Baloch Martyrs

THE BLAST IN GWADAR

By B.Raman

Three Chinese, belonging to the China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), were killed when a car laden with explosives hit a van in which they were travelling to the site of a new commercial and naval port under construction by the Chinese company at Gwadar in the Balochistan province of Pakistan on May 3, 2004.

The police seem to believe the explosion was caused by unidentified elements through remote control. It was not a case of suicide bombing. Eleven others, nine of them Chinese and two Pakistanis, a driver and a security guard, were injured. No group or individual has so far claimed responsibility for the blast.

Following the incident, President Pervez Musharraf ordered the replacement of all Baloch Policemen posted for the security of the Chinese personnel working and living in Gwadar and other places in Balochistan with men of the Frontier Corps. A special unit of the Frontier Corps has already been inducted into the Gwadar area for the purpose. About 400 Chinese are working and living in Gwadar, which has a total population of about 60,000-70,000.

The first phase of the $250-million project, which was launched in 2002, is scheduled to be completed by March next year and it is reported that the Chinese have said they might complete the project before the deadline. The blast took place on the eve of an international investors' meeting scheduled for May 8 at Quetta to invite foreign investment in Balochistan.

Even before the blast, the responsibility for the security of the construction site had been entrusted to the Pakistan Army and the Navy, but the Baloch Police used to be responsible for the personal security of the Chinese personnel.

Gwadar and other fishing hamlets of the Mekran coast have many people with close links to the people of Yemen and Qatar and in the past many fishermen in the area had been used by Al Qaeda for the smuggling of trained cadres and arms and ammunition into Yemen in their fishing boats. From there, they used to find their way into Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The Pakistani security forces posted there have been turning a blind eye to this traffic despite its security implications for the project.

The Musharraf regime has been attaching considerable importance to the successful completion of this commercial-cum-naval port. Even though it is projected as meant to facilitate the foreign trade of Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Central Asian Republics (CAR) and the Xinjiang Province of China, its real importance in the eyes of the Pakistani military is due to the fact that its successful construction and commissioning would reduce the dependence of Pakistan's foreign trade on the Karachi port, through which over 70 per cent of its foreign trade presently passes, and provide the Pakistan Navy with a relatively safe rear base , not within  easy reach of the Indian Navy and Air Force, from which it could operate against the Indian Navy in the case of another war between the two countries.

The Chinese interest in assisting Pakistan in this project is due to their desire to strengthen the capability of the Pakistan Navy against the Indian and to have base facilities for their own naval ships when they visit the Gulf region. Under the agreement for Chinese assistance, the Pakistani military was also reported to have permitted the Chinese military intelligence to set up a listening post at Gwadar to monitor the movement of US naval ships in the Gulf region similar to the listening post, which the Myanmar's military regime has allowed the Chinese to set up on the Coco Islands.

Ever since the construction started, there has been strong opposition to it from large sections of the Baloch’s as well as the political parties of Balochistan due to the following reasons:

1. The exclusion of the Balochistan Government from all decisions relating to the project. The entire project is controlled by the Federal Government in Islamabad, with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) playing an important role in the selection of contractors and companies for participating in the project.
2. Fearing possible Indian attempts to sabotage the early construction of the project, a large number of Baloch’s living in the area, who are viewed by the ISI as sympathetic to India, have been removed from there and replaced with Punjabis and other non-Baloch’s enjoying the confidence of the ISI.
3. All civil engineering contracts relating to the project have been given to companies based in Lahore and Karachi and they have been encouraged to import non-Baloch labour from outside to work there, thereby belying the expectations of the Baloch’s that the project would provide them with jobs.
4. The few Baloch’s, who have been recruited by the Chinese company, have been accusing it of following exploitative policies by paying them arbitrarily low wages and denying them basic amenities in respect of housing, medical relief etc as compared to the salaries and amenities enjoyed by the Chinese. There have also been complaints of non-payment of wages in time.

Consequently, for over a year now, the Baloch nationalist parties have mounted a strong opposition to the project, which they view as anti-Baloch and meant to serve the interests of the Pakistan military and add to the prosperity of Punjab without any benefits for the Baloch’s. However, their opposition till now has been in the form of protest meetings, demonstrations and random explosions not causing human lives. The explosion of May 3, which was specifically directed against the Chinese, has, therefore, caused alarm in Islamabad and Beijing. About 16 residents of Gwadar have so far been rounded up in connection with the investigation and a team of Chinese intelligence and police officials has flown into Pakistan to join the investigation.

While the Pakistani authorities themselves have been pointing the needle of suspicion at Baloch tribes for the explosion, the Chinese officials do not seem to share their suspicion. It is reported by reliable sources that the Chinese officials believe that whatever be the grievances of the Baloch’s over the project, they would not target the Chinese engineers. Instead, they would target Pakistani civilian and military officers associated with the project.

The Chinese suspicion seems to be directed at anti-Beijing Uighur extremist elements who have taken shelter in the tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. In view of the Chinese interest in the Gwadar port as a gateway for the external trade of the Xinjiang province and as a regional base for the Chinese Navy, the Uighur extremists, in Beijing's perception, would have a strong motive to disrupt its construction.

On the basis of the evidence available so far, it is difficult to say anything definitively as to who could have been responsible for the explosion. 

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai, and Distinguished Fellow and Convenor, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Chennai chapter. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com)

Baloch Martyrs