No perceived Western
interests exist in Balochistan, no Coalition soldiers are dying on
its soil, and the Baloch have not been involved in significant acts
of terrorism against Western targets. That, perhaps, is why the world
pays so little attention to the bleeding war in this vast and thinly
populated province of Pakistan, in which the country's despotic Army
has been engaged in a brutal campaign of repression, without interruption,
for over five years now, and in repeated cycles since 1948,1
virtually since the moment of the forced accession of the province
to Pakistan.
And yet, the sheer intensity
of state repression and the fury of response should have brought this
forgotten region of darkness to the attention of a world that has
pretensions to civilization and human concern. In 2010, for instance,
just till March 11, there had been as many as 17 bomb blasts in the
province. The total for the preceding five years was 987 - working
out to an average of nearly three (2.7) a day (2009: 134; 2008: 242;
2007: 243; 2006: 214; and 2005: 154).
Since the insurgents
principally target infrastructure projects - particularly the gas
pipeline that pumps precious natural gas, one of the resource-rich
Province's many coveted assets, out of the Province, to feed the rest
of Pakistan - total fatalities in the conflict have, on first sight,
remained relatively low (by Pakistan's appalling standards). 20 persons
had been killed in 2010 (till March 11), and over the preceding five
years, conflict related fatalities totaled 1,513 (2009: 277; 2008:
348; 2007: 245; 2006: 450; 2005: 193).
There was some decline
in both the number of incidents and fatalities in 2009 as against
earlier years, suggesting a reduced level of violence. [However, 245
fatalities were recorded in 2007]. The insurgency in Balochistan,
however, continues to fester, with a steady stream of bomb and rocket
attacks on gas pipelines, railway tracks, power transmission lines,
bridges, and communications infrastructure, as well as on military
establishments and Government facilities. There were at least 134
bomb blasts and grenade explosions across the province in 2009, as
well as another 57 rocket attacks targeting state installations. Baloch
insurgents have also targeted Government officials and politicians,
prominently including the Balochistan Educatin Minister Shafiq Ahmed
Khan, who was shot dead near his house in Quetta on October 25, 2009.
The Baloch Liberation United Front (BLUF) immediately claimed responsibility
for the assassination, which BLUF spokesman, Shahiq Baloch, said was
intended to "avenge the state-sponsored murders of Baloch nationalist
leaders Ghulam Muhammad, Sher Muhammad and Lala Munir in Turbat in
Balochistan." Earlier, on August 6, 2009, the Minister for Excise
and Taxation, Sardarzada Rustam Khan Jamali, was shot dead in Karachi,
the capital of Sindh province, which has a significant Baloch population.
Though the Police subsequently managed to arrest a key suspect, an
alleged member of a car-lifting gang, a suspicion of Baloch involvement
lingers. On October 18, 2009, a grenade was hurled into the house
of the Information Minister Younas Mullazai in Quetta, but the Minister
was not in at that time and no loss of life or injury was reported.
Currently, there are
at least six active insurgent groups in Balochistan: the Balochistan
Liberation Army (BLA), the Baloch Republican Army, the Baloch People's
Liberation Front, the Popular Front for Armed Resistance, the Baloch
Liberation Front (BLF) and BLUF. BLUF, according to Rahimullah Yusufzai,
appears more aggressive and violent even than BLA and BLF. In February
2009, BLUF cadres abducted American John Solecki, who headed the UNHCR
mission in Balochistan, but freed him unharmed after "much effort,
and probably a deal." The kidnapping signaled the "arrival of the
BLUF as the most radical of the three Baloch separatist groups even
though it isn't clear if these are separate or overlapping factions
operating under different names." In addition, young Baloch separatists
"forming part of the Diaspora and living in Kabul, Kandahar, Dubai,
London, Brussels and Geneva, are now often calling the shots in Balochistan
and setting the agenda."
Pakistan focuses its
overwhelming attention on the nationalist insurgency in Balochistan,
using overwhelming and often less than discriminate military force
against the rebels and local populations in an effort to restore its
intimidatory dominance, as it had done on previous occasions. Far
more dangerous, however, is a second movement of terrorism and violence
led by the Taliban - al Qaeda combine in the northern part of the
Province, which borders Afghanistan. The Baloch nationalist insurgency
is, in fact, little more than a minor diversion within the context
of this wider movement of pan-Islamist terror, which has come to dominate
both sides of the Afghan border, and elements of which have been harnessed
by the Pakistani state and its covert agencies in its efforts to smother
the nationalist insurgency, which has remained consistently secular
and political in its orientation. It is significant that the Islamist-nationalist
gulf overlaps with the ethnic divide in the Province, with Pashtuns
dominating the radical Islamist Northern areas, including capital
Quetta, and the Baloch concentrated in Central and South Balochistan.
Significantly, sectarian killings have begun to compound the crisis
in Balochistan. At least 28 persons were killed in about 13 incidents
of sectarian clash in 2009. The killings are reported to be part of
a series of sectarian attacks that started in Quetta, with the banned
Sunni terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, closely allied to the Taliban
- al Qaeda complex, has accepted responsibility for most of the recent
attacks.
It is now widely recognized
that the 'Quetta Shura', the Taliban 'executive council' which
operates openly out of the Balochistan capital, has waged a systematic
campaign of violence in both Balochistan and Afghanistan. This was
testified to by General Stanley McChrystal, the US Commander in Afghanistan,
who noted, on December 11, that the US fears the top Taliban leadership
was in Quetta - Balochistan's provincial capital - master-minding
attacks on international forces in Afghanistan.2
Further, on September 29, 2009, US Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W.
Patterson, stated, "In the past, we focused on al Qaeda because they
were a threat to us. The Quetta Shura mattered less to us because
we had no troops in the region… Now our troops are there on the other
side of the border, and the Quetta Shura is high on Washington's list."3
Other US officials have claimed that virtually all of the Afghan Taliban's
strategic decisions are made by the Quetta Shura. Such decisions
flow from the group to Taliban field commanders, who in turn make
tactical decisions that support the Shura's strategic direction.4
Another American media report claimed that Pakistani officials have
allowed the Taliban movement to regroup in the Quetta area because
they view it as a strategic asset rather than a domestic threat.5
The US Consul General in Karachi, Stephen Fakan, has also warned that
a Waziristan-like situation (near-complete Islamist militant dominance
had been achieved in Waziristan) might develop in Balochistan if "necessary
action" is not taken against the Taliban in Quetta.6
As American apprehensions
regarding the Quetta Shura mounted, the Barack Obama Administration
has shown signs of extending its campaign of drone attacks against
terrorist targets to Quetta and other parts of Balochistan, from where
the Taliban has been orchestrating its Afghan operations. In response,
reports suggest, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's
external intelligence agency, may have shifted Mullah Omar, the chief
of the Afghan Taliban who heads the Quetta Shura, and other
top Taliban leaders, to the Southern port city of Karachi, in Sindh,
to protect them from the possibility of a US drone strike.
US and Coalition concerns
have been enormously deepened by the disruption of NATA supply lines
to Afghanistan which pass through Balochistan (and the North West
Frontier province). In 2009, in Balochistan alone, there were at least
15 attacks on oil tankers and trucks ferrying NATO supplies. These
included the first-ever suicide attack in a Baloch-dominated area,
on June 30, when four persons were killed and 11 injured in a suicide
attack at a hotel in Kalat, targeting NATO supply Forces in Afghanistan.
The suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside a hotel in the
Sorab area of the District, 250 kilometers southeast of Quetta. Most
of the victims were reportedly Baloch tribesmen.
There are also some indications
that these threats and attacks receive implicit support from certain
elements within the state establishment. Pakistan has an agreement
with the US for the secure transportation of supplies to Kabul but,
as one commentator notes, "some officials in the Pakistani Government
have ordered the security forces to shut their eyes to the attacks
on US and NATO supplies in Peshawar."7
These attacks have certainly
heightened the crisis of US AfPak policy, and NATO Forces are increasingly
emphasising the necessity of developing alternative routes for their
supplies into Afghanistan. As far back as January 20, 2009, CENTCOM
commander General David Petraeus, was already stressing: "It is very
important as we increase the effort in Afghanistan that we have multiple
routes that go into the country… There have been agreements reached,
and there are transit lines now and transit agreements for commercial
goods and services in particular that include several countries in
the Central Asian states and also Russia."8
Islamabad, however, has
sought to consistently muddy the waters on the conflict in Balochistan,
vigorously blaming India for its troubles in the Province. When a
joint Indo-Pak statement released after the meeting of the Prime Ministers
of the two countries at Sharm-al-Sheikh recorded, on July 16, 2009,
that the "Pak PM (Syed Yusuf Raza) Gilani mentioned that Pakistan
has some information on threats in Balochistan and other areas", Gilani
triumphantly claimed that the declaration constituted an admission
of complicity on India's part in the Baloch insurgency.9
Some Western commentators, notably Christine Fair of the RAND Corporation,
sought to demonstrate their expertise on the subject with sweeping
generalizations about Indian consulates in Afghanistan and Iran "not
issuing Visas as their main activity" and asserting that "India has
run operations from its missions in Mazar and is doing so from the
other consulates it has reopened in Jalalabad and Qandahar along the
border".10 Fair, of course, subsequently
went on to offer extended and convoluted denials, claiming, "I never
said there was active support for terrorism, that was something that
the Pakistanis attributed to me" and that "I do not know anyone who
has a line of credible information" on the issue.11
Nevertheless, Pakistan's propaganda machine quickly picked up on this
theme, claiming that Pakistan had handed over a 'dossier of evidence'
to India (a fact that India denied) which detailed evidence of India's
"involvement in terror financing in Pakistan" and of training camps
run by India's Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) for the Balochistan
Liberation Army in Afghanistan.
This, however, was hardly
new. Former President, General Parvez Musharraf had earlier asserted
that he had 'documentary evidence' of Brahamdagh Bugti, leader of
the Baloch Liberation Army, receiving weapons from Indian missions
in Jalalabad and Kandahar, and of Bugti's long association with the
R&AW. No such 'evidence', documentary or otherwise, has, however,
ever been publicly disclosed or shared with any credible international
body. Significantly, Richard Holbrooke, the US Special Representative
for Pakistan and Afghanistan, revealed that, when the issue was brought
up during discussions in Pakistan, no "credible evidence of India's
involvement in Balochistan" was ever provided. He rubbished Pakistani
claims, further: "Pakistan has told me India has hundreds of people
in (the consulate) at Kandahar… I asked people... asked Americans
and the UN... how big is the Indian consulate in Kandahar... and they
said six to eight people."12
In essence, Pakistan's
allegations regarding India's role in the troubles in Balochistan
are, at best, reflexive, seeking to establish an unsustainable moral
parity between the two countries to counter allegations of what is
now globally recognized as Pakistan's role in supporting terrorism
on Indian soil. While these efforts do cause the occasional ripple,
or help score trivial debating points in a fairly puerile international
discourse on the subject, the appalling realities of the ground in
Balochistan, and in the wider South Asian region, do eventually reassert
themselves - to Pakistan's enduring discomfiture. Quetta-based Malik
Siraj Akbar notes,
Gilani broached
the issue with India at a time disgruntled Baloch youth have
removed the Pakistani flag from schools and colleges and stopped
playing the national anthem… India is not the first to be
blamed. Similar allegations were levelled in the past against
the now defunct Soviet Union, Afghanistan and Iraq, to discredit
the indigenous movement for retaining a distinct Baloch identity.13
|
To return to the core
of the issue: of course there is a problem (or 'threats') in
Balochistan. There is a problem in every province of Pakistan - in
the NWFP, in Pakistan occupied Kashmir, in Sindh and, increasingly,
in Punjab as well. But the problem is not India, or Indian intelligence
agencies. It is Pakistan itself. It is the enduring violence and inequity
of the Pakistani state; it is the relentless ideology of mutual hatreds
that underpins the very founding notion of this country.
Islamabad has, for the
past 62 years, kept the Baloch people entirely out of the scope of
development - they are the poorest in the country, with little opportunity
for employment and an abysmal record on all social indices. The entire
province has been transformed into a massive cantonment, even as over
a million people were brought in from the outside in a continuing
exercise in demographic re-engineering. Vast tracts of land have been
forcibly 'acquired' and handed over to these outsiders, who have been
the principal beneficiaries of all 'development', even as the Baloch
are denied significant employment in the massive projects - including
the Gwadar Port and gas and coal extraction industries - implemented
in the Province. Balochistan has the largest reserves of natural gas
in Pakistan, and supplies as much as 38 per cent of the country's
total needs, though barely six per cent of the population in the Province
has access to gas. Indeed, for the Baloch, the only thing in abundant
supply has been the weapons that the Inter Services Intelligence initially
siphoned to them out of the 'Afghan pipeline', and that are now available
in abundance across the Frontier region.
Islamabad's approach
to discontent in Balochistan has historically vacillated between talks
for 'political solutions' that are never implemented, and brutally
repressive military campaigns. Arif Azad notes, "Balochistan has been
here many times before and each time the Pakistan state managers have
bungled the situation… seeking a military solution to a purely political
problem." In the interregnum between the succession of rebellions
in the Province, Islamabad has done nothing to address legitimate
Baloch grievances through extended periods of peace, pushing the Baloch
to repeated cycles of militant protest and insurgent violence.
If there is an unwavering
rage in Balochistan today, it is because of this long history of brutal
repression, which is even now being compounded. The murder of the
popular leader and former Governor of the Province, Nawab Akbar Bugti,
by state forces in September 2006, was, of course, orchestrated by
the Musharraf regime, as was the killing of Nawabzada Balach Marri
in November 2007 - and the present dispensation could easily distance
itself from these excesses. Instead, Baloch anger has again been stoked
by the murder of three prominent leaders, Ghulam Mohammad Baloch,
Lala Munir Baloch and Sher Mohammad Baloch, whose mutilated bodies
were recovered on April 8, 2009, five days after they were picked
up by state agencies on April 3.14 While
these killings have been noticed because of the prominence of their
victims, numberless 'disappearances' of rebel Baloch cadres, students
and civilians are hidden behind an impenetrable media blackout in
the Province. Significantly, Ghulam Mohammad Baloch was a member of
a committee set up to investigate the 'disappearance' of 1,109 people
in the Province.
The Asian Forum for
Human Rights and Development thus notes:
Balochistan continues
to be ruled as a colony, its resources benefiting the federal
government and dominant provinces. Grueling poverty and deprivation
defines much of the province. 88% of the population of Balochistan
is under the poverty line. Balochistan has the lowest literacy
rate, the lowest school enrollment ratio, the lowest educational
attainment index, and the lowest health index relative to
the other provinces. 78% of the population has no access to
electricity, and 79% has no access to natural gas. The federal
government's presence is made apparent not through public
welfare activities, but through violence and aggression… A
large number of military and paramilitary troops… have been
stationed in different parts of the province and state-perpetrated
violence has become a common feature of the political landscape
of Balochistan. Disappearance of political activists and extrajudicial
killings has become all too common. It is stating the obvious
that such a situation has given rise to alienation, extreme
resentment, and a feeling of enslavement to the Pakistani
state.15
|
Islamabad has never taken
the Baloch people and their leadership into confidence. Even top Baloch
officials appointed by Islamabad have no say in crucial policy. Governor
Zulfiqar Ali Magsi, for instance, complains, "Although I am a representative
of the Centre, I was never taken into confidence by Islamabad…"16
Hectic efforts have been
underway for some time now to bringing the Baloch rebels to the negotiating
table. The Federal Government has recently been attempting to develop
a 'consensual' Balochistan package, which would purportedly address
the province's political, social and economic problems. The package,
named Aghaz-e-Huqooq-i-Balochistan, contains three parts, including
constitutional, administrative and economic measures - a 'formula'
that has been pushed by Islamabad even under the Musharraf regime,
and which has boiled down, in essence to offers of a financial 'package'
and a few token concessions.17 Predictably,
the latest package has run into rough weather even before its contours
have been defined. The Balochistan National Party (BNP), one of the
leading political parties in the province, has termed the package
a bribe, given to halt their movement, and has consequently demanded
the withdrawal of the ongoing military action in the province and
the release of missing persons as a confidence-building measure. BNP
Secretary, General Habib Jalib Baloch, declared that that such packages
had also been announced in the past, but these always backfired and
remained sterile.18 Abdur Rauf Mengal,
a former parliamentarian from the Balochistan National Party-Mengal
(BNP-M) stated, further, "We have no faith in the Government's sincerity."
On November 17, 2009, he asserted, "Our problems include the military
operation, which is ongoing regardless of the Government's denial;
then there are the countless missing persons; massive displacement
due to the military operation; and fake cases against and the extrajudicial
killings of Baloch nationalist leaders."19
Islamabad imposes a repressive,
colonial and exploitative regime on Balochistan and there is now a
comprehensive collapse of faith between the people of this Province
and a predatory Pakistani state. The rebellions of the past were easily
crushed by Pakistan's Army, but the world has changed since. The dispensation
at Islamabad presides over a fragile and increasingly vulnerable state,
struggling with disorders across the country, and it is unlikely that
the methods of the past will succeed. It is, perhaps, time that Pakistan
initiated a tentative experiment in providing justice and a measure
of real rights to its people.
-
Ajai Sahni is Executive
Director, Institute for Conflict Management; Editor, South
Asia Intelligence Review; Executive Director, South Asia Terrorism
Portal; and Executive Editor, Faultlines: Writings on Conflict
& Resolution. He is also a founding and Executive Committee
member of the Urban Futures Initiative.
-
In April 1948, Pakistan sent
its Army into Balochistan and forced Mir Ahmed Yar Khan of Kalat
to sign an instrument of accession to Pakistan. Violence broke
out almost immediately, but was quickly crushed. Insurrections
subsequently swept across Balochistan in 1958; from 1963 to 1969;
and from 1973 to 1978, and were, in each case, suppressed with
the use of extreme force. The present insurgency commenced in
2004, and shows no signs of resolution.
-
"Pakistan Govt. admits Quetta
Shura on country's soil", December 11, 2009,
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=113493§ionid=351020401
.
-
"Patterson says
Quetta Shura high on US list" , September 30, 2009, http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/11-patterson-says-quetta-shura-high-on-us-list--il--09
.
-
Ibid.
-
Ibid.
-
Taliban militants
have presence in Quetta: US diplomat, October 21, 2009,
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/pakistan/Taliban-militants-have-presence-in-Quetta/Article1-467593.aspx
.
-
"Quickly, Deploy
U.S. and NATO Troops in Peshawar", December 15, 2008,
http://www.henryjacksonsociety.org/stories.asp?id=927
.
-
"US 'agrees Afghan
supply route'", 20 January 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7839265.stm.
-
"India interfering
in Balochistan: Gilani" , Jul 19, 2009, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/india-interfering-in-balochistan-gilani/491257/.
-
"Analysts say India
fanning unrest in Balochistan", April 7, 2009,
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C04%5C07%5Cstory_7-4-2009_pg7_30
.
-
"Pakistanis Have
Blown My Comments Out Of Proportion", August 10, 2009, http://www.outlookindia.com/printarticle.aspx?261113.
-
US endorses Indian
role in Afghanistan, April 26, 2009, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/US-endorses-Indian-role-in-Afghanistan/articleshow/4451937.cms
.
-
Top Article: A Home-grown
Conflict, August 11, 2009, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Top-Article-A-Home-grown-Conflict/articleshow/4878167.cms
.
-
"Pakistan - Stop
military and paramilitary actions in all parts of Balochistan!"
18 November 2009, Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development.
-
Ibid.
-
Ibid
-
See, for instance,
Ajai Sahni, "Balochistan: The Province of Fear", South Asia
Intelligence Review, Volume 4, No. 23, December 19, 2005,
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/sair/Archives/4_23.htm.
-
"Pakistan - Stop
military and paramilitary actions in all parts of Balochistan!",
op. cit.
-
Ibid.
(Published )