Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

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Satya_anveshi
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by Satya_anveshi »

Link below is of the program called: Live with Talat

Some reactions from Baloch leaders to Balochistan "Package" that Groper Gilani announced recently

In short, all of them unanimously dissaprove the package claiming that these are not honest efforts, baloch people are being lifted and killed by Pak Army even to this day, that this package is announced to divert attention from NRO debate etc etc.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by Satya_anveshi »

Xposted from Paki thread:
Satya_anveshi wrote:
Slain sardar’s son

A Baloch political leader, son of the slain sardar, was invited to a talk show by a well-known host. When the Baloch accepted, he hadn’t bargained on the pro-establishment line of questioning and aggressive posture of the host. There was some bickering and robust argument on the show, to the detriment of the Baloch who felt he hadn’t had his say. He also felt that there was a lack of sympathy for the Baloch cause and when he tried to press his point, he was snubbed by the host. The sardar’s son did not kick up a fuss during the recording of the show but nursed his grudge. When he ran into the same talk show host at the airport, he marched up to him and slapped him across the face. “This is what you deserve for your insensitivity to our cause” he said. The host ran to the airport security staff and asked him to arrest the Baloch. The staff asked the Baloch for his name, whereupon they backed off and asked the host to drop the matter.
My guess is this "well-known host" is Talat Hussain and Baloch leader is Jamil Akbar Bugti.

Below is the link of the program guys...one needs to see this episode to believe the anger of Jamil Akbar Bugti. We really need to hand it them guys..they need every bit of support they can get. He declares that baloch will Never Forget Never Forgive.

Talat Hussain with Jamil Akbar Bugti
SSridhar
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by SSridhar »

The mess over the missing in Balochistan - Nirupama Subramanian in The Hindu
While the issue of enforced disappearances in Balochistan is a continuing tragedy for the affected families, for the alienated province, it is yet another festering wound inflicted by Islamabad after the Musharraf regime began military operations there in 2005 to quell a low-intensity separatist insurgency, which is often blamed on India. By the government’s own estimate, there are 1,300 cases of enforced disappearances. But according to the Voice For the Missing Baloch Persons, the organisation that is behind the protest outside the Press Club, at least 8,000 Baloch are missing after being picked up by the army or the paramilitary Frontier Corps, or one or the other intelligence agency. {This is truly a Gestapo-like operation}
The issue of the missing persons is now seen as one of the biggest hurdles in the way of efforts by the PPP-led government for reconciliation with Balochistan. In November 2009, Islamabad announced a package of political, administrative and financial measures for the restive province.

The package is called the Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan (The Beginning of the Rights of Balochistan), the clunky title managing to convey two things: one, the Baloch people and the province had been deprived of their rights; and two, this package was the “beginning” of the reconciliation process.

But it was rejected even by moderate Baloch politicians. A major criticism was that it contained only a promise to consider in an undetermined future crucial concessions such as constitutional reforms for provincial autonomy. Baloch politicians were also angered by the announced “demilitarisation” replacing the military with the Frontier Corps. The paramilitary evokes more dread than the Army in the province.
A major narrative in the Baloch discourse is the “betrayal” of the province by successive governments in Islamabad, he said, and hence the new demands for international guarantors and third-party mediation.
Revealingly, there have been several cases of enforced disappearances since February 2008, when the PPP came to power and Asif Ali Zardari offered an “unconditional apology” to the Baloch, pledging to “embark on a new highway of healing and mutual respect.” Mr. Nasrullah Baloch alleges that people have gone missing, including Sana Sangat, a leader of Brahmdagh Bugti, ever since the package was announced.{Showing clearly that the ISI/IB/MI are out of the control of a civilian government}
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by rohiths »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8444354.stm
In a small, dark, compound, we met members of various separatist groups - the Baloch National Front, Balochistan Republican Party and Balochistan Liberation Army.


The Pakistani government doesn't do anything for us... nobody cares
Shaukat,
Gwadar fisherman

We hear their grievances, and their threats.

"What else do we have left," says Rehman Arif, of the BRP, "except our guns, and to fight for our rights?

"This region of Balochistan, which has seen civilisation for thousands of years, is being oppressed by Pakistan. We're ready to accept assistance from anyone in our fight. We appeal to India for help."

This public plea for help from the country's sworn enemy will alarm Pakistanis.

So too might the fact that almost everyone we came across in the town supported moves for their province to break away from Pakistan.

"The Pakistani government doesn't do anything for us," says Shaukat, a fisherman. "They only work for themselves. We just labour hard, but nobody cares," he says, before wading into the water and clambering onto his boat for another long day at sea.

Poverty here, and right across the province of Balochistan, is on the rise. It is, once again, stirring decades-old feelings of resentment towards the country's establishment.

Many Baloch feel they have been cheated, and that while Pakistan plunders their local resources, like natural gas, coal and copper, local people remain poor.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by Patni »

Nazims’ reign ends in Balochistan
QUETTA, Jan 9: The Balochistan assembly on Saturday unanimously adopted a bill to amend the Balochistan Local Government Act, empowering the provincial government to replace district, town, tehsil nazims and deputy nazims with administrators.

The bill was tabled by the Minister for Local Government, Abdul Khaliq Bashardost, after deliberations at a parliamentary party meeting of coalition partners in the provincial government. The meeting was presided over by Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani. QUETTA, Jan 9: The Balochistan assembly on Saturday unanimously adopted a bill to amend the Balochistan Local Government Act, empowering the provincial government to replace district, town, tehsil nazims and deputy nazims with administrators.

The bill was tabled by the Minister for Local Government, Abdul Khaliq Bashardost, after deliberations at a parliamentary party meeting of coalition partners in the provincial government. The meeting was presided over by Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani.
The bill was supposed to be tabled in the assembly during the first winter session on Jan 4, but because of some reservations of JUI-F about the appointment of administrators, it was delayed.

The JUI-F’s reservations were removed after discussions in the parliamentary party meeting.

The house adopted the bill in 10 minutes after it was tabled by the minister because no member opposed it. The act will come into force with immediate effect.

The act enables the provincial government to dissolve local bodies, remove district and town nazims and appoint administrators in their places. It calls for holding of local bodies elections in Balochistan within a year.

The bill was introduced in the house with an objective to ensure transparency in the coming local bodies’ elections because, according to some political parties, the existing form is not suitable for holding an impartial election.

The Baluchistan cabinet had already approved the dissolution of local bodies and appointment of administrators in place of nazims at a meeting on Dec 24.
Looks like something is up and PPP led coalition is trying to strengthen its hold by grabbing power to appoint administrators in all local bodies! together with last November moves to try and pacify some long standing baloch grievance, makes me wonder if pakis are geting nervous about holding on it it and hence the efforts?
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by Patni »

Baloch condemn Pakistan detention of US diplomats
STAFF WRITER 11:58 HRS IST

Lalit K Jha

Washington, Jan 11 (PTI) A pro-independence Baloch group has condemned Pakistan for "obstructing" US development projects in Balochistan, following the detention of a US Consulate vehicle and employees in a port city.

Members of the American Friends of Balochistan said Islamabad has absolutely no right to violate international norms in the province.

"We take serious notice of Pakistani authorities obstructing the legitimate work of US embassy in Balochistan," two presiding council members of the American Friends of Balochistan, Rashid Baloch and Malik Baloch, said in a statement yesterday.

"The latest incidents should be an eyeopener for Washington that Pakistan is neither a friend nor an ally," they said.

The condemnation followed detention of US embassy officials in the Baloch port town of Gwadar last week.

"Gwadar is the jewel of Balochistan.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by SSridhar »

The story of Pakistan's illegal annexation of Balochistan - Part I
The secret, if it ever was, is eventually
out that there is in fact an anti-Baloch clique with its own agenda and powerful enough to threaten even the highest office of the land. No, this not the surmise of a pro-Baloch columnist but comes direct from the horse’s mouth, well at least a horse lover’s mouth: yes, the president himself.

At the ground breaking ceremony of the Winder Dam project he said that espousal of the rights of Balochistan by him had angered “certain elements” and they were now out to remove him; some journalists termed these elements as the ‘anti Baloch clique’. He said, “The Aghaz-e-Huqooq-i-Balochistan package is the right of the people of Balochistan and we have to implement it. But they do not want this to happen. Therefore, they want to remove me.” So now we know that this powerful clique does not even tolerate an ineffective and largely useless Balochistan package.

The president, as constrained and curbed as his authority and movement may be, still has the entire resources of the state at his disposal to learn and be informed about matters that common citizens or for that matter out-of-power politicians do not even get a whiff of. With his wherewithal he certainly knows that this anti-Baloch clique has the clout to threaten his tenure if he is overtly pro-Baloch or even seems to be patronising them.

This clique definitely has to be anti-democratic and paranoid as who else would remove an elected head of state simply for perceived misdeeds; because certainly the president has done nothing to curb the injustices against the Baloch or redress their grievances in the nearly two years that his party has been in power. Empty apologies do nothing to heal grievous wounds.

This clique certainly has not come into being all of a sudden or only after Zardari became the president. It must have existed long before and must be having a few achievements to its credit. It must also have the power to even threaten someone who has the entire — maybe minus that certain clique — state machinery at his disposal. Presumably this ‘clique’ is as powerful as the rest of the state apparatus. Little wonder that people keep disappearing without a trace and some turning up dead as the Baloch leaders did in Turbat.

Let us dispassionately examine the evidence if there really exists an anti-Baloch clique or it is just a figment of the imagination of a beleaguered president. To do this we will have to go way back to 1947.

In June 1947, the British government announced plans for the partition of India. The fate of British Afghanistan and the Baloch Tribal Areas, which included the Marri-Bugti, Khetran and Baloch Tribal Areas of Dera Ghazi Khan, was to be decided by a referendum. It was decided to hold a jirga on June 30th but was deviously held on the 29th without informing all the members. With this referendum as its basis, British Balochistan, including the leased and tribal areas that were constitutionally part of the Khanate were quite illegally acceded to Pakistan on August 15, 1947.

It is interesting to note that after partition the chiefs of Derajat were given the choice to relinquish their privileges by joining Balochistan or retain them by joining Punjab. This British Administered Baloch area of DG Khan was misappropriated by Punjab in 1950. The Tumandars signed the agreement under threat of forsaking their large land holdings if they did not opt for Punjab. A monument to that injustice stands at Fort Munro, 6,470 feet above sea level.

On August 4, 1947, a tripartite agreement was signed between Pakistan, the British and Balochistan, called The Standstill Agreement, in which the sovereign status of Balochistan was accepted. The Khan declared Balochistan independent on August 11, 1947, three days before the independence of Pakistan. The Khan affirmed his intention to build Balochistan as a prosperous sovereign country in which the Baloch could retain their identity, live in accordance with their traditions and establish relations through treaties of friendship with the neighbouring states of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan as well as with India and the outside world.

Soon after independence, elections were held to the Diwan, Balochistan’s bi-cameral legislature, and a period of tranquillity and peace was ensured in the country. The Assembly held sessions in September and December 1947 and most favoured alliance and not accession with Pakistan. On December 14, 1947, Ghaus Baksh Bizenjo made a landmark speech and it is still considered as a valid argument for the independence of Balochistan.

He said, “We have a distinct civilisation and a separate culture like that of Iran and Afghanistan. We are Muslims but it is not necessary that by virtue of being Muslims we should lose our freedom and merge with others. If the mere fact that we are Muslims requires us to join Pakistan, then Afghanistan and Iran, both Muslim countries, should also amalgamate with Pakistan.

“We were never a part of India before the British rule. Pakistan’s unpleasant and loathsome desire that our national homeland, Balochistan should merge with it is impossible to consider. We are ready to have friendship with that country on the basis of sovereign equality but by no means ready to merge with Pakistan. We can survive without Pakistan. But the question is, what would Pakistan be without us?

“I do not propose to create hurdles for the newly created Pakistan in the matters of defence and external communication. But we want an honourable relationship, not a humiliating one. If Pakistan wants to treat us as a sovereign people, we are ready to extend the hand of friendship and cooperation. If Pakistan does not agree to do so, flying in the face of democratic principles, such an attitude will be totally unacceptable to us, and if we are forced to accept this fate then every Baloch son will sacrifice his life in defence of his national freedom.”

His speech moved the Baloch and strengthened their desire for independence and their will to maintain their new-found independence. But in the meantime Pakistan began to pressurise the newly independent Kalat state to join Pakistan and an uneasy calm appeared in relations between Kalat and Pakistan. Talks between Pakistan and Kalat dragged on. Pakistan continued to harass the Khan and Baloch state machinery on various pretexts and was engaged in conspiracies and underhand tactics to compel the Khan to join Pakistan.

When Pakistan was convinced that the Khan would not accede, separate instruments of accession by the states of Lasbela and Kharan, which were feudatories of the Khan, and of Makran, which was never more than a district of the state of Kalat, were announced on March 18. Accession of Makran, Kharan and Lasbela robbed Kalat of more than half its territory and its access to the sea.

The following day the Khan of Kalat issued a statement refusing to believe that Pakistan as a champion of Muslim rights in the world would infringe upon the rights of small Muslim neighbours, pointing out that Makran as a district of Kalat had no separate status and that the foreign policy of Lasbela and Kharan was placed under Kalat by the Standstill Agreement.

On March 26, 1948, the Pakistan Army was ordered to move into the Baloch coastal region of Pasni, Jiwani and Turbat. This was the first act of aggression prior to the march on Kalat by a Pakistani military detachment on April 1, 1948. The Khan capitulated on March 27 after the army moved into the coastal region and it was announced in Karachi that the Khan of Kalat has agreed to merge his state with Pakistan. Under the Constitution of Kalat, the Khan was not authorised to take such a basic decision. The Balochistan Assembly had already rejected any suggestion of forfeiting the independence of Balochistan on any pretext. The sovereign Baloch state after British withdrawal from India lasted only 227 days.

The evidence certainly leads one to conclude that this clique has had the influence and power to thwart the Baloch people’s rightful struggle to be independent as they were for 227 days after partition and use their resources without even partly sharing with them.
For Part II, see here
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by shyamd »

^^ Good post. In my interactions with Balochi's from Oman, they maintain that Balochi's were cheated into giving Balochistan to Pak.

Omani's are providing most of the support(military/intelligence/cash) to the Baloch freedom movement and most of the Gulf royals are in support of a free Balochistan.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by ashish raval »

In the past, Pakjab's have tried to populize Baloch region in many different ways 1) Afghan refugees 2) Giving incentives to Punjabi's and Sindhi's and capture agricultural land 3) In pretext of development, they wish to populate the region with non-balochi's from anywhere. For this Paki's have taken leaf out of China's experience in changing the demography of Tibet in which they have successfully prevailed. The paki scholars even tried to define the origin of Balochi's as Semitic in nature and thereby bringing proximity to their Barbaric brothers from middle-east. Balochi's vehemently denied any historic and cultural connections with Arabs except for the fact that they are muslims. Balochi language has so many Sanskrit words and shares common heritage with Indo-persian language. Balochi rulers have been secular throughout the history and it had 20% hindu population during the time of partition. It is a pity that GoI dont activey support Balochi's who have such a valour and sense of gratefulness to those who help them to remain independent.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by SSridhar »

On How the Frontier Corps runs a Parallel Government in Balochistan
Mohammad Aslam Bhootani, the Speaker of the Balochistan Assembly, though a member of the ruling coalition has a penchant for forthrightness that leaves many of his partners embarrassed. In May last year he said that the trust deficit between the Baloch leadership and Islamabad was a major impediment to resolving the Balochistan issue. He had also said there was “a perception in Balochistan that the Frontier Corps (FC) was running a parallel government in the province”.

The truth of his statement has presented itself in shedding of innocent blood in Khuzdar where two students, Ali Dost and Saddam Hussain, were killed and four others were injured. HRCP Khuzdar chapter accused the FC of opening fire on a peaceful rally organised by BSO-Azad to protest the recent Lyari killings. The FC denies this claim and states that it retaliated when a convoy of the Kalat Scouts commandant was attacked. So people were killed though versions differ. Who could be speaking the truth?

A look at FC’s history and its conduct — or rather misconduct — in Balochistan should set the record straight. A hundred years ago Lord Curzon bequeathed this region with the FC, an efficient and reliable instrument of repression. The devil be given his due, he created an outfit that not only fulfilled their needs then but serves their legatees even today.

The US provides the 80,000-strong force $ 75 million a year for five years from the $ 750 million FATA package. It also sustains FC in Balochistan because it is supposedly performing the duty of guarding Balochistan (from its own people I suppose?). In January 2003, US envoy Nancy Powell handed over 483 vehicles and 626 wireless sets to them under the $ 73 million security assistance package “to enable them to patrol rugged, remote locations in order to maintain law and order on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and to check terrorist activities, narcotics trafficking and other forms of criminality.” Probably the suppression of the people’s democratic struggle is conveniently lumped under the heading of checking ‘other forms of criminality’.

The FC’s colonialist behaviour and activities are a major reason for the resentment and anger of the people of Balochistan. This attitude has prompted defiance from the Baloch population and more often than not resulted in violence in which the unarmed people bear the brunt of state violence. The 37,000-strong Balochistan FC, like the Rangers in Sindh, draws hefty amounts from the provincial government in the name of internal security and operating in place of the police. At times it seems that conditions are created to prolong and perpetuate the presence of these forces in these provinces.

The misconduct and highhandedness of FC had prompted a debate in the Balochistan Assembly in August last year where it came under severe criticism from members of the ruling party because of its continued and unjustified harassment of the people. The House was told that the provincial government had allowed a public rally in Turbat on Bugti’s death anniversary but the FC resorted to unprovoked shooting, which killed a civilian and injured many people. The FC had also completely sealed the Pak-Iran border, resulting in a severe shortage of food in the border towns. It was revealed that the FC personnel rubbish the officially issued passes of the DCOs to the citizens wanting to visit their relatives in Iran. The Khuzdar situation too was pronounced as equally bad even then.

In July 2003, the FC in Quetta forcibly occupied a youth hostel meant for short visits run by Pakistan Youth Hostels Association (PYHA), a private charitable trust. An FC contingent surrounded the hostel and kept its staff hostage for several hours. Another FC contingent led by a Major surrounded the hostel secretary’s residence and abused him when he refused to hand over the keys. However, on the night of July 16-17, the FC contingent broke open the gates and locks of the hostel and forcibly occupied it.

The problem of hostel occupation is acute in Sindh as well where in June 2009 the Sindh Assembly was informed that 27 buildings of schools, colleges and hostels were occupied by the law-enforcement agencies (read the Rangers).

In October 2002 the Mekran Scouts wing of FC opened fire on a crowd protesting its highhandedness and killed Nisar Ahmed and Noor Mohammad; five people were injured. Though an FIR was reluctantly registered, nothing came of it. The track record shows that the trigger-happy FC personnel do not hesitate to open fire on peacefully protesting crowds.

This is not the only problem. The FC’s mandate to guard Balochistan’s borders with Afghanistan and Iran is a source of an equally grave evil of lucrative smuggling. This vice’s prevalence was serious enough to force the FC in October 2003 to suspend 45 lower ranks with the promise of action against some officers. This happened only after the finance ministry and other authorities had taken serious notice of massive smuggling despite increased deployment of security forces along the border.

The siege of three newspaper offices — Daily Asaap, Daily Azadi and Daily Balochistan Express last year, which eventually forced Asaap to cease publication, is among its dubious achievements in the battle to subdue democratic forces in Balochistan. Sadly, there was not a squeak from the national mainstream media.

The recent Khuzdar killings are a continuation of the long list of atrocities against the Baloch population and will not be the last. Following the gruesome killings of Balochistan National Movement (BNM) Chairman Ghulam Mohammad Baloch, Lala Muneer Baloch, Sher Mohammad Baloch of the Baloch Republican Party (BRP), the Balochistan High Court (BHC) took suo motu action and the chief minister formed a three-member tribunal comprising of BHC judges to investigate the activists’ death. Nine months have elapsed with no results. The Home Minister has now ordered a judicial inquiry. Odds are that it too will suffer the same fate.

These outrages are countered only with worthless and insincere condemnations and denunciations simply because the writ of the chief minister and the governor does not go beyond the doors of their respective official residences. They are ineffectual and helpless when their orders infringe on the areas of influence of the military and paramilitary. The chasm between their rhetoric and actions has severely diminished their stature and credibility. Though their authority has a semblance of autonomy, it is as illusory as it is inane and in fact completely subservient not only to the Centre but also to the FC.

The problem with the FC does not merely lie in its ethnic makeup, though it plays a major role in its attitude problem. The real problem lies with the mindset and its unbridled power compounded with a total absence of accountability for its actions. It has repeatedly committed atrocities with impunity as commissions and judicial probes have never redressed the grievances. This ironclad guarantee against prosecution encourages it to ride roughshod and little wonder it acts like a parallel government in Balochistan. All this does not augur well for anyone.



Postscript: Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani has accused the FC of running a parallel government in Balochistan (January 20, 2010). He has only confirmed the obvious, already put on record by Aslam Bhootani. He also complained that the federal government had rejected the scrapping of the Gwadar Deep Sea Port and Reko Diq project agreements; but bravely said that the Balochistan government would not allow any agreement that undermined the rights of the people. So much for the illusory authority that they are so proud of.

It should now dawn upon the power wielders that the Centre can ill afford to allow the FC to run a parallel government and that they can overrule the decisions of their very loyal provincial government at will and still expect the already alienated people of Balochistan to help them sustain the already endangered integrity of the federation.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by arun »

X Posted.

Being a follower of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s majority religion, Islam, besides being a member of the majority Sunni Islamic sect, is not enough to protect the Baloch ethno-linguistic minority.

Peter Tatchell in the UK’s Guardian on the oppression being meted out by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to their fellow Muslim but minority Baloch population:
Pakistan the oppressor

It is little surprise that Baloch nationalist leaders have rejected the latest peace package proposed by Islamabad

Peter Tatchell
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 January 2010 20.30 GMT

A series of massacres of peaceful protesters by Pakistani security forces look set to sink hopes of a settlement deal between the government in Islamabad and Baloch nationalists who are campaigning for self-rule. There are fears that the sinister, shadowy Pakistani military and intelligence agencies are behind these killings, in a deliberate attempt to sabotage the reconciliation package put forward by the government of President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

On 15 January, at least two Baloch political activists were shot dead and four others seriously wounded after Pakistani security forces opened fire on a peaceful protest organised by the Baloch Students Organisation (BSO) in the Khuzdar district of Balochistan. The rally had been called to protest against the recent murder of Baloch citizens in Karachi and the launching of a new military crackdown in Pakistani annexed and occupied Balochistan.

The shootings are the latest of many killings of Baloch protesters and nationalist leaders. They've been targeted because of their support for the six-decades-long campaign of resistance against Pakistan's invasion and subjugation of their homeland.

In September last year, Pakistani forces opened fire on a public gathering at Tump High School in Balochistan, killing a 20-year-old political activist, Mukhtar Baloch, and wounding 27 others, including four women and a six-year-old child. Five members of the BSO were arrested at the scene and taken to unknown locations. Watch this mobile phone footage of the attack – the shooting begins just over four minutes into the film.

A similar Pakistani military assault on a peaceful Baloch rally took place in January 2009 in Turbat. A month later at Dashte Goran the army attacked a wedding party, killing 13 people, including the bride, groom, six family members and the wedding officiator. A total of 21 people were injured – the majority of them women.

Rasool Bux Mengal, joint secretary of the Baloch National Movement (BNM), was abducted from Uthal last August. His tortured dead body, slashed and covered in cigarette burns, was found hanging from a tree. The intention was clear: to terrorise and intimidate the Baloch people. Mengal was the second BNM leader murdered in the last year. In April 2009, the body of Ghulam Mohammad, chair of the BNM, was found partly decomposed in a vat of toxic chemicals.

In October last year, Baloch medical students were beaten up and arrested by Pakistani forces in a raid on the Bolan Medical College. The same month, 11 innocent civilians, including women and children, were killed in the Dera Bugti district by Pakistan army bombardments. ................................
Read it all:

Pakistan the oppressor
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by Avinash R »

No respite in sight for Baloch people as military, intelligence still rules in Pak
London, Jan.30 (ANI): Even as the 'democratic' Pakistan government is trying hard to pacify the Baloch people through a special reconciliation package, it is highly unlikely that the government will succeed in ending the insurgency in the province, as it is the army and the powerful intelligence agencies which still rule the roost in the country.

Dousing the fire of wide spread public mutiny and accepting the demands of the Baloch people are some of the biggest challenges confronting the Pakistan government, and it is trying to find a middle path, however, it seems to be a difficult task considering the fact that the government is only in office and not truly in 'power'.

The Gilani government recently announced the 'Rahe-i- Haqooq Balochistan' package for Balochistan, as a reconciliation move, but the more powerful military and intelligence services, including the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI) are likely to stonewall the government's step forward to stabilise the region.

Together with the army, these intelligence services are the real power in Pakistan. They are implicated in six decades of disappearances, torture, detention without trial and extra-judicial killings in Balochistan, an article in The Guardian said.

The newspaper also pointed out that despite it having been over two years since the former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf was ousted from power, his 'cronies' still hold many of the key levers of power, especially in the all-crucial military, security and intelligence agencies.

"They continue to call the shots and pull the strings, regardless of what the democratic, civilian government says and wants," it said.

These facts have not only sunk hopes of a settlement deal between the government in Islamabad and Baloch nationalists who are campaigning for self-rule, but they also mean further suppression and oppression of the Baloch people on their own soil.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by SSridhar »

Balochistan's unattended IDP Crisis
The government of Pervez Musharraf not only created an IDP (internally displaced persons) crisis in Balochistan, it also very dexterously kept the whole country in oblivion about it. {IMHO, not only Musharraf, but also Z.A.Bhutto, when he ordered strafing of Balochistan, kept the brutalities from leaking out. The huge, sparse, remote, and daunting Balochistan helped such a blackout} Limited and restricted information was leaked about the fate of around 100,000 Baloch IDPs who were driven out of their homes during the military operation carried out in Marri and Bugti tribal areas. The dictator-sponsored humanitarian catastrophe was deplorable but officially denying accesses to national and international humanitarian groups to grapple with the IDP crisis in Balochistan was criminal.

The first batch of IDPs from Dera Bugti reached the neighbouring districts of Naseerabad and Jaffarabad soon after the attack by paramilitary forces on the fort of Nawab Mohammad Akbar Khan Bugti on March 17, 2005. An incident billed by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) as “extra judicial killing of non-combatants”, the March 17 assault killed 43 people, including 19 men and three women from the minority Hindu community. More people abandoned their homes as the military operation escalated in the Marri and Bugti tribal areas until it reached its culmination with the killing of Nawab Bugti on August 26, 2006.

The government refuted media statements about the launching of a military operation in the oil-and-gas-rich region. It also brushed aside the impression that a humanitarian disaster was in the offing after the displacement of hundreds of families. Lies about the grave situation of Baloch IDPs were debunked only after an internal assessment report prepared by the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was leaked in July-August 2006 to the media. According to this report, the displaced persons, mostly women (26,000) and children (33,000) were living in makeshift camps without adequate shelter in Jaffarabad, Naseerabad, Quetta, Sibi and Bolan districts. The UNICEF report said that 28 percent of five-year-old children were acutely malnourished, and more than 6.0 percent were in a state of “severe acute malnourishment”, with their survival dependent on receiving immediate medical attention. Over 80 percent of deaths among those surveyed were among children under five.

The UNICEF report came as an indictment to the Musharraf regime and gave currency to Baloch nationalists’ repeated stance that the military operation had caused a dire IDP crisis in the province that needed to be urgently tackled. On the other hand, the military junta was so incensed that not only did it ask the UNICEF chief to leave the country but also put pressure on UN officials to back out from the report they had prepared about Baloch IDPs.

For instance, investigative journalist Ziad Zafar, while writing in Newsline in June 2007, quoted a senior official of the UN Human Rights Council saying that they had already made a “big mistake” by talking to the press earlier. “We will never know how many lives were lost because of it. We cannot make that mistake again.” The official went further and told the journalist: “Forget that you are a journalist. If, as a human being, you care at all about those who are suffering, you will not publish this report [about the IDPs]. I implore you: please do not aggravate the situation. It is already very precarious.”

As the UNICEF report disclosed the plight of the IDPs of Balochistan, the government in Islamabad as well as in Quetta insisted that no such thing existed in the province. Instead, the government termed the UNICEF report as exaggerated. Most of the displaced citizens, claimed the government, had returned to their homes as peace had supposedly returned to the area after the killing of Nawab Bugti and the dismantling of the fugitive camps.

After intense pressure from various NGOs, the government agreed to allow access to the UN agencies to operate in the area to help the displaced people. Nonetheless, this was an unconditional permission. The UN agencies were asked to help the people under official surveillance and without letting the media know about such relief operations.

The UN, finally on December 21, 2006, managed to initiate its million dollar aid package for the Baloch IDPs, which included setting up 57 feeding centres. But this aid project was soon disbanded after a UN official told the media that the IDPs should have been approached with help much earlier. This was seen as a violation of the so-called terms and conditions brokered between the government and the UN that no details of the operations would be provided to the media. Thus the UN was asked to pull out of Balochistan as a ‘punishment’ for telling the media that more assistance for the IDPs was required. Similar treatment was meted out to the Edhi Foundation of Pakistan which, after the completion of the first phase of its operations, made the same blunder and informed the press that it was about to begin the second phase of relief operations for the Baloch IDPs. The government also ordered the Edhi Foundation never to return to the ‘sensitive region’ without providing any convincing reasons.

There are obvious reasons for the country’s security establishment to create obstacles for aid workers. The grave violations of human rights during the military operation in Balochistan are likely to be exposed to the international community once they are granted access to Balochistan’s conflict zones.

Three years down the line, nothing has changed for the Baloch IDPs. The military and the elected governments have both made every possible effort to prevent aid workers to assist the Baloch IDPs. While extraordinary assistance was provided to the victims of the earthquake in Kashmir and the recent IDP crisis in Pakhtunkhwa province, the federal government has still not officially acknowledged the Baloch IDP crisis. Currently, there is not a single officially recognised IDP camp in the province while the displaced people are spread in Balochistan’s Naseerabad, Jaffarabad, Sibi and Bolan districts. In Sindh, they have gone to Jacobabad, Sukkur, Dadu and Karachi, while many others are languishing in Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur districts of Punjab.

For the first time, the government announced Rs 1 billion for the rehabilitation of Bugti IDPs in the Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan Package. It was too little too late. Before the government could begin work on the rehabilitation of the IDPs, a new deadly conflict broke out between the supporters of two grandsons of late Nawab Akbar Bugti — Mir Aali and Shahzain Bugti — as was anticipated by political gurus. Instigated a week ago, the armed clash between the Bugti cousins being fought for the control of 2,000 acre land has killed around 20 people so far. {This is most unfortunate. Most probably, there is the hand of the intelligence agencies} With the previously displaced people still unsettled, the fresh conflict is forcing hundreds of neutral people, mainly from the Khosa tribe, to leave their homes and take shelter in safer places.

The IDP situation in Balochistan was initiated by antagonistic polices of the previous government, while this time the issue is being perpetuated by those who want to divide and rule in the resource rich Balochistan province. At the end of the day, it is the poor masses who suffer. Instead of manipulating the unfolding conflict between the Bugti cousins, the government should immediately play a mediatory role in order to make sure that official plans to rehabilitate the Bugti IDPs are not derailed.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by SSridhar »

Balochistan's Annexation - Part II by Mir Mohammed Ali Talpur
The Kalat state’s forced merger with Pakistan ended 300 years of independent and semi-independent Baloch state. The sovereignty and will of the people of Balochistan was temporarily subverted. It was an epoch making event in the history of the Baloch people. Colonialism, be it of Iran, Afghanistan, Britain or Pakistan, has played the most important role in moulding the national consciousness that had been present in formative shape all through their history but had remained latent. This consciousness acquired at a bitter price is now becoming the determining factor in their struggle to be the masters of their destiny.

Not willing to allow the Baloch a chance to recuperate and reorganise the second equally unjust and illegal assault on Kalat was carried out on October 6, 1958, once again on false pretences and premises. Nawab Nauroz Khan Zarakzai, a septuagenarian, took up arms and led the Baloch resistance. As in 1948, a wave of repression and reign of terror was let loose all over Balochistan. Political leaders and activists were incarcerated in the notorious ‘Kulli camps’ in the Quetta cantonment. The suppression of rights by force created abiding antagonism and animosity.

On May 19, 1959, Nawab Nauroz Khan along with his fighters surrendered near Anari Mountain after the authorities promised acceptance of their demands on the Quran. Instead they were shifted to the Quetta cantonment and tried by a special military court and sentenced on July 7, 1960. The death sentences were carried out simultaneously on the July 15, 1960, at Sukkur and Hyderabad Central Jails.

For the Baloch, Nawab Nauroz Khan and the seven martyrs symbolise the determination to not to bow to unjust and brutal assaults on their freedom and to resist regardless of the price that has to be paid for this honourable path. Emulating them is the dream of every politically conscious Baloch.

The 60s decade saw sporadic Baloch resistance led by Mir Sher Mohammad Marri, Ali Mohammad Mengal and others. The dissolution of One-Unit and 1970 elections gave a glimmer of hope that the Baloch would get a chance of restricted self-rule. But the subsequent illegal and unjust dismissal of Ataullah Mengal’s government in February 1973 and the incarceration of Baloch leaders by ZA Bhutto-led PPP government shattered those hopes.

This injustice naturally led to a resistance by the Baloch and large-scale military operations against them were launched on May 21, 1973, with Mawand in Marri area being occupied. The 1973-77 conflict resulted in enormous sufferings of the Baloch population in the province; forcing thousands of Marris and other Baloch to seek shelter in Afghanistan. It was during this period that the steel of the Baloch mettle was really tempered and for the first time they felt confident that they could take on the might of the state and survive to fight another day. This struggle blazed a path for the future generations and without it probably the flame of the Baloch struggle may have been extinguished forever.

During the musical chairs democracy period the main players were too busy undermining each other and the Baloch were left alone. Then Musharraf unleashed a war of terror against the Baloch, which resulted in the death of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, Nawabzada Balach Khan Marri and hundreds of other innocent people. The plague of missing persons visited once again with a vengeance. Recently mass unmarked graves of victims of Indian atrocities were discovered in Kashmir. One wonders if ever such graves, for they certainly exist, will be found here. His era was the era of pseudo mega-projects, brutal mega-operations and super mega sufferings for the Baloch people. The present irreconcilable antagonisms are the result of the protracted and indiscriminate use of force against the Baloch.

The PPP government has been long on promises and short on positive action. The much-trumpeted Balochistan package was rightly termed as a ‘band-aid on a bullet wound’ by Alia Amirali Sahiba, a student activist of QAU. The three-day joint session of parliament was expected to discuss the formulated proposals with expectations of opening a new chapter in the post-independence history of Balochistan. But the keenness or lack of it shown by the parliamentarians in this supposedly important and historic package belies the claims that this government or the state is or will ever be sincere in solving the problems faced by the Baloch people.

A report released by Pildat said that out of total 438 MPs — 338 in the National Assembly and 100 in Senate — only 38 (nine percent) members spoke during this joint session. This pathetic indifference itself speaks volume about the interest that the government and parliament take in solving the problems. Unsurprisingly the 20 months of PPP rule have been as barren for the Baloch as were the nine years of Musharraf.

The president cannot have the right to claim of serving the Baloch if the Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah does not even know who ordered the Rangers’ action against the Baloch of Lyari. And yet they tire not of posing as the champions of Baloch problems. So much so that the president claims that he is under threat from the anti-Baloch clique, which would be committing an unpardonable blunder if it punished him for an act he is not even remotely guilty of.

The rulers should understand that lip service does not soothe the wounds caused by decades of injuries and injustices. Difficult decisions are needed to solve the problems and win the hearts of the justifiably alienated Baloch. Obviously, no political party or individual has the will to take these decisions because they can only do so at the greatest risk to their own existence and none here would be willing to go to that extreme for the children of lesser gods.

The establishment’s anti-Baloch policy is too entrenched, too consolidated and too committed to allow far-reaching measures to be endorsed and implemented; measures that may bring some relief for the people. Because those who have been calling the shots here — call them the anti-Baloch clique or the establishment — will not consent to even the most basic justified demands of the return of missing people, stopping construction of cantonments, military airports and naval ports, withdrawal of the army, a halt to military operations, rights over resources and the reining in of the FC because their financial, commercial and imaginary strategic interests will be surely hurt by any such roll back in Balochistan.

You do not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that the establishment, guided by its self-preservation instinct, had to be anti-Baloch, anti-Sindhi anti-Pashtun and anti-Bengali since partition because without erasing the historical national consciousness and identities they could not hope to impose their ideology of Pakistaniat. However, they overlooked the fact that millenniums old consciousness and identities cannot be easily obliterated and replaced; little wonder that they have miserably failed to either forge or impose a new identity. Certainly the Baloch resistance has played a pivotal role in thwarting their designs.

(Concluded)
For Part I, see here
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by Avinash R »

Former corps commander, 2 ISI officials booked
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 2010_pg7_1
* Case registered in line with orders of Supreme Court over disappearance of Quetta resident Ali Asghar Bangalzai
Thursday, February 04, 2010
By Malik Siraj Akbar

QUETTA: Police in the provincial capital registered a case on Wednesday against former corps commander Gen (r) Abdul Qadir Baloch and two senior ISI officials, in line with orders of a Supreme Court bench hearing a case related to the disappearance of a resident of the city, Ali Asghar Bangalzai.

The family of Bangalzai, a tailor master, registered the first information report (FIR) with the Sariab Police Station against the former corps commander, former ISI Quetta chief Brig Siddique and another senior ISI official identified only as Col Bangash.

Bangalzai’s son, Ghulam Farooq, told Daily Times that his 38-year-old father, along with a friend identified as Muhammad Iqbal, was “arrested” by intelligence agencies on June 1, 2000. He said while the two were released within 22 days, his father was “taken away again on October 18, 2001”. The family have repeatedly sought the help of higher courts and human rights groups, but there has been no information on Bangalzai’s whereabouts since.

Farooq and his siblings went on the “longest hunger strike ever staged by children in the history of Pakistan” in 2006 for the release of their father.

“No police station has been willing to register a case against the intelligence agencies we hold responsible for the disappearance of our father,” said Farooq. “We are delighted to have finally managed to register a case against the responsible officials by virtue of the independent judiciary’s interest in the case.” He said the three former army officials had been named in the FIR because they “admitted before the family that Bangalzai was in their custody”. He said while the officials assured the family that Bangalzai would be released, they did not keep their word.

“We met the head of the intelligence agency in the presence of MMA leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmed. The official confirmed that Ali was in their custody but would be released soon,” Nasrullah – Bangalzai’s nephew and the chairman of an organisation called Voice for Missing Persons – told Daily Times. He said the official later “backtracked from his promise and denied that Ali was in their custody”.

Nasrullah said Bangalzai’s family was very thankful to the country’s “independent judiciary” for taking notice of the case of a man who has been missing for the last eight years.

“We are hopeful that action would be taken against those responsible for the disappearance of my uncle,” he said. “It is for the first time in eight years that a case has been registered over the disappearance of my uncle,” he said.

Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch – who has been nominated in the case – is a former governor of Balochistan and a member of the current National Assembly. He recently joined the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

The SC bench, headed by Justice Javed Iqbal, ordered the registration of a case against the intelligence officials while hearing the missing citizens’ case – a hearing of which is scheduled for today (Thursday).
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by Airavat »

Attacks on police in Baluchistan

British High Commissioner in Baluchistan

Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Muhammad Aslam Raisani expressed the hope that the federal government would give provincial rights as per the 1940 Resolution in the upcoming constitutional package. “We want complete authority to run the affairs of the Gwadar Port. We have intimated our reservations over other projects to President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani.”

Raisani noted that efforts were being made for the promotion of sea food and fisheries sectors in the province. He added the government was planning a shipyard at Ormara as many foreign investors from various counties had expressed their interest to invest there.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by Airavat »

What is Pakistan?

Two days earlier, on January 15, the Pakistan army’s Frontier Corps had opened fire on a student protest in south-eastern Balochistan, killing two students and injuring four more – the latest casualties in an escalating war between the state of Pakistan and nationalists in Balochistan.

How many among the crowd will talk to me when they realise I am a Punjabi, the politically and numerically dominant group in Pakistan, and the eternal target of Baloch nationalist ire?

“We were Muslims already,” he says. “We were Baloch already. The British grouped all the conquered people together [into Pakistan]. That’s not a justification: grouping people together just for being Muslims.” The Baloch, he says, can draw inspiration from the Vietnamese resistance to America: “Vietnam wasn’t an atomic power,” he concludes. “That’s why we have to do the same thing: Punjabi sons will die.”
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by JE Menon »

This freelancer is done for... she better leave the bosom of Pakisatan quickly.

BTW, a small FYI, I heard recently that about 60% of the Bahraini police force is Baloch, and quite conscious of their ethnic identity. Many have acquired Bahraini nationality. The Baloch are spread throughout the Gulf, many of them comfortably settled and well off financially.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by shyamd »

^^ For your reference - Previous posts of mine on the issue:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

The real supporter is a ruler who is half balochi himself. The Royal Guard of Oman is balochi. The bulk of the Baloch community is located in Oman and the UAE.

TSP - Oman had secret negotiations, I have a feeling it was on this issue.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by JE Menon »

shyamd, the Omani situation is clear. I was just surprised by the % that I was informed regarding the Bahraini police.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by Airavat »

power pylons blown up
Addressing a hurriedly called Press conference Chief Executive of Quetta Electric Supply Company (QESCO) Shafiq Khattak said that unidentified people had blown up three towers of main transmission line of 220KV and 130KV supplying electricity to different areas of Balochistan from Guddu.

He said that around 27 districts of Balochistan including Quetta, Mastung, Nahal, Nushki, Kalat, Khuzdar, Pishin, Chaman, Qila Abdullah and other areas were badly affected due to suspension of power supply. QESCO Chief said that according to new schedule of QESCO eight hours of loadshedding would be carried out in Quetta, 16 hours in district headquarters while in rural areas of affected districts would face 20 hours loadshedding.
Will army areas also share the burden of this load shedding.....I think not.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

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From a book review in TFT
In a country where nationality is defined in terms of religion and religion alone, “the Baloch nation can hardly find a legitimate space, even as a term of reference. There is no notion in the minds of the powers-that-be of a nationality other than an exclusive and sweeping ‘Pakistani’. History and political reality, however, informs us otherwise. The secession of East Pakistan, taught the hard lesson that national identities cannot be brushed aside and diversity cannot be suppressed by military might. This fundamental lesson of 1971 is still glossed over in what remains of Pakistan.

Perhaps the secession of East Pakistan is the reason, amongst others, that the subject of Baloch nationalism evokes a passionate response from the supporters of a single Pakistani nation. The ruling establishment of Pakistan denies the very existence of a Baloch national movement, calling it a product of external forces. They insist on one Pakistani nation – absolute and united. Baloch nationalists, in response, make no bones about marking their distinction from the rest of Pakistan. In order to demonstrate the persistence of a Baloch national identity from time immemorial, they raise this discourse to mythical proportions.

Martin Axmann in ‘Back to the Future: The Khanate of Kalat and the Genesis of Baloch Nationalism 1915-1955’ rejects both the absolute negation of Pakistani nationalists and the grandiose exaggeration of Baloch nationalists. On the other hand, he argues that nationhood is a product of modernity which disrupts the traditional balance of society and creates new constellations of shared interests through industrialization, print capitalism, mass education, and the proliferation of the modern territorial state. The genesis of Baloch nationalism, in this framework, lies precisely in the disruptive effects caused by modernity and, particularly, the replacement of the traditional elites in Baloch society. For Axmann, two events are of crucial importance in the formation of Baloch national identity: the inclusion of the Khanate of Kalat in the British Indian Empire during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century; and the partition of India and the emergence of Pakistan on the map of the world in 1947.

The British interest in Balochistan began with the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-42) and was motivated by the need for safe passage for troops and supplies. The Treaty of 1854 required the Khan to maintain better control over the Marri and Bugti areas that threatened neighbouring British Indian districts. The Treaty of 1876 that eventually came to govern the relationship between the Khanate and the British Empire affirmed the independence of Kalat and the sovereignty of the Khan.

Around the same time, British policy took a radical shift in a manner that would have a far reaching impact on the State of Kalat. Fearing Russian encroachment, the British administration decided to take an active interest in the internal affairs of Kalat to guard against instability. By implementing the Sandeman system (named after Major Robert Sandeman, the Agent to the Governor General in Balochistan), the British moved to support the local sardari concerns (by granting financial favours, titles, and administrative functions), introduced intertribal councils of elders (jirga) for dispute resolution, and put into practice a police and administrative machinery (levy system). Although Kalat was treated as an independent and sovereign state by the British administration, the Sandeman system opened the gates for British interference that gradually undermined the authority of the Khan of Kalat. In the words of a Baloch nationalist, the Sandeman system ‘tamed and bribed the chiefs at the cost of the people’.

Time went by until Khan Ahmed Yar Khan became the Khan of Kalat in 1933 with the desire to restore the lost glory of his state and to reclaim his status as the Khan-e-Azam of the Baloch tribes. The Khan understood well that Kalat remained a sovereign state, at least on paper, unlike the other princely states of British India. He, therefore, wanted to reaffirm his sovereignty and independence. However, the dreams of the newly appointed Khan were shattered by the Government of India Act, 1935, which listed Kalat as an ordinary princely state of India represented in the federal government. The Khan did not let this act of unilateralism pass him by. The treaties of 1854 and 1876, he argued before the British authorities in various representations, conclusively determined the relationship between Kalat and British authorities and recognized Kalat as an independent state.

In order to postpone a controversy, the British formally affirmed the unaltered status of the 1876 Treaty, though the Government of India Act, 1935 explicitly stated otherwise. The issue, however, remained unresolved and was deferred with the advent of the Second World War. More pressing concerns were at stake. The status of the Khanate of Kalat remained unsettled, only to be picked up again at the time of the partition of India.

The 1920s and 30s are also important in Baloch history because they witnessed the growth of independent political organizations. The two landmark ‘All India Baloch and Balochistan Conferences’ organized by Anjuman-e-Ittehad-e-Balochan-wa-Balochistan raised the concerns of the Baloch people for the first time. The Kalat State National Party formed with the support of Khan Ahmed Yar Khan in 1936 was banned in 1939 for overtly criticizing the sardari system and advocating administrative modernization and introduction of parliamentary representation on a western model. Ghaus Bux Bizenjo and Gul Khan Nasir, members of the party, were expelled from the state by the Khan. Anjum-e-Watan, organized around the Pathan residents of Balochistan, promoted the need for constitutional reforms. The Muslim League, though a minor party limited to very few, also played an important role in the years to come.

The issue of the status of Kalat State was again raised by Ahmed Yar Khan as the British withdrawal from India neared. Ahmed Yar Khan reiterated his well known stance that Kalat was distinct from other princely states of India as it was neither a British protectorate nor part of the Indian federation. Through two separate memorandums submitted to the Cabinet Mission in 1946, the Khan argued that any treaty arrangement between Kalat and the British Government would ipso facto terminate with the transfer of power in British India.

The British withdrawal from India and consequent partition revived Ahmed Yar Khan’s hopes for an independent Kalat state. The fate of British Balochistan was decided by the Shahi Jirga, which was enlarged by the representation of the Quetta Municipal Committee. Though the Jirga voted for Pakistan, the actual results and the procedure followed became controversial with varying narratives. The Khan of Kalat, on the other hand, managed to get a standstill agreement reached between Viceroy Mountbatten, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Liaqat Ali Khan, and Ahmed Yar Khan. The standstill agreement, entered upon on 5th August, 1947, recognized the independent status of Kalat, but at the same time provided for the transfer of British paramountcy to Pakistan.

The Khan of Kalat declared independence on 15th August, 1947, and implemented an interim constitution that provided for a bi-cameral parliament. Later, when the Jam of Las Bela and the Nawab of Kharan, both constitutionally parts of Kalat, acceded to Pakistan, the Khan of Kalat also promptly signed the documents of accession to Pakistan on 30th March, 1948. Ahmed Yar Khan’s younger brother Abdul Karim went up to the mountains to wage what was later termed by Baloch nationalists as the first Baloch war of liberation and self-determination. As the author rightly concludes, the death of the state was the birth of the nation.

The central thesis of Axmann that Baloch nationalism arose from the impact of modernity on the state and society in Balochistan stands firm on the historical facts collected by him through extensive research. This proposition can be confronted with the argument that modernity had no far-reaching impact in Balochistan, that the society there remained primitive, and modern education was limited only to a small minority. This criticism, however, misses the point that the initial instrument of modernity that hit Balochistan was the modern administrative machinery and Baloch nationalism originated from this interaction. In other words, nationalist leadership in Balochistan became familiar with modernity through their interaction with the modern territorial state. It is, therefore, not surprising that the initial demands of the Baloch leadership pushed for administrative and constitutional reforms and criticized the prevalent sardari system.

The book under review also hints at the wavering character of the ruling tribal elite of Balochistan with regard to their national movement. The censorship of the Kalat State National Party was an early sign of what was to appear later. After protesting against the forcible accession of Kalat State for a few years, Ahmed Yar Khan eventually affirmed his loyalty to Pakistan. The Khan of Kalat, commented Ayub Baksh Awan, who had been lodged in a comfortable house in the most fashionable locality of Lahore, reaffirmed his loyalty to Pakistan, asked for forgiveness and was pardoned. The full amount of his Privy Purse was also restored.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by arun »

The Gods willing, Balochistan will be librated from the clutches of the rapacious “Punjabi supremacists” of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Peter Tatchell in the UK newspaper, The Independent:

Peter Tatchell: The people of Baluchistan have a right to self-determination
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by Airavat »

Baloch resistance has the upper hand

they have killed hundreds of settlers who came here decades ago from non-Baloch areas, primarily from the Punjab. The statistics are staggering. In just under a year, over 350 roadside bombings, grenade attacks and point blank killings.

The legend lurking on the streets of Quetta these days is, that Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, currently residing in Karachi, had recently sent a coffin to Chief Minister Muhammad Aslam Raisani, indicating that his days were numbered. But instead of returning the coffin in the typical Baloch tradition of fighting fire with fire, he wilted and dispatched boxes full of protection money to the old man.

One report makes the astounding claim that nearly 90% of the sitting ministers are in touch with the insurgents, and a vast majority of them actually shelter the gun-wielders. While intelligence and army officials privately refer to them as social outcasts who have a grudge, a gun and have taken to the mountains, the fact of the matter is that insurgents are found among teachers, students, lawyers, and perfectly reasonable and educated persons.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by shiv »

Why can't India reserve one seat every educational institution for a Baloch student? After suitable vetting of course...
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by ramana »

The Tony Blair setup FPC, London has a series of seminars on Balohcistan since 2006 or earleir.

Why balochistan matters?

I think we are being mislead that India has any role in Balochistan. Its just Paki paranoia and futile outbursts (brutus fulmen) over what they cant counter from the British lion.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

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Image
"How will this port make us prosperous while hardly 10% of the locals are employed by the port authorities?” the 23 year old medical student posed questions in an activist style. “Gwadar is a historic fishing port and Baloch people have been making a livelihood for centuries. This government seizes the town and declares it ‘federal territory’. They establish a cantonment, coast guard outposts and expel the poor fishermen from their waters and impose a 15 nautical mile curfew.

“And this is not the end. They give licenses to fishing trawlers from China and Far East to fish in our seas yet 80% of local population have no right to make a livelihood. Is this justice? You call this development or imperialism Mr. Journalist?”

“Fishing vessels and improved storage godowns will improve the livelihood of our fishermen and boost our exports. I’m not a separatist as I know battles come with a heavy cost but please tell me what choice is my nation left with? We’re forced to pay a heavy price for mega projects yet they’re not ready to provide us the very basic necessities like water, sanitation, education, gas and electricity, transport, jobs etc. I refuse to stay silent,” my young friend cried but didn’t speak any further.

“People love to gossip that Baloch rights movement is controlled by India. You’ll see Pakistani politicians and military generals making statements about New Delhi’s interference in Balochistan. They’ll claim India has hundreds of training camps here in our province. My simple questions: Where is the proof? Show me at least one camp where Indians are training the Baloch separatists. And even if there are camps, what the hell is the Pakistani establishment doing? How did they let the Indians infiltrate and establish their bases thousands of kilometers deep into Pakistani territory?”
Baluchistan seeks Independence
JE Menon
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Genocide

Post by JE Menon »

X-post

New postby brihaspati » 01 May 2010
http://www.opendemocracy.net/peter-tatc ... ermination

The cultural conquest of Balochistan also involves the radical Islamification of the traditionally more secular Baloch nation. Large numbers of religious schools have been funded by Islamabad, with a view to imposing Pakistan’s harsher, more narrow-minded interpretation of Islam. This is fuelling fundamentalism. The West’s attitude towards the plight of the Baloch people is less than honourable. Because Britain and the United States want Pakistan as an ally in the so-called “war on terror,” they have armed Pakistan and acquiesced with its suppression of the Baloch people. Pakistan’s war against Balochistan is strengthening the position of the Taliban, who have exploited the unstable, strife-ridden situation to establish bases and influence in the region. From these bases, the Taliban terrorise the often more liberal, secular Baloch people and enforce the Talibanisation of Balochistan.

The Pakistani military often tolerates the Taliban, on the grounds that Taliban influence acts as a second force to crush the Baloch people and weaken their struggle for independence. In other words, the Taliban are being used as a proxy force by Islamabad in its war against Balochistan. The bases in the Baloch region are also hide-outs from where Taliban fighters mount military operations in Afghanistan. Despite recent well-publicised military operations, the Pakistani security forces are taking very little serious action to stop the Taliban using Balochistan as a rear base for their Islamist war against democracy and human rights.

If the nations of the world want to strike a blow against the Taliban and fundamentalism, they should seek an end Pakistan’s repression in Balochistan and support the Baloch people’s right to self-determination. Baloch secular nationalism could act as a powerful bulwark against the Talibanisation of the country, which ultimately threatens all the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan – and the wider region.

The future status of Balochistan

Whether self-determination means the restoration of independence, or full regional autonomy within a federal Pakistan, is a matter for the Baloch people to decide. The best way to resolve this issue would be for the government of Pakistan to authorise a United Nations-supervised and monitored referendum to allow the people of Balochistan to freely and democratically determine their own future.

The Baloch people, like all people everywhere, have a right to self-determination – and the right to democracy, human rights and social justice.
If tiny East Timor can be an independent, self-governing nation, why not Balochistan?
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Geno

Post by Sanjay M »

I notice significant interest in Balochistan among Twitterers, in the wake of Times Square bomb attempt:

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/full ... alochistan
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Geno

Post by Airavat »

Balochistan's mineral wealth
Sheikh Tanvir, president of Benway Corp., a Niskayuna company said he has obtained licenses from Balochistan province to explore for rich mineral deposits. Tanvir says most of the investors in Benway are from the Capital Region and upstate New York. The chairman the board of directors is a former New Hampshire congressman, William H. Zeliff Jr.

Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that the U.S. government has uncovered what it believes to be large deposits of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and lithium in Afghanistan. Tanvir says that same vein of minerals runs through Balochistan. "When you find the deposit, usually you are bought by a major mining company," Tanvir said. "That's where the payday comes. This now is the riskiest part of the mining business."
Mineral projects
Balochistan Finance Minister Mir Asim Kurd Gailo has said that the government would invest over Rs12 billion in different mineral projects, including Reko-diq Copper-Gold project.

The Balochistan government has decided to manage Saindak copper project itself after the expiry of contract of the Chinese company next year, the minister said.

He said the Balochistan government had disagreed with the handing over the control of Gwadar Port to a Singapore shipping company. He hoped that a functional Gwadar Port would also provide huge revenue to the provincial government.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Geno

Post by shravan »

Veteran Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, who champions the cause of an independent Balochs and supports the armed struggle in Balochistan, was interviewed recently by a Sindhi newspaper. The Baloch Hal brings you the complete text of the interview in English.

http://thebalochhal.com/2010/07/ultimat ... ksh-marri/
arun
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Geno

Post by arun »

A Baloch / Baluch Human Rights organization accuses the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, particularly its security agencies the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI). of involvement in the assassination of veteran Blochi / Baluchi politician Habib Jalib Baloch through “proxy death squads”:
Balochistan: Human Rights Council condemns Assassination

Thursday, 15 July 2010 ………………….

Baloch Human Rights Council (UK) strongly condemns the assassination of prominent Baloch nationalist politician Habib Jalib Baloch, Secretary General of the Balochistan National Party (BNP) on Wednesday 14 July 2010. BHRC (UK) strongly condemns the inhuman tactics of the Pakistani State Establishment of physically eliminating prominent nationalist leaders through the “proxy death squads” operating on behalf of security agencies like Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI) in Balochistan. ………………

UNPO
shravan
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Geno

Post by shravan »

BNP leader Liaquat Mengal shot dead

QUETTA: Liaquat Mengal, a senior leader of the Balochistan National Party (BNP), was shot dead in Kalat District on Tuesday.

Three unknown assailants riding a motorbike attacked Mengal when he was on his way to Kalat city, police sources said. Mengal died on the spot.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Geno

Post by RajeshA »

BNP leader Liaquat Mengal shot dead in Kalat by Amanullah Kasi: Dawn
QUETTA: Haji Liaquat Ali Mengal, a leader of the Balochistan National Party-M, was shot dead near his house in Kalat on Tuesday (20th July 2010).

The killing of second BNP-M leader in a week — Habib Jalib Baloch was gunned down on July 14 — sparked protests in the provincial capital and activists of the party held a demonstration near the press club.

Addressing the protesters, BNP-M leaders Agha Hasan Baloch, Akhtar Hussain Lango and Ghulam Nabi Marri said the killings would fail to force the party leadership to abandon the struggle against ‘usurpers’.

They said death of important leaders was a big loss but no nation could achieve its rights without rendering sacrifices.

The leaders appealed to party workers and sympathisers to remain peaceful and said that anti-Baloch forces were provoking them to take the path of violence in order to weaken their organisation.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Geno

Post by Raghavendra »

Killing of Baloch leaders condemned http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20100726/8 ... ned_1.html
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Geno

Post by krisna »

http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/sair/#assessment1
The picture that emerges from Balochistan is of total lawlessness, with no one seemingly in control. A situation where various kinds of mafia – drugs, weapons, land and smuggling, anything, take control, and even the government of the day seems part of that mafia. With Chief Minister Aslam Raisani taking shelter in Dubai for half the month, nobody is really in charge. Local dissidents and objectors are routinely described as ‘terrorists’ and treated as such. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), for instance, has been seen to be increasingly anti-Punjabi in recent years. Its cadres consist of the educated class too, which includes doctors, engineers and lawyers, and this obviously means that this class too feels that their basic rights would not be available to them except through a violent struggle. Age-old grievances have not been addressed and new ones like the presence of the Chinese in Gwadar have been added.
There are other complications in Balochistan. The foremost is the presence of the Quetta Shura of Mullah Omar, and divergent US and Pakistani interests in the future of this Shura, as well as the Pushtun response to this in Balochistan. US involvement in the intricate and seemingly hopeless war in Afghanistan against the Taliban and al Qaeda with the dubious assistance of Pakistan and its surrogates in Balochistan, will inevitably bring the Province on to the front page. The activities of the Jundullah, a Sunni Wahhabi organization, from bases in Balochistan, have already attracted Iranian ire and the suspicion in Tehran that the movement is meant to detach the predominantly Sunni Sistan-Balochistan. Already feeling surrounded by Sunni regimes, fearing a Talibanised Afghanistan on its northern borders and the Centcom Forces in the area that have indulged in periodic sabre-rattling, the Iranian leaders have reason to be paranoid.
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Re: Baluchistan: The Story of Another Pakistan Military Geno

Post by James B »

This week there is a special series on Balochistan issue in TFT. I'm posting an article by Khaled Ahmed
Who killed Habib Jalib?

Khaled Ahmed

Jalib's death has already made it difficult for moderate leaders to get a good deal for Balochistan from Islamabad without having leaders deliberately interpret the death in a certain way for the sake of their own safety from militant threats

Habib Jalib Baloch was killed in Quetta on 15 July 2010 by unknown gunmen. A militant group calling itself Baloch Mussallah Dafai Tanzeem (BMDT) said it had done the job but did not explain why a man who had spent a lifetime fighting for the Baloch cause had to be killed. Later, two theories developed: one, that he was killed by the Pakistan army and that heretofore unknown BMDT was its instrument to make it look like an intra-Baloch death; two, that a ‘progressive and moderate’ Baloch leader was eliminated by a Baloch outfit intolerant of those in favour of ‘negotiating’ with Pakistan.

In the tradition of Bizenjo: Dr Mohammad Taqi writing in Daily Times (22 July 2010) stated that ‘after 63 years, four martial laws and six major military operations later, the Baloch struggle for autonomy, self-governance and the right to self-determination continues while the fringes of the movement now demand outright independence’. He goes on to explain the ‘moderate’ stance of Habib Jalib Baloch: ‘One should bear in mind that Khair Bux Marri was considered the hardliner and the late Bizenjo was considered the perennial moderate… Jalib Baloch belonged to the same league of towering intellectuals of a moderate political persuasion. While Jalib remained committed to the political process, his assassination might push those with similar views to the fringes’.

The writer interprets the death of a moderate – which he thinks took place at the hands of the state – as a disincentive for moderation, but he also appeals to Sardar Ataullah Mengal, to whose party Habib belonged, and other Baloch leaders, to ‘take an active role in politics to help banish the factionalism among the Baloch, otherwise the chances of everyone perishing together are very real’.

Baloch moderates under siege: Cyril Almeida visited Balochistan after the assassination and reported in Dawn (24 July 2010) that Mr Jalib was secretary general of the Balochistan National Party (BNP) led by Akhtar Mengal, which was ‘a moderate party considered to be secular, middle class and at a remove from the oppressive sardari system that dominates politics in the province’. His reading of the signs in Quetta was that ‘while publicly Mr Jalib’s death has been blamed by Baloch leaders on the intelligence agencies, there is growing concern in the ranks of some nationalist groups that hardline Baloch separatists may be eliminating those willing to work inside the Pakistani federation’.

Moderate National Party leader and senator Mir Hasil Bizenjo was quoted by him as saying: ‘We are in a very difficult position. The message to us is that people talking about nationalist politics, about staying within the federation, will not be spared. They (the hardliners) say: We are being killed by the ISI and you people are working for them’.

Both the moderates and the hardliners are however united against the Pakistan army and its on-the-ground manifestation, the Frontier Constabulary (FC), which hounds the Baloch in the name of national security. They also name the other adjuncts of the army – the MI and the ISI – as the culprits that have killed many Baloch leaders and made numberless Baloch disappear. To the killings the army’s response is: ‘Comprehensive internal investigations have been conducted. We’ve looked and we haven’t found anything. It’s a myth, one of those unfortunate consequences of this situation’.

Mischief by India or Pakistan army? Almeida however reports: ‘The army does admit nearly 30 suspects are in the custody of agencies, such as the ISI, MI and Corps Intelligence, and are being investigated by Joint Investigation Teams. In addition, senior officers admit some of the missing have been killed in encounters’. What is remarkable about the attitude of the military officers is that their view is by and large rejected by public opinion in the rest of the country, much buttressed by the notice taken of the Baloch situation by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. That Balochistan has been exploited by Pakistan is now accepted on all hands. This places the army in a particularly untenable position.

The army and the federal government say the Indians are doing mischief in Balochistan through the Baloch militants. So far Islamabad has failed to furnish any evidence that India is involved, which must infuriate the Baloch nationalists who see their struggle being belittled by association with India.

Another reporter who visited Balochistan – because local reporters will not report for fear of death – sketched a very different scene from the one usually accepted outside the province. Amir Mateen wrote in The News (25 July 2010) that the great Baloch leaders were conspicuous by their absence: ‘The doyen of Baloch nationalism, Sardar Khair Bux Marri is in Karachi, Sardar Ataullah Mengal in Wadh (but the last time he spoke on TV he was in Karachi), his son Akhtar Mengal in Dubai and Hasil Bizenjo in Karachi. Equally important among Pashtun nationalists, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai is believed to be in London. Most Balochistan politicians who pour their heart out regularly on television talk-shows reside either in Islamabad, Karachi, London or the US’.

Baloch versus Baloch in blood feuds: Balochistan could be ungovernable to a higher degree than the rest of a generally ungovernable Pakistan. Chief Minister Raisani definitely does not present the picture of an ideal ruler. He lives half the month in Islamabad and Dubai and is ‘unintelligible after 8pm’. Like other Baloch leaders, Raisani has blood feuds with the Rinds, Bugtis, Domkis, Jatois, Kalhois, ‘involving scores of murders taking place on each side’. This means his outreach in tribal Balochistan is crippled by half. He wanted the paramilitary FC to get rid of the former federal minister Yar Mohammad Rind, who is supposed to have murdered his father. Yar Mohammad has not come to the Balochistan Assembly after his oath-taking two years ago for fear of being put to death’. The fact that Raisani is a former DSP police doesn’t help matters, either. He can use the police through his batch-mate cronies.

The Baloch who have taken to terror are found in Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF), Balochistan Liberation United Front (BLUF), and many other smaller outfits – fed by the Balochistan Students Organisation (BSO) – who blow up electricity pylons and gas pipelines in the province with dull regularity and kill Punjabi settlers usually busy running Balochistan’s already fragile educational system. Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik has named Hairabyar or Hyrbyair Marri, Brahambdag Bugti, Dr Allah Nazar and Javed Mengal as their leaders, most of whom are also said to be located outside Pakistan.

Insurgency or chaos? The situation in Balochistan is close to chaos rather than insurgency. Amir Mateen writes: ‘The present spate of violence is different from the earlier insurgencies in many ways. One, the present phase does not have the class of leadership in terms of experience, organisation, unity and respect. The first three Baloch conflicts in 1948, 1958 and the 1960s were relatively smaller than the major insurgency of the 1970s but the leadership then was revered by the insurgents’. If the Baloch leaders are no longer respected, then it is quite likely that Habib Baloch lost his life at the hands of the new hardline activists.

What did not happen in the past was this: ‘In most schools in Quetta’s Baloch localities, Pakistani anthem is not allowed to be recited or the national flag to be hoisted. Many have been forbidden from teaching Pakistan Studies as a subject. Only recently, five Baloch youngsters turned up at the St Mary’s Convent to burn the national flag, and it’s happening all over. Anti-Pakistan separatist slogans are chalked on walls…everywhere in the northern parts (Jhalawan) and the southern territory (Sarawan)’.

In these conditions, the Pakistan Army cannot be ‘called off’ so that Islamabad can engage in negotiations. Negotiate with whom, when the leaders are either absent or opposed to talks because they don’t want to die? After Habib Jalib’s death, it has become even more difficult for the moderate leaders to get a good deal for Balochistan out of a greatly harried Islamabad. It is more ‘safe’ for the leaders to deliberately interpret the death of Habib Jalib in a certain way (against Islamabad) for the sake of their own safety. All the parties in the Balochistan Assembly have voted to oust the FC from province and, since the police is ineffective or absent from what is called Area B – which is most of the province – it means leaving the field open to terror of all varieties, including those of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
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