Inside Balochistan Crises

[Neo]

Inside Balochistan Crises ​

Thursday May 14, 2009

Since the inception of Pakistan in 1947 the province of Balochistan has been the hot bed of crisis emanating mostly from the qualms of disgruntled baloch feudal lords. The issue of Balochistan is not a new one rather an age old movement which has never gained the support of general public on lines as mass movements going on through out the world since days immemorial. In fact from the days of yore till today upheavals and tranquility in Balochistan have largely been dependent upon the caprice and whims of self-centered baloch chieftains and feudal lords.

A probe into history makes it obvious that as far as the baloch leadership was being bestowed upon by the ruling elite, never was heard some one chanting slogans in favor of the misery stricken and poverty ridden masses. On the contrary the history of Balochistan is replete with many a number of upheavals and rebellions as soon as a privilege of any formerly blessed feudal lord was infringed. The general tribesmen kept as slaves had to ascend mountains in obedience of the independence call heralded from the castle of the feudal lord and had to fight till the feudal lord was given his privileges back.

On 26 February 1948, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah in his letter, addressed Mir Ahmed yar khan, khan of Kalat, to annex kalat with Pakistan and assured him that his status of khan would be retained. On Quaid`s honest assurance Ahmed Yar khan announced annexation of kalat with Pakistan but before long in march 1948 his brother prince karim seeing his governorship of Makran in peril revolted against the government of Pakistan and in sheer disobedience to his own brother Ahmed yar khan, compelled his poor followers to take arms against the government and himself took refuge in Sarlet area of Afghanistan. Prince karim revolted for his seat and status on the backing of soviet union and Afghan government but, as said in preceding lines, as soon prince sensed things going against his future pomp and grandeur, he accepted the terms of government and concluded a peace truce to the misery of his followers.

In 1961 Mari tribesmen led by Sher Muhammad Marri and in Jalawan, Mengal tribsmen led by sardar Attaullah Mengal declared guerilla warfare with the government. Reason being the initiative of government to disarm the general masses and initiate educational and developmental schemes in their respective areas. The government program of disarming the general tribesmen and taking measures for their education and development were resented by the feudal lords as they saw their survival and pomp in their masses being downtrodden and illiterate. The resistant movement occupied areas from kohlo to Baila and main support was obtained from Afghanistan a station of anti Pakistan players. The movement died its death when General Yahya khan restored the status of disgruntled Nawabs in 1969 and bestowed upon them the privilege they were fighting for.

Much from the history, the recent insurgency in Balochistan is part of the same chain which starts with the demands of Nawabs and ends with their fulfillment regardless of the sufferings of the general Baloch masses who are in fact peace loving and industrious. There is no denying the fact that the stand of Baloch nationalists on the gas royalty issue is genuine but the death of Baloch veteran Nawab Akbar Bugti on 26 august 2006 brings forth some other crucial factors of the on going Baloch insurgency. Till the time the gas royalty was going to the pocket of Nawab and jobs in Sui Gas plant were in the hands of Nawabs, no voice was raised for the suffering of the poor Baloch masses.

As soon as Nawab Akbar Bugti was deprived of the undue privileges of decorating mountains for himself with the amount gained in lieu of gas royalty, the hapless Baloch masses were once again betrayed on the call of fight for the rights of baloch. After the death of Nawab his grand son Brahamdagh is fighting a war of his survival in Dera Bugti where hostile regional players are cashing upon their own evil aims in Pakistan. The situation in Dera Bugti revolves around the main claimants of seat for future Nawab which apparently is called a war for the rights of the baloch. Brahamdagh Bugti is presently in Afghanistan where he is funded enormously by Indian Raw and Afghan RAAM to continue terrorist acts in Balochistan. Presently the BRA network of Brahamdagh is working on two lines. Firstly, in service to the Indian players stationed in Afghanistan, the activists of Brahamdagh undertake terrorist activities in Balochistan where their main target is the Punjabi settled population because the target is much easier and poses nil resistance.

Secondly, to gain control of the Dera Bugti, where the followers of Talal Bugti and other pro government population is targeted. The Indian diplomacy and intelligence have been keen since 2002 on finding ways to drive a wedge between Washington and Islamabad and Brahamdagh proved to be the right person for the right job. What is beyond doubt is that Mr. Solecki was kidnapped by terrorists trained and financed by Brahamdagh Bugti. Brahamdagh and his handlers knew that the three captors of Solecki were in direct contact with Pakistani security officials and could compromise the security of the terrorist activity and the routes of secret funding from across the border and the terrorist hideouts inside Pakistan. But what they did not expect was that the kidnapping would backfire and blow the cover of the terrorists and their links all the way inside Afghanistan. Mounting evidence indicates that Brahamdagh or his handlers in Afghanistan ordered the elimination of the three Baloch politicians. India’s diplomatic actions in this regard are well known but the British and the American media have been silent on growing evidence of Indian covert activities in Afghanistan under an American nod.

Thus it becomes clear that none is fighting for the rights and miserable condition of the poor baloch masses contrarily the age old demand of tribal supremacy and countless powers and rights are the cause for which the Baloch Nawabs very often resort to guns at the expense of general population. However, the game doesn’t end, in this whole affair an ample ground is open and intelligently utilized by Indian RAW, Afghanistan RAAM and American CIA for treading on aims of destabilizing Pakistan. The baloch miscreants are enormously paid by India and British MI6 to materialize their long standing design of destabilizing Pakistan.

Despite the heavy funding, training and support of hostile countries baloch miscreant groups have never succeeded in realizing the evil aims of India. Reason being that except some segments of general public hijacked, the remaining are indifferent to the struggle of Nawabs for their own vested interests. Each tribe has its own armed group to extract maximum support, funds from hostile regional players and to maintain tribal supremacy at the expense of general masses who in the age of modern science and technology drink from puddles and hardly get their both ends meet. For instance, Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) represents Marri tribe, Baloch Republican Army (BRA) represents Bugtis, Laskar-e-Balochistan is the armed group of Mengal tribe and Baloch Liberation front (BLF) represents many tribes.

Analyzed from every angle insurgency in Balochistan has always been for the vested interests of selected few feudal lords and chieftains supported by Indian RAW and safe heavens provided by pro Indian governments. The general masses are kept in dark. Education and every kind of development is strongly opposed by local Nawabs because with development and mass awareness their control will die its death as it happened in Pushton belt of Balochistan where education and development is rampant.

Need is to apprise the peace loving and law abiding baloch masses of their fundamental rights of liberty and freedom. Freedom from the crafty and cruel clutches of land lords, feudal lords and chieftains who are anti state elements and are acting on the whims of those who have always been hostile to the existence of Pakistan. The province of Balochistan and all its resources belong to the law abiding Pakistani baloch citizens. Through education and provision of open fields of healthy competition they can excel like any other developed nation. Through land reform, extensive development projects and government sponsored free education only; the fate of baloch people can be changed.

 

[Neo]

Balochistan is the ultimate prize ​

By Pepe Escobar

It’s a classic case of calm before the storm. The AfPak chapter of Obama’s brand new OCO (”Overseas Contingency Operations”), formerly GWOT (”global war on terror”) does not imply only a surge in the Pashtun Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). A surge in Balochistan as well may be virtually inevitable.

Balochistan is totally under the radar of Western corporate media. But not the Pentagon’s. An immense desert comprising almost 48% of Pakistan’s area, rich in uranium and copper, potentially very rich in oil, and producing more than one-third of Pakistan’s natural gas, it accounts for less than 4% of Pakistan’s 173 million citizens. Balochs are the majority, followed by Pashtuns. Quetta, the provincial capital, is considered Taliban Central by the Pentagon, which for all its high-tech wizardry mysteriously has not been able to locate Quetta resident “The Shadow”, historic Taliban emir Mullah Omar himself.

Strategically, Balochistan is mouth-watering: east of Iran, south ofAfghanistan, and boasting three Arabian sea ports, including Gwadar, practically at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz.

Gwadar - a port built by China - is the absolute key. It is the essential node in the crucial, ongoing, and still virtual Pipelineistan war between IPI and TAPI. IPI is the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, also known as the “peace pipeline”, which is planned to cross from Iranian to Pakistani Balochistan - an anathema to Washington. TAPI is the perennially troubled, US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, which is planned to cross western Afghanistan via Herat and branch out to Kandahar and Gwadar.

Washington’s dream scenario is Gwadar as the new Dubai - while China would need Gwadar as a port and also as a base for pumping gas via a long pipeline to China. One way or another, it will all depend on local grievances being taken very seriously. Islamabad pays a pittance in royalties for the Balochis, and development aid is negligible; Balochistan is treated as a backwater. Gwadar as the new Dubai would not necessarily mean local Balochis benefiting from the boom; in many cases they could even be stripped of their local land.

To top it all, there’s the New Great Game in Eurasia fact that Pakistan is a key pivot to both NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which Pakistan is an observer. So whoever “wins” Balochistan incorporates Pakistan as a key transit corridor to either Iranian gas from the monster South Pars field or a great deal of the Caspian wealth of “gas republic” Turkmenistan.

The cavalry to the rescue

Now imagine thousands of mobile US troops - backed by supreme air power and hardcore artillery - pouring into this desert across the immense, 800-kilometer-long, empty southern Afghanistan-Balochistan border. These are Obama’s surge troops who will be in theory destroying opium crops in Helmand province in Afghanistan. They will also try to establish a meaningful presence in the ultra-remote, southwest Afghanistan, Baloch-majority province of Nimruz. It would take nothing for them to hit Pakistani Balochistan in hot pursuit of Taliban bands. And this would certainly be a prelude for a de facto US invasion of Balochistan.

What would the Balochis do? That’s a very complex question.

Balochistan is of course tribal - just as the FATA. Local tribal chiefs can be as backward as Islamabad is neglectful (and they are not exactly paragons ofhuman rights either). A parallel could be made with the Swat valley.

Most Baloch tribes bow to Islamabad’s authority - except, first and foremost, the Bugti. And then there’s the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) - which both Washington and London brand as a terrorist group. Its leader is Brahamdagh Bugti, operating out of Kandahar (only two hours away from Quetta). In a recent Pakistani TV interview he could not be more sectarian, stressing the BLA is getting ready to attack non-Balochis. The Balochis are inclined to consider the BLA as a resistance group. But Islamabad denies it, saying their support is not beyond 10% of the provincial population.

It does not help that Islamabad tends to be not only neglectful but heavy-handed; in August 2006, Musharraf’s troops killed ultra-respected local leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, a former provincial governor.

There’s ample controversy on whether the BLA is being hijacked by foreign intelligence agencies - everyone from the CIA and the British MI6 to the Israeli Mossad. In a 2006 visit to Iran, I was prevented from going to Sistan-Balochistan in southeast Iran because, according to Tehran’s version, infiltrated CIA from Pakistani Balochistan were involved in covert, cross-border attacks. And it’s no secret to anyone in the region that since 9/11 the US virtually controls the Baloch air bases in Dalbandin and Panjgur.

In October 2001, while I was waiting for an opening to cross to Kandahar from Quetta, and apart from tracking the whereabouts of President Hamid Karzai and his brother, I spent quite some time with a number of BLA associates and sympathizers. They described themselves as “progressive, nationalist, anti-imperialist” (and that makes them difficult to be co-opted by the US). They were heavily critical of “Punjabi chauvinism”, and always insisted the region’s resources belong to Balochis first; that was the rationale for attacks on gas pipelines.

Stressing an atrocious, provincial literacy rate of only 16% (”It’s government policy to keep Balochistan backward”), they resented the fact that most people still lacked drinking water. They claimed support from at least 70% of the Baloch population (”Whenever the BLA fires a rocket, it’s the talk of the bazaars”). They also claimed to be united, and in coordination with Iranian Balochis. And they insisted that “Pakistan had turned Balochistan into a US cantonment, which affected a lot the relationship between the Afghan and Baloch peoples”.

As a whole, not only BLA sympathizers but the Balochis in general are adamant: although prepared to remain within a Pakistani confederation, they want infinitely more autonomy.

Game on

How crucial Balochistan is to Washington can be assessed by the study “Baloch Nationalism and the Politics of Energy Resources: the Changing Context of Separatism in Pakistan” by Robert Wirsing of the US Army think-tank Strategic Studies Institute. Predictably, it all revolves around Pipelineistan.

China - which built Gwadar and needs gas from Iran - must be sidelined by all means necessary. The added paranoid Pentagon component is that China could turn Gwadar into a naval base and thus “threaten” the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.

The only acceptable scenario for the Pentagon would be for the US to take over Gwadar. Once again, that would be a prime confluence of Pipelineistan and the US empire of bases.

Not only in terms of blocking the IPI pipeline and using Gwadar for TAPI, control of Gwadar would open the mouth-watering opportunity of a long land route across Balochistan into Helmand, Nimruz, Kandahar or, better yet, all of these three provinces in southwest Afghanistan. From a Pentagon/NATO perspective, after the “loss” of the Khyber Pass, that would be the ideal supply route for Western troops in the perennial, now rebranded, GWOT (”global war on terror”).

During the Asif Ali Zardari administration in Islamabad the BLA, though still a fringe group with a political wing and a military wing, has been regrouping and rearming, while the current chief minister of Balochistan, Nawab Raisani, is suspected of being a CIA asset (there’s no conclusive proof). There’s fear in Islamabad that the government has taken its eye off the Balochistan ball - and that the BLA may be effectively used by the US for balkanization purposes. But Islamabad still seems not to have listened to the key Baloch grievance: we want to profit from our natural wealth, and we want autonomy.

So what’s gonna be the future of “Dubai” Gwadar? IPI or TAPI? The die is cast. Under the radar of the Obama/Karzai/Zardari photo-op in Washington, all’s still to play in this crucial front in the New Great Game in Eurasia.