This is an effort to stop the peaceful public protests against the military government’s handling of Balochistan’s provincial demands through the use of military force. These arrests are over and above the thousands already missing, allegedly picked up by the intelligence agencies and whose whereabouts remain unknown. It was recently reported in the press that a contingent of Rangers raided the Bugti Farms in Sanghar district of Sindh and arrested 38 people while confiscating all the livestock.

Sardar Akhtar Mengal, ex-chief minister of Balochistan, has now been shifted to Karachi and is to be tried there for allegedly kidnapping and torturing two intelligence agency officers. His family members are not allowed to meet him and he was not being given medical aid either, although his health is reported to be very poor.

The Mengal family had to get orders from the court trying him for visiting rights and medical attention. Many other political leaders of various Baloch regional parties have also been arrested for peaceful protests and so-called infringement of law and order regulations. The authorities have also arrested people protesting peacefully against the rampant inflation in daily consumer items.

An estimated 86,000 internally displaced people, due to the military conflict, are reported to be living away from their habitats and in dire need of medical and nutritional help. International aid agencies and NGOs have drawn the attention of the government to their plight but to no avail.

International agencies are not allowed into Balochistan even during peaceful periods leave alone in conflict times. Most women and children, estimated at 70 percent of these displaced people, are suffering from drastic malnutrition and will die if aid does not reach them on a priority basis, especially due to the extreme cold spell.

In Balochistan the infant mortality rate is pegged at 673 per thousand in a recent report and deaths amongst these people will only add to this figure. The plight of these unfortunate people is also an indicator of the lack of medical facilities in the province and the government’s and provincial government’s callous inhuman treatment of the people of Balochistan.

While the federal government is continuing these military and intelligence operations in an effort to suppress peaceful and militant protest, there is a blackout in the electronic media, while the print media is only reporting sporadically on the situation in Balochistan.

This blackout and sporadic reporting is reminiscent of the East Pakistan debacle and the four previous civil wars in Balochistan and is an effort to keep the people ignorant of the dangerous, brutal, suppressive and oppressive military operations continuing in Balochistan.

Political analysts who were invited by independent electronic channels to speak on the Balochistan crisis have been banned from talk shows and discussions for exposing the true repression being perpetuated for the last four years on the Baloch people.

It would be pertinent here to note that Baloch militant activity, attacks on gas pipelines and clashes with the military have begun to escalate again after a lull of three to four months after the extra-judicial murder of Nawab Akbar Bugti. In the Sangsila area of the Bugti tribe, a clash took place recently where two military casualties and some six Baloch casualties have been reported.

The government forces are reported to have used helicopter gunships and heavy weapons. Incidents of gas pipeline attacks are being reported nearly every second or third day. These incidents belie the claims of the government that after Akbar’s murder the militant protest has been quashed.

On the political front, allies of the military regime in the shape of Chaudry Shujaat Hussain and PML-Q stalwarts are pushing forward a provincial autonomy bill based on the Musahid Hussain committee report and the yet to be disclosed Wasim Sajjad committee recommendations along with another women’s rights bill.
They claim that this bill will address the provincial autonomy issue once and for all as they are consulting the opposition and developing a consensus. One wonders who in the opposition is being consulted and whether representatives of the three smaller provinces who are not in the legislatures are also being consulted or not.

If it is a similar consultation as was conducted for the Women’s Protection bill then it can only be termed as an eyewash and the bill, instead of reflecting true provincial autonomy, will reflect the thinking and policy of the military regime, which has always been centralized control. They may devolve some meaningless subjects to the provinces to try to appease the opposition but will definitely be rejected by the provincial political nationalists.

One cannot understand the problem in devolving true provincial autonomy when there are so many examples internationally to replicate. The reluctance to emulate tried and tested good governance practices exemplifies the mindset of the ruling military elite, which is personalized and absolute power resting in General President Pervez Musharraf.

The current legislatures have continued to endorse the dictates emanating from the President’s house and that is one of the reasons why Musharraf is trying to get re-elected by the same houses, as he is not too sure of the representatives to be elected in the coming national elections. International as well as domestic pressure is building up for him to hold fair, free and transparent elections.

But going by the 2005 local government elections and the rampant rigging witnessed by international and local observers, the likelihood of such fair, free and transparent elections are a doomed hope. The General-President has already begun his campaign for having his supporters and allies re-elected. The PML-Q too has begun manoeuvring for rigging the expected elections in 2007.

Can Pakistanis expect a change of heart in the ruling elite combine of the military and allied corrupt politicians and bureaucracy? Can we expect just political, fiscal and economic policy in the future where inflation, poverty and human rights are addressed in favour of the people of Pakistan; one sees only a bleak and dismal future? 14.1.07

The writer is a freelance columnist