@ Zob: Came across this, thought you might be interested...
Balochistans woes
By I.A. Rehman
Thursday, 07 May, 2009 | 01:55 AM PST |
AS if the militants threat to the states integrity and its democratic foundations were not enough to tax the establishments admittedly limited capacity for governance, alarm bells have again begun to be sounded about the dangerous situation in Balochistan.
The scale and duration of the province-wide protest against the foul killing of three Baloch leaders offered a clear indication of the peoples alienation from the state. Official attempts to defuse the situation by a quibble over the best-known victims nationality only made matters worse. This was confirmed by the decision by the provincial PPP chief, Lashkari Raisani, to give up all public and party offices.
A most explicit warning of Balochistans drift away from the state has come from the governor. He has asserted that despite being the federations representative he has never been consulted about provincial affairs. This adds a new dimension to the Baloch peoples chronic grievance about Islamabads inability to hear their voice.
To be fair to the federal authority it has been making more friendly noises than its predecessors. Mr Zardari has promised steps to end Balochistans sense of deprivation. A Rs4.7bn development package has been mentioned, perhaps too often. Reference has been made to a parliamentary committees proposals to satisfy the disgruntled elements and to plans to settle matters concerning the disappearances, exiles and political prisoners. Mr Gilani has been talking of his intention to convene an all-parties conference on the single issue of provincial autonomy.
Instead of calming passions these declarations of good wishes exacerbate the Baloch peoples anxieties because they have heard all this quite a few times before. Memories of committees set up to address Balochistans problems, non-implementation of their recommendations and sometimes even non-publication of their rosy proposals have made no small contribution to its peoples journey from frustration to despair.
Unfortunately, the federal government has harmed its case by choosing to stigmatise the Baloch struggle for political and economic autonomy, as envisaged and duly pledged in the vision of Pakistan, as intrigue by foreign powers. The obviously ill-considered plea had to be quickly retracted partly with a curious statement that a reference to Russia had been taken from old files and not from any current record.
Since the evidence of Indias role in stirring up unrest in Balochistan has not been made public it is not possible to comment on it. Pakistan and India have a long tradition of blaming the other for their indigenous tribulations and neither side enjoys credibility on this score.
What the two neighbours keep on doing to each other, in utter defiance of the canons of sanity, need not be discounted. But a situation created by denial of the Baloch peoples democratic and constitutional rights for six decades cannot be explained away as recent mischief by external agents. This is another instance of the deadly affliction called the state of self-denial that has prevented Islamabad from rationally analysing issues at critical moments. The state is not a fair-weather shop, it must assume the responsibility to mitigate the peoples suffering whatever its causes and howsoever difficult the task may be.
Apart from their political and economic grievances, the Baloch peoples emotional estrangement from the custodians of power needs to be taken into account. There is no doubt that those agitating for the rights of the federating units, loosely branded as nationalists, have been dealt with more harshly than patrons and ideologues of militant insurgents.
No one from amongst the leaders of militant organisations, including those banned as terrorist outfits, has received the treatment reserved, for instance, for eminent Sindhi nationalist Dr Sarki. For a long time he was held without acknowledgment and his conditions of detention were extremely harmful to his health, particularly his eyes, and then a wholly fictitious charge was foisted on him in a Zhob (Balochistan) court, a place he had probably never seen. But for the present governments act of mercy he might still have been ******* in prison. Some of the Baloch students who were picked up during the first swoop on political dissidents in their province were subjected to such torture as to be permanently disabled.
A recent instance of what is described by Balochistan politicians as atrocities is the harassment of a Baloch family in Lahore where it took refuge over 15 years ago. Ms Samia Mazari, daughter of elder politician Sherbaz Mazari, niece of Nawab Akbar Bugti and mother-in-law of Brahmdag Bugti (eminently qualified for the guillotine, some traditional Baloch baiters might say) has cried out against harassment and threats by intelligence functionaries no responsible authority can permit. Those tormenting her and her daughter have been caught and identified while trying to make their photographs at a school. They have also interrogated the family doctor as if to ascertain whether these defenceless womens ailments are in violation of security laws.
This policy of paying subsistence allowance to those accused of terrorism and humiliating others that are guilty of nothing more than political dissent has, on the one had, aggravated the Balochistan crisis and, on the other, emboldened the subversive elements in religious robes by convincing them that they are not considered the pest the nationalists in Balochistan (or, in Sindh or the NWFP, for that matter) are.
Thus, even before practical steps are taken to mend ties with the people of Balochistan the language of discourse ought to be given the dressing of civilised idiom. The poor and much-maligned Baloch has been left far too long to subsist on his pride alone, and his sentiments cannot be trifled with.
Whatever good ideas Islamabad has about Balochistan must begin to be implemented. Total reliance on long-gestation projects will not be enough and due attention must be paid to resolving the day-to-day concerns of the people, especially the disadvantaged such as their need for employment, a decent wage, facilities of safe movement, satisfaction of basic needs and guarantees of security of life and due protection of the law. Whatever step is taken it must be strictly in accordance with the wishes and priorities of the prospective beneficiaries.
It is perhaps time that Balochistans leaders too put their act together. They have quite comprehensively documented the wrongs done to them over the decades, but their plans for their peoples liberation from anachronistic bonds, their empowerment and their progress, do not go beyond bare statements about autonomy and rights. They must come up with a practicable blueprint for Balochistans uplift, otherwise the federal authority will continue relying on its flawed diagnosis of their provinces problems and its ineffective cures.
DAWN.COM | Columnists | Balochistan?s woes
Copyright © 2009 - Dawn Media Group
caused the death of Mr. Bugti. here is something i found on internet which explains the possibility, now i think Pakistan Gop would not be foolish to kill him and htis makes sense to me, cause some foreign hand is trying to destabilize Pakistan, shame on them, but read on.
