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Balochistan - a new civil war?
Translated transcript from German film by Agnes Korn
(speaker:)
Good evening. Today we'll talk about a so-called "low intensity
conflict" which is rarely mentioned in the media. At a closer look, it
turns out that the deserts of Balochistan are a meeting place of very
diverging interests.
(slides)
First of all, let's look at the geographical and historical setting.
Balochistan is a historical region in the West of the Indian subcontinent,
in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some years ago, a few tribes living
there started, or rather re-started, their fight against the Pakistani
government.
Let's take a closer look at this. The Baloch are originally an Iranian
people which is said to have moved from the Caspian Sea to the area
between the desert in SE Persia and the Arabian Sea the around the year
1000. The cattle-breeding nomadic tribes formed greater tribal
confederations at several occasions. In the 18th century, the Khanate of
Kalat included nearly the entire settling area of the Baloch and declared
its independence in 1747. These data is meant to show the ability of these
tribes to organise politically, and their experience in war-making. This
didn't result in a nation, but in a national identity.
It was the British who divided the settling area of the Baloch in the
course of the formation of British India in the 19th century. In 1871,
they agreed with Persia on the so-called Goldsmith line, and established
the border to Afghanistan with the Mortimer-Durand line in 1893. However,
administration of Balochistan was not done by the British themselves,
because it was thought that the peripheral areas of the empire were best
pacified by granting the Baloch far-reaching autonomy, potentially
including financial support for the tribal chiefs, the sardars. The
situation only changed after 1947. The British had withdrawn from India,
but independence was not granted to the Baloch. The tribal areas were now
administered by the newly formed state of Pakistan, which ruled centrally
and did not recognise Baloch sovereignty. Three wars were fought between
the state of Pakistan and the Baloch nationalists, not only about the
demand for independence, but also about the distribution of the mineral
resources. The fiercest conflicts started in 1973. They cost the lives of
5000 Baloch and 3000 Pakistani soldiers and ended only in 1977.
The problem subsequently moved to the background, as the invasion of
Soviet troops in Afghanistan 1979 shook the whole region. Hundreds of
thousands of Afghans fled to Western Pakistan and Balochistan. But the
conflict between the Baloch and the state of Pakistan started anew in
2004, and more fiercely than before.
This was the result of several factors: Pakistan has an area of 800,000
km2 and 160 million inhabitants. Balochistan comprises 42% of the
country's surface and is thus the biggest, but with 7.5 million
inhabitants the most scarcely populated province. According to per-capita
income, Balochistan is the poorest province, but with regard to its share
of 20% of mineral resources of the country the richest province. Most of
the resources are around Sui. For instance, Balochistan has a share of
only 6% of the national gas production and only 4 of the 26 districts of
the province are served with natural gas, and even these probably only
because garrisons of the Pakistani army are stationed there. For the same
amount of gas for which the capital Islamabad pays R. 170 to the province
of Sindh and R. 190 to the province of Panjab, they pay only R. 27 to
Balochistan, without technical reasons for this difference. The unequal
distribution of the revenue is thus a first point of conflict. According
to geologic studies, the extraction of gas from deeper layers is likely to
become profitable from 2012 onwards, and this time, the Baloch do not want
to remain empty-handed when it comes to distributing the revenue.
The second point is the planned establishment of new garrisons in
Balochistan, viz. in Sui, i.e. near the gas fields, in Kohlu, the district
of the particularly nationalist Marri tribe, and near Gwadar.
And in Gwadar lies the third reason for the resuming of the fights on the
part of the Baloch. This becomes clearer in another perspective: owing to
its geographical position, Pakistan is a transit country for the transport
of oil and gas from Central Asia, specifically for the gas from
Turkmenistan. Here, Pakistan is in direct competition with Iran, whom the
USA seek to avoid. A first important project is the building of a gas and
oil pipeline through western Afghanistan, as well as a road and a railway
line, which will grant access to the sea for the Central Asian states, all
of which are inland countries. All these transport routes pass through
Balochistan, to the port town of Gwadar.
The second project is the building of a deep sea port in Gwadar. The first
part was inaugurated in 2005, and the second phase is planned to be
finished in 2010. The plans include a port complex and a free zone with a
container terminal and industrial area, which is intended to serve the
countries of the region, but chiefly, it seems, China. The Gwadar port is
built joinedly by Pakistan and China, and Chinese engineers take part in
the building works. For China, the port is kind of the missing link in the
chain. Having built the Karakorum highway from northern Pakistan to
southwest China with much difficulties, only the port of Gwadar was
missing at the other end of the chain. With the port, the western
provinces of China will get access to the sea. In the future, it will be
possible to transport oil imported from Africa and the Near East to
western China on the land, and China will be able to evade some of the US
control of the sea routes between the Near East and Asia. It is also
planned that the Chinese sea forces can use the port. It is situated near
the Strait of Hormuz in the West and the rival India in the East.
Now, the building of the deep sea port in Gwadar is again controlled by
the central government in Islamabad. Except for a few day labourers on the
building sites, the Baloch are not involved. They are excluded from the
making of the decisions, and the contracts are given to Panjabis and
Pathans. There is no connection between the port and the Balochistan
hinterland, and only one road from Gwadar to Karachi. No investments were
made into schools or institutions for vocational education or engineering,
although Gwadar will develop to a big port city. The number of inhabitants
is likely to increase by four soon, chiefly immigrants from the provinces
of Sindh and Panjab.
Therefore the Baloch feel increasingly exploited. The attacks of the new
rebel movement under Sher Muhammad Marri, the leader of the Marri tribe,
are directed against the garrisons of the Pakistani army, the Chinese
contract workers, and against gas pipelines, in order to disrupt the
delivery to the towns in Panjab. The aim is a better distribution of the
work and the revenue, as well as a recognition of Baloch identity.
(speaker:)
This much on the conflict (of the type called low intensity in the
strategic year books) which is hardly noticed by the media, but important
on several grounds. The Pakistani government maintains that the rekindled
fighting is only about money. But it is also a fight against the low level
of development and for an own identity. The government in Islamabad
accuses India of maintaining 40 terrorist camps in Balochistan. It is
difficult to check this. At any rate, it is sure that the Indian sea
forces are afraid that there could be casualties with the Chinese sea
forces on the sea routes between the Strait of Malakka and the Persian
gulf. It is always a convenient solution to blame other countries. It
always pays off to link the Baloch nationalism to terrorism, and the
battle against terrorism justifies everything. Owing to its importance to
exterior and interior politics, and to its strategic importance, Pakistan
cannot afford to loose control over Balochistan, because the Pakistani
atomic texts are carried out in northern Balochistan. And finally, the
region would be (emphasis on would) a possible field for an assembling of
troops for a US invasion into Iran.
(The speaker recommends some books in French.) |
