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How our enemies are trying to rob the Baluch people of their nation. – Pakistan
By Hasan Qureshi | PKKH Exclusive
The Khan of Kalat, Ahmed Yar Khan, was once asked why he had acceded Kalat, a semi-autonomous state, to Pakistan. He replied that he was hesitant at first, but one night the Prophet of Islam (SAW) came to him in his dream and told him that a nation was being created in the name of Islam and ordered him to join this noble nation. This contradicts directly the propaganda that is spewed nowadays from those who uphold the so called ‘Baluch liberation movement’. In their narrative, the Baluch were forcibly annexed by the state of Pakistan in 1948. This is an outright lie, which, once stripped away, destroys the very foundation of the arguments on which such movements stand.
This is not to say though, that the province of Baluchistan has not had, and does not have its share of problems – issues which have either been ignored or dealt with heavy handedly. Never the less, the mainstream media, both at home and abroad give us a highly inaccurate account of the Baluch question, therefore we must begin with outlining what the core issues are, in the first place.
True Picture of Insurgency
Since the creation of Pakistan there have been four major periods of unrest in Baluchistan.
The First Conflict was during 1958-59 when Nawab Nowroz Khan took up arms in resistance to the One Unit policy, which decreased government representation for some tribal leaders. He and his followers started a guerrilla war against Pakistan, which eventually led to their arrest. The only reason for this uprising was that the tribal leaders and feudal lords like Nawab Nowroz Khan were upset with the federal government for decreasing their powers, which they were misusing by misappropriating funds which had been allocated for the development of the common people of the province. Therefore it was not an uprising of the people, but rather a personal rebellion by a disgruntled feudal lord desperately trying to hold on to his ill-gotten and illegitimate powers.
The Second Conflict of 1963-69 was more complicated in nature. After the uprising of Nawab Nowroz Khan, the federal government decided to establish law and order in the province by constructing law enforcement outposts. This was done in the best interests of the people of Baluchistan; in order to avoid chaos, to guarantee the safe flow of raw materials from key areas and to protect the people from the yoke of the feudal lord. Unfortunately, bureaucracy brings with it corruption, and what was an honest enterprise was turned into a get-rich-quick scheme by some ministers. Naturally, this angered the feudal lords, especially from the three tribes of Bugti, Marri and Mengel, who were not given their share of the loot from the natural resources of the province. They in turn started a campaign of blowing up gas pipelines and derailing trains – which was in itself counter-productive to development. Notice, that by these actions we can see the true objectives of the feudal lords or ‘Sardars’. They were never interested in the development of the people, whom they purposefully kept in ignorance and abject poverty – their real goal was to gain a share of the revenues to further enlarge their already burgeoning private coffers. This period of unrest ended in 1969 when both sides agreed to a ceasefire and Yahya Khan abolished the One Unit policy, recognizing the aspirations of the princely states of Baluchistan – a mistake, as this only further empowered the Sardars to continue to exploit the common people of the province.
However the Sardars did not keep to the ceasefire and emboldened by the fact that their powers were still intact, they began seeking foreign help in order to gain more of the share of the resource revenue. So much so, that by 1973, egged on by India’s spy agency RAW, some Sardars openly called for secession from Pakistan. The discovery of small arms shipments in the Iraqi Embassy in February 1973, which were destined for Baluch rebels, led the Bhutto regime to declare martial law in the province and a military operation against the traitors. Hostilities were to continue until 1977, after which the honourable martial law administrator General Rahimuddin Khan adopted policies which led to wide scale development in the province and the side-lining of the rebellious Sardars. This Third Conflict left deep scars on the psyche of the Baluch people. Once again this conflict proved that the source of discontent is not ethno-nationalism but greed on the part of the feudal lords.
The Fourth and present conflict is something altogether different. The separatist leaders had been side-lined since the early 1980’s and it was only after the US led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 that a number of groups sprung up claiming to fight for the ‘Baluch cause’. For the most part, these are either disgruntled feudal lords or the sons of exiled feudal lords such as Hyrbyar Marri. Many of them have spent their whole lives abroad having gained asylums in western countries. So what explains this sudden upsurge of militancy in the province? It is directly attributable to the presence next door of the coalition forces. The ouster of the Taliban, our key ally, has meant that a vacuum was created in Afghanistan, which was filled by anti-Pakistan elements. This will be explained in detail further on, yet is apt here to talk of the nature of the rebellion as it is now.
The Fourth Conflict
As mentioned previously the current conflict in Baluchistan is of a different nature than those seen before. The terrorist outfits now have smaller command structures with relatively independent leaders who act like thugs; kidnapping and looting for personal profit. This is because, in the words of a fighter who calls himself ‘Obaid’, they ‘do not want to make the same mistake as the LTTE by having a base of operations and a command structure. This has inevitably meant that there are two dozen or so small groups of bandits roving around the country preying on the weak, without any sense of ideological direction, usually using the excuse of rebellion as a cover for drug running. Hardly a cohesive insurgency.
Furthermore, these, often co-warring factions, are confined to small corridors in the unpopulated regions of the province numbering only around 1500-2000 ill-trained fighters in all. They speak of representing the Baluch people -the same people they kill, rape and loot- but they are themselves not of this region, and are mostly of the Baluch who live in Southern Afghanistan.
Another element of importance here is that most of the inhabitants of Baluchistan are ethnically Pashtun, who have historically remained very loyal to Pakistan, and continue to do so. The Baluch account for less than 40% of the province and even among this, only around 2% of the Sardars are rebellious. Thus, a few hundred elite are holding the whole province to ransom for personal gain. All Sardars send their children to expensive foreign boarding schools whilst their own people are not even allowed to leave their villages lest they see the outside world and approach the light of awareness. They live in palaces built from the proceeds of misappropriated government funds which were allocated to the people, whilst they whom they rob, live in mud huts.
The Baluch issue has always been a problem created by the Sardars of the region -especially from the three main tribes of Bugti., Mengel and Marri – to hold on to their powers/influence/ill-gotten wealth at the expense of the inhabitants of Baluchistan.
REASONS FOR THE UNREST AND BANDITS TIE-UP WITH THE SEPARATISTS
Most of the insurgency, as detailed above is either criminal or driven by the personal motives of the feudal lords, but how have they succeeded in attracting the small percentage that fight for them? Surely there must be underlying issues.
Firstly, a lack of development historically, has led to resentment for the federal govt which is then associated with Punjabi dominance. Combined with the high rates of illiteracy and the still-present feudal structure the people are left in ignorance and fed with feudal propaganda; are forced to obey the Sardars against their free will, as the Sardars use human rights violations and violence against women commonplace to undermine them. In 2006-10 alone, 500 schools were blown up by militants. Are these the actions of a nationalist movement or an attempt to keep the population in ignorance by the Sardars?
This underlying resentment –some of it merited- has been fed off by outside elements. The nexus of US-Israel-India has used the territory of Afghanistan to aid, abet and supply these thugs.
RAW/CIA/MOSSAD have been aiding them in this cause by
1. Granting safe havens and bases in southern Afghanistan.
2. Granting asylum to known murderers in places like Switzerland and London.
3. Providing arms and substantial funding to these groups.
4. Providing warfare expertise and training in guerrilla warfare tactics and operations.
5. Holding conferences on Baluchistan ’independence’ in foreign countries, e.g. – Thailand, India, Canada.
6. Infiltrating moles and paid propaganda machines into the Pakistani media to spread disinformation e.g. SAFMA.
7. Lobbying foreign governments to recognize the Baluch ‘freedom’ movement. e.g. – Rohrabacher’s hearing last year.
8. Funding exiled Baluchis to wage a disinformation campaign. e.g. Ahmar Mustikhan.[1]
9. Most dangerous of all, this nexus is applying media pressure and disinformation PSYOPS (Psychological operations) campaigns to portray Baluch militants as freedom fighters. e.g. RAW agents posing as Baluch on social media platforms.
WHY IS THIS NEXUS, ESPECIALLY THE USA DOING THIS WITH A SUPPOSED ALLY?
A popular saying in Pakistan is ‘Bahana Afghanistan, asal nishana Pakistan.’[2] As most in Pakistan know, the US has never been and will never be an ally of Pakistan. We are two diametrically opposing forces. The primary reason of the nexus is to carve up Pakistan (and Iran) to make a greaterBaluchistan as part of a larger regional strategy to destabilize Pakistan and Iran, two countries which can challenge the US in the future as they have large anti-American populations. The immense natural resources of Baluchistan which include oil, gas, zinc, iron, copper, gold, chromite and coal to name a few are worth in the hundreds of billions and western corporations want to keep these from the Chinese, and also to stop the Chinese from gaining access to the port of Gwadar.
The US especially wants to create a corridor from Central Asia for a gas-pipeline both to India and itself for future energy needs. Baluchistan sits is a strategically vital area of the world which if Pakistan utilises properly can allow it to control the world’s shipping lanes and oil supply routes, holding the western world to ransom. The US is wary of this, and will use any method to prevent it.
THE FEDERAL GOVT AND ARMY MUST LIBERATE THE PAKISTANI BALUCH CITIZENS FROM THIS TYRANNICAL REGIME
For all the misadventures of outside actors, successive Pakistani governments have not helped in this regard and have used the wrong strategy (blatant force) when it was not merited, when what they should have done is very different. The current crisis offers an opportunity to an incoming administration in 2013 to rectify the mistakes of the past and finally bring prosperity to Baluchistan. Here are a few proposals in tandem on how the federal government and its partners could bring stability to the province;
1. By dividing Baluchistan into manageable parts for good governance and crushing the US dream of taking it whole.
2. By engaging the rebellious Sardars in genuine trails.
3. By creating tribal lashkars that will systematically work with the police to eliminate the feudal system and thus help in bringing the light of Islamic-Pakistani civilization and ideology to the populace.
4. The feudal mentality must be eradicated, to do this would be to promote progressive Sardars to the forefront and make them understand that the development of the province will bring more and real riches to them. They should understand that the federal government exists to supply for the people of Balochistan, not fill the coffers of corrupt feudal lords. They must understand that within the borders of Pakistan there is only one supreme authority and that is the federal legislature which holds supremacy over everything else.
5. By a massive short-term influx of resources/wealth/technology/education into Balochistan.
6. By a long-term strategy of investment and development.
7. By the cutting off of funds of the insurgents from abroad.
8. By working closely with Iran for a joint solution. We must stop supporting Jundullah and other anti-Iran groups -even if it comes at the expense of the Saudis- and send a message to Tehran that we are committed to a joint solution to the larger Baluch issue. Only with close cooperation with Iran can the issue be resolved.
9. Monitoring the border with Afghanistan to reduce the influx of weapons/fighters – if needs be Pakistan should strategically strike BLA or other training camps inside Afghanistan.
10. Using our Taliban friends in Afghanistan to quell the Baloch in southern Afghanistan to stop support from that region.
11. Extremist Sunni groups such as Sipa-e-Sahaba, which advocate sectarian division have been allowed to hijack policy and target minority Shia and Hazara in Balochistan. This is counterproductive as these very people are not only Pakistani citizens, but are potential allies against the BLA and other such groups. Such extremist sectarian groups must either be controlled or disbanded as they are a liability. Only nationalist/pan-Islamic groups should be supported, e.g. – those involved in the liberation of Kashmir.
From understanding all the above analysis and by actuating the given suggestions-which may sound grim at times- there is no chance of the rebellion prevailing. The insurgency is being made out to be stronger than it really is and all that is needed are sound policies to quell the situation. Immediate action needs to be taken, however, to protect the defenceless people of Baluchistan from further exploitation.
All effort has been made to track the sources referred to in this article, however the author wishes to apologize if any breach of intellectual property law has unknowingly taken place.
[1] A homosexual Baluch dissident of Burmese birth who currently lives in Washington and spreads disinformation on the issue. His income does not match his spending for the years 2007-2011, a discrepancy of at least $105,700 – which can only mean he is receiving external funding, most likely from either the CIA or RAW. He has also been in regular encrypted e-mail correspondence since 2005 with someone named ‘Akash’ whose IP address is re-routed through several countries, including Singapore, but originates in India. (SOURCE: CLASSIFIED)
[2] ‘ Afghanistan was the excuse, the real target is Pakistan.’
Hasan Qureshi is a contributor at pkkh and is currently reading Law & Politics at Essex. He can be reached at hzulfi@essex.ac.uk and tweets at @Hasan_QureshiPK
By Hasan Qureshi | PKKH Exclusive
The Khan of Kalat, Ahmed Yar Khan, was once asked why he had acceded Kalat, a semi-autonomous state, to Pakistan. He replied that he was hesitant at first, but one night the Prophet of Islam (SAW) came to him in his dream and told him that a nation was being created in the name of Islam and ordered him to join this noble nation. This contradicts directly the propaganda that is spewed nowadays from those who uphold the so called ‘Baluch liberation movement’. In their narrative, the Baluch were forcibly annexed by the state of Pakistan in 1948. This is an outright lie, which, once stripped away, destroys the very foundation of the arguments on which such movements stand.
This is not to say though, that the province of Baluchistan has not had, and does not have its share of problems – issues which have either been ignored or dealt with heavy handedly. Never the less, the mainstream media, both at home and abroad give us a highly inaccurate account of the Baluch question, therefore we must begin with outlining what the core issues are, in the first place.
True Picture of Insurgency
Since the creation of Pakistan there have been four major periods of unrest in Baluchistan.
The First Conflict was during 1958-59 when Nawab Nowroz Khan took up arms in resistance to the One Unit policy, which decreased government representation for some tribal leaders. He and his followers started a guerrilla war against Pakistan, which eventually led to their arrest. The only reason for this uprising was that the tribal leaders and feudal lords like Nawab Nowroz Khan were upset with the federal government for decreasing their powers, which they were misusing by misappropriating funds which had been allocated for the development of the common people of the province. Therefore it was not an uprising of the people, but rather a personal rebellion by a disgruntled feudal lord desperately trying to hold on to his ill-gotten and illegitimate powers.
The Second Conflict of 1963-69 was more complicated in nature. After the uprising of Nawab Nowroz Khan, the federal government decided to establish law and order in the province by constructing law enforcement outposts. This was done in the best interests of the people of Baluchistan; in order to avoid chaos, to guarantee the safe flow of raw materials from key areas and to protect the people from the yoke of the feudal lord. Unfortunately, bureaucracy brings with it corruption, and what was an honest enterprise was turned into a get-rich-quick scheme by some ministers. Naturally, this angered the feudal lords, especially from the three tribes of Bugti, Marri and Mengel, who were not given their share of the loot from the natural resources of the province. They in turn started a campaign of blowing up gas pipelines and derailing trains – which was in itself counter-productive to development. Notice, that by these actions we can see the true objectives of the feudal lords or ‘Sardars’. They were never interested in the development of the people, whom they purposefully kept in ignorance and abject poverty – their real goal was to gain a share of the revenues to further enlarge their already burgeoning private coffers. This period of unrest ended in 1969 when both sides agreed to a ceasefire and Yahya Khan abolished the One Unit policy, recognizing the aspirations of the princely states of Baluchistan – a mistake, as this only further empowered the Sardars to continue to exploit the common people of the province.
However the Sardars did not keep to the ceasefire and emboldened by the fact that their powers were still intact, they began seeking foreign help in order to gain more of the share of the resource revenue. So much so, that by 1973, egged on by India’s spy agency RAW, some Sardars openly called for secession from Pakistan. The discovery of small arms shipments in the Iraqi Embassy in February 1973, which were destined for Baluch rebels, led the Bhutto regime to declare martial law in the province and a military operation against the traitors. Hostilities were to continue until 1977, after which the honourable martial law administrator General Rahimuddin Khan adopted policies which led to wide scale development in the province and the side-lining of the rebellious Sardars. This Third Conflict left deep scars on the psyche of the Baluch people. Once again this conflict proved that the source of discontent is not ethno-nationalism but greed on the part of the feudal lords.
The Fourth and present conflict is something altogether different. The separatist leaders had been side-lined since the early 1980’s and it was only after the US led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 that a number of groups sprung up claiming to fight for the ‘Baluch cause’. For the most part, these are either disgruntled feudal lords or the sons of exiled feudal lords such as Hyrbyar Marri. Many of them have spent their whole lives abroad having gained asylums in western countries. So what explains this sudden upsurge of militancy in the province? It is directly attributable to the presence next door of the coalition forces. The ouster of the Taliban, our key ally, has meant that a vacuum was created in Afghanistan, which was filled by anti-Pakistan elements. This will be explained in detail further on, yet is apt here to talk of the nature of the rebellion as it is now.
The Fourth Conflict
As mentioned previously the current conflict in Baluchistan is of a different nature than those seen before. The terrorist outfits now have smaller command structures with relatively independent leaders who act like thugs; kidnapping and looting for personal profit. This is because, in the words of a fighter who calls himself ‘Obaid’, they ‘do not want to make the same mistake as the LTTE by having a base of operations and a command structure. This has inevitably meant that there are two dozen or so small groups of bandits roving around the country preying on the weak, without any sense of ideological direction, usually using the excuse of rebellion as a cover for drug running. Hardly a cohesive insurgency.
Furthermore, these, often co-warring factions, are confined to small corridors in the unpopulated regions of the province numbering only around 1500-2000 ill-trained fighters in all. They speak of representing the Baluch people -the same people they kill, rape and loot- but they are themselves not of this region, and are mostly of the Baluch who live in Southern Afghanistan.
Another element of importance here is that most of the inhabitants of Baluchistan are ethnically Pashtun, who have historically remained very loyal to Pakistan, and continue to do so. The Baluch account for less than 40% of the province and even among this, only around 2% of the Sardars are rebellious. Thus, a few hundred elite are holding the whole province to ransom for personal gain. All Sardars send their children to expensive foreign boarding schools whilst their own people are not even allowed to leave their villages lest they see the outside world and approach the light of awareness. They live in palaces built from the proceeds of misappropriated government funds which were allocated to the people, whilst they whom they rob, live in mud huts.
The Baluch issue has always been a problem created by the Sardars of the region -especially from the three main tribes of Bugti., Mengel and Marri – to hold on to their powers/influence/ill-gotten wealth at the expense of the inhabitants of Baluchistan.
REASONS FOR THE UNREST AND BANDITS TIE-UP WITH THE SEPARATISTS
Most of the insurgency, as detailed above is either criminal or driven by the personal motives of the feudal lords, but how have they succeeded in attracting the small percentage that fight for them? Surely there must be underlying issues.
Firstly, a lack of development historically, has led to resentment for the federal govt which is then associated with Punjabi dominance. Combined with the high rates of illiteracy and the still-present feudal structure the people are left in ignorance and fed with feudal propaganda; are forced to obey the Sardars against their free will, as the Sardars use human rights violations and violence against women commonplace to undermine them. In 2006-10 alone, 500 schools were blown up by militants. Are these the actions of a nationalist movement or an attempt to keep the population in ignorance by the Sardars?
This underlying resentment –some of it merited- has been fed off by outside elements. The nexus of US-Israel-India has used the territory of Afghanistan to aid, abet and supply these thugs.
RAW/CIA/MOSSAD have been aiding them in this cause by
1. Granting safe havens and bases in southern Afghanistan.
2. Granting asylum to known murderers in places like Switzerland and London.
3. Providing arms and substantial funding to these groups.
4. Providing warfare expertise and training in guerrilla warfare tactics and operations.
5. Holding conferences on Baluchistan ’independence’ in foreign countries, e.g. – Thailand, India, Canada.
6. Infiltrating moles and paid propaganda machines into the Pakistani media to spread disinformation e.g. SAFMA.
7. Lobbying foreign governments to recognize the Baluch ‘freedom’ movement. e.g. – Rohrabacher’s hearing last year.
8. Funding exiled Baluchis to wage a disinformation campaign. e.g. Ahmar Mustikhan.[1]
9. Most dangerous of all, this nexus is applying media pressure and disinformation PSYOPS (Psychological operations) campaigns to portray Baluch militants as freedom fighters. e.g. RAW agents posing as Baluch on social media platforms.
WHY IS THIS NEXUS, ESPECIALLY THE USA DOING THIS WITH A SUPPOSED ALLY?
A popular saying in Pakistan is ‘Bahana Afghanistan, asal nishana Pakistan.’[2] As most in Pakistan know, the US has never been and will never be an ally of Pakistan. We are two diametrically opposing forces. The primary reason of the nexus is to carve up Pakistan (and Iran) to make a greaterBaluchistan as part of a larger regional strategy to destabilize Pakistan and Iran, two countries which can challenge the US in the future as they have large anti-American populations. The immense natural resources of Baluchistan which include oil, gas, zinc, iron, copper, gold, chromite and coal to name a few are worth in the hundreds of billions and western corporations want to keep these from the Chinese, and also to stop the Chinese from gaining access to the port of Gwadar.
The US especially wants to create a corridor from Central Asia for a gas-pipeline both to India and itself for future energy needs. Baluchistan sits is a strategically vital area of the world which if Pakistan utilises properly can allow it to control the world’s shipping lanes and oil supply routes, holding the western world to ransom. The US is wary of this, and will use any method to prevent it.
THE FEDERAL GOVT AND ARMY MUST LIBERATE THE PAKISTANI BALUCH CITIZENS FROM THIS TYRANNICAL REGIME
For all the misadventures of outside actors, successive Pakistani governments have not helped in this regard and have used the wrong strategy (blatant force) when it was not merited, when what they should have done is very different. The current crisis offers an opportunity to an incoming administration in 2013 to rectify the mistakes of the past and finally bring prosperity to Baluchistan. Here are a few proposals in tandem on how the federal government and its partners could bring stability to the province;
1. By dividing Baluchistan into manageable parts for good governance and crushing the US dream of taking it whole.
2. By engaging the rebellious Sardars in genuine trails.
3. By creating tribal lashkars that will systematically work with the police to eliminate the feudal system and thus help in bringing the light of Islamic-Pakistani civilization and ideology to the populace.
4. The feudal mentality must be eradicated, to do this would be to promote progressive Sardars to the forefront and make them understand that the development of the province will bring more and real riches to them. They should understand that the federal government exists to supply for the people of Balochistan, not fill the coffers of corrupt feudal lords. They must understand that within the borders of Pakistan there is only one supreme authority and that is the federal legislature which holds supremacy over everything else.
5. By a massive short-term influx of resources/wealth/technology/education into Balochistan.
6. By a long-term strategy of investment and development.
7. By the cutting off of funds of the insurgents from abroad.
8. By working closely with Iran for a joint solution. We must stop supporting Jundullah and other anti-Iran groups -even if it comes at the expense of the Saudis- and send a message to Tehran that we are committed to a joint solution to the larger Baluch issue. Only with close cooperation with Iran can the issue be resolved.
9. Monitoring the border with Afghanistan to reduce the influx of weapons/fighters – if needs be Pakistan should strategically strike BLA or other training camps inside Afghanistan.
10. Using our Taliban friends in Afghanistan to quell the Baloch in southern Afghanistan to stop support from that region.
11. Extremist Sunni groups such as Sipa-e-Sahaba, which advocate sectarian division have been allowed to hijack policy and target minority Shia and Hazara in Balochistan. This is counterproductive as these very people are not only Pakistani citizens, but are potential allies against the BLA and other such groups. Such extremist sectarian groups must either be controlled or disbanded as they are a liability. Only nationalist/pan-Islamic groups should be supported, e.g. – those involved in the liberation of Kashmir.
From understanding all the above analysis and by actuating the given suggestions-which may sound grim at times- there is no chance of the rebellion prevailing. The insurgency is being made out to be stronger than it really is and all that is needed are sound policies to quell the situation. Immediate action needs to be taken, however, to protect the defenceless people of Baluchistan from further exploitation.
All effort has been made to track the sources referred to in this article, however the author wishes to apologize if any breach of intellectual property law has unknowingly taken place.
[1] A homosexual Baluch dissident of Burmese birth who currently lives in Washington and spreads disinformation on the issue. His income does not match his spending for the years 2007-2011, a discrepancy of at least $105,700 – which can only mean he is receiving external funding, most likely from either the CIA or RAW. He has also been in regular encrypted e-mail correspondence since 2005 with someone named ‘Akash’ whose IP address is re-routed through several countries, including Singapore, but originates in India. (SOURCE: CLASSIFIED)
[2] ‘ Afghanistan was the excuse, the real target is Pakistan.’
Hasan Qureshi is a contributor at pkkh and is currently reading Law & Politics at Essex. He can be reached at hzulfi@essex.ac.uk and tweets at @Hasan_QureshiPK
