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Pakistan's 'secret' war in Baluchistan

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i guess someone was plannin to call an all parties confrence on balochistan issue!!! wat happened to that. did our leaders forget or do they think they have done enough
72bn Rs. is less than 1bn $. this is only slightly more than the budget for city gov karachi which is 59bn Rs.
i just dont understand. how hard it is to atleast start constructing new universities and hospitals etc. atleast initiate something. only annoys me more and more
 
Things are not looking very good there. I am not talking about the inner part of balochistan but the Capital Quetta where many people have been kidnapped for ransom( including my Cousin), many Punjabi's ( Non- Baloch) were killed without any reason and in broad Day Light. People cannot sell there property because they have been asked by the militants not to. One Hindu Family bought Property from a Paunjabi and all of them were killed.
This is way out of Control.
 


If there is one thing in common between the military dispensation and the present civilian democracy, it is that both started on the right track in Balochistan.

Soon after taking over, General Musharraf promised to alleviate the growing sense of deprivation among the smaller provinces and he even offered an apology to the people of Balochistan for “past mistakes.” Similarly, President Asif Ali Zardari started off with a public apology to Balochistan and promised to reverse the wrongs of the past, adding that his Baloch roots would reinforce his commitment to that goal. But today, the situation in Balochistan is worse than before and the Baloch insurgency is a throwback to their armed struggle in the 1970s, during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s tenure.

These recurring problems, during different governments, point to a deep-seated mindset which is a major impediment to granting the Baloch their legitimate rights under the 1973 Constitution as equal partners of the federation. The widening credibility gap between Quetta and Islamabad has spawned cynicism and pessimism among the Baloch leadership, who seem to be losing hope in Islamabad’s capacity to deliver on their promises.

The track record of the federal government in dealing with Balochistan is truly abysmal, irrespective of whether the ruler was in khaki or in mufti. There is a long trail of missed opportunities, broken promises and outright deception in dealing with a proud people who rightly feel they have neither received the respect they deserve nor been treated with dignity by the central authorities, who have a propensity to use force to impose their diktat.

A cursory look at the official track record in this regard bears testimony to this painful reality.

In 1960, Sardar Mir Nouroz Khan was duped into giving up his arms and surrendering to the government on the promise of amnesty. When he did that, he was promptly tried and sentenced to death (which was not carried out due to his old age), but his son and six other comrades were hanged.

In 1973, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto promised provincial autonomy in return for support for a constitution by consensus, but after he got the Baloch leaders’ assent to the 1973 Constitution, the opposition government of Sardar Ataullah Mengal in Balochistan was dismissed and military action followed a move that eventually unravelled the Bhutto government.

In 2000, negotiations began with Harbiyar Marri in London through his relatives who were close to the military government. He reluctantly agreed to engage in a dialogue provided the government fulfilled his demands, which were initially discussed but later dismissed.

In 2001, a special emissary of General Musharraf went to see Nawab Akbar Bugti in Dera Bugti with an invitation to the Nawab to fly over for a meeting with General Musharraf in Islamabad, which he accepted. Even a plane was flown out from Islamabad to fetch Nawab Akbar Bugti. However, at the last minute, General Musharraf developed cold feet and he abruptly cancelled the meeting just minutes before Nawab Akbar Bugti was to step out from his house to take the plane to Islamabad.

In 2005, the first-ever Parliamentary Committee on Balochistan prepared a report, drafted with complete unanimity by three members from the then ruling party and three from the opposition comprising the MMA, Baloch nationalists and the Pashtun nationalists. But, again, despite repeated pleas, the report was put in cold storage and never fully implemented. Then American Ambassador Ryan Crocker told me: “Senator, had your report been implemented, the situation in Balochistan would have been restored to normalcy.”

It is thus not surprising that when I went to see Nawab Akbar Bugti in his isolated retreat in Dera Bugti in October 2004, he was quite cynical about any initiative from Islamabad and suspicious about the federal government’s motive regarding Balochistan. He said to me jokingly, “Why have you come to us when your government considers us traitors?” I retorted with a straight face, “Sir, you have been declared a patriot till further orders!” And he simply burst out laughing. Then, he made me read a rather interesting speech of a Native American chief before the American president during their meeting at the White House in 1854, where the chief complained to the American president of shabby treatment by the white men against the indigenous population of North America. Nawab Akbar Bugti was drawing an analogy between the treatment meted out to the indigenous population of North America and Islamabad’s handling of the Balochistan issue. When, in March 2005, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and I set out to negotiate with Nawab Akbar Bugti, there was a complete deadlock between him and the government, particularly the military. Clashes between the Bugti tribesmen and the Frontier Corps (FC) para-military forces had resulted in a heavy loss of lives to the Bugti tribe and Nawab Bugti was certainly in no mood to meet any government representative, let alone negotiate deals. The road from the Sui gas field to Dera Bugti was closed off; there were armed pickets facing each other, eyeball to eyeball, and both sides were just waiting for the first opportunity to pounce on each other. But three things made Nawab Bugti amenable to compromise.

First, in our maiden meeting, we chose not to discuss any details regarding contentious issues and simply told Nawab Bugti that we had come to express our condolences over the loss of lives that his people had suffered and to express our sorrow and regret. And when at the end of the meeting in our talk to the press, we condemned the killings and condoled with him publicly, he seemed pleasantly surprised.

During our second meeting, we were having lunch with him when he got word that an army convoy was moving on the Sui road to Dera Bugti and he told us that if the army continued moving forward, he would order his men to fire and it would turn into a full-fledged fight.

We immediately called the FC inspector general (who was away for a meeting in GHQ). We got through to the second-in-command, Brigadier Salim Nawaz, who is currently IG of the FC. He immediately understood the implications of a military move. We urged him to move back his troops and he duly ordered his troops to withdraw. Nawab Akbar Bugti seemed surprised that a senior military man could acquiesce to a politician’s request, at his behest.

What followed was a first in Pakistan’s political history when negotiations were conducted indirectly between a private army and the Pakistan Army. The issue of clearing the road, removal of pickets from either side and the establishment of a military cantonment in Dera Bugti were all sorted out without firing a single shot. During the negotiations, on one occasion, his son Jamil Bugti was present but clearly, his most trusted and close companion was his favourite grandson, Brahamdagh Bugti, exuding a handsome, quiet and dignified persona. The key was gaining the trust and confidence of Nawab Akbar Bugti. For instance, the deal rested on one sticking point, namely a picket which was to the north of Nawab Bugti’s house in Dera Bugti, and which directly overlooked his private compound. This picket could be used to hit at his home. Nawab Bugti insisted that unless and until it was removed, he would not budge.

A local military commander, a major general, was extremely upset and told us, “This picket will be removed only over my dead body and if you try to remove this picket, I will resign.” We had no option but to take the case to General Musharraf directly, since only he had the authority to overrule his generals.

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, myself, Mr Tariq Aziz and General Hamid Javed had a meeting with the president where I was asked to give a presentation. I explained to the president the outlines of this proposed deal and the impediments that had been put by the military. “Mushahid, how can we trust Bugti since we are not sure of his intentions?” General Musharraf asked me. My reply was, “It is not a question of intentions or trust; after all, you are negotiating with the Indians, although you do not trust them. The issue is, what is in the interest of the federation.” I said that this rigid stance on one picket, as if it is a make-or-break issue, reminds me of Sheikh Mujib’s case in East Pakistan, when five points had already been accepted but one was used as a sticking point to destroy the entire dialogue. We got the point across and General Musharraf agreed with us, overruled his generals and ordered the picket to be removed immediately.

We explained to Nawab Akbar Bugti that there were two core interests on both sides and that both these interests needed to be protected. On the one hand, there were the core interests of the state to protect the natural gas assets at Sui to ensure its production and distribution. On the other hand, there was the core interest to preserve and protect the interests of Nawab Akbar Bugti in his own domain (preserving his fiefdom was his paramount concern), which included his personal security and the security of his property and his tribe. I added that both should be treated with equal importance and we should try to reach an understanding based on attaining both these goals concurrently.

He agreed, even nominating me as his representative on a three-member committee comprising the military, the civilian government and Nawab Akbar Bugti. By May 2005, we had worked out a peaceful settlement that provided respite for both the military and Nawab Akbar Bugti, as well as obtained his concurrence for building a cantonment in Sui. However, the hawks in the establishment, having ‘lost’ the first round, were waiting to strike back – which they did a year later with the operation against Nawab Bugti that eventually ended his life in August 2006.

However, here is where the problem really comes in. There is a mindset in both the civil and military establishment in Pakistan which is unwilling and unable to concede the legitimate demands of Balochistan. It is this mindset that egged on successive rulers like Bhutto and Musharraf to commit monumental mistakes in Balochistan, including the tragic killing of the sons of Sardar Ataullah Mengal in 1975 and Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006.

That mindset is not only colonial, callous and bureaucratic, but it is also outmoded, refusing to reason with those who dare to challenge the status quo.

What Balochistan needs today, above all, is a healing touch and a serious effort to bid goodbye to the old mindset that has resulted in such tragic suffering to the people of Balochistan over the past decades. Take the example of neighboring India and its handling of contentious issues like provincial autonomy. In 1964, the DMK emerged as a secessionist party in Madras, determined to seek a separate Tamil state. Instead of using force, the Indian state allowed the DMK to participate as a democratic force and as a consequence, 40 years later, it is part of the ruling coalition.

Has the Rubicon been crossed in Balochistan? Not yet, although there is a strong sense of alienation among the youth, intelligentsia and the political activists. The government is talking of an All-Parties Conference (APC), but before it organises such an APC on Balochistan, as a prerequisite, the government must take five measures which can be termed as a sort of pre-APC confidence-building measures (CBMs) to allay the grievances of the Baloch. These include:
Withdrawal of all politically-motivated cases against political workers, activists and critics in Balochistan;
Release of political prisoners as well as full accounting for the missing persons;
General amnesty for all Baloch who have taken up arms or who have sought refuge or exile, whether they are in Kabul, Dubai, London or anywhere outside Pakistan;
Immediate implementation of the report of the Parliamentary Committee on Balochistan in letter and spirit;
Announcing implementation of all provisions pertaining to provincial autonomy enshrined in the 1973 Constitution, particularly natural resources, plus special laws ensuring that Gwadar’s demography cannot be altered.

There is a yawning chasm between the regime’s rhetoric and the ground reality in Balochistan, and unless and until that gap is quickly bridged, the prospects for a prosperous, peaceful and stable Balochistan will remain bleak.

Source: The Final Showdown
 
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Punjabi settlers biggest victims of Bugti aftermath
* Civil society in Balochistan has remained silent over killings due to fear of nationalist backlash
* Pashtuns parting ways with dominant Baloch allies following violence

By Malik Siraj Akbar

QUETTA: The sympathies that the Baloch nationalist movement had acquired during the rule of former president Pervez Musharraf now seem to be diminishing, following the targeted killings of Punjabi teachers, professors and principals in the province.

The recent killings of three principals and a schoolteacher in less than two months came as a shock for the entire nation, especially due to their ethnic nature.

While the Taliban in the NWFP have resorted to torching girls’ schools in order to deprive a generation of Pashtun girls from education, a nationalist militant group in Balochistan is currently bent on targeting and killing Punjabi educationists to push the province back into medieval times.

Fear: Unlike the situation in the NWFP, the civil society in Balochistan has remained a silent spectator, simply out of fear. When Musharraf’s government launched a military operation against Baloch leaders and killed Nawab Akbar Bugti, a chorus of condemnation rang out in support of the Baloch people from all corners of society. The Baloch leadership was assured complete support by politicians, intellectuals and scholars of other provinces.

However, it seems the biggest victims of Bugti killing’s aftermath have been Punjabi settlers in Balochistan.

Militant groups in Balochistan had earlier asked Punjabis to leave the province, a warning not taken seriously until a number of Punjabis were killed.

As things stand today, property rates in Punjabi-dominated localities of Quetta have fallen remarkably as Punjabis hastily sell their homes to try and escape the insurgency-hit province.

In the second phase, which commenced with the killing of three Baloch leaders in Turbat in April this year, a hitherto unknown militant segment of the Baloch nationalist movement has warned schoolteachers and principals to refrain from playing the national anthem and hoisting the national flag on official buildings. In case of non-compliance, the violators have been threatened with death.

In the backdrop of these challenges, the principals of Balochistan Residential College at Khuzdar, Government Commerce College Quetta and Government Pilot Secondary School Mastung, all Punjabis, have been killed, while the provincial government watches silently.

Distancing: As the killings of teachers intensify, the Pashtuns, who constitute the second largest ethnic group in Balochistan, appear to part ways with their erstwhile political allies, the dominant Baloch people. Pashtun political parties have vocally opposed the target killings in Quetta and demanded the Baloch nationalists openly condemn these killings and disassociate themselves with the elements responsible.

Similarly, members of civil society, human rights activists and intellectuals from other provinces have been perturbed by these targeted killings.

Such friends of Balochistan are now reasserting a “calculated support” to the Baloch case against the state, rather than their “unconditional support” to the aggrieved Baloch people.

“The government, as well as the Baloch civil society, has observed criminal silence over the targeted killings of Punjabi teachers,” complains a senior professor at the University of Balochistan.

“If Punjabi professors and professionals are not protected and compelled to leave Balochistan, many key institutions in the province will remain shut or at least dysfunctional.” He said the government and nationalists ought to separate education from politics. “Teachers serve the humanity regardless of their own religious, national, lingual and racial affiliations. They need protection and respect if a society is keen to progress,” he stated.

It was learnt that at least 14 teachers of the Balochistan Residential College, all Punjabis, have requested for transfers. There have also been similar reports of several PhD-holders prominent professors at the University of Balochistan planning to permanently leave the province.

If Balochistan is to be prevented from utter chaos, experts recommend, all the stakeholders in Balochistan and Islamabad should urgently keep politics aside and devise a strategy to protect Balochistan’s teachers. “If the government and the nationalists fail to sit together and address this dire situation, Balochistan’s educational institutions will be deserted for good. The major loser, if such a situation emerges, would be Baloch children, not Punjab, whom the Baloch nationalists hold responsible for everything,” an education expert said.

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
 
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^^
Many people are shifting from Quetta Balochistan. The Ethnic violance has increased alot. I remember that one cannot hoist a Pakistani Flag in some parts of Quetta . Those who did got killed .
 
TURBAT, Pakistan — Three local political leaders were seized from a small legal office here in April, handcuffed, blindfolded and hustled into a waiting pickup truck in front of their lawyer and neighboring shopkeepers. Their bodies, riddled with bullets and badly decomposed in the scorching heat, were found in a date palm grove five days later.

Local residents are convinced that the killings were the work of the Pakistani intelligence agencies, and the deaths have provided a new spark for revolt across Baluchistan, a vast and restless province in Pakistan’s southwest where the government faces yet another insurgency.

Although not on the same scale as the Taliban insurgency in the northwest, the conflict in Baluchistan is steadily gaining ground. Politicians and analysts warn that it presents a distracting second front for the authorities, drawing off resources, like helicopters, that the United States provided Pakistan to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Baluch nationalists and some Pakistani politicians say the Baluch conflict holds the potential to break the country apart — Baluchistan makes up a third of Pakistan’s territory — unless the government urgently deals with years of pent up grievances and stays the hand of the military and security services.

Hundreds, possibly thousands, of Baluch were rounded up in a harsh regime of secret detentions and torture under President Pervez Musharraf, who left office last year. Human rights groups and Baluch activists say those abuses have continued under President Asif Ali Zardari, despite promises to heal tensions.

“It’s pretty volatile,” said Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi, the governor of Baluchistan. “When you try to forcibly pacify people, you will get a reaction.”

The discovery of the men’s bodies on April 8 set off days of rioting and weeks of strikes, demonstrations and civil resistance. In schools and colleges, students pulled down the Pakistani flag and put up the pale blue, red and green Baluch nationalist flag.

Schoolchildren still refuse to sing the national anthem at assemblies, instead breaking into a nationalist Baluch song championing the armed struggle for independence, teachers and parents said.

For the first time, women, traditionally secluded in Baluch society, have joined street protests against the continuing detentions of nationalist figures. Graffiti daubed on walls around this town call for independence and guerrilla war, which persists in large parts of the province.

The nationalist opposition stems from what it sees as the forcible annexation of Baluchistan by Pakistan 62 years ago at Pakistan’s creation. But much of the popular resentment stems from years of economic and political marginalization, something President Zardari promised to remedy but has done little to actually address.

In interviews, people in and around Turbat said the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies were still doggedly pursuing nationalist sympathizers.

A case in point, they say, is that of the three political figures who were killed: Gul Muhammad, Lala Munir and Sher Muhammad, all prominent in the nationalist movement.

Government officials say the men were being prosecuted for activities against the state but deny any involvement in their deaths. People are not convinced and say that while the men supported independence, they were not involved in the armed struggle.

Mir Kachkol Ali, the men’s lawyer, who witnessed their abduction, said the killings represented a deepening of the campaign by the Pakistani military to crush the Baluch nationalist movement. “Their tactics are not only to torture and detain, but to eliminate,” he said.

The insurgents, who say they are led by the Baluchistan Liberation Army, have escalated their tactics, too. A prominent example was the kidnapping in February of an American citizen, John Solecki, the head of the United Nations refugee organization in the provincial capital, Quetta.

The abduction was carried out by a breakaway group of young radicals who wanted to draw international attention to their cause and to exchange their captive for Baluch being held by the security services.

Mr. Solecki was released in April after the intervention of Baluch leaders, including Gul Muhammad. Baluch leaders speculate that the intelligence agencies may have killed Mr. Muhammad and his colleagues to provoke the kidnappers into murdering the American, which would have branded the Baluch nationalists as terrorists.

Instead, “the killing of these three has centralized the national movement of Baluchistan,” Mr. Ali, the lawyer, said.

He and others said they had no doubt that the intelligence services were responsible.

The three men were in his office on April 3 when a half-dozen armed men seized them, he said.

“They were persons of the agencies,” Mr. Ali said. “They were in plain clothes, but from their hairstyles, their language, we know them.” Mr. Ali has lodged a case with the police against the intelligence agencies for the abduction and murder of the three.

Nisar Ahmed, a shopkeeper and friend of the political leaders, said he saw them pushed into a pickup truck. He also said that the armed men appeared to be intelligence agents and that they were escorted by a second vehicle with 10 more armed men, also in plain clothes, who looked to be from the Frontier Corps paramilitary force.

While the insurgency remains strong in other parts of Baluchistan, the military has largely crushed the resistance around Turbat since March 2007, yet armed men are still in the hills and continue to be rounded up, residents here said.

Yousuf Muhammad, the brother of Gul Muhammad, one of the slain political leaders, said that in February he was hung by his hands from the ceiling for 48 hours in a Pakistani military camp.

“They came to arrest Gul Muhammad but they found me,” he said. Another brother, Obeidullah, said Gul Muhammad had received threats from people in the intelligence agencies warning him to stop his work. The latest came 10 days before his death, he said.

A group of students in the nearby town of Tump said they were rounded up and held in various army camps without charge for seven months in 2007. Some said they were suspended by their hands or their feet until they passed out, were beaten and were held in solitary confinement. Each showed a blackened mark where a toenail had been pulled out.

The arrests and disappearances have hardened attitudes, townspeople said, particularly among the young.

Even the governor, who is the president’s representative in the province, expressed exasperation at the Zardari government’s inaction in addressing the needs of the population. Many Baluch are increasingly cynical about the government’s ability to change things.

Sayed Hassan Shah, the minister for industry and commerce in Baluchistan, said his party was now demanding provincial autonomy.

“This is our last option,” he said. “If we fail, then maybe we have to think of liberation or separation.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/world/asia/12baluchistan.html?ref=global-home
 
Khan of Kalat for international mediation on Balochistan


Saturday, July 11, 2009

By Murtaza Ali Shah

LONDON: The UK-based self-exiled Khan of Kalat has said that without international mediation he would not become part of any talks to address the security-related and economic problems of Balochistan.

Mir Suleman Daud Baloch, who is awaiting a decision on his asylum application from theHouse of Lords, plans to move the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the status of Kalat, which became part of Pakistan under an agreement signed on March 27, 1948, between Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the then Khan of Kalat Mir Ahmad Yar Khan.

A news item three days back had termed it a positive sign that the Khan of Kalat had not yet moved the ICJ over the accusation that Pakistan has not fulfilled the promises it had made at the time of signing the treaty, but the real reason behind the delay is the Khan of Kalat’s inability to travel outside of Britain while the British government considers his appeal.

Immigration experts believe that the 35th Khan of Kalat, who has been seeking asylum since July 2007, will ultimately be granted asylum because of his profile and the ongoing unrest in the restive province. It has become almost a standard procedure in the UK to refuse asylum claims in the first phase no matter how serious the case is but appeals with serious grounds of fear of persecution are ultimately allowed and the Khan of Kalat’s case falls in this bracket, an immigration expert told this correspondent.

Speaking to The News, the Khan said he was not interested in the government’s offers and said he was determined to move international forums to seek attention towards the problems of Balochistan.

“I don’t need any offers from the government. I came out of Pakistan on my own free will and will return when I want. My return to Pakistan and becoming part of the so-called dialogue process in not the solution to problems my people are facing. My people have given me a mandate and a duty to take their case to the ICJ and I am determined to stand by them,” the Khan of Kalat said in reference to a September 2006 grand Baloch Jirga, convened after about 126 years, which recommended that a case should be lodged in the ICJ against what it termed violation of agreements signed by the State of Kalat, the Crown of Britain and the Government of Pakistan pertaining to the sovereignty and rights of the Baloch people.

The Khan said that President Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistan’s High Commissioner to the UK Wajid Shamsul Hasan had phoned him several months ago, asking him to return to Pakistan for negotiations but he told the president bluntly that the approaches he was taking to address the Baloch issue were ineffective.

“I told President Zardari that Balochistan’s issue cannot be solved through all partiesí conferences, increasing the budgets and making more hollow promises. I told him that he may be well-meaning but he was powerless to do anything on the ground. The real power, he knows, lies elsewhere. If Zardari was powerful and independent in taking decisions, why would he go to the United Nations to seek justice for his wife Benazir Bhutto’s murder?”

Refusing to be part of any efforts to settle the Baloch issue, the Khan of Kalat, who lives with his family in Cardiff, lay down only one condition to become part of the talks. “The talks have to be mediated by the United States of America, Russia, the United Kingdom or other European countries. The Pakistani government should choose anyone of them. Accept that and you will find me ready to sit down for meaningful talks. There is no point for us any more in getting engaged with powerless people. That option is off the table now. Sixty years of broken promises have broken my faith completely in the sincerity of Islamabad.”

Answering a question, His Highness, as it states on his passport, said that Governor Zulfikar Magsi and many others in the provincial government had said it on record that they are powerless and cannot promise any change to the status quo. “Invitations to talks and big promises were a hoax being played to divert the attention from the real issues.”

IntelliBriefs
 
yup he sits in UK and talks about freedom....

someone needs to ask these NAWABS & KHANS what have you done for your people??

all this is FOREIGN backed insurgency!!
 
The Gov should vigourously persue the development in Balochistan .As this could only prevent Balochistan from turning up in to yet another battle feild.

The Armed Forces are doing very well but i still think that we need Forces in Balochistan . Two DIVISIONS are not enough. We need a force of atleast two Cores consisting of Four Divisions to have whole Balochistan Fully Covered.
 
Also, this insurgency can be stopped by simply buying all sardars but the problem is we really need to get rid of this sardari system and start real development..i know there will be a lot of bloodshed but it's 21st century and we still have sardari system in Balochistan.
 
Refusing to be part of any efforts to settle the Baloch issue, the Khan of Kalat, who lives with his family in Cardiff, lay down only one condition to become part of the talks. “The talks have to be mediated by the United States of America, Russia, the United Kingdom or other European countries. The Pakistani government should choose anyone of them. Accept that and you will find me ready to sit down for meaningful talks. There is no point for us any more in getting engaged with powerless people. That option is off the table now. Sixty years of broken promises have broken my faith completely in the sincerity of Islamabad.”


For whatever reason I just don't understand why successive Pakistani goverenements don't understand that you have to creatre facts on the ground, and not just be acted upon.

Pakistan wanted Kashmir internationalized, is it ? Now it wants this Khan as a partner -- why? exactly why? Simple, it will keep Pakistan gobernment from behaving as if it were a government and had to deliver government services to it's citizenry.

But before we go further, what this Balouch business all about? Why did the khan and others suddenly so confident?

Everyday, Pakistanis curse their government and they curse the power supply companies - can you guess what the Balouch thing might be about? Pakistan are on the cusp on a potential economic revolution - but they have to play ball (read black mail) -- pay to whom? Play ball with whom? Look at the Khan's statement as to whom he would find acceptable?

If you chhose to look at an even bigger picture, The target will appear not as Pakistan, but as China - tremendous efforts are being made to "focus" the Chinese mind, not just internally but look to China's friends in Asia, each one is becoming a liability for China, coincidence???

I will relate to you a conversation with a influential American with regard to tribes and how it is imperative to kill the tribal system to move forward, the American took great offence and suggested that democracy originally meant rule of tribes and that tribes are an expression of the will of the people and essential for local government. It was an interesting take.

Democracy as undertood in Pakistan is a trap for Pakistan, the state appears rudderless because it is - in this democracy, it is a president or a premier and his close associates who take decisions without any debate about the policy, well, there might be debate were there to be policy delinating a course of action over time -- do any of you know of any such policy??

Now before I further the impression that I abhorr democracy, allow me state that I don't I do abhorr what passes for democracy in Pakistan though, because it is not democracy but kleptocracy, now all state structures are kleptocratic to a degree, but Pakistan is unusually dysfunctional; primarily because it's government does not govern.
 
Classes begin in Balochistan’s three cadet colleges
Updated at: 1126 PST, Tuesday, July 14, 2009
QUETTA: The classes have formally begun in three cadet colleges in Balochistan and three more cadet colleges will be established soon.

Talking to Geo News, Balochistan education minister Shafiq Ahmad Khan said three cadet colleges have been constructed in districts Qila Saifullah, Pesheen and Jafferabad where classes have started. He said three more cadet colleges will be establish in Panjgur, Noshki and Kohlu.
Classes begin in Balochistan’s three cadet colleges - GEO.tv
 
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