Hidden Faces of Pakistani Government By Zarkani The attacks on pipelines are being carried out by people of Balochistan not the Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti. The people who are demonstrating are not doing so on the behest of Nawab's but rather it is a resistance against the mighty cruel rule of Punjab crushing the Baloch. The federal government have order a major raid in Dera Bugti to suppress the masses who have been demanding priorities in jobs at local gas company which is the vital energy source. Hundreds of innocent people were detained by the Pakistani military. They are being brutally tortured some of the detainee are children below 15 years of age and old who are above seventy. For the last few years the people of Sui are demonstrating to get jobs and facilities from the company, which is mainly occupied by outsiders (out side Balochistan). Sui gas is supplied throughout the country mainly Punjab province. It is used as fuel in all major industries, power plants, urea factory and household without it the economic survival of this country is impossible. Once the Sui Gas supply was disconnected in some areas of Punjab just for few hours due to an explosion in the purification plant and millions of Dollars were lost.   The indigenous of Dera Bugti are demanding jobs and facilities as it is being taken away from their area, however, the government’s policy on this matter have been at large discriminatory. People from Punjab province are mainly recruited in the local gas field and the rest come from different parts of the country. In June 11,2002 the federal government on the behest of General Musharif ordered it FC troops already stationed there to conduct operations in Dera Bugti and the raids are still in progress. They according to instructions from authorities in Islamabad raided the mud houses and huts of poor tribesmen and detained two hundred men, dome of them teenage boys who were working in their farms. They are now severely being tortured and traumatized in FC camps and barracks. These people are not those who actually have been demanding the rights and demonstrating and impeding the gas supply to Purification Plant and Compressor. Sheer human rights abuses are in practice at the Center of Pakistan and the international community is keeping on adding this country which is complete nonsense. Pakistani news paper although published the news of raids in Bugti territory but did not cover the story from its roots. They couldn’t give the reasons why all these sheer human rights abuses are being practiced such a large scale that innocent people are being tortured and detain. The life in desert is harsh but FC raid made it even worse.  In order to squeeze and suppress the people of Balochistan this is a new policy of Pakistani government to raid the mud houses and huts of destitute and poor people and also an attempt to blame the tribal Chieftain Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti of the present situation. The attacks on pipelines are being carried out by people of Balochistan not the Nawab. After a week of total occupation of Bugti House and phone lines cut off, the attacks are still going on then how they blame Nawab who is totally cut off from outside world and roads have been seized. The ration in Dera Bugti and Bugti house has nearly run out, people across Dera Bugti are facing tremendous problems of transportation of food because the roads that lead to rest of the Balochistan and country have been blocked. Children are dying of hunger and lack of medicines. The people who are demonstrating are not doing so on the behest of Nawab but rather it is a resistance against the mighty cruel rule of Punjab crushing the Baloch. This is nothing as that to quell the situation but a huge conspiracy against the Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti. The blame on Chieftain is baseless and unsubstantiated. The people got furious and angry after the government failed to comply with the truce it signed several times with people of Balochistan and intermittently tantalized the masses. Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri was several times detained on the charges of espionage, treason and murder but government failed to prove the cases against him. He gave an insight to masses of Balochistan to fight for their rights and never step back from the true cause of your struggle. Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti gave permission to the company for the benefits of local people but as now we can see that benefits are going to some people outside this territory, and the locals are living below poverty line. Now when there is an uprising, the government is detaining and killing those who are innocent, and putting on them the stigma of terrorism and rebellion. Even if the government knows those who were detained and are going to be detained are not the one they were looking for and the houses they raided and are going to be raided does not belong to those who are launching attacks for their demands to be fulfilled, still the government is obsessively killing, detaining and torturing the innocent poor. But FC still detaining poor innocent people that are ridiculous and a sheer blunder that Federal Government is conducting deliberately. This has now become a usual habit of Federal Government to send delegates to Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti and agree upon demands of locals and than breach the agreement when feel conducive. Minister of petroleum approved and applaud the demands of locals and the tribal Chieftain also assured cooperation but as we see, the government broke that agreement once again leaving the locals of no choice but to demonstrate and impede the gas supply. Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti has had some agreements with petroleum minister and other government officials but the government always breach its commitments and the points it agreed upon. Then blame that Bugti tribe are impeding the company work and bursting the gas pipelines carrying gas from wells that are spread across the Bugti territory. The government started pouring more and more troops inside the area and tries to suppress the people who are demanding employments in the company, and the government is recruiting even the unskilled men from Punjab and outside. The government says the people who are demonstrating or bursting the pipelines carrying gas from wells scattered across the Dera Bugti are rebels, terrorists and guerrillas and their demands are baseless because it is the country from where we recruit should not be the concern of locals of Dera Bugti. However over the last 40 years the government has been tantalizing the locals that their demands will be met and for that end they did have several agreements with Chieftain of Bugti tribe Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti including the one to give priority to the locals of Dera Bugti and Balochistan. They also agreed to pay royalty to the Chieftain for subsequent disbursement of it to the tribe but nothing was paid. The company also agreed to send two Bugti students to USA for studies, each year, before Nawab Akbar Khan had given the permission to the company to conduct gas exploration. But who think of USA when the Bugti children even does not have access to proper primary education and 50% of them grow malnutrition struggling with fatal diseases.  Last time, about ten months ago, it was agreed that locals of Balochistan would be recruited and the indigenous of Dera Bugti would be provided the facilities like education and health.  After several months have passed nothing seemed to improved or even no sign of implementation on what the oil and gas ministry had agreed but instead the company is flooded with Army and FC (federal Corpse) to sabotage and intimidate the locals and refrain them from demonstrating, bursting the pipelines and firing rocket launchers over gas installations. But those who are burst the pipelines go and hide in desert hills and the government have no courage to catch them and instead the troops are send to innocent peoples huts and small mud houses and whatever they find, they confiscate and women children are abused and forced to tell where their men are. They detain peasants and innocent people who even do no know what are those pipes and what they are carrying through. They even do not even understand that something precious from their area is being taken away, some of them never been to out side except the desert and arid mountains and have spent the more or less fifty years in Dera Bugti. The FC catch them and puts them inside the in barracks torture them with leashes and electric current them, keep them awake for several days, and forced them to confess what they are being asked to. The poor innocent tribesmen even do not understand what they would say. If survive, (usually the excruciating pain, hunger sleepless life, pulling off the nail from fingers of hand and foot, the severe shocks of electric current take their lives) they would be of no use because of permanent damage to their brain and psychological trauma which they had suffered. . In Sui gas school only the outsider’s children have access to education. Poor tribesmen are deprived of the facilities like health and education. The children of Bugti men are more likely to become robber’s then decent citizen of this country, and then the government would say that they are guerrillas and rebels. But actually they are demanding what their parents were deprived of the basic rights of liberty and freedom. They are trying to impede what they think is sheer incrimination against the Baloch tribe for their resources are being squandered but they are getting nothing in return. Sui Natural Gas field is providing natural gas across the country even the regions bordering with china are using Sui Gas, which comes from Balochistan. But regretfully I have to unveil that the locals of Dera Bugti Sui are using firewood with no gas supply. I have seen and also got pictures of women struggling to cut the wild desert bushes with an axe and the children were collecting them and on their way back to home, which is only few kilometres off Sui Gas Plant would have to cross 36-inch wide gas pipelines carrying precious natural gas to Punjab. As the natural gas was first discovered by a British oil and gas exploratory team in Sui Dera Bugti, in 1952, so it was named Sui Gas in Pakistan. To pull it out some agreements were signed with tribal chieftain to get approval because no one from outside could inter the area without the permission of tribal chieftain. It was agreed that local people would be provided jobs and welfare fund would be given for the development of area. Education, health facilities would be available for the indigenous and each year two students will be sent to USA on the expenses of company. Gas royalty would be given to the locals and special funds will be issued to Balochistan government from the revenues of Sui Gas. The initial few years the government abide the truce but breach it soon after it put thousands FC troops for the safety of purification plant because it felt a bit secure from any attack and agitation from the locals. Then intermittently there had been some agreement and the government’s breaking of it and now we are at present situation where the government is repeating its brutal actions like they did several times in past. In the Sui gas field one can only see people from Punjab and Karachi under heavy security of Pakistan Army, DSG and FC. Fences are built in order to stop locals go inside and ask for jobs and ask for treatment or medicines. In Dera Bugti Children are more susceptible of malnutrition and other related diseases that malnutrition accompanies. As Bugti area is a hot desert so there is no river and   the area has no supply of water. But there are some oases from where the water can be supplied to the people but the government have no concern to do that. In the Sui Gas Field water is supplied to the employees from Sindh. The people who are the workers of Sui Company are enjoying with fresh clean water from Guddu and there are clubs with swimming pools, home gardens, trees and grass. But the local tribes even do not have access to the clean drinking water. I have seen women fetching water from ponds containing last year’s rain water which has become totally contaminated as several moths passed without rain and a disgusting smell of animal feces was something that made me feel belittle and ashamed of not being able to help those people out who have a land full of natural resources still they are, as it is, backward and in desperate conditions. People from other parts of Pakistan are prospering and developing from the Sui Gas. The head offices of Sui in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi are exquisite with all the employees from out side Balochistan. They are getting good salaries and facilities. The locals of Dera Bugti Sui after being rejected from getting job are now foraging in Sindh and cities like Karachi to stay alive. I have seen them selling tea in the streets of Karachi and spending night on ground muddled with wastes of the city. The others are doing labour on daily wages even the children below five years are doing such hard jobs like breaking stones with hammers on roadside which is going to be paved and digging grounds for the pipelines in interior Sindh. The children of local tribe are dying because there is no doctor and medicine but inside the fences a hospital with all modern day facilities is for employees. The school is only for employees and the future of Bugti children seemed bleak. At early age they have to start labouring somewhere in the province but not of course at Sui Gas plant, they are more prone to use drugs and be robbers if with strong burning desire to revenge from government when they come to know the hidden faces of it. It is the government of Pakistan who is compelling them to take hard lines against the government’s policies. Even though Pakistani government is conducting such brutality, atrocity, and racial discrimination tremendously, still the aids from international community are pouring in especially from USA. I think this is now time the international should investigate the human rights records of Pakistan. The government is nudging hard to get approval from the chieftain if Marri tribe which also a sub tribe of Baloch sharing borders from south with Bugti. How on earth can it be possible when they know the example of Dera Bugti where the company was permitted by Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti for the benefits of both government and his people but they took over breaching each point of agreement. All the tactic and tricks of government failed to get approval from Nawab Khair Baksh Marri. After tremendous pressure and force the government could not have been able to get to the area. Nawab Khair Baksh seemed adamant and wilful despite the government’s conspiracies to terminate him from Chieftainship. On his words, our natural resources are more precious than some government’s few development projects. He said if the government is discriminating the locals of Dera Bugti how can they believe the government and its offers. He was detained several time and tortured to accept the demands. This fight never ends in Balochistan and the true Baloch would never ignore the desperate need of action against the state. The government of Pakistan would have to reconsider its decisions and brutal inhuman invasion and intrusion on Baloch territory and unjust rule that left millions to suffer in Balochistan. Date 19.6.02