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The terribly sad state of BalochistanByNosheen Ali
Published: May 23, 2011
In 2006, Pervez Musharraf launched a military operation in
Balochistan and killed a former governor
and elected chief minister of the province, Nawab Akbar Bugti.
This was a watershed moment in the
region, which radicalised even ordinary, apolitical Balochis to
join the long-standing nationalist
movement for regional rights and justice. More than 50,000
Baloch were displaced during the
extended military operation that surrounded the killing. Even
worse, national and international
organisations were obstructed from providing humanitarian relief
to those people who fled the
violence. Unicef came out with a report on the condition of
these IDPs and it was asked to retract it.
The military operation in Balochistan has only intensified over
the last five years, with many in the
province seeing it as nothing but a brutal form of state
repression. Reportedly, more than 4,000
people havebeen illegally abducted and detained. Out of these,
around 149 were later found dead, usually
with theirdead bodies found by the roadside. The dehumanising
nature of the violence is evidenced not just
in the ways people are torturedwith holes drilled in the head
and bodies mutilated beyond
recognitionbut also in the way their bodies are discarded. One
note accompanying a decomposed
corpse said, Eid gift for the Baloch.
Those who have been kidnapped, tortured and killed are not just
armed militants hiding in the
mountains. A vast proportion of them are from the urban middle
class, including students, engineers,
lawyers,journalistsand activists who have been engaging in
civilian protest against what they perceive
to be wrong policies of the state and the establishment. As the
Guardian reported two months ago, a
Baloch farmer went to court to file a case for his missing son
but his lawyer was murdered. When hesubsequently went to the media,
the president of the local press club was murdered. Now, no one
wishes to speak up for him.
In this situation, why should we be surprised or offended if
some children in the province refuse to
sing the national anthem and local schools refuse to fly the
national flag? Why do we shudder when
an increasing number of people in Balochistan including women,
for the first timeshout
slogans that go against the existence of Pakistan. Every dead
body is an embodiment of a renewed
resolve to fight the policies of the centre. This, in turn, has
brought about retaliatory violence. Armed
Baloch groups have also resorted to horrific forms of
indiscriminate violence. They used toblow up gas
pipelines. Now they carry outtarget killings. Of Punjabi
settlers, government servants, even Chinese
engineersany blood that the elite might care about.
To address the situation, the present civilian government had
introduced the Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan package in November
2009, promising aban on new military cantonments, a commission
on
enforced disappearances and payment of overdue gas royalties.
This is exactly what was needed. But
the Gilani government remains powerless in the face of the
forces that continue to run and rampage
Balochistan. US military aid was meant to train and equip the FC
to fight the intrusion of the Taliban
into Pakistan. Instead, a situation has arisen where Pakistan
constantly has to hear accusations that it
issheltering the Taliban in Balochistan.
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Forty years ago, the eminent sociologist, Hamza Alavi, wrote
that it was the Pakistani Army itself
which was most threatened by the Bengali demand for regional
autonomy. The Awami League,
which had an absolute majority in parliament, was committed to
aiding development by
decentralising economic policymaking and reducing military
expenditure. Moreover, army cadres
were fed the self-perpetuating delusion that Bengali nationalism
was an Indian-inspired, Indian-
financed and Indian-engineered move to disrupt the unity of
Pakistan. This was accompanied by an
added delusionthat Bengali nationalism was limited to a small
number of intellectuals and
politicians and if they were eliminated, the obedience of the
Bengali people would be restored.
These are precisely the twin delusions which were used to drive
and justify a systematic campaign of
violence against the Bengalis in 1971, at the hands of our armed
forces and the Jamaat-e-Islami
militants, alBadr and alShams. We all know the result. These are
precisely the delusions that
undergird the current campaign of terror in Balochistan, with
new sponsored wings such as Baloch
Musalah Defa Tanzeem and Sipah-i-Shuhada-i-Balochistan.
Additionally, worryingly it seems that,
extremist Islamic forces are being mobilised to quell the
secular Baloch struggle.
Hasnt the use of radical Islam as strategic depth in Afghanistan
already landed us, as well as our
neighbours, in extremist depth? The biggest threat to our
sovereignty is neither India nor the US, its
from within, from our inability to ensure supremacy of
parliament and elected civilian rule. Weurgently need to have in
place a system, as mandated by the constitution, where elected
governments
are sovereign and have control over the military and its various
arms. This should be accompanied by
the return of all those who have disappeared in Balochistan in
recent years.
The recognition of political, economic and cultural rights for
constituent regions is fundamental for
any federation to survive and is central to the functioning of a
modern democracy. Yet, generations
of Pakistanis have been made to believe, the army-backed logic
that extending these rights is the vey
antithesis of modern nationhood, because it is tantamount to
provincialism and destroys Pakistani
and Muslim unity. This is our fundamental problem. A positive
Pakistani identity can never be based
on the repression and denial of the many histories and societies
that, in fact, embody the life and
spirit of Pakistan. All we have to do is acknowledge and respect
them, instead of killing and dumping
them.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 24th, 2011.
