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This year Pakistan’s’ Independence Day on August 14
was celebrated and de-celebrated simultaneously by a divided Balochistan
in and outside the country.
In Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar the day
began with official artillery salutes, colorful flags and fireworks,
patriotic songs and large expensive official and unofficial feasts and
congregations. Flag ceremony and artillery fire was organized in Quetta
too, but those who attended these gatherings had some disturbing news
about the activities of the resistance groups who marked the day few
hours back differently with militant and subversive activities that
rocked almost all the important cities and towns including Quetta.
The people of Quetta had
already received seven grim and demoralizing reports on that day,
largely censored out by the Pakistani media:
1. Five heavy explosions
in posh localities in Quetta including Satellite Town, Jinnah Town, Ayub
Stadium, Askari Park and Sariab Road rocked the city.
2. Railway Station Mucch
came under attack and the railway track was blown up, hindering the
traffic for five hours until alternative route was arranged.
3. Airport building and
Frontier Constabulary posts in Turbat were attacked with rocket fires.
This fresh attack reportedly created panic in the administration as it
was fifth consecutive subversive activity in one week.
4. About a dozen rockets
were fired on government installations around Kohlu.
5. Gas pipe line in Sibi
was blown up disrupting gas supply to Khujak area.
6. FC check posts in
Mundh were attacked with heavy weapons. Few days back the house of
Federal Minister Ms Zubaida Jalal came under rocket fire.
7. On August 17 high
tension power transformer was blown up near Khuzdar.
Although the Mundh
attack was reported by the national press conservatively, word spread
through the internet that t the losses and causalities were far more
than reported.
The Press also reported
that a large cache of arms was seized on the way to Gwadar a few days
back.
According to press
reports, activists of BSO Alliance and BNM observed August 14 as a black
day and organized protest with black bands on arms in many towns
including Hub and Lasbela, the home towns of Chief Minister Jam Yousuf.
The echoes of the Baloch agitation reverberated on the international
scene as well. Sindh TV in its August 15 and 16 bulletins reported that
scholars and activists of Baloch Society of North America and Baloch
Human Rights jointly with Sindhi activists organized demonstration to
mark the Independence Day in front of Pakistani High Commission in
Washington DC.
The speakers mostly PhD
scholars alleged that the Establishment was violating the human rights
of their nationalities back home. They condemned the Establishment
policies against Balochs and Sindhis. They denounced that smaller
nationalities have no incentive to celebrate but many reasons to protest
on the day.
While most of the above
activities were blacked out by the national press and electronic media
it is worth considering that the recent wave of terror and violence
occurred only a few days after Chief Minister Jam Yousuf’s declaration
that the government had purged the militant and resistance groups and
that their network had been wiped-out. It is another story that his own
home in Kalat was attacked within a few days after the statement.
These subversive
activities may also be the natural reaction or results of recent
provocative statements by Jam Yousuf and his accomplices, wherein he
sarcastically commented that those who struggled in the past were so
desperate they could not afford even one meal a day.
It appears that the
traditional center of militant activities is shifting from difficult
mountainous and tribal areas of Kohlu, Barkhan, Marri and Bugti areas to
comparatively peaceful plane lands of Sibbi, Much, Mundh, Kalat, Khuzdar
and Turbat.
These areas are mostly
outside the tribal areas controlled by the Sardars so the traditional
culprits cannot be blamed. Instead most of these areas are under the
control of parliamentarians in the present government.
Given the present
scenario in Balochistan, it will be in the fitness of things that
Establishment in Islamabad reconsiders its strategy towards Balochistan,
find out real factors compelling people to resort to join such violence
risking their own as well as others live.
Traditional charges and
accusations against the nationalists that they are working for foreign
elements for money will not suffice as the last 58 years prove these
charges are not holding.
Federal government must
form a committee of credible persons including members of the
Establishment, nationalist parties and observers from NWFP and Sindh
with adequate powers to take decisions that must start with the
accountability of the present government in the province. The committee
must listen to the grievances of the people with an emphatic ear, sort
out the issues and make short and long term plans for Balochistan.
The worsening situation
in Balochistan makes the proposed gas pipeline project with Iran and
India highly impractical to implement. The nationalists have already
expressed their reservations about this project. It is high time to come
forward with tangible results so that our Independence day for 2006 is
not marred with such wave of terror. 21.8.05
The writer is Trainer
and Researcher in Ethno-political Conflict Management & Development
Studies. Email:
nizambaloch@yahoo.com
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