Re: Balochistan crisis & its resolution!
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Balochistan
**As the general elections draw closer and political parties begin to lay the planks of their respective campaigns, the Balochistan crisis is back in focus, figuring heavily in the rhetoric. But is the central cause of the Balochistan’s alienation being addressed in any meaningful way? Recently, MPA Nawabzada Bakhtiar Khan Domki’s wife and daughter were brutally murdered in Karachi. Domki is very closely related to the late Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti and so was his wife. In what the Baloch Liberation Army said was retaliation, four Frontier Corps check posts near Margat coalmine area came under attack and at least 15 FC personnel were killed and dozens sustained injuries. Those who died had no role in devising the policies in our most troubled province or determining how its affairs should be handled. It is tragic that they should fall to the guns and grenades used by militants. **A military source was reported to have blamed the attack on another outfit controlled by the self-exiled Harbiyar Marri. In the Domki case, police officials have so far cited a ‘family feud’ as the possible motivation behind the killings while Domki has pointedly blamed the security outfits for the killings which he says may be aimed at forcing the family to leave the country. Some have suggested that the motivation may be to send a chilling message to the Baloch militant leader Brahamdagh Bugti, currently in exile in Switzerland. The precise truth in all this is hard to pin down given the shadowy nature of operations in Balochistan and the degree of chaos that prevails there. A joint investigation team has been formed to investigate the murders but very few expect the probe to throw up anything of substance.
But the question is how long we can sustain this violence as the situation in Balochistan, our largest province, worsens by the day and what impact this will have on the rest of the country. Public anger in the province is immense. We need to see more action, more interest, in the events taking place there. The federal government needs to step in and state why the package it had announced so many months ago for the rights of Balochistan has not been implemented. But we must move even beyond this. It may be too late for the traditional thinking — that the Baloch could be persuaded to forget, under the mantra of development, the hurt and humiliation they have suffered for decades - to work. Unless there is an end to corpses turning up on roadsides and unless the ‘disappearances’ stop, the progress towards normalisation may be impossible. Indeed, the state needs to stop looking at Balochistan only through the security prism, just as a strategic asset with vast natural resources. All parties and groups need to be brought together to talk so that grievances can be aired and a viable formula worked out to bring peace. If the US can sit and talk with the deadly Taliban why can’t we sit with our own people and talk? This is the need of the hour.
I personally think it is way to late to save Balochistan. It is only the right of the Baloch to determine their own future. People are noticing too late. The youth, the future of Balochistan no longer see Pakistan as their future. We can sit and talk with India, MQM, TTP but the Baloch are seen as too far down the ladder. The Army does not take this revolt seriously. They forget the Baloch are a warrior race and probably will never give up their struggle. Musharaf must be punished for his murder of Bugti. That could help win back some trust but that might have no affect too.