THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD…
AMIR MIR

The law and order situation in Pakistan's Balochistan province continues to deteriorate with every passing day amidst armed attacks by Baloch nationalists on the country's main natural gas installations to express their anger on a range of contentious issues, be it the alleged rape of a lady doctor by an Army Captain, the setting up of three new cantonments in the province, the exploitation of Balochistan's natural resources by the Centre, or the launching of federally sanctioned mega projects there.

Over last few months, Baloch rebels have been hard at work planting landmines, firing rockets, exploding bombs or ambushing military convoys and killing dozens including army jawans (soldiers), levies, security agents, Government officials as well as civilians. The Sui airport building has been blown up, gas pipelines and electricity grids have been hit repeatedly, and bomb explosions have been engineered close to the official residence of the provincial Chief Minister as well as the Governor. Even the military installations in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, have not been spared by the angry nationalists. A fierce gun-battle between tribal insurgents and the Frontier Corps (FC) near Sangsela in the Dera Bugti district of Balochistan province on March 17, 2005, left more than 50 dead, mostly women and children. The worsening law and order situation took yet another dangerous turn on March 20, 2005, when the Governor of Balochistan, Awais Ahmed Ghani, informed the national media that the Bugti tribesmen had surrounded an entire military fort manned by at least 300 FC personnel of at a base in the Dera Bugti area.

The Bugti loyalists surrounded the FC Fort after rumours that an anti-Bugti military operation was about to be launched. The Bugti tribesmen encircling the FC Fort had already been surrounded by a second layer of the Army jawans, leaving the Bugti tribesmen sandwiched between the Fort and the outer layer of the Army. These developments were followed by the March 21 lodging of a criminal case against Akbar Bugti, his grandson Bramdagh Bugti and 150 other Bugti tribesmen on charges of attacking the FC convoy, killing and injuring FC personnel, destroying national installations and disrupting law and order on March 17, 2005. Akbar Bugti has been ruthless over the years in maintaining his dominance of the Bugtis. Outside the tense desert town of Dera Bugti, hundreds of determined tribesmen with guns sit in bunkers near the roadside. However, Bugti still appears easy to target, surrounded by a tribal militia that could be badly outgunned if security forces launch a major military operation. Some 6,000 Pakistani forces, including the regular army, are in the region.

Rich in natural and mineral resources, Balochistan is the largest of Pakistan's four provinces but has high illiteracy and unemployment rate. The poverty-stricken province has been in the news for the past many months due to frequent armed clashes between armed Baloch nationalists and Pakistan Army troops. The unrest in Balochistan has, however, simmered for many decades, with nationalists leading insurgencies in 1948, 1958-59, 1962-63 and 1973-77, all of which were suppressed by the all-powerful Pakistan Army. The last such crisis of the 1970s erupted into an insurgency that lasted four years and was eventually put down, with the Army employing brutal methods. The revolt which manifested itself in the form of an armed struggle against the Army was largely provoked by unjust federal policies that had created a sense of deprivation among the people of Balochistan. The rebellion finally came to an end after Zia-ul-Haq's 1977 military coup against the civilian Government of Premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Baloch nationalists didn't make trouble because they had become a part of the political landscape, since they were sharing power in the province. Over the past five years, since General Musharraf's 1999 military take over, however, the nationalists have gradually been excluded from political power in the province, which is now being ruled by a coalition Government of the establishment-sponsored right-wing Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and the six-party alliance of religious extremists, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA). Frustrated, the nationalists launched an armed struggle to re-stake their claims, leading to a bloody insurgency. The result is that the law and order situation in Balochistan is eroding with every passing day.

The key to the events currently unfolding in Balochistan can be traced back to the early days of 2003, a year that will go down in Baloch political history as one of mergers and coalitions among nationalist groups. By September 2003, four major Baloch nationalist parties had fallen together in an alliance called the Baloch Ithehad (Baloch Alliance), which had a two-point agenda that coincided exactly with that professed by the armed rebels of the province: opposition to the setting up of military garrisons and to the launching of mega projects on Baloch soil. The two-point agenda soon became an active and violently articulated popular scheme in the province.

As far as the current wave of violence is concerned, it began on January 1, 2005, when Dr. Shazia Khalid of Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) was raped in the confines of the high-security Sui Gas Refinery compound, allegedly by four Army men including a Captain belonging to the Defence Security Guards (DSG). Under pressure from military authorities, the administration tried to hush up the crime. Yet, the charismatic chieftain of the Bugti tribe, Sardar Akbar Khan Bugti, was quick to hold a press conference, describing Dr. Shazia Khalid's rape as an affront to the Baloch honour, which he declared "must be avenged at all costs". A few days later, on January 6, 2005, a clandestine organisation calling itself the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) started targeting the positions of DSG and FC around the PPL installations.

Yet, the Musharraf Administration, instead of cooling down Baloch emotions by taking the rape accused to task, decided to rush thousands of additional troops to Dera Bugti, besides announcing the setting up of new and permanent military bases in Balochistan The proposed building of new cantonments greatly irritated Baloch Sardars, particularly the heads of the Bugti, the Marri and the Mengal tribes, who view the move as an unwarranted intrusion to further subjugate them. But, ignoring the Baloch sentiments with impunity, General Musharraf alleged on March 24, 2005, that the three tribal chiefs of Balochistan (Sardar Akbar Khan Bugti, Sardar Attaullah Mengal and Nawab Khair Baksh Marri) were responsible for the present mess in the province, as they are opposed to the mega-projects in particular, and to development in the province in general, for fear that their traditional hold on their areas may be weakened by modernization.

The tribal chiefs, on the other hand, clarified that they are not opposed to development, but to the deprivation of the Baloch people's rights in the name of development and modernization. They maintain that the people of Balochistan are being denied their due share of the income from huge gas reserves, coupled with the fact that they have effectively been excluded from both the development and political process in Balochistan, and that too, to the enormous advantage of the Army, which is using development to extend its presence and increase its influence in the province. Even otherwise, major Baloch grievances continue to revolve around the issue of development and royalties for natural resources.

Natural Gas was discovered in the Sui area around 1952. Since then, Pakistan has benefited enormously from this cheap source of energy. Balochistan, however, neither had gas for its own use nor was paid royalties, which were its due, till the mid-1980s, and that too when an Army cantonment needed the gas - although Sui gas had reached far-flung towns in Punjab by that time. The gas from Balochistan meets 38 per cent of the national needs, yet only six per cent of Balochistan's 6.5 million people have access to it. Adding insult to injury, Balochistan is not paid proper royalties, with amounts paid to the province for its gas pegged much lower than those being paid for later discoveries in Sindh and Punjab. This is cause of much heartburn for the Baloch, who have now decided to resist exploration activities unless they are assured a fair share in gas and oil development.

Baloch concerns about their status were intensified when the Federal Government launched a project in the coastal town of Gwadar, which they fear will lead to large-scale immigration from other provinces, adding to the large numbers of 'outsiders' already present in the province. The nationalists say Gwadar is a Federal project without provincial approval or participation, in which the non-Baloch civil-military elites are grabbing land for a song. With Balochistan's entire population standing at only 6.5 million, almost half of which is non-Baloch, the Balochis fear they are being 'Red Indianised'. They consequently demand that over 50 per cent of the jobs at Gwadar be given to them.

Further, there is opposition to the establishment of new cantonments at three places in Balochistan - Kohlu, Sui and Gwadar. The nationalists say they are not needed for national defence, but are rather being set up to protect the planned Punjabi settlements and to suppress Baloch opposition to the usurpation of their rights by these outsiders.

On the other hand, General Pervez Musharraf's Balochistan policy is moving on two parallel tracks - one hardline and the other more flexible. He wants to send a clear message to the defiant tribal chiefs: we will talk; but only up to a point. The move for a political dialogue with the nationalists has been a non-starter till now, in the absence of any indication of the military's willingness to consider their demands relating to the increase in the payment of royalty, suspension of the construction of the Gwadar project till its implications for the economic interests of the Balochis are examined, the stoppage of the influx of the Punjabis and other non-Balochis into the province, and the abandoning of the plans for more cantonments. Musharraf has already made clear his determination to go ahead with the Gwadar and other Chinese-aided projects in the province, as also the projects for new cantonments.

Recent events in Balochistan have once again clearly underlined the many political handicaps faced by the country. The matter of solving the Balochistan dispute is no more about settling a single problem, such as the rape of a lady doctor, the exploitation of the province's natural resources, the setting up of new cantonments, or the continuing hostility and tension surrounding the Sui reserves. The matter is fundamentally about Pakistan's basic political direction, if the country is to become a stable and prospectively progressive state. If this is the case, the only way to deal with the problem is to give the people of Balochistan the rights that have been denied to them. The use of brute force will only cause further alienation, leaving them no option but to fight for their genuine economic and political rights. The clock is ticking and the Musharraf regime must move swiftly for a political situation, where the strong are just and the weak secure.

COURTESY: South Asia Terrorism Portal