Pakistan's 'secret' war in Baluchistan

[KS]

What makes Hafiz Saeed or LeT a terrorist since attacking non-combatants and not accepting Indian constitution aren't enough to declare someone terrorist according to Mr KS?

First of all I have very clearly stated that killin narmed civilians is reprehensible and unacceptable and those doing so are terrorists.

Second unlike the Baloch groups who have a genuine grievance and Balochistan's accession to Pakistan itself being under coercion/threat, LeT kills civilians in Mumbai.

Thirdly I dont think BLA is a UN proscribed terror organisation unlike JuD aka LeT.

---------- Post added at 01:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:32 PM ----------

You have till now failed to prove those so called "genuine grievances". Apparently they were absorbed very democratically and and were very much in accordance to Indian standards of non-violence and democracy.

They were annexed into the Pak federation through the use of force and against all known democratic norms given that both the houses of Baloch assembly -Darul-Awam and Darul Umara out-rightly rejected any idea of joining Pakistan.

Link

 

[Areesh]

First of all I have very clearly stated that killin narmed civilians is reprehensible and unacceptable and those doing so are terrorists.

Then what's the point saying them as "so called terrorist"?

Second unlike the Baloch groups who have a genuine grievance and Balochistan's accession to Pakistan itself being under coercion/threat, LeT kills civilians in Mumbai.

So killing of Indian citizens is terrorism but attacks on Indian security forces in occupied Kashmir are fair game and justified?

Thirdly I dont think BLA is a UN proscribed terror organisation unlike JuD aka LeT.

Is Communist party of India-Maoist declared as terrorist organzation by UN? When are you submitting a petition in Indian supreme court to remove the ban imposed by the Indian govt on them?

They were annexed into the Pak federation through the use of force and against all known democratic norms given that both the houses of Baloch assembly -Darul-Awam and Darul Umara out-rightly rejected any idea of joining Pakistan.

State of Kalat didn't represent the whole Baluchistan and with the rulers of Makran, Kharan and Lasbela rejecting the idea of Independent Kalat state, the khan of Kalat had no choice but to sign accession. Any agreement or opposition stands null and void after this signing. All peacefully and democratically.

And don't repeat the same military operation excuse. It didn't happen.

 

[KS]

Then what's the point saying them as "so called terrorist"?

It's not so called terrorist. But "so are terrorists".

So killing of Indian citizens is terrorism but attacks on Indian security forces in occupied Kashmir are fair game and justified?

I would consider armed security personnel who are in a position to defend themselves as fair game..though "justified" depends on circumstances.

Is Communist party of India-Maoist declared as terrorist organzation by UN? When are you submitting a petition in Indian supreme court to remove the ban imposed by the Indian govt on them?

Difference is "CPI-Maoist" doesnt cross borders to kill Lahoris or Karachiites.

State of Kalat didn't represent the whole Baluchistan and with the rulers of Makran, Kharan and Lasbela rejecting the idea of Independent Kalat state, the khan of Kalat had no choice but to sign accession. Any agreement or opposition stands null and void after this signing. All peacefully and democratically.

Wrong - The Khan and the delegates of the two constituent assemblies were unanimous in rejecting accession to Balochistan. Jinnah (representing GoP) himself signed an agreement on Aug 11 1947 which recognized Kalat as a Sovereign Independent State and Kharan,Lasbela, Maarri-Bugti tribal areas were to join Kalat. So not only was the annexation of Kalat a betrayal of a previous agreement signed with the Khan but also an incident against all known democratic norms.


Re the bolded part, will you agree if India places the same argument on Kashmir..that after the signing every opposition is null an void.

And don't repeat the same military operation excuse. It didn't happen.

Oh yes it very much happened on April 1 1948 .

Just because the little cat closed its eyes it did not mean the world has gone dark...just because it is not mentioned in Pak history books does not mean it did not take place.

 

[Areesh]

It's not so called terrorist. But "so are terrorists".

So you consider BLA/BLF to be terrorist organization?

I would consider armed security personnel who are in a position to defend themselves as fair game..though "justified" depends on circumstances.

And what are those circumstances. Do inform us so I can tell the Kashmiri militants those circumstances under which attacks on security forces is justified.

Difference is "CPI-Maoist" doesnt cross borders to kill Lahoris or Karachiites.

Still why ban on it? It doesn't cross borders to attack anyone. You have one more reason to submit a petition against this ban.

Wrong - The Khan and the delegates of the two constituent assemblies were unanimous in rejecting accession to Balochistan. Jinnah (representing GoP) himself signed an agreement on Aug 11 1947 which recognized Kalat as a Sovereign Independent State and Kharan,Lasbela, Maarri-Bugti tribal areas were to join Kalat. So not only was the annexation of Kalat a betrayal of a previous agreement signed with the Khan but also an incident against all known democratic norms.

But the situation changed afterwards. With the support from Kharan,Makran and Lasbela Jinnah had the support of most of Baluchistan. Pushtoon majority northern Baluchistan was on Pakistan's side anyways. Hence with this support from majority of people of Baluchistan Khalat had to changed the former stance and thus he signed the new papers.

will you agree if India places the same argument on Kashmir..that after the signing every opposition is null an void.

Indian govt doesn't say anything like this. They consider parts of Kashmir controled by Pakistan and China to be illegally occupied. AJK and GB were occupied by Pakistan with whatever means before the Maharaja signed the papers of accession. Once GOI would say anything like this we would consider it. It would remain a disputed territory till then unlike Baluchistan.

Oh yes it very much happened on April 1 1948 .

You have already accepted that it was just a threat. First military operation was conducted when Prince Karim Khan raised arms against the state and Pakistan obviously conducted operation against it.

 

[Irfan Baloch]

So Kashmiri militants or militants of any other state aren't terrorists? Right???

point made I request we get back to the discussion

I hope we agree that resorting to violence is fundamentally wrong. specially its wrong if its targeted against a group due to its ethnic or religious background.
justification of such violence on one hand and then criticising the security crackdown doesn’t help.

and finally an outsider needs to be very careful and cognisant of the articles and programs made by certain people which are prone to their specific agenda to draw a very specific picture. The latest article posted by Mr Adnan has cross the boundaries of absurdness where the writer is alleging the religious and cultural defamation on security personal who happen to be from the same area and follow the same faith.

Whoever actually wrote that article doesn’t realise that the people of Pakistan take religion and customs very seriously. Al though for wrong reasons but still we have had our governor killed for that reason & had a massive backlash due to a raid on a mosque. The gruesome acts that the author has alleged on the forces are so vile that if ever committed by one soldier, the fellow soldiers would instantly gun him down
Urinating on corpses, shooting on Quran and pulling off teeth and cutting figures are one of the many “isolated” incidents that are blamed on a country that is suddenly advising us to look after the human rights abuse & respecting them. A noble gesture but it lack authenticity because its coming from the a country that has military invasion as a part of its foreign policy.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Drone strikes as I have previously said occur with the absolute knowledge and complicity of the Pakistani state and Establishment. If any one is to be blamed for the drones, its the Pakistani state that has knowingly failed to protect its citizens.

The Americans disagree - most of their reports and sources of late indicate that Pakistan is neither being asked for approval nor being informed in advance about drone strikes. Many, including many Indians on this forum, love to argue that Pakistan has no choice but to accept drone strikes, since it does not have the military capability to defend against US air assets that might be sent as escorts for the drones if Pakistan decides to shoot them down.

In the absence of any written agreement or official acceptance of US drone strikes, the only thing left is the official condemnation of drone strikes, which implies that the strikes are unilateral and illegal - so no, the Pakistani State is not to blame here since it can only act within the resources and means it has available to it. The responsibility for extra-judicial killings and human rights violations through drone strikes lies solely on the US.

So if killing of non-combatants gets you the tag of terrorist, what about the security forces acting with impunity, kidnapping and killing at will, in Balochistan ?

The BLA/BLF/BRA go out of their way to kill laborers, educators, shop-keepers etc. because of their ethnicity (and sometimes kill Baluch too if seen as pro-Pakistan) in a drive to ethnically cleanse Balochistan of non-Baluch ethnic groups. The Pakistani security forces have done no such thing - while they are bound to have made mistakes (they are human after all) they goal of Pakistani military and intelligence operations has always been to target terrorist/militant groups and their supporters, and not merely killing people just because they happen to be Baluch.

There is a significant difference in 'INTENT' between the actions of the Pakistani security forces and the BLA/BLF/BRA

Again you are going in circles to deflect -- the BLA/BRA and other insurgent orgs are classified as terrorist because they dont respect constitution. So in effect you are placing your Army/FC on a same plane. BTW the US has only asked all parties to solve the issue through political means. All parties includes the Baloch nationalist groups too.

Has the US classified the BLA/BLF/BRA as terrorist groups because of their attacks on civilians and their drive to 'ethnically cleanse' the province? The point is that the US cannot call for dialog and restraint from one side alone - restraint and dialog needs to be exhibited by both sides - Pakistani security forces are not going to sit by while the BLA/BLF/BRA kill security forces, educators and civilians, and destroy infrastructure. So any side wishing for 'dialog' to be the means of resolution needs to ask both sides to exhibit restraint.

Now if you are suggesting that the US does not expect the BLA/BLF/BRA to exhibit restraint, since they are terrorist groups, but is concerned about Pakistan's tactics, then I can accept that - but only if the US does in fact accept that these groups are terrorist groups and condemns their actions while also calling on Pakistan to 'respect human rights and the constitution'. So, has the US called out these groups for being terrorist groups and condemned their actions?

The thing here is the Pakistani security forces have an added responsibility of upholding the constitution even in the face of asymmetric warfare. If they don't..they there is no difference between them and the so-called terrorist groups they are fighting.

I accept that, though, again, the US itself has not upheld that standard, so it has no standing to be lecturing Pakistan on that count - but, where is US condemnation of the terrorist attacks by the BLA/BRA/BLF?

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

I came across this data of some balochistan related projects in article where it says,

1. Gwadar related projects 54% budget
2. Kacchi canal 23%
3. Other 14%.

My question is as below,
The balochistan is a huge area less than half of total pakistan's area.
Then, is this not mismanagement of funds, where more than 50% of money is spent on one small city or port just to please a friendly nation, while remaining 99% of area remains starved of budget funds?
So with limited funds, more equitable distribution of funds is expected to develop a province.

I believe the NFC award in 2010 allocated a significantly greater amount of resources to the provincial governments

Horizontal Distribution of Resources:

Province Wise Shares
----------------Punjab------Sindh------NWFP-----Balochistan
Old Share*------53.01%----24.94%----14.88%------7.17%
New Share------51.74%----24.55%----14.62%------9.09%
Difference----(-)1.27%---(-)0.39%----(-)0.26%----(+)1.92%


Vertical Distribution of Resources:

Provincial share increased from 48.75% to 56% in the first year
The provincial share would increased to 57.5% after the first year

PakEconomics - NFC Award 2010
=============
Now you may ask (justifiably) what the actual amounts transferred to the provincial governments are:


The federal government will transfer Rs1.203 trillion to the provincial governments during the fiscal year 2011/12 under the 7th National Finance Commission (NFC) Award on account of their share in the net proceeds of the divisible pool taxes.

The amount will also include straight transfers from the center under various heads, including royalties on oil and gas, excise duty on gas, gas development surcharges and provincial general sales tax (GST).

According to the award, Punjab will get Rs576.86 billion, Sindh Rs324.41 billion, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Rs191.847 billion and Balochistan Rs110.204 billion in the new fiscal.

Under this award, the distribution of resources formula was decided last year on multiple criteria instead of single-criteria of population. The same will continue this year.

Last year, it was announced to transfer Rs1.034 trillion to the provincial governments, but Rs997.7 billion were transferred.

Through this award, the financial autonomy of the provinces has been ensured by increasing their share in the divisible pool (taxes), 50 percent and 56 percent in 2010/11, which have now further increased to 57.5 percent for 2011/12, while the federal government will get 42.5 percent.

...

Provinces to get Rs1.203 trillion from divisible pool

So, given the above, the question now should be about how exactly the 'Elected Balochistan Government' plans on spending the 110.204 billion it is receiving as its share of the divisible pool?

 

[Harry Potter]

‘Hundreds of children, women missing in Balochistan’
Shahid Husain
Tuesday, January 17, 2012

As many as 14,362 people, including 150 women, have “disappeared” in Balochistan since 2001, and 370 mutilated bodies have been found in different parts of the volatile province so far.

The News learnt of these statistics from Qadeer Baloch, vice president of Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, on Monday.

Sitting in a camp in front of the Karachi Press Club (KPC) since January 1 to protest against the “disappearances” of Baloch people, Qadeer said about 250,000 people from Marri and Bugti areas had migrated to other provinces and even to Afghanistan since their lives were in danger.

The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons has so far organised three protest camps outside the KPC, two in Islamabad and several in Quetta.

“Zarina Baloch, a young woman, along with her two-year-old child, disappeared in Kohlu in the Marri area in 2006,” Qadeer said. “She was a schoolteacher in Kohlu,” he said.

“The precarious situation in Balochistan can be gauged from the fact that along with adults, 169 children are also missing,” Qadeer said.

Speaking at a news conference on International Human Rights Day at the KPC, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) Chairperson Zohra Yusuf had said the establishment saw the problem of Balochistan as a “security issue” but it would not be fair to say it wanted to get rid of Balochistan. However, she went on to say that the government in Balochistan was ineffective.

HRCP figures about “missing” people were conservative as compared to claims made by Baloch nationalists.

Yusuf said Baloch nationalists claimed that 5,000-7,000 people were “missing” in Balochistan, but HRCP figures were more conservative.

“It is a matter of grave alarm that 107 new cases of enforced disappearance have been reported in Balochistan in 2011, and the ‘missing persons’ are increasingly turning up dead,” she said.

“There are certain areas in Balochistan where neither human rights activists nor journalists can go,” says veteran journalist and columnist Ghazi Salahuddin.

Recent evidence shows that “truth serum” was also being used by intelligence agencies to extract information.

Psychiatrists confirm that when this chemical is injected, one starts speaking but

forgets what he has uttered after she/he regains consciousness.

Balochistan not only happens to be the largest province of Pakistan in terms of area with sparse population, but is very rich in natural and mineral resources. It has a 1,200 long coastline and is strategically located — being the gateway to the Central Asian Republics.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=87894&Cat=4&dt=1/17/2012

 

[Harry Potter]

This means nearly 4 people go missing everyday.US is right in bring up this issue.

 

[Sinnerman108]

that is a hyped figure,

when the Supreme court took notice, that number has come down to 1200, and is now down to 300ish ....

but nice to see Hindu-stan offering "Moral" support.

 

[rama]

‘Hundreds of children, women missing in Balochistan’

http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=87894&Cat=4&dt=1/17/2012

isnt the news source is a p@ki$t@ni website..y would they hype it to tarnish their own country's image???

 

[AbhijitSingh]

Is this number correct.?? Any corroboration.?? Also the figures of only 150 women in a total of 14,362 people seems a little off..

 

[KS]

So sad.

I hope the democratic Govt reins in the agencies responsible for this tragedy.

 

[Kalyugi Mirza]

‘Hundreds of children, women missing in Balochistan’
Shahid Husain
Tuesday, January 17, 2012

As many as 14,362 people, including 150 women, have “disappeared” in Balochistan since 2001, and 370 mutilated bodies have been found in different parts of the volatile province so far.

The News learnt of these statistics from Qadeer Baloch, vice president of Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, on Monday.

Sitting in a camp in front of the Karachi Press Club (KPC) since January 1 to protest against the “disappearances” of Baloch people, Qadeer said about 250,000 people from Marri and Bugti areas had migrated to other provinces and even to Afghanistan since their lives were in danger.

The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons has so far organised three protest camps outside the KPC, two in Islamabad and several in Quetta.

“Zarina Baloch, a young woman, along with her two-year-old child, disappeared in Kohlu in the Marri area in 2006,” Qadeer said. “She was a schoolteacher in Kohlu,” he said.

“The precarious situation in Balochistan can be gauged from the fact that along with adults, 169 children are also missing,” Qadeer said.

Speaking at a news conference on International Human Rights Day at the KPC, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) Chairperson Zohra Yusuf had said the establishment saw the problem of Balochistan as a “security issue” but it would not be fair to say it wanted to get rid of Balochistan. However, she went on to say that the government in Balochistan was ineffective.

HRCP figures about “missing” people were conservative as compared to claims made by Baloch nationalists.

Yusuf said Baloch nationalists claimed that 5,000-7,000 people were “missing” in Balochistan, but HRCP figures were more conservative.

“It is a matter of grave alarm that 107 new cases of enforced disappearance have been reported in Balochistan in 2011, and the ‘missing persons’ are increasingly turning up dead,” she said.

“There are certain areas in Balochistan where neither human rights activists nor journalists can go,” says veteran journalist and columnist Ghazi Salahuddin.

Recent evidence shows that “truth serum” was also being used by intelligence agencies to extract information.

Psychiatrists confirm that when this chemical is injected, one starts speaking but

forgets what he has uttered after she/he regains consciousness.

Balochistan not only happens to be the largest province of Pakistan in terms of area with sparse population, but is very rich in natural and mineral resources. It has a 1,200 long coastline and is strategically located — being the gateway to the Central Asian Republics.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=87894&Cat=4&dt=1/17/2012

defiantly there is something wrong going on but so much i don't think so...I think this issue should be tackle by Pakistan govt. it's their internal matter....

 

[Areesh]

Dear god 14362 people missing since 2001 ? The Balochis shall always have India's moral support in their fight for freedom . If need be we should help them in other ways as well . Imran khan was right Pakistan hasn't learnt a thing from 1971 .Probably because back then they blamed the whole thing on Indians and Bangladeshi hindus .

Hyped and propaganda. Yeah if you want to destroy India go for the freedom of Balochistan. Balochistan won't be freed yeah India would be freed out of it's misery.

“Zarina Baloch, a young woman, along with her two-year-old child, disappeared in Kohlu in the Marri area in 2006,” Qadeer said. “She was a schoolteacher in Kohlu,” he said.

Why only this name appears among 150 "disappeared" women. Is this lady some special or the 150 missing ladies figure is a cr@p.

---------- Post added at 02:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:39 PM ----------

defiantly there is something wrong going on but so much i don't think so...I think this issue should be tackle by Pakistan govt. it's their internal matter....

Obviously the number is a hype and part of propaganda. Many of the "disappeared" persons have been found in living in Sanghar or any other district of Sindh or Baluchistan. Can you believe that 14000 people were missing and the west was silent about it. They need something more than a hyped figure to pressurize Pakistani govt you know. Just a hyped number isn't enough even for the west to do something about this issue.

---------- Post added at 02:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:41 PM ----------

Yusuf said Baloch nationalists claimed that 5,000-7,000 people were “missing” in Balochistan, but HRCP figures were more conservative.

Even the Baloch nationalists with all their exaggeration put the figure somewhere between 5000-7000.