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Balochistan imbroglio
Date : 2006-03-23
By Vazeeruddin - Syndicate Features
Since its creation in August 1947, courtesy the divide and rule policy of
the British departing from (undivided) India, Pakistan has been trying to
wrest Kashmir from India by launching military attacks against India and
extending all manner of support to separatist movement by the Kashmiris. The
Pakistani goal of annexing Kashmir from India, however, still remains a
distant dream.
The situation in Balochistan has become serious enough for Islamabad to send
in its troops and strafe the rebels with helicopters and, thus, stoking
separatist fires. Not knowing or willing to tackle the situation by
political means, the Pakistani dictator, Gen Pervez Musharraf, has ordered
his forces to get tough. A report prepared by a group of Pakistani
parliamentarians that advocated dialogue and a political solution to the
problems in Balochistan has been kept under lock and key. As long as
Pakistan is effectively under the control of men in uniform, the Balochs
cannot hope to see a political or peaceful redress of their demands.
Many in Pakistan fear that Balochistan is heading the East Pakistan
way—meaning secession—because of the highhanded policies of the rulers in
Islamabad. The Balochs have raised a banner of revolt against the rulers in
Islamabad because their wealth is being utilised for the good of just once
province of the country, namely Punjab. The dissenting voices in Pakistan's
western provinces are being silenced through the gun. The Mari and Bugti
tribes are being denounced as anti-development and anti-national. Musharraf
has dispatched nearly 80,000 to Waziristan ostensibly to hunt the fugitive
Al Qaeda cadres but in reality to tame the nationalist rebels.
Balochistan is the largest province and also the richest in terms of mineral
and natural resources in Pakistan; and yet it is the poorest and most
backward. The natural gas supplies from Balochistan meet the demand of
Punjab but are scarcely available for the local people. The Baloch’s share
in the federal government has always been nominal.
In the NWFP the situation does not look good from the establishment point of
view, not the least because like Balochistan, the provincial government in
NWFP too subscribe to a narrow religious agenda that embarrasses the rulers
in Islamabad who want their country to be seen as a moderate Islamic nation.
A disconcerting fact is the demand for 'erasing' the Durand Line that
separates the province from its adjoining areas in Afghanistan. It is being
aired with more vigour while some are openly demanding a greater
Pushtun-speaking territory.
Early in February, Peshawar, played host to a big Pushtun convention that
passed a unanimous resolution calling for erasing the 'imaginary' Durand
Line. The 2640-km line, named after Sir Mortimer Durand who was the foreign
secretary of the British India government, was drawn up in 1893 after the
ferocious Pashtuns had inflicted two successive defeats on the invading
British armies. The colonial masters thought that the creation of a border
between Pushtuns living in the then British India (in today’s NWFP and parts
of Balochistan) and Afghanistan would weaken them and even facilitate an
invasion of Afghanistan. The then Amir (chief) of Afghanistan, Abdur Rehman
Shah, had opposed the division of Pashtun territories.
Attended by various Pashtun tribal leaders, the Peshawar convention heard
Asfayandar Ali Khan, chief of the Awami National Party and grandson of the
legendry ‘Frontier Gandhi, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, say that for over a
century the Pashtuns had been kept divided artificially. The convention
ended with a call for a separate Pashtun state in keeping with the wishes of
the majority of Pashtuns on either side of the Durand Line. The ANP also
decided to merge its identity with the Pakhtoonkhawa Qaumi Party that
struggles to get an independent Pashtun state.
Those who oppose the Durand Line say that if a line had to be drawn between
the two countries, the (Pakistani) border should begin further south, near
Attock, close to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Peshawar would not be a
Pakistani city in that case.
While a cartographic change in Pakistan may appear unlikely, authorities in
Pakistan have enough to worry about as civil unrest in the border areas of
NWFP, Balochistan and FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) shows no
sign of abating. It looks rather ominous that legal, administrative, land
and police records have been referring to the people living in these areas
as 'Afghans'.
Largely at the initiative of the military, successive Pakistani
administrations have been using territories close to Afghanistan to stir up
trouble against Kabul regimes till the ISI-created Taliban came to rule much
of Afghanistan. Islamabad has always looked for 'strategic depth' on the
west by trying to bring Afghanistan under its influence. This policy has
also come to haunt the Pakistanis.
Afghanistan has now started to accuse Pakistan openly of harbouring the
fugitive Taliban operatives who get safe havens in the border areas. Kabul
has said that the Taliban (and Al Qaeda) operatives who are creating havoc
in Afghanistan come from adjoining areas in Pakistan. President, Hamid
Karzai, on his recent visit to Pakistan, handed over to Gen Musharraf a list
of these fugitives and told him that they were orchestrating insurgency in
his country.
The list not only gives the names but also their hideouts as well as the
names of the Pakistani recruiters and trainers of the insurgents. Karzai is
reported to have told Musharraf that most of the top Taliban and Al Qaeda
commanders who were operating in Afghanistan during the Taliban rule are now
in Pakistan. This includes Mullah Omar of the Taliban. Afghans are also
reported to have protested that even the Pak army had been providing
facilities for training these insurgents.
Typically, the Pakistan denies extending any help to insurgents. But its
credibility is so low now that even the Americans do not believe what the
Pakistanis tell them and President George Bush is these days forced to talk
to his ‘buddy’ Musharraf about the 'problem'. The 'Iraq type' suicide
attacks are becoming frequent and may increase further as up to 250
'fidayeen' suicide bombers trained in Pakistan are said to be awaiting the
signal to cross the Durand Line.
The Afghans are disturbed naturally because the 'problem' has now travelled
beyond the traditional Taliban holds in areas like the Kandahar and Uruzgan
districts. The US-lead coalition forces are no less worried. Last year,
about 100 of troops were killed in various insurgent attacks and the year
also saw over 1500 civilians killed.
Pakistan may have wrongly calculated that its covert support to insurgency
in its western and eastern neighbours would bring it strategic benefits.
While its efforts to gain a 'strategic depth' in the west are boomeranging
its policy to create havoc in its eastern neighbour has also failed. Indeed,
Pakistan appears to be in danger of being engulfed by the very forces it has
unleashed on its neighbours.
- Syndicate Features -
Source: AsianTribune
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