing of moderate Baloch political activists will continue unabated until the establishment achieves its objective of a Baloch-less Balochistan.

To bask in a false sense of patriotism and observe silence on the injustices meted out to the Baloch is a grave crime not only against the federation of Pakistan but also against humanity. Apparently, the Pakistani version of patriotism is to oppose the arrival of the UN delegation on enforced disappearances but not to evaluate the reasons for unrest in Balochistan.

In its 10-day mission, the UN delegation is to appraise the efficacy of measures adopted by Pakistan to ‘prevent and eradicate enforced disappearances and issues related to truth, justice and reparation for the victims’. In this mandate, many quarters must have uttered a sigh of relief that the delegation is not here to probe into enforced disappearances, recover the missing persons alive, and lay blame on someone. Nevertheless, the report of the UN delegation (which will be published in 2013) may act as a preamble to the next inquiry conducted under the auspices of the UN. Pakistan has receded to such a point of shame!

The efficacy of the measures undertaken is a secondary issue; it is not known to Pakistanis what preventive measures the government has put in place to discourage enforced disappearances in Balochistan. Similarly, Pakistanis do not know what measures are being adopted by the government to eradicate the tendency of enforced disappearances in Balochistan. Nevertheless, it is known that the government is handicapped in reining in the intelligence agencies. Similarly, it is known that the Frontier Corps (FC) functional in Balochistan is answerable to none except the military high command. The IG FC chooses not to appear before the Supreme Court and even does not bother to meet the UN delegation by extending one excuse or another. If his hands are clean, he should welcome any summons from the court and any delegation from the UN.

Frequent martial laws are the bane of the democratic system of Pakistan. Frequent military operations in Balochistan are the bane of federalism. Symptoms abound indicating that Balochistan is not recovering from the morass it was thrown into. The era of General Pervez Musharraf put the last nail in the coffin of alienation of the Baloch from Pakistan. Instead of handling the situation adroitly, Musharraf inflicted atrocities on the Baloch. The killing of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti in fact ruined the prospects of peace in Balochistan. If someone could tell Musharraf what an act of injustice he did to Pakistanis. The Baloch now hate the non-Baloch and ethnic nationalism has gripped Baloch society. Never before (the year 2000) had Pakistan witnessed such a sense of estrangement in the Baloch. If the hands of Musharraf are clean, why is he an absconder? He should present himself before the Balochistan High Court, face a trial and get his name cleared from the allegation of the assassination of Nawab Akbar Bugti.

The media (both electronic and print) is instrumental in criticising the visit of the UN delegation by deeming it interference in the internal matters of Pakistan. The question is, can the media visit Balochistan and report from the ‘no-go area’ of Dera Bugti? To anchor a TV talk show from Islamabad is one thing and to report from Balochistan is entirely a different thing. Similarly, to be a toady of the military establishment and write columns is one thing and to give a voice to the pains of the Baloch is utterly a different proposition. Does any anchorperson or columnist have the courage to speak and write the truth for the Baloch?

In the current scenario, only the Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry has been trying to listen to the grievances of the relatives of the missing Baloch and trying to address the matter. Nevertheless, it was expected of Justice (Retd) Javed Iqbal, who is heading a judicial commission on the missing persons, to work objectively but he seems to have been swayed by the forged narrative of ‘all is well in Balochistan’. If Justice Javed stands in cahoots with the military establishment and narrates the version of the intelligence agencies, what was the purpose of instituting the commission? Justice Javed is doing no service to the task assigned to him.

The issue of the missing Baloch is serious because it is promoting ethnic discontent in Pakistan. In a way, the issue is a product of policy failure. Instead of diluting the borders between different ethnic identities and instead of cementing ties between provinces and the Centre, the policy of enforced disappearances has actuated polarisation. In principle, after more than sixty years of Pakistan’s existence, the inter-ethnic and inter-provincial bonds should be voluntary. However, owing to the use of force, in place of dialogue and political reconciliation, the forces of ethnic and provincial discontent are strengthening. The blame for this phenomenon lies on both the military establishment and the civilian administration (including parliamentarians). Hence, the agitation of parliamentarians on the arrival of the UN delegation does not make sense. Instead, they should have condemned the policy of the military to handle Balochistan.

Has Pakistan degenerated to the extent that it is ensuring its existence by making its citizens missing? If yes, it means that inter-ethnic and inter-provincial bonds have turned involuntary in nature. If such is the case, it means that Pakistan is making a last ditch effort for its survival.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com

BALOCH IN IRAN A NATIONAL QUESTION, Nasser Boladai

Ladies, gentlemen, on behalf of the Balochistan People’s Party and the Baloch nation, I would like to express our heartfelt thanks and profound gratitude. We appreciate the opportunity to share with you and the world a solution, which in our view, would result in solving the plight of our oppressed Baloch and other nations in Iran.

Background

Balochistan, “the country of the Baloch” is presently form part of three territorial states of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan .

Historically, the British occupation of Baloch State of Kalat in 1839 was perhaps the greatest event and turning point in Baloch history. From the very day British forces occupied Kalat, the Baloch destiny changed dramatically. The painful consequences for Baloch were the partition of their land and perpetual occupation by foreign forces.

In 1849, an Iranian army defeated Baloch forces in Kerman and captured Bumpur. The Baloch political status was changed radically in later decades, when in 19th century the British and Persian Empires divided Balochistan into spheres of influences, between the British Empire in India and the Persian Kingdom. The Anglo-Afghan wars and subsequent events in Persia in respect of “the great game” played out between Tsarist Russia and the British Empire further marginalized the Baloch people.

The Baloch Resistance
The Baloch in Western Balochistan have been in constant revolt against the domination by and chauvinistic policy of Iranian governments.

Balochistan in Iran is one of the most strategic areas in the Middle East, South and Central Asia. It has a large coast in the Arab Sea and Persian Gulf; it also borders Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is the homeland of the Baloch people, with distinct national identity from Persian the dominant nationality in Iran. The Baloch are discriminated against because of their nationality and because they speak a different language than the Persian and majority are none Shiite the regime in practice treat Baloch people as third class citizens. Due to discrimination and the assimilation policy of Iranian regime, Baloch people struggle for cultural economical and political rights.

Instead of accepting the national, cultural and economical rights, the Iranian government has historically consider Baloch demand for cultural, social, political and economical right as a national security problem and a threat to national integrity hence it has militarized Balochistan and pursue a policy of suppression, and marginalization. In the recent years regime has transferred security and governance to Revolutionary Guards in Balochistan.
The cost of the Iranian regimes chauvinistic policies which has been manifested by militarization of Balochistan and in the recent years complete control of Revolutionary Guards over Balochistan has resulted in insecurity in all spheres cultural, economic, social and political life for Baloch people.
ARBITRARY ARREST, TORTURE, JUDICIAL PROCEDURE AND EXECUTION
The death penalty continues to be applied in political cases, where individuals are commonly accused of “enmity against God”. In August 2007, Amnesty International noted that a disproportionately large number of executions in Iran that year were of Baloch citizens (50 out of 166).

In addition to many security forces and intelligent agencies, a paramilitary group, ‘Mersad’ meaning ambush, which operates under direct order of Iran’s supreme leader Khamanei, is also active in Baloch areas. What differentiates this group from others is its licence to kill. They choose their victims randomly, creating a sense of insecurity in Balochistan, especially among young men. For this group the whole of Balochistan has become a hunting ground. It has been responsible for many shootings and beatings in Balochistan.

the head of Mersad, once has said: “We have not been given orders to arrest and hand over those who carry weapons. On the basis of a directive we have received, we will execute any bandits, wherever we capture them (Ettela’at, 25 February 1998)”.

Imminent execution of Baloch Political Prisoners
The latest report from Iranian official news and human right organizations indicates that after summarized courts procedure, 8 Baloch political prisoners have been sentences to death. According to “Human Rights and Democracy Activists in Iran” [1] they risk imminent execution. Two of the sentenced prisoners were teenagers at the time of their arrest; they were detained by Intelligence service and after enduring months of physical and psychological torture by interrogators from the Ministry of Information were forced to make televised confessions against themselves.

LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL DISCRIMINATION IN THE MEDIA
According to Hamid Reza Haji Babai, the Education Secretary, 70% of students starting school in Iran do not have Farsi as their mother language and do not successfully learn the language after first years in school.52 He expresses concern that this creates inequality and provides for fewer opportunities in competition with Farsi speaking children.

Human Rights Watch has documented that “the repression of Balochi language and Baloch culture out of fear that movement for greater Balochistan would endanger the territorial integrity of the Iran predates the Islamic republic. Mohammad Reza Shah had banned the use of the Balochi language and prohibited the wearing of Balochi National dress in schools. The publication of Balochi books and magazines and newspapers was a criminal offense”. Human Rights Watch further emphasises that “the Islamic Republic has done nothing to reverse these trends”.

RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION
Article 12 of the constitution states: “The official religion of Iran is Islam and the Twelve Ja’fari School of Thought and this principle shall remain eternally immutable”. This explicit endorsement of a school of Shia Islam alienates the Kurds, Turkmen, Baloch, and Ahwazi Arab, who practice Sunni Islam. Tehran has a population of 1 million Sunni Muslims, but planning permission for a Sunni mosque has yet not been granted. Article 115 excludes non-Shias from holding the office of the republic’s president.

A widely used practice, which discriminates against ethnic Sunnis and other religious minorities, is “Gozinesh”, meaning “selection”. Gozinesh is an ideological test requiring candidates for particular governmental jobs to demonstrate allegiance to Shia Islam and the Islamic Republic of Iran including the concept of Vilayat-e Faghih (Governance of Religious Jurist), a concept not adhered to by Sunnis. The use of this practice effectively excludes the majority of Baloch, Turkmen and Kurds from employment within the government and, in some cases, within the private sector. Some applicants to universities are also subjected to Gozinesh.
Iranian government has been trying to control Sunni seminars and force them to teach the concept of Valayat Faghi, to emphasis Valayat Faghi as the highest leader of the Muslim World in their teachings. This has been resisted by Sunni teachers in Balochistan, to suppress the religious freedom further, regime have since March 2012 arrested 15 religious activist which have led to protest in Balochistan in which one people was killed, in May 14.
ECONOMIC DISCRIMINATION
Mahmud Khalatbary, who served as Director General of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), in a discussion with Selig S. Harrison recalled that: “In CENTO, we always assumed that the Baloch would attempt to create their own independent state some day, with Soviet support, so it was desirable to keep them as politically weak, disunited, and backward as possible.”

According to the Governor General of the Provincial Social Department in Balochistan in June 2005, the “Sistan-Balochistan province despite of its richness and geographical advantages is the least developed area of the country” .

The Guzenesh process is one of the reason that unemployment among the Baloch youth is very high, while there are competence for the vacant jobs locally in Balochistan government use Guzenesh to exclude Baloch from job and fill the vacancy by none Baloch from other parts, who can pass the Guzinesh.

Human Rights Watch also reported that the Baloch “constitute one of the poorest and least developed communities in Iran” .
POLITICAL REPRESENTATION OF MINORITIES
No Baloch has ever served as a minister of cabinet or as an ambassador. The number of the Baloch in the provincial administration of Balochistan is no more than five percent of the total civil servants. The United Nations Committee on Racial Discrimination “expresses concern at the low level of participation of persons from, Arab, Azeri, Balochi, Kurdish, Baha’i, and certain other communities in public life.

Forced assimilation

Successive Iranian governments have been engaged in demographic manipulations to systematically reduce the Baloch people to a minority in their own homeland. In its 1997 report on the plight of the Baloch Human Rights Watch stated, ‘the administrative and political districts were arranged so as to avoid the creation of any Balochi majority provinces, thus preventing locally elected officials’; and ‘a systematic plan has been set in motion by the authorities to specify the region by changing the ethnic balance of major Balochi cities such as Zahdan, Iranshahr, Chahbhar and Khash’.
RESOLVING THE BALOCH NATIONALA QUESTION
Balochistan People’s Party is a Democratic Party. It struggles to achieve the Baloch people’s sovereignty within the federal Democratic Republic in Iran. It has formulated a federal democratic framework which envisages a system based on parity of constituent parts. In which constituents borders within Iran will be redrawn according to the language, history and people’s wishes. The new republics will have equal rights in all spheres of power.

To achieve sovereignty and national self determination for the Baloch people, Balochistan Peoples Party is working step by step to build alliances. Our first step was cooperating in the building of the Congress of Nationalities for a Federal Iran. The next steps is to build a more broad based alliance; to work for a transition to democracy and secularism; and the creation of a federal system based on parity of constituent parts in Iran.

What is happening in Balochistan is the true manifestation of the theory and the Kaplon’s vision and analysis. Balochistan is a prey to conspiracies by different regional and extra-regional powers. This God gifted province, has immense natural resources with traditionally hardworking work force. A summary of the already explored mineral resources of the province include; the Saindak mining project, possessing one of the world’s largest copper and gold deposits. Saindak is expected to have 1,339.25 tonnes of gold reserves, thus would generate annual revenue of $ 55 million. Besides, Reko Diq in the Chagai District is a giant mining project in Balochistan. Deposits at Reko Diq is a large low grade copper porphyry, with total mineral resources of 5.9 billion tons of ore with an average copper grade of 0.41% and gold grade of 0.22 g/ton. Besides, the province has huge deposits of natural (Methane) gas, and oil both explored and unexplored. Coal is yet another natural resource, found abundantly in the province. Coal mining of Balochistan is perhaps the only industry in Pakistan that employs the largest number of unskilled labourers.

Apart from the explored and unexplored natural resources, the development of the strategically located Gwadar port is the biggest irritant for extra-regional actors. Located at the mouth of Persian Gulf, right at the proximity of the Straits of Hormuz, the Gwadar port of Pakistan has a strategic significance. Since the major shipping route connecting three main continents; Asia, Africa and Europe are passing through the vicinity of this port, therefore, it has attained the status of a key strategic and commercial port. Owing to its “geo-strategic location, Gwadar has the potential to become a regional maritime hub. In connection with the global trade, Gwadar port presents itself as the best alternative and the storage port, as it can handle the major ships and oil tankers.

Over the years, there has been much coherent information that, once Gwadar Port is operational, ports of neighbouring countries would lose their significance. Therefore, these countries have directly or indirectly contributed towards the destabilization of the areas surrounding the port. As well as the extra regional forces, having deep interests in the region and eyeing the unexplored natural resources of this rich province are playing their game here. Local Baloch population was provoked in the name of Baloch sub-nationalism that their rights over their own land are being compromised by the Federal Government. Upon heavy funding by these countries, some mislead elements of the Province even acted as desired by the powers behind them. Even the basic developers of the port, the Chinese engineers were abducted and in many cases were killed or wounded.

The current situation in the province indeed, is a sum total of the follies of the past rulers of the country. It is because of their deliberate overlooking of the socio-economic condition of masses that the situation has worsened to this level. Federation maintained a policy of pleasing the sardars and ignoring the masses, constituting the bulk of the province indeed. In the process, the sardars exploited both as per their convenience. Even today, those masses being used by sardars to challenge the writ of the government are unaware of the motives behind. They act as per ordain of Sardars. Mostly the insurgents are the paid murderers of the sardars and now international players too. Even after having known all the facts, those at the helm of affairs are keeping mum over the extraordinarily changing situation.

“Time changes the geography of the nations who do not learn from history.” The problem with us is that, we also did not learn from our past mistakes. Besides innumerable global challenges and conspiracies, Pakistan facing today, the biggest threat to Pakistan is the internal strife. If Pakistanis are able to get rid of their internal differences and hate culture, there is no way that, we can overcome the external conspiracies and challenges. The rapidly deteriorating situation of the Balochistan demands an immediate action plan, rather a blame-game. The situation warrants a consensus political solution. Baloch people are the part of this mother-land and their grievances must be addressed. Whereas, the diplomacy must play its part in dismantling the terrorists’ camps, established in Afghanistan by contacting Afghan Government, our own LEAs must stop infiltration of foreign elements into the province. In order to do that, the nation will have to differentiate between the covert enemies and the real friends, domestically as well as across the frontiers.

At this trying time of the history of Pakistan, just allotment of funds and formulation of committees and commissions would not resolve the problem. Nevertheless, the implementation on ground would really matter a lot. An indiscriminate socio-economic development of the province in this regard would play a major role. There is a need that representatives of the federal and provincial governments (both elected and potentials) along with responsible bureaucracy must visit the province physically to know the real problems and to address their grievances on spot.

—The writer is Islamabad based IR analyst.

Malik Siraj Akbar: Baloch journalist and writer

The moderate National Party (NP), which boasts about its middle class composition, has publicly acknowledged that it committed a “blunder” by boycotting the 2008 elections because they were immediately replaced by local rivals from the Balochistan National Party-Awami (BNP-Awami). In March 2009, the NP eventually returned to parliament by getting its leader, Hasil Bizenjo, elected as a senator with the help of the PPP, the PML-Q and some independent MPAs.

The Balochistan National Party (BNP) has still not decided to contest elections but its decision is very critical. The BNP, headed by former chief minister Sardar Akhtar Mengal, is caught up in a dilemma for three reasons.

Firstly, Baloch armed groups oppose the idea of elections, integration and reconciliation with Islamabad. The BNP is not a contributor to the armed insurgency. Street politics is its strongest point and a decision to participate in the elections will directly pit it against the hardline Baloch groups. Secondly, the party fears its exiled president will be assassinated on his return to Pakistan, just like Habib Jalib, the party’s secretary general. Opposition to General (retd) Pervez Musharraf had landed Sardar Mengal in a Karachi jail for 20 months. Thirdly, the BNP blames the security establishment for creating anti-nationalist underground armed groups such as the Baloch Musla Defai Tanzeem to attack the anti-government nationalists. This group has killed several senior BNP leaders, including three members of its central committee. It seems impossible for the BNP to run a safe election campaign under constant fear of assault and disruption by armed groups allegedly affiliated with the intelligence agencies.

The BNP will probably participate in the elections only if powerful elements in the security apparatus assure them that no more attacks would be carried out on the party’s leaders and activists during the election campaign. Participation in the polls, nonetheless, does not guarantee nationalists’ landslide electoral victory. They are very likely to lose for the following reasons.

The nationalist parties have not exercised street politics for the past many years. The absence of key leaders such as Sardar Mengal of the BNP has totally disconnected the ordinary Baloch voter from their leaders. These parties also did not show any interest in the preparation of the voters’ lists. Their rural voters are not even listed nor do many of them possess computerised identity cards. Political parties normally require at least one year to prepare for the elections whereas the Baloch nationalists do not seem to have fully completed their homework yet.

Furthermore, there is simply no ‘sympathy vote’ in Baloch districts for the nationalists. The ‘kill and dump’ policies, for which intelligence agencies and the Frontier Corps are blamed, have increased support for armed groups among ordinary Balochs. They look at parliament and elections as a source of further strengthening the power of the state. The relatives of the killed or disappeared political activists support insurgent groups, instead of pro-parliament parties, in reaction to the killing of their loved ones.

Finally, Baloch tribal chiefs from the PPP, the PML-Q and the BNP-Awami have accumulated so much wealth from the official treasury that it is practically impossible for the nationalists to have the same amount of finances to run election campaigns. Access to official machinery further benefits the current legislators against the nationalists.

The elections will be a futile exercise if there is no change in the current composition of the Balochistan Assembly. The status quo did not change after the 2008 elections and a similar outcome this time will further block a ballot-driven solution for the Balochistan conflict. The government should make sure that intelligence agencies do not finance and influence the elections so that neutral results are achieved.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 31^st, 2012.

BEFORE me is a collection of short stories titled Injeer Kai Phool. I have just finished reading it and am in a state of shock. They are all sad stories about people who are doomed, with a deeply pessimistic mood running through them.But let me first give an introduction to the book. The stories are from Balochistan, written in Pashtu, Brahvi and  Balochi. Short story writer Afzal Mirza has translated them into Urdu. Two Urdu story writers, Asif Farrukhi and Mohammad Hameed Shahid have commented on them.

I was introduced to Balochistan’s fiction through a collection of short stories written in Urdu by Tahir Mohammad Khan. They were finely written stories focusing on the social life in the region with particular reference to women, who seemed unfairly treated.

The story writers included in Injeer Kai Phool are far more critical of the social conditions in Balochistan. They are bitter, painting the picture in dark colours. As portrayed by them, here is a world where the poor man is doomed to live in the most wretched of conditions while the wealthy live in luxury. They make only rare public appearances and perhaps that too for the sake of highlighting the wretchedness of the poor. The poor don’t know where to go for help. In Abdul Qadar’s story “Doctor”, even the doctor blatantly refuses to help the woman whose dying husband requires emergency treatment.

Nature, too, appears indifferent to the plight of the poor. Fated to live in tents, they are at the mercy of the vagaries of the weather. In heavy rainfall their tents, along with their meagre belongings, are swept away, leaving them shelterless.

Arif Zia’s story “Barish ki Dua” brings before us an ironic situation. Suffering from a long drought, people gather to pray for rainfall. A little girl coming out from a nearby tent sees them praying and recalls her experience of the previous year’s rainfall and starts to worry about what will happen to her tent if the prayers are answered. The innocent girl prays to God to have mercy on her ailing mother and hold back the rain.

But the sufferings of the characters in these stories don’t emanate from their poverty alone. In these stories we come across deep-seated prejudices and age-old tribal customs which have created grave problems for society. An acute sense of honour has led to a terrible practice known as ‘honour killing’. A mere suspicion is enough justification for trigger-happy male members of any family to commit murder. The recurrence of this theme in different stories highlights the gravity of the problem.

The stories give the impression of reality. They seem to be pieces picked up from real life and reproduced with deeply felt expression which speaks volumes about the genuineness of the storytellers. That is why, while reading these stories, we cannot remain aloof for long. We soon forget that we are reading fiction and become involved in the situation and start feeling for the characters.

The depiction of social ills is steeped deep in genuine emotions. In this starkly realistic depiction we occasionally see potential for romance, such as in the story “Injeer Kai Phool”. But the female protagonist’s sense of duty does not allow her to enjoy the pleasures of these moments. She is soon awakened to the bitter reality of her life.

These stories bring to us awareness about a region which is sadly only vaguely known.

Zurutuza had to sneak into Balochistan, because Pakistan does not allow journalists in there without a permit.One of the reasons they don’t want journalists poking around is that they might investigate what’s happened to the Baloch who live in and around the mountain where Pakistan’s been testing its nuclear arsenal:

In Chagai, very few people can read, and fewer still are untouched by the pain of hunger, unemployment, the “disappearances”. But without a doubt the major worry in this mountainous region on the Afghan frontier is water. Not the scarcity of it, as is the case in so many other regions of Balochistan where it seldom rains. Chagai is lucky to have a lot of underground water. There’s only one problem: it causes cancer. In order to acheive a balance of power with India, Pakistan’s arch-enemy, Islamabad exploded five nuclear detonations here in 1998. The villages close to Raspoh mountain, where the nuclear tests were conducted, were evacuated. But,the last few years have seen a spike in spontaneous abortions, foetal malformations, and many cases of cancer.

Before moving away from Raspoh village, Wazeer went to live with his brother in neighboring Dalbandid. He says that the water came out yellow from the taps, although for some time now Wazeer has forgotton what colors are. Like many in the area, eye cancer has left him blind. Nobody told him not to wash his face with this water.

Incidentally, as Ahmed Rashid points out, the Bush administration poured 11.9 billion of our tax dollars into Pakistan, and 80 percent went straight into the coffers of the military. The Obama administration has promised Pakistan 1.5 billion a year for each of the next 5 years.

Our tax dollars at work–paying off the Pakistan Army so that the Taliban won’t get its hands on the nuclear arsenal. Meanwhile the Pakistani Army takes the $$$ and funnels some of it to the Taliban to make sure they are an ever-present “threat”.

And the Baloch get nuked, disappeared, and pushed to the margins of Pakistan.

Extortion, global style.