According to US intelligence sources, six Pakistani army brigades, plus paramilitary forces totalling some 25,000 men, are battling Baloch Liberation Army guerrillas in the Kohlu mountains and surrounding areas.

This and other figures are quoted in an analysis by Selig S Harrison, published on Wednesday by the Washington Post. The writer also quotes the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan as having reported “indiscriminate bombing and strafing” by 20 US-supplied Cobra helicopter gunships and four squadrons of fighter planes, including US-supplied F-16 fighter jets, resulting in 215 civilian dead and hundreds more wounded, many of them women and children. He maintains that President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s “unsatisfactory performance” against Al Qaeda and Taliban forces stems from the presence of “Islamic extremists” in the country’s intelligence services, as well as the fact that the general has increasingly been forced to divert ground forces and US-supplied air power from the Afghan front and from Kashmir earthquake relief efforts to combat a “bitter, little-noticed insurgency in his strategic southern coastal province of Balochistan”. He calls it “Musharraf’s ‘other war’”.

Harrison, a former Washington Post reporter who has served in South Asia, points out that the US has not raised the Baloch issue with Pakistan as it considers it an internal matter. He calls for a reversal of this policy, “not only to stop the carnage but also because the United States has a major strategic stake in a peaceful accommodation between Islamabad and Baloch leaders”. He wants the administration to call on President Musharraf to start negotiations immediately with Baloch leaders, while President Bush should “keep up the pressure when he visits Islamabad in March”. He argues that multiethnic Pakistan has been dominated by the Punjabis, who control the army. He predicts that Pakistan is likely to become “increasingly ungovernable in the absence of a political settlement with the Baloch”. He thinks that a continued military confrontation in Balochistan could well intensify long-festering ethnic unrest in neighbouring Sindh and embolden various anti-Musharraf forces throughout Pakistan. Musharraf’s ability to put adequate military resources into the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, already limited, would be further reduced, if that happens, undermining US efforts to stabilise Afghanistan.

Harrison, who is often critical of Pakistan in his writings, argues that the strategic importance of Balochistan has grown since China started building a port for Pakistan at Gwadar, close to the Strait of Hormuz, with a projected 27 berths, enough for a major Pakistani naval base that could be used by Beijing. Iran fears Baloch nationalism, but India is more “ambivalent”. Many Indian commentators appear happy to see Musharraf bogged down in Balochistan and hope that the Baloch crisis will force him to ratchet down Pakistani support for Kashmiri “Islamic extremist insurgents,” but Gen Musharraf has presented no evidence to back up his accusations that India is aiding the Baloch insurgents, he points out. “Both Baloch and Sindhi leaders have often said that they would welcome Indian intervention to liberate them from Islamabad.

“At present, most Baloch leaders do not call for independence. They are ready to settle for the provincial autonomy envisaged in the 1973 Pakistani constitution, which successive military regimes, including the present one, have nullified,” writes Harrison. He also claims that the Pushtuns want above all “an end to blatant economic discrimination by the dominant Punjabis”.

For decades, he adds, Punjabi-dominated central governments have denied Balochistan a fair share of development funds and paid only 12 percent of the royalties due to the province for the gas produced there. Pakistan’s natural resources, he points out, are predominantly based in Balochistan. He also alleges that the Baloch were “forcibly incorporated into Pakistan” in 1947 and have subsequently staged two short-lived rebellions, as well as a protracted struggle from 1973 to 1977 that involved some 80,000 Pakistani troops and 55,000 Baloch tribesmen.

Harrison argues that Islamabad is no longer able to play off feuding tribes against each other and faces a unified nationalist movement. Another important difference is that the Baloch have a better-armed, more disciplined fighting force, thanks to their rich compatriots in the Persian Gulf are providing the money needed to buy weapons. “It is clear that a continuing Baloch insurgency would pose a major threat to the Musharraf regime and to US interests in Pakistan. Future military and economic aid to Islamabad should clearly be withheld until Musharraf stops his military repression in Balochistan and enters into serious negotiations with Baloch leaders. Once the present crisis is defused, the United States should launch a sustained effort to promote a process of democratisation in Pakistan that gives long-overdue recognition to its multiethnic character,” he concludes.By Khalid Hasan Dailytimes.com.pk  17.2.06