Posts from — July 2009

It is not just Mian Nawaz Sharif who has cried out over the saddening predicament of the people of Balochistan. Every feeling heart grieves at the raw deal dealt to them atrociously by every federal government unexceptionably, no matter whether led by a man in jackboots or by someone in shalwar kameez. It was no different in Mian Sahib’s own two stints, the second of which saw his heavy mandate even pulling down Akhtar Mengal’s provincial ministry with an engineered no-confidence contrivance. Nonetheless, it is the hundreds of millions of Baloch masses for whom it has been an unending long wintry night. Not their 50 odd sardars, keeping them all in perpetual chains of serfdom unshakably. For this hapless Baloch citizenry, this step-motherly treatment of Islamabad has been a double whammy throughout. Not just has it borne all the brunt of every injustice inflicted on the province by every federal government, while its overbearing feudal lords have all through flourished, be it rain or sunshine. More devastatingly, every Islamabad strike has impoverished this deeply-wronged and mercilessly-exploited Baloch populace economically more cripplingly, pulverised it further socially and emasculated it still further politically, leaving it immovably maimed to get ensnared more inextricably in the chain of subjugation of sardars. No harm has ever done any Islamabad atrocity to sardars’ financial health. Their fabulous riches keep piling up, their palatial mansions keep extending, and their fleets of luxury cars keep expanding. And this feudal aristocracy keeps its political muscle strong by wearing the mantles of political martyrdom and nationalism, extracting concessions for themselves in the name of Baloch masses who they exploit day in and day out and keep under their thumbs suffocatingly. They are no leaders of the Baloch masses. They are their exploiters and tormenters. Yet the tragedy is it is these sardars who draw all the import, support and sympathy from political class, civil society, intelligentsia and media. The downtrodden Baloch masses have no friends or campaigners to espouse their cause. It is their exploiters’ grief that evokes cries of compassion from all around. Not even the most grievous grief of these exploited draws a tear in any eye. An unnatural violent demise is tragic and contemptible. Yet, it is a feudal lord’s such demise that is mourned in every quarter; not even a nodding notice is taken of a serf’s death in a sardar’s captivity or with his gunmen’s bullet. This poor citizenry stands all forlorn, wholly disenfranchised and disempowered politically. Yet it has no father for its empowerment. Ironically, while Mian Sahib has spoken of political rights of Balochistan’s people, vowing to fight for their cause. But ludicrously to this end has he called for a dialogue by the federal government with all Baloch “leaders” inside or outside assemblies. But who are these “leaders”? Sardars and feudal lords; aren’t they? Can exploiters be rightly viewed as the leaders of the exploited? Still, Mian Sahib could be excused. After all, he is part of that exclusive club of dirty rich landed aristocrats, feudal lords and neo-rich who have arrogated all the nation’s politics into its hands. So it is asking for moon if Mian Sahib could think of empowering the downtrodden Baloch. But what has happened to civil society, media and intelligentsias? Do they too have to be hypocrites? Can’t they speak out that provincial autonomy for Balochistan is, yes by all means; but it has not to be for strengthening the sardars’ stranglehold on the downtrodden Balochs but for empowering of the exploited Baloch masses? http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News.aspx?ncat=ed&nid=130

By Carlotta Gall

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.” www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/world/asia/12baluchistan.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

Mir Suleman Daud Baloch, Khan of Kalat

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 the House 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 parties 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.” http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=23205

By: Irfan Bukhari in The Nation, July 8
ISLAMABAD – Terming convention of APCs and formation of committees to resolve Balochistan issue as ‘futile exercise’, Baloch leaders Tuesday opposed the Prime Minister’s proposal of convening All Parties Conference on the issue of the province.
Senator Shahid Hassan Bugti of Jamhuri Wattan Party while talking to TheNation said that APC could not solve the thorny issue of Balochistan and noted that those tactics were meant to pass time. “In the past when the government had announced to convene APC on Balochistan, all nationalist parties of the province had declined to participate in it. APCs and committees are no more solution to the crisis of Balochistan, rather the government will have to take practical steps now,” he added.
Bugti said that Baloch leaders who were actual stakeholders should be taken on board for permanent solution of the issue. When asked what his party’s recommendations were regarding Balochistan crisis, Bugti said when the government would be serious to resolve the issue, all Baloch leaders as well as parties would give their recommendations regarding it. “The government first implement those recommendations which were given to it by Parliamentary Committee on National Security a few weeks earlier in which there were a number of suggestions to extinguish the fire in the province,” he stated.
It is pertinent to mention here that Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday (July 6) in his meeting with Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani in Islamabad had said that All Parties Conference on Balochistan would be convened soon.
Sanaullah Khan Baloch of BNP said that the past experiences had told Balochs that APCs and committees were a useless exercise which hadn’t brought any fruit yet. “But, if the government announces exact date and the agenda of such conference, nationalist parties of Balochistan could deliberate over participation or non-participation in it,” he added.
He said that before convening APC, conducive environment should be made so that all Baloch leaders could participate in it with confidence. “The government will have to take confidence building measures before taking such an initiative,” Sanaullah stated, adding that until now such exercises had been proved just an eye-wash. “Such conferences were held in the past to befool international community that the government was serious in resolving Balochistan crisis,” he added.
“BNP opposes the idea that all political parties be taken on board on the Balochistan issue, as there are only two parties involved in the conflict; The Balochs and the Centre,” he observed, adding that since the Balochs were the victims of the conflict and the centre was the actor, therefore, the Balochs and Islamabad should directly negotiate to resolve the issue without including irrelevant political parties in the process.
Senator Mir Mohabbat Khan Marri of PML-Q also opposed the idea of convening APC on Balochistan, saying that at a time when Balochs were not admitting Pakistan, how they would admit the authority of political parties of the country and give weight to their recommendations. “The sense of deprivation is mounting day by day in the province, therefore, the government must take practical measures to redress people’s grievances,” he added.
He said that some Baloch leaders with the support of India and Afghanistan were engaged in exploiting the situation and were raising voices of freedom. “I am fighting against such elements without having any support from the government,” he added.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online//Politics/08-Jul-2009/Balochs-want-direct-talks-on-issues