Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
[Edited]
Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
i love pak very much etc etc ...
but let's be realy honest here, Balochiz are not being given their rightful share, and it's only punjabis or non balochis to lame, the balochi leaders haven't done any thing for their people either, come to think of it they are more indifferent then the rest of paki people/leaders, and lets not bullcrap ourselves, if we dont take any actions now, if we dont revive the situation now thing might get even more worse.
Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
Is this the same Ahmedan Bugti that killed Bugti’s son and under support of ISI fled Balochistan?
Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
No.
Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
Very nice editorial by Ahmed sahib
http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/jan-2005/20/columns3.php
These ungrateful Balochis!
Aziz-Ud-Din Ahmad
The much delayed report of the parliamentary committee has been overtaken by the rape case in Sui and its aftermath. The committee according to Ch Shujaat Hussain has finalised its recommendations, which will be presented in a few days. In the meanwhile more Balochi members of the committee have resigned from the body.
Ch Shujaat Hussain complains that while Nawab Akbar Bugti is being misled by some of the hot heads around him, there are people in Islamabad also who do not want a peaceful settlement. The Chaudhry is thus between the devil and the hard rock. He had assured the powers that be that he would deliver the Balochi leadership if given the opportunity while he had promised the nationalists he would resolve their differences with Islamabad. Both seem to be unhappy with him.
There are indications that the committee would like to push substantive issues under the rug, while trying to lead the nationalists up the garden path. It is beyond Ch Shujaat Hussain’s comprehension that smaller provinces should demand share in political power, to start with the freedom to manage their own affairs as members of a federation. In Pakistan which is being run like a unitary state, Islamabad is flabbergasted whenever provinces demand control over their resources or a much larger share in the revenues. They tend to treat those making demands as a bunch of blackmailers who can be silenced through bribes. Pass on more funds to Akbar Bugti under the table, and he’ll start behaving like Jam Yusuf, the agencies advise those who matter.
It is highly surprising for them when the remedy does not work, righteous indignation overtakes the decision makers. A whooping Rs 130b invested in the province and an allocation of 14 percent of the PSDP made to it and the politicians still continue to clamour! This is unthinkable.
Ignorant about ground realities those in Islamabad fail to understand that while development allocations in Punjab benefit local entrepreneurs, contractors and businessmen of sorts while they also generate jobs, money invested in Balochistan goes to outsiders who supply material and trained manpower for development and get both the bulk and the choicest of jobs. Unless the province is able to exercise control over its resources, is free to fix its development priorities and has the authority to oversee the development work, only outsiders and a handful of local hangers-on will be the sole beneficiaries of the so called progress.
Presently Islamabad controls everything that in a federation falls under the purview of the provinces. It decides what development activity is to be undertaken, which foreign or local investors are to be associated with, and what share in the revenues is to be allocated to the province. The projects therefore benefit the centre. In the Saindak copper and gold mining project, for instance, the agreement concluded by Islamabad allows the Chinese investors 74 percent of the profit, the centre 5 percent, while Balochistan receives a meagre 1 percent.
The bulk of the engineers and technical staff in the project come from outside the province. Of the profit from the Sui gas fields, the centre gets Rs 65b while the province receives only 5b. The investments are thus meant to boost up the centre’s revenues which Islamabad spends on an unwieldy government (see the largest-ever cabinet inducted last year) and bureaucracy, a fairly large number of which consists of serving or retired military officers. Shouldn’t it irk the Balochis when they are reminded of Islamabad’s munificence?
The Gwadar port project was taken into hand primarily to fulfil the strategic needs of Islamabad and whatever benefits were to accrue to the province were to be of a peripheral nature. Islamabad could however have ensured, by involving local stakeholders, that the project had enough public support. It decided instead to cater to the needs of the carpet baggers of all sorts, particularly the land mafia from Punjab and Karachi, which has strong lobbies in the federal capital. The whole project was kept a well-guarded secret from the provincial administration and the Assembly members. When it was finally unfolded, the Balochis were rightly stunned by the prospect of being turned into a minority and deprived of their lands which they had owned for hundreds of years.
The best way was to allow lease holding rather than the outright sale of land. This would have ensured that the ownership remained with the local people. Similarly, local partnership could have been made compulsory for anyone desiring to establish business in the area. The local population should have been given priority in jobs by reducing qualifications in their case. For outside employees work permit could have been made compulsory. The system has been successful in the Gulf and there is no reason why it shouldn’t have worked in Balochistan. The steps would have assured the local population that it retained the control of its province and was not likely to be overwhelmed by people from outside. These might be considered radical measures, but the under-development imposed on the people of Balochistan for over fifty years can only be removed through drastic means.
With bomb blasts and rocket attacks occurring every other day in Balochistan, there is little hope of the area providing an investment friendly environment. The government plans to maintain law and order by permanently stationing army units at important installations as it has done in Sui. It is supposed that more cantonments are the way to keep the dissidents under control. But deep-seated social discontent can express itself in multifarious forms that the law enforcement agencies are incapable of coping with.
A couple of incidents here and there, and the nervous investors will move over to more peaceful free ports in the Gulf. There are already reports of prospective investors looking for more secure pastures. The way to ensure peace and guarantee security in the province is by creating for the population a vested interest in maintaining peace. This happens when a population knows that it owns the installations that need to be protected.
E-mail queries and comments to: [email protected]
Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
Army versus the Rebels
By M. Ilyas Khan
The increased visibility and meddlesome ways of the security services are paving the way for Baloch youth to join the rebels
Mohammad Hussain used to run Irani petrol from Mand to Turbat, ensuring for himself an average monthly income of around 20,000 rupees. But now he works as a day labourer for a paltry 80 rupees. The reason: the trail of cross-border trade from Iran is getting bloody, thanks to the Frontier Corps’ (FC) increased anti-smuggling vigilance over the last two years.
While the FC cannot be faulted on this score, the problem lies in the fact that the economic lifeline of the former Mekran division has never been serviceable from anywhere except Iran. The coastal highway that connects Gwadar with Karachi is yet to be completed. There is no other road linking Mekran’s districts of Gwadar, Kech (Turbat), Panjgur and a part of Awaran either with each other or with any other part of Pakistan, even Balochistan itself. With scanty rainfall that sustains little agriculture, the inhabitants of Mekran have largely depended on trade from the Iranian border, the nearest point where basic human necessities can be found.
But before the coastal highway has become fully functional and a road network across this 42,000 square kilometre region is even conceived, FC officers have started enforcing a change in the economic lifestyle of the people. In June 2003, the FC killed three local residents in Panjgur when they failed to stop for a vehicle search. Rioting and arson followed, with a weeklong shutter-down strike and the burning of the offices of the district nazim and the district coordination officer. Another person was shot dead by the FC in Mand last May. More recently, firing by the FC injured a 12-year old boy near Balnegore village, leading to a public outcry that forced the FC to abandon their check post.
The 30,000 square-kilometre Chaghai-Noshki belt in the northwest is equally barren, dry and remote and faces the same dilemma as Mekran because it too draws sustenance from Taftan, a trading town on the Iranian border. As security outfits become more visible and meddlesome, more and more people are losing income they have traditionally earned in these parts. A large number of people in both Mekran and Chaghai have been using non-custom-paid Iranian pickups and motorbikes which are inevitably grounded due to the FC’s demand for registration.
Army troops got directly involved in the Mekran region last July to destroy rebel camps in the hills. They started house-to-house searches in Camaro, Drok and other villages on the southern slopes of the Dasht mountains, some 45 kilometres north of Gwadar. Women were asked to wait outside as troops searched their trunks and beddings for weapons. Unaccustomed to such behaviour, locals were left in a state of shock. Similar searches were conducted in villages around the Santsar, Dadam and Zarrembo areas in the northern foothills of the range, located in Kech district. A rebel group ambushed the convoy in Dadam, killing three and injuring more than 10 military personnel. For the next few weeks, the area turned into a battleground complete with armoured personnel carriers, artillery guns, helicopters and jet aircraft.
Although the military has so far failed to arrest insurgents in the hills or retrieve any gear from their camps, the Herald has the names of 15 persons arrested by the intelligence agencies on charges of having links with these camps. Most of them are either political activists or offenders of a different kind. For example, Osman, a driver for a subcontractor of the army’s Frontier Works Organisation, hijacked a car because he was not paid his salary for four months. All the arrested persons have been held incommunicado. Some arrests were subsequently acknowledged as a result of writ petitions but the detainees have not been produced in courts.
The eastern regions of Balochistan, such as Dera Bugti and Kohlu, are not quite as new to this kind of exposure but here too anti-military sentiment is on the rise. Late last year, a large FC force surrounded Dera Bugti town with the intention of storming Nawab Akbar Bugti’s residence. The force had to retreat when over a thousand Bugti militants threatened to fight to the end. In Kohlu, the FC and a levies force comprising Bijarani tribesmen tried to overrun the Marri camps in Tatra hills twice in June this year, leading to hostilities that resulted in civilian casualties.
In Khuzdar, where a military garrison has existed since the 1980s, the ISI is said to be actively interfering in administrative, political and media affairs. Last year, it implicated a journalist and human rights activist Rashid Azam in a case of treason for publishing an anti-army calendar. More recently, one Khan Mohammad Ghulamani died in the custody of some ISI operatives. On August 29, two persons were injured in FC firing during a raid in Wadh.
Observers say that the increased visibility and meddlesome ways of the security services are not only creating fear in people’s minds but also paving the way for Baloch youth to join the rebels. Mohammad Hussain of Turbat concurs: “Punjabi youngsters are captains and majors, but Baloch youth have dust in their hair. What else can they do?” Herald September 2004
Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
http://www.balochvoice.com/Articles_Editorials_local_papers/Back_to_the_hills.html
Back to the hills
By M. Ilyas Khan
Unknown to the rest of the country, Baloch nationalists are up in arms again after 30 years
Which of the two should be more worrying: the fact that Balochistan, after a troubled peace lasting some 30 years, is once again in the throes of a full-fledged insurgency or the reality that the issue has so far failed to find space in Pakistan’s mainstream political discourse? The sights and sounds recently emerging from the country’s vast hinterland are failing to register, despite having risen to a violent and bloody crescendo over the last six months. The forgotten and at times mocked Baloch nationalist has quietly emerged from the shadow of sectarian and international terrorism to stake his own claim on the spoils of a system that is threatening to fall gradually but inevitably apart.
There is serious turmoil in Balochistan, irrespective of whether the rest of the country is willing to acknowledge it.
Over the last six months in particular, Baloch rebels have been hard at work 153 out of 156 working days, to be precise planting mines, firing rockets have, exploding bombs or ambushing military convoys. Their attacks have turned bloody on t least 25 occasions, killing over 40 persons including military and paramilitary personnel, levies, security agents, government officials and also some civilians. The Sui airport building has been blown up, gas pipelines and electricity grids have been repeatedly hit and bomb explosions have taken place close to the official’s residence of the chief minister as well as the governor. Even military installations in Quetta have not been spared. Though many such attacks remain unclaimed to this day, a group called the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) has claimed the responsibility for quite a few, demanding and end to garrisons and Mega-projects. For those who have seen the actors in this bloody confrontation take form, this ragtag group of rebellious nationalists may take a lot more force to dissipate then the ideologues from the mind-1970s required.
Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
The author is a Pakistani
Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
These tactics when used by Israel are condemned, but no words for the callous Pakistani government.
Pakistan bulldozes houses after gas field attack
(Reuters)
20 January 2005
QUETTA, Pakistan - Security forces in Pakistan on Thursday demolished houses used by tribesmen to launch a bloody attack on the country’s main gas field that forced a costly shutdown of supplies.
Militiamen used bulldozers to raze the houses near the Sui gas field in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, residents said.
“We are bulldozing those houses from where the rockets were fired,” provincial home minister Mir Shoaib Nusherwani told Reuters. “We are trying to secure the areas near the gas field.”
The action came a day after police sought arrest warrants against 36 tribesmen for launching the Jan. 11 attack on the Sui field in which as many as 15 people died and the main purification plant and pipelines were damaged.
It was the latest in a string of attacks by tribesmen seeking more autonomy, development funds and royalties from gas.
The wanted group included a son and a grandson of powerful tribal leader and regional political figure Nawab Akbar Bugti.
Residents of Sui, which is about 400 km (250 miles) east of Baluchistan’s provincial capital Quetta, said security forces stepped up security before demolishing the houses.
“The gas field has been sealed off and helicopters are hovering over it,” resident Niaz Bugti told Reuters.
Military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan said the government was determined to ensure the safety of key installations like Sui but denied it had launched any military action. “There is no military operation going on there,” he said.
Sui produces up to 45 percent of Pakistan’s gas and the attack disrupted supplies to power firms and factories in northern and southern Pakistan as well as to some domestic consumers.
DAMAGE REPAIRED
Officials said on Wednesday that the damage had been repaired and supplies partially restored but full supplies would not be resumed before the end of the week.
The latest attack was unusually intense and analysts have warned that the unrest could explode into a major insurgency if it was not handled carefully.
President Pervez Musharraf’s government rushed in extra troops and vowed to prevent future attacks on the Sui facility.
But at the same time it expressed hopes for a political solution and media reports have said the government was preparing a socio-economic package to try to address the Baluch grievances.
Bugti, the leader of the nationalist Jamhoori Watan Party (Democratic Homeland Party), could not be reached for comment.
But The News newspaper quoted him as ruling out dialogue with the government while denying that nationalists carried out the Sui attack. He blamed it on “powerful people” who wanted to launch an offensive against the Baluch people.
According to the paper, Bugti called for more development funds for the province and for clarification of whether Baluchistan’s resources belonged to the province or outsiders.
He said major national infrastructure projects in the province were only acceptable if they benefited local people.
Baluch nationalists have opposed such projects, which include major dams and a new deep sea port built with Chinese help, saying they would benefit outsiders more than locals.
The unrest has been a blow to Pakistan’s efforts to attract foreign investment into oil and gas exploration and has also called into question its security guarantees for a proposed gas pipeline from Iran to India that would run through Baluchistan.
Militiamen used bulldozers to raze the houses near the Sui gas field in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, residents said.
Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
Why don't we pack all the Bluchs to Kashmir and the Kashmiris to Baluchs? Neither can then claim it's their land. And Iran will have a real tough time aiding the Baluchs.
Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
A bit of respect wont hurt, woman!
Anyway, you can check it from any reliable source. Here is one:
Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
Karachi is 68% of the revenue collection of Pakistan, not the entire GDP.
Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
This was in todays www.thetimes.com.uk
Search for Pakistan and you’ll see the story.
Very sad that army officers would do such a lowly despicable thing such as rape. Public hanging should be invoked in this case. As a former Pakistani My apologies to the family of Dr Khalid.
AN ARMY officer and five other military personnel have been arrested in Pakistan in connection with the rape of a woman doctor that provoked a tribal uprising.
Dr Shazia Khalid worked with the state-controlled Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (PPL) in the town of Sui in the southwestern province of Baluchistan. She was raped last month at the company’s residential quarters that are guarded by an elite army unit. The doctor, who is from Karachi, was living alone at the time.
Local tribesmen had accused the officer, named only as Captain Hammad, who was in charge of security within the compound, of the crime and demanded that he submit to tribal judicial custom by walking on burning coal to prove his innocence. Guilt is determined according to the severity of burns caused by the coal.
The doctor also suffered a brutal beating and was threatened with being set alight. She has returned to Karachi, where she is having psychiatric treatment.
According to friends she is unable to talk even with her close relatives and still fears for her life. Her husband says that the gas company officials warned her not to report the incident to the police.
“They said the move would put her and colleagues’ lives in danger,” he said, adding that his wife was injected with sedatives and told to pretend that she was sick and unable to speak.
Hundreds of armed Baluchi tribesmen attacked the country’s largest natural gasfield with rockets and mortars after the authorities attempted a cover-up by dismissing the allegations against the officer. Enraged protesters severely damaged the plant, causing the suspension of gas supplies to half the country for more than ten days.
Countrywide protests by human rights activists and women’s organisations had also accused the administration of protecting army officers. The arrest came almost five weeks after the incident.
An army spokesman said that Captain Hammad and five other army personnel were arrested after investigators found new evidence. They were placed in the custody of a special army investigation team. The accused would have DNA tests, the spokesman said.
The police last week arrested three PPL officials for trying to destroy evidence.
The incident has highlighted the tension that exists in the province where Baluchi nationalists have been locked in confrontation with the federal government over their demand for more political autonomy.
Insurgents have stepped up attacks on economic and government installations. Thousands of troops have been sent to quell the insurgency and several paramilitary troops have been killed in attacks.
Troops in helicopters took relief supplies to flooded villages yesterday as the nationwide death toll rose above 360. About 4,000 troops with helicopters, coastguard and transport aircraft hauled food, medicine and tents to Pasni, close to where the Shadikor Dam burst on Thursday.
Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
Any punk who considers himself above law & order, be it a sindhi, baluchi, pathan or a punjabi saboteur should be hanged by his 2 nuts. Sabotaging of national property or living in bandit like callous environment should be BLOWN SKY HIGH :rocketup:
Waziristan - Wana war lords have the last chance to surrender and allow the area to enter the mainstream of development and progress. Allow the locals to surrender thier ‘guests’
and act like proper Pakistani nationalists.
Foreigner’s property in ‘Defence’ and the 'Kino factory sleeper cells to be distributed among the poor biharis from BD settled in the Sialkot-Punjab district.
Jhanday walay bhai sab, chand jagahoun kay naam yaad kernay say you can not become a Pakistani. You’r knowledge about Pakistan is ridiculous, and YES! We know, pun intended.
You’r allowed to bear the flag though. After all flags do need a pole. Right?
You should consider this an ‘Honour’ for your kind,one day you might get rewarded too.
Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
Threat of Civil War grows in Pakistan province
BY JAMES RUPERT
STAFF CORRESPONDENT
DERA BUGTI, Pakistan – In the center of this dusty town’s only real intersection, Pakistani paramilitary troops peer out from a thick, round tower of sandbags, training machine guns on the main streets. Other government soldiers watch the town from fortified nests on the adjacent hilltops.
The men they monitor so warily are hundreds of ethnic Baluch militiamen of the Bugti tribe, who brandish automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades as they patrol the town and its surrounding mountain valley in columns of pickup trucks. Neighboring Baluch tribes also have taken up arms, and guerrillas have blown up electrical power lines and trains in recent weeks.
Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
Good article nicolas_john, this line stands out as the majority feeling among Balochs of all knid.
"More bases?" demanded Mohammed Din, the jobless Bugti tribesman. "They are occupying us like a foreign country. We are waiting only for the order of our nawab to attack them."
Re: Enough is enough: The excesses of Baloch nationalists
Another story about the rape and Baluchistan that Verizon posted just above.
Does anyone other than MS actually think brute force is going to take care of the Baluchistan crisis?
The husband standing by his wife and rejecting calls for an honor killing needs to be applauded as well.
Multiple stotylines going one here and how they are handled will affect Pakistan for years to come.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,2763,1419040,00.html