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The usual explanation for Pakistan's
failure to go all-out against al Qaeda and Taliban forces along the Afghan
frontier is that Gen. Pervez Musharraf's armed forces and intelligence
services are riddled with Islamic extremists. But there is also another,
equally disturbing, reason. Musharraf has increasingly been forced to divert
ground forces and U.S.-supplied air power from the Afghan front and from
Kashmir earthquake relief efforts to combat a bitter, little-noticed
insurgency in his strategic southern coastal province of Baluchistan.
Musharraf's "other war" against the Baluch, an ethnic minority of 4.5
million, has become increasingly bloody in recent weeks. According to U.S.
intelligence sources, six Pakistani army brigades, plus paramilitary forces
totaling some 25,000 men, are battling Baluch Liberation Army guerrillas in
the Kohlu mountains and surrounding areas. The independent Pakistan Human
Rights Commission has reported "indiscriminate bombing and strafing" by 20
U.S.-supplied Cobra helicopter gunships and four squadrons of fighter
planes, including U.S.-supplied F-16 fighter jets, resulting in 215 civilian
dead and hundreds more wounded, many of them women and children.
Visiting U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told human rights
commission leaders recently that the Baluch conflict is an "internal matter"
for Pakistan to resolve and that the United States has not raised the issue
with Musharraf. This policy should be reversed, not only to stop the carnage
but also because the United States has a major strategic stake in a peaceful
accommodation between Islamabad and Baluch leaders. The administration
should call on Musharraf to start negotiations immediately, and President
Bush should keep up the pressure when he visits Islamabad in March.
Multiethnic Pakistan, dominated by the Punjabis, who control the army, is
likely to become increasingly ungovernable in the absence of a political
settlement with the Baluch. A continued military confrontation in
Baluchistan could well intensify long-festering ethnic unrest in neighboring
Sind and embolden various anti-Musharraf forces throughout Pakistan.
Musharraf's ability to put adequate military resources into the fight
against al Qaeda and the Taliban, already limited, would be further reduced,
undermining U.S. efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.
The strategic importance of Baluchistan has grown since China started
building a port for Pakistan at the Baluch port of Gwadar, close to the
Strait of Hormuz, with a projected 27 berths, enough for a major Pakistani
naval base that could be used by Beijing. The Baluch ancestral homeland
stretches west beyond Gwadar into adjacent Baluch-majority areas of eastern
Iran, where there is a nascent Baluch rebellion against President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad.
Iran fears Baluch nationalism, but India is more ambivalent. New Delhi wants
a stable Pakistan that will negotiate a peace settlement on Kashmir. At the
same time, many Indian commentators appear happy to see Musharraf bogged
down in Baluchistan and hope that the Baluch crisis will force him to
ratchet down Pakistani support for Kashmiri Islamic extremist insurgents.
Musharraf has presented no evidence to back up his accusations that India is
aiding the Baluch insurgents. But New Delhi did say on Dec. 27 that it is
"watching with concern the spiraling military violence in Baluchistan" and
called for political dialogue. Both Baluch and Sindhi leaders have often
said that they would welcome Indian intervention to liberate them from
Islamabad.
At present, most Baluch leaders do not call for independence. They are ready
to settle for the provincial autonomy envisaged in the 1973 Pakistani
constitution, which successive military regimes, including the present one,
have nullified. What the Baluch, Sindhis and a third, more assimilated
ethnic minority, the Pushtuns, want above all is an end to blatant economic
discrimination by the dominant Punjabis. Most of Pakistan's natural
resources are in Baluchistan, including natural gas, uranium, copper and
potentially rich oil reserves, both onshore and offshore. Although 36
percent of the gas produced in Pakistan comes from the province, Baluchistan
consumes only a fraction of its production because it is the most
impoverished area of Pakistan. For decades, Punjabi-dominated central
governments have denied Baluchistan a fair share of development funds and
paid only 12 percent of the royalties due to the province for the gas
produced there.
The Baluch were forcibly incorporated into Pakistan when it was created in
1947 and have subsequently staged two short-lived rebellions, in 1958 and
1962, as well as a protracted struggle from 1973 to 1977 that involved some
80,000 Pakistani troops and 55,000 Baluch tribesmen.
The big difference between earlier phases of the Baluch struggle and the
present one is that Islamabad is no longer able to play off feuding tribes
against each other and faces a unified nationalist movement. Another
important difference is that the Baluch have a better-armed, more
disciplined fighting force. Baluch leaders say that rich compatriots in the
Persian Gulf are providing the money needed to buy weapons in the
flourishing black market.
It is clear that a continuing Baluch insurgency would pose a major threat to
the Musharraf regime and to U.S. interests in Pakistan. Future military and
economic aid to Islamabad should clearly be withheld until Musharraf stops
his military repression in Baluchistan and enters into serious negotiations
with Baluch leaders. Once the present crisis is defused, the United States
should launch a sustained effort to promote a process of democratization in
Pakistan that gives long-overdue recognition to its multiethnic character.
The writer, former South Asia bureau chief of The Post, is the author of
"In Afghanistan's Shadow," a study of Baluch nationalism. He is director of
the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy.
Source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/14/AR2006021401767.html
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