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BY TIM MCGIRK | QUETTA
Sunday, Jan. 30, 2005
When a woman doctor was allegedly raped by four armed men at a
residence in the Balochistan desert on Jan. 2, her assailants may well
have expected her to be too ashamed to speak about it. They were wrong. In
Pakistan's Balochistan province, nothing is held in higher regard than a
woman's honor, and the allegations of rape have the rough-and-tumble
province, rich with natural gas fields, up in arms literally.
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M.
FARMAN—AP
VENDETTA: Bugti,
center, is prepared to wage war against the military
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Baluch tribesmen have attacked a refinery and pumping station at the Sui
gas fields, have sabotaged the pipeline that sends the natural gas to the
rest of Pakistan, have blown up railway lines, and have rocketed the
provincial capital, Quetta. In response, President Pervez Musharraf has
sent 4,500 paramilitary troops, backed by 20 tanks and nine helicopter
gunships, to Balochistan to try to restore order. It will be a tricky
mission. "This could be our last battle," Baluch tribal
chieftain Attaullah Khan Mengal told Time. "At the end of it, either
their soldiers will be standing alive, or we will."
According to Balochistan police inspector general Chaudhry Mohammad
Yaqoob, the doctor was awoken in the middle of the night at her residence
in the Pakistan Petroleum Ltd. (PPL) compound to find a gun at her head.
When she cried for help, says Yaqoob, she was punched in the face. The
doctor reported the attack to company managers who, according to Yaqoob,
refused to allow her to file a police case. (Three senior PPL officials
were arrested and charged on Friday with obstructing justice.) Workers at
PPL reported the incident to Akbar Khan Bugti, the Nawab (or ruler) of the
powerful Bugti clan. He says they told him the assailants were four
soldiers in the Pakistani army. (Government troops protect the gas
facilities.) Says the Nawab: "This gang rape took place on our land,
in our midst. It has blackened our name."
The Nawab says he is taking the woman's violation personally, and he
can muster 4,000 armed men to back him up. Other leaders from the Mengal
and Marri tribes have vowed to join him in his campaign for justice.
Among the rowdy tribesmen, Bugti is a rarity. He has collected one of
the best libraries in the country—an insomniac, he reads
voraciously—and is fascinated with romantic poets, classical music and
European military history. "The armed forces think they are a
superior nation," fumes Bugti. "They don't observe the laws for
the rest of us lowly people."
Balochistan is the poorest of Pakistan's provinces, and the Baluch have
long chafed under Islamabad's rule, accusing the government of exploiting
their mineral wealth and giving little back. In the past, successive
Islamabad administrations could ignore the region because the Baluch
chieftains usually were too busy feuding with each other to trifle with
outsiders. These days, they are united, says Mengal: "The resistance
will be in all corners of Balochistan."
Musharraf can ill afford a drawn-out guerrilla war in Balochistan. His
armies are already tied down with guarding the India-Pakistan border,
while another 70,000 troops are combing the mountains along the Afghan
border for al-Qaeda fighters. Yet the government needs to pacify the
Baluch warriors. It has plans to expand gas exploration, allow a pipeline
to run across Balochistan from Iran to India, and, with Chinese help, it
is building a multimillion dollar port at Gwadar—all of which incenses
the Baluch tribesmen who are worried that, once again, they will be cut
out of the profits.
Last Wednesday, Musharraf said he's prepared to negotiate with Bugti
and other tribal leaders over a share in these development projects. No
deal, says the Nawab—not until the doctor's rapists are brought to
justice. Yaqoob, the police inspector general, says the army officers
suspected of the rape, who have yet to be detained, will soon submit to a
DNA test. But the Nawab suggests an old tribal custom to prove their guilt
or innocence. "Our elders say that the accused must walk through
fire," he says. "If he is innocent, the flames won't harm
him."
—With reporting by Ghulam Hasnain/Karachi
From the Feb. 07, 2005 issue of TIME Asia Magazine
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