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25-05-2006
Balochistan: The game of development,
deception & defiance
The series of bomb blast on May 11, 2006 at police Training Center, Quetta
that resulted in seven causalities and injured more than a dozen police
trainees remind us that all is not well in Balochistan.
Of late Balochistan has been the hot topic of the debate mostly based on
the assumptions, lacking logical and concrete evidences on the ground,
therefore for all purposes this unfortunate and conflict ridden region is
still a grey region giving frequent surprises to the people of this
country.
Media portrays that a competition is underway between pro-development
ruling elite supported by the federation and anti-development disgruntled
elements headed by two Nawabs and one Saradar along with their militant
organs.
The best pro-development role model has been Jaam Yousuf the Chief
Minister and his kitchen cabinet members including some ministers from
traditionally powerful families like Jamali, Rind, Nowsherwani, Khan of
Kalat family and some pretty new entrants like Kudus Bizanjo, Aasim Kurd
Gelu etc and others from Pushtoon belt affiliated with religious and
nationalist parties together. The accused anti-development elements
include Nawab Akbar Bugti, Nawab Khair Bux Mari and Sadar Attaullah
Mengal. The middle class nationalist political parties like National Party
falls in between.
The worst case of tribalism and anti-development dominated forces
presented by the government has been the Kohlu and Dera Bugti, the
traditional bastion of Nawab Bugti and Nawab Mari and government also
claim that the militant activities have been limited to these two
districts only.
Taking this criterion district Lasbella the traditional Jaam family base
of influence should be the best developed model under the control of the
champion of the development in Balochistan, Jaam Yousf and his son Jaam
Kamal Khan as district Nazim.
However; impartial development researchers (SPDC- Report 2001) finds out
that ground situation is very different. Taking district wise level of
deprivation and development on national scale they rate Dera Bugti on 89
and Lasbella on 77. However in case of rural deprivation Dera Bugti ranks
at 92 and Lasbella even lower on 95. On provincial level similarly rural
deprivation prevails more in Lasbella as it ranked 21 as compared to Dera
Bugti on 19. Road network is better in Lasbella 2.58 per 100 squire km
than 1.04 in Dera Bugti but road conditions are very poor in Lasbella .
Sardar Mengal is blamed as anti-development, but the road network in Wadh
and Jhalawan is far better than Bela, The comparison of Karachi-Quetta
(RCD) highway in the two areas is just the tip of iceberg.
Primary school enrollment of 62.20 in Dera Bugti is higher as compared to
50.04 in Lasbella, Irrigated area 1000 acres of cropped area of 1561.31 in
Dera Bugti is far better than only 624.19 in Lasbella. Electricity supply
is better in Lasbella but Gas connection 7.93 percent as compared 5.06
percent and piped water supply 13.91 as compared to 12.86 in Lasbella
speaks volume of the development level in the areas controlled by two
different lobbies.
The epicenter of militant activity is an other grey area where government
claim that militant activities are just limited in Dera Bugti and Kohlu
but in fact its reported from all over Balochistan. Attacks on Zubaida
Jala's house in Mandh, Jam Yousuf's house in Kalat, Muslim leagues' office
in Turbat, Chinese engineers killing in Gawadar and Hub, Abdul Samad
Lasi's home in Hub, ambushes on forces conveys in Mangochar & Khuzdar,
Qudoos Bizanjo's house as well as recent May 11 attack on Police Training
Center and many other bomb blasts in Quetta city, nullify government
claims that militants are limited to two districts only.
Existence of Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) is the most grey area where
government kept denying BLA in the local media as a minor group of few
hundred militants blaming them as playing in the foreign hands but
exhorting the United States to declare it as terrorist group.
Surprisingly last month government not only acknowledged its existence but
officially banned it. United States reportedly did not find enough
evidences to do so as Richard Boucher announced BLA has not been targeting
civilians. Although according to media reports BLA claimed responsibility
for many attacks it disowns Gandawah, PIDC, Karachi and bomb blast in a
Punjab bound bus in Quetta that caused many civilian causalities. However
the authorities kept blaming BAL for these activities. Ban on BLA changed
every thing in the media but nothing on the ground as it did not have any
office, declared hierarchy, neither bank accounts nor assets to be seized.
Government analyst seems to be unclear about militants especially about
BLA. Their analysis appear to be based on the assumptions made and derived
from a romantic cum slanderous investigative story about the origin of BLA
on the basis of combing the missing links mentioned by two fictitious
farmer KGB agents as well as interrogation extracts of arrested militants.
This story appeared in a net news paper in 2005 and its translations were
reproduced by many papers.
This story certainly dealt a lethal below to baloch militants, and
temporarily isolated them but haphazardly prepared that report
simultaneously targeted almost all the political alliances, media,
journalists and writers in Pakistan that some how spoke against the
government policies, therefore its credibility was questionable.
The intelligence organization seems to have relied too much on those
assumptions and there has been stark intelligence failure, the forecasting
and pre-warning of rocket attack on General Musharaf in December at Kohlu
followed by the attack on helicopter flying over the mountains to pinpoint
the firing site can be taken as example.
Meanwhile militants seem gaining ground and the democratic parties and
those who believed in parliamentary process losing very fast. Militants in
Balochistan appear to have trapped forces on the war ground of their own
choice. Forces have been hunting them down but the magnitude, frequency
and increased area of activities show that their defiance and influence
graph has been rising. Average 16 hours power load shedding, regular road
blocks and halt in railway operation is the order of the day, that all
contribute in making people believe about the presence of those behind
such activities.
Establishment's alleged handling of elections in Balochistan isolated
nationalist parties who believe in the parliament process for negotiation
to bargain for provinces' legitimate share in the resources. Among them
National Party playing defensive, Nawab Bugti is already in the mountains
and Sardar Akhtar Mengal's recent confession that now the negotiation
power rests with the militants only are the important developments worth
reckoning and remind us the gravity of the situation.
Balochistan provincial government few months back organized a mass media
campaign to counter and diffuse the agitation against military action. Mr.
Jam Yousuf, Mr Awais Ghani, Mr. Shoab Nousherwani, Razik Bugti, Abdul
Samad lasi, Shiekh Rasheed, Aftab Sherpao, Mr Nasarullah Kakar, Mir Tariq
and Ghulam Qadir Masuri, Mir Liaqat Mari and Noor Ahmed Mari and many
others claimed on media channels that nothing was wrong and every thing
will be under control in one months. One wishes their claim were right.
Unfortunately despite the lapse of considerable time the situation appears
to be worsening instead of improving. Out of them Nasarullah Kakar lost
his life in mysterious circumstances.
Government and militants both are showing traditional intransigence and
none of them seems ready for negotiation. The preconditions enlisted by
both parties are simply unacceptable to each other. Although MQM, tried to
mediate and organized a conference in Karachi but to no avail. Mir
Zafarullah Jamali and many others have taken initiatives in this regards
but those at the helms of affairs in Islamabad and those deeply entrenched
in Baloch social fabric seems not ready to come on the table.
Media routinely publish surprising and controversial news about the
militants. At times they are reported on run or have fled across the
borders and next they publish the opposite. People of Balochistan are
reportedly not relying on our media, instead they are switching to radio
and count on the international radio news and internet which they consider
releases the reliable and dependable news.
Baloch nationalist blame that large number of civilians have been taken
into custody and reportedly maltreated. They quote Interior Ministers
statement as evidence that four thousand activists are in their custody.
They blame federations for ill treating Baloch culture and values, citing
the example of Muner Mengal, MD, Balochvoice TV, reportedly arrested by
secret investigation organizations. They question that all the ethnic
languages have TV channels, so why not a Balochi Channel?
Political economy of Balochistan conflict will show that it's a costly
affair for this country in term of regular expenses incurred on the
forces, logistics, lives lost on both sides, stagnant economic activities
and diplomatic failures worldwide, let alone the uncertainty and long term
psychological effects.
It will not be out of place that Pakistan's ranking from 34 to 9 as a
failed state may have some kind of link with this conflict
What ever the official spokes persons and controlled media claim,
Balochistan situation is worsening day by day and the conflicting groups
are in a fix, without apparent hope of a breakthrough given present
circumstances.
One only wishes that sanity prevail and some good hearted senior
dignitaries, acceptable to both sides interfere and come forward to find
out the bottlenecks in this crisis, suggest a win-win solution and find a
via media for a truce and long term solution. Otherwise this stand still
may prove to be a Gordian knot that will be difficult to solve in the
future. At the moment there appear to be no light at the end of tunnel.
Nizamuddin Nizamani
0300 2422236
E-mail: nizambaloch@hotmail.com
(Writer is a trainer and social researcher in Conflict Management &
Development studies)
Source: Balochi_Culture
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