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Pakistan tries to crush the people of
Baluchistan
Peter Tatchell says Pakistan is now colluding with the Taliban to
crush the Baluch people's struggle for freedom
From
Tribune Magazine PAKISTAN is escalating its war against the people
of Baluchistan. In recent years, thousands have been jailed, tortured or
killed. Military operations have included the use of chemical weapons.
Nearly 100,000 Baluch people have been made refugees in their own land.
Pakistan ignores their plight, refusing to allow the United Nations and
international aid agencies to assist these displaced persons.
Simultaneously, the Islamabad imperialists are stripping Baluchistan of
its vast natural resources of gas, oil, coal, copper and gold, which
include an estimated 19 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves and
six trillion barrels of oil reserves on-shore and off-shore.
Despite this fabulous wealth, the people of Baluchistan live in abject
poverty. Much of the population is malnourished and illiterate, living
in squalid housing with no electricity or clean drinking water.
To subjugate and pacify Baluchistan, Islamabad is working on a sinister
plan to colonise the region with ethnic Punjabis (the largest and
dominant ethnic group in Pakistan). The aim is to make the Baluch people
a minority in their own homeland, as happened to the Native Americans in
the United States and the Aboriginals in Australia. This has already
been achieved in major cities such as Quetta, where colonist settlers,
mostly Punjabis, now predominate.
Cultural imperialism is another weapon in Pakistan's bid to subjugate
Baluchistan. Islamabad believes it has a sacred duty to "civilise" the
"uncivilised" Baluch - to transform them into "good Pakistani Muslims".
It has imposed an alien language, Urdu, on the Baluchi-speaking people.
Urdu is now the compulsory language of instruction in educational
institutions.
The cultural conquest of Baluchistan also involves the Islamification of
the traditionally more secular Baluch nation. A large number of
religious schools have been funded by the Pakistani state with a view to
imposing Pakistan's harsher and more narrow-minded interpretation of
Islam.
This "colonisation of the mind" through language and religion is a
strategy for the erosion of Baluch national identity and aspirations,
according to Baluch nationalist, Naseer Dashti.
"Replacing a traditional belief and social system of a people by an
alternative frame of reference often amounts to changing the entire
identity of a people", he suggests. "As the distinct secular identity of
Baluch... is a vehicle of nationalist aspirations, these efforts were
used as a means of diminishing political resistance to domination and
subjugation."
The Pakistani contempt for the Baluch people is evident in the way they
have used Baluchistan - not the Punjab - as their nuclear testing
ground, staging five atomic tests at Chagai in 1998. Since then, there
have been an unusually high number of deaths of livestock and nomads.
Locally-grown food now tastes strange, water supplies have become
contaminated and there has been a significant increase in skin diseases,
mental disorders and physical deformities in new-born infants.
Pakistan is an oppressed nation turned oppressor nation. A former colony
of the British Empire, it now adopts similar imperial tactics to
persecute and exploit the Baluch people - and the people of other
provinces such as Sindh and North West Frontier. To maintain its iron
grip on Baluchistan, the Pakistani military is building three new
garrisons at Kohlu, Dera Bugti and Gwader. This expanded military
presence is evidence that the Baluch people are putting up serious
resistance to Islamabad's colonial rule.
Sadly, the response of the international community and the left has been
only silence and inaction. They have allowed the Baluch people to be
suppressed, while ignoring their right to self-determination. Since the
US is not doing the killing, the anti-war movement doesn't care. If
Westerners were massacring Muslims, the Islamists and their far Left
apologists would be up in arms. But when Pakistani Muslims slaughter
Baluch Muslims, they don't give a damn.
Pakistani repression is nothing new. After a century as a British
protectorate, Baluchistan declared its independence in 1947. It was a
short-lived freedom. Within a year, Pakistan invaded and annexed the new
nation.
When the British granted independence to India and Pakistan on August 14
1947, Baluchistan secured its independence as a separate entity from
Pakistan, since it was never a part of the British Indian Empire. Both
houses of the Baluchistan parliament rejected the idea of joining
Pakistan. But under threat of being arrested by Pakistan's army, as some
of his ancestors had been arrested during the British colonial era,
Baluchistan's ruler, Mir Ahmedyar Khan, signed an Instrument of
Accession on March 27 1948 with Pakistan's founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah.
This controversial accession, which the Baluch people had not mandated
Khan to sign to sign, promised semi-autonomy to Baluchistan. Alas,
genuine self-government never happened.
Despite six decades of Pakistani military occupation, the Baluch people
have never given up their quest for independence. A recent Baluch grand
jirga, or assembly, decided to approach the International Court of
Justice at The Hague to force Pakistan to honour its autonomy
commitments under the 1948 Instruments of Accession. Their legal case is
strong but realpolitik may deny the Baluch the justice they deserve.
The West's attitude towards Baluchistan's quest for the resumption of
its brief 1947-48 sovereignty has been less than honourable. Because
Britain and the US want Pakistan as an ally in the "war on terror", they
have armed Pakistan and acquiesced with its suppression of the Baluch.
This is short-sighted political manoeuvring. Pakistan's war against
Baluchistan is strengthening the position of the Taliban, which has
exploited the unstable, strife-ridden situation to establish bases and
influence in the region. From these bases, the Taliban terrorises the
more liberal and secular Baluch people and seek to enforce the
Talibanisation of Baluchistan. The Pakistani government tolerates the
Taliban, on the grounds that its presence acts as a second force to
crush the Baluch people and weaken their struggle for independence.
The Taliban bases in Baluchistan are also hideouts from which they mount
military operations to overthrow the imperfect but democratically
elected government of Afghanistan. This campaign to usurp power in Kabul
and re-impose a fundamentalist regime seems to be taking place with the
tacit collusion of key figures in the Pakistani government, military and
intelligence services. The Pakistanis are taking no serious action to
stop the Taliban using Baluchistan as a base for its war against Afghan
democracy and human rights.
If the new Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, wants to strike a blow
against the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalism, he should press for UN
and European Union initiatives to end the repression in Baluchistan and
secure self-government for the Baluch people. 3.8.07
For more information on the Baluch freedom struggle see:
www.Balochvoice.com and
www.Balochwarna.org |
