Pakistan- the Balochistan Conundrum

by Tilak Devasher

  In reality, ‘… denouncing international conspiracies has become a barometer to judge when the army feels they are unable to control the situation’.21 By harping on this bogey of ‘foreign hand’ the government hopes to wean away those sympathetic towards the Baloch struggle. It also provides them with a handle to justify to the international audiences the brutal crackdown in the form of missing persons and the terrible kill-and-dump policy.22

  In the 1960s and ’70s the favourite whipping boys were Afghanistan and Soviet Union. Today it is India. Allegations about Indian support have been frequent. The then Balochistan chief minister, Jam Mohammed Yousaf, accused India on 13 August 2004 of supporting terrorists and maintaining forty training camps in Balochistan.23 These allegations were repeated by the then director general of ISPR, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, in an interview to the Daily Times on 15 September 2004.24 Two years later, Balochistan governor Owais Ghani accused India of financing the insurgency, and Afghan warlords and drug barons of arming the militants.25 In February 2006 Musharraf presented the visiting Afghan president Hamid Karzai with ‘proof’ that India was using bases within Afghanistan to ‘foment trouble in Balochistan and FATA’.26 Pakistan Senator Mushahid Hussain took those accusations one step further in an April 2006 interview with the News when he accused Indian agencies of establishing training camps near the Pakistan–Afghanistan border in order to train Baloch dissidents in the use of explosives and sophisticated weapons. Hussain further claimed that India was using its five diplomatic missions within Afghanistan as ‘launching pads for undertaking covert operations’ in both the NWFP (now KPK) and Balochistan.27

  In April 2009 the then advisor to the prime minister on interior affairs, Rehman A. Malik, alleged in the Pakistan Senate that India was backing the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) for fuelling insurgency in the province and creating unrest.28 On 3 June 2012 the then inspector general of the Frontier Corps, Maj. Gen. Ubaidullah Khan Khattak, told the press that some 121 training camps run by Baloch dissidents were active in Balochistan and supported by ‘foreign agencies’, twenty of which were directly operating in the province. While suspicions invariably fall on India, they are also directed at Afghanistan and the United States.29 Coming to the present, speaking at a seminar in Quetta, former army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif said foreign adversaries were more than eager to exploit any opportunity to destabilize Pakistan by ‘… harbouring, training and funding dissidents and militants’ and that ‘Terrorists were externally supported and internally facilitated’.30

  Little hard evidence of substantive foreign funding or cross-border sanctuaries and bases has, however, been presented. The Baloch themselves have emphasized that the militancy was an ‘indigenous, nationalist movement’.31 As Selig Harrison puts it, ‘Instead of recognizing the political dimensions of the issue and acting to resolve them, Pakistan has taken the easier route by accusing India of using its consulates in Afghanistan to assist Baloch insurgents. However, evidence of this, in the public domain, is woefully missing.’32 Or as Grare puts it, despite the widespread allegations of the Pakistani authorities, the hardliners do not seem to enjoy any significant foreign support, which is likely to change the provincial balance of forces in their favour.33

  According to media reports, the current favourite story is about a former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav. According to the narrative, Jadhav was a serving Indian naval officer working for an Indian intelligence agency and was caught by Pakistani security forces in 2016 in Pakistan. ‘In his recorded confessional statement, Jadhav accepted that he had been assigned by the Indian intelligence agency to promote unrest in Balochistan and Karachi and had been working with the Baloch student organizations and insurgents and terrorist groups for the purpose.’34 This is touted as ‘proof’ of Indian interference and state-sponsored terrorism in Balochistan. The fact of the matter is that Jadhav was not given consular access despite repeated requests of the Indian high commission in Islamabad, and the so-called ‘confession’ was clearly made under duress as was obvious to everyone who watched the TV programme. Though Jadhav has been sentenced to death by a military court, at the time of writing the matter is pending in the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

  Significantly, Baloch human rights activist Mama Qadeer Baloch in an interview confirmed that Kulbhushan Jadhav was kidnapped in Iran, he was not a spy, he never entered Balochistan and that he was convicted without evidence. Giving details, he said that an Iranian cleric Mulla Umer Balochi Irani of the Jaish-ul-Adl group (an outfit known to be on the Pakistan Army’s payroll) had kidnapped Jadhav at Sarbaaz in Iran and sold him for Rs 40–50 million.35 These revelations clearly put paid to the army’s elaborate charade about an Indian spy.

  It is, of course, possible that the Baloch operations are financed through illegal trade across the borders with Afghanistan and Iran. However, more plausible is that the prosperous Baloch Diaspora, especially in the Gulf States, is the major source of financing.36

  Targeting Families

  The army has not hesitated in targeting the families of prominent Baloch leaders to pressurize them. In this, they are repeating what had been done during the 1970s insurgency. In 1973 the Baloch poet laureate Gul Khan Naseer’s house was attacked and his brother killed.37 Asad Mengal, son of the former chief minister of Balochistan Attaullah Mengal, was abducted by the security agencies in the mid-1970s and his body was never found.

  Coming to the present, Akbar Bugti’s son, Jamil Bugti, was arrested on charges of treason for ‘speaking against the army and the government’ at a press conference in October 2006 at which he had said that the ‘fighters on the mountains’ were waging a war for the Baloch people, and ‘… it is the responsibility of every Baloch to support them according to his capability’.38 In July 2006 bank accounts of forty-two alleged ‘BLA members’, twenty-five from Akbar Bugti’s family, were frozen. Also included were Khair Bakhsh Marri’s sons, granddaughters and daughters-in-law.39 In November 2006 two granddaughters of Akbar Bugti were accused of links with the BLA and their bank accounts frozen.40 While Brahamdagh Bugti managed to escape to Switzerland via Afghanistan in 2011, his sister had to pay the price. She was married to Nawabzada Bakhtiar Khan Domki, a provincial legislator, and had a daughter. On 30 January 2012 unidentified assailants gunned her down together with her daughter and her driver in the heart of Karachi.41 In 2015 the brother and nephew of Dr Allah Nazar were killed by the Frontier Corps.42

  Frontier Corps

  The paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC), technically under the federal interior ministry, is as per the Frontier Corps Ordinance 1959, deemed to be in ‘active service’ against external aggressor or enemy, against hostile tribes, raiders or other hostile persons, or persons co-operating with or assisting them. In theory, the provincial home department requests the federal interior ministry to come to the aid of the provincial government. However, given the highly centralized system of governance in Pakistan, the Centre takes the decision and the provinces simply back it.43

  A bone of contention and bitterness about the FC are the nearly 500 check posts established by it all over the province. The HRCP noted that many people complained about the abuses by those running these posts. The complaints ranged from extortion, humiliation, threats and outright use of lethal force without any provocation.44 Incidents were reported where the FC personnel manning these checkpoints insulted the people by shaving their moustaches, tearing the traditional Baloch shalwar and making other gestures derogatory to their culture and bearing.45 The HRCP quoted a political activist saying ‘The FC is here to kill us, not to protect us.’46 Another complaint was that the security presence in the sparsely populated province was undeniably overwhelming, and most security personnel were not locals.

  Even the Balochistan chief minister Aslam Raisani blamed the FC for running a ‘parallel government’ within the province. Ministers in his cabinet accused the FC of sabotaging every attempt to politically reconcile with the enraged Baloch leaders.47

&nb
sp; As the Baloch nationalists point out with some justification, the cantonments, which are largely in Balochistan’s interior, have little to do with protecting Pakistan ‘against external aggression or threat of war’, the military’s primary constitutional role, but are aimed primarily at subduing Baloch dissent and enabling the Centre to exploit the province’s natural resources.48 As Attaullah Mengal told PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif on 19 December 2011, ‘This is not Pakistan Army. It is Punjabi army that is indulging in such inhuman acts against the Baloch people.’49

  Pakistan’s past efforts in assuaging the Baloch does not inspire confidence. The army generals seem only intent in suppressing the insurgency. In the process they have succeeded in intensifying it. Since the army does not believe in using ‘soft power’ and instead relies on coercion, its policies can only beget more violence. Baloch history shows that the attempt to bury the idea of Baloch nationalism is unlikely to succeed.

  Conclusion

  ESSENTIALLY, PAKISTAN’S BALOCHISTAN CONUNDRUM IS that the state is trying to resolve a serious political issue militarily; instead of a surgeon’s delicate and deft touch, Pakistan is using a butcher’s cleaver. The roots of Baloch alienation and resentment run deep. The state, led by the army, just cannot or does not want to understand the import and depth of Baloch nationalism. Having learnt very little from the past, the Pakistan state, led by the army, sees the insurgency as a law and order problem that needs to be tackled militarily.

  The army does not see that the insurgency is not the real problem but is the result of a problem, and the problem is political. It goes to the heart of what kind of a state Pakistan is and whether minority nationalities like the Baloch can be accommodated equitably or will have to live subserviently under the dominant Punjabis. The army being overwhelmingly Punjabi is also part of the problem. In Punjab the army is seen as a friend but in Balochistan, or Sindh for that matter, the army is not a friend but a force of oppression.

  The results of tackling a political problem militarily are there for all to see. The International Crisis Group (ICG) perhaps summed it up best when it noted, ‘The military can retain control over Balochistan’s territory through sheer force, but it cannot defeat an insurgency that has local support … its policy directions will likely undermine the remaining vestiges of state legitimacy in the troubled province … The insurgency is not likely to recede, nor will Islamabad manage to dampen the Baloch’.1

  There is no doubt that Balochistan poses a complex problem and it is this complexity that poses a challenge to the military mind that is used to seeing things in black and white. Even so, the fact that the problem in the province resurrects after a hiatus of few years must make the leadership, including that of the army, think why this happens. The simple answer is because political remedies have always been ignored.

  If there is one thread running through the problem, it is the memory of the forced accession of Balochistan in 1948 and the economic exploitation of the province for the benefit of Punjab leading to severe deprivation, which, in turn, has fuelled political alienation. The Baloch believe that their land is rich but they have been kept poor by the state. As Kaiser Bengali puts it: ‘The province has, for seventy years, suffered a situation where the country has taken much from and given little to it. That the province can be rich in natural resources and yet abjectly poor is a testimony to long years of neglect and exploitation. It is a saga of resource transfer on a massive scale, a saga of colonial style political and economic management.’2 Haunting deprivation, discrimination and disenchantment are starkly evident and cannot be callously refuted by merely alleging that it’s the handiwork of a few sardars, or of foreign hands.

  Politically and socially, the Baloch believe that their secular democratic mindset is not compatible with religious fundamentalism and dictatorial behaviour of the state’s ruling elite.3 According to Naseer Dashti, ‘… the essence of the Baloch national struggle is the assertion that the Baloch have their separate cultural, social and historical identity which is markedly different from the fundamentalist ideology of the religious-based state of Pakistan.’ Baloch nationalist politics has always been based on secular principles and they have not politicized religion that has remained in the personal sphere and tradition.4

  In the initial decades, alienation provoked by the above factors was limited to a few tribes who intermittently broke into rebellion. Now, since the basic issues have been aggravated instead of being resolved, the insurgency has spread to all parts of the province. The fact is, in large parts of Balochistan, the Pakistani state is considered an illegitimate actor.5

  The army seems to be unwilling to concede that unlike in the 1970s, the insurgency in Balochistan today is not limited to a handful of sardars. The insurgency is truly a nationalist one with the participation of a wider spectrum of the Baloch. They are not fighting to preserve individual sardari rights but to become masters of their own destiny, of their own resources and be responsible for their own political, economic and social empowerment. According to a Baloch nationalist, the military cannot crush the insurgency, since ‘there is no single messianic leader whose removal will end it. This movement is based on an ideology that cannot be wiped out, and that ideology is Baloch nationhood’.6 Even those Baloch who are participating in the political process are just as concerned about the narrowing space for the Baloch in Pakistan as those who have taken up arms against the state. It is just that their methods are different.

  In the collective Baloch memory, injustices of the Pakistani (read Punjabi) state began with the creation of Pakistan itself, when they lost their independence, when their distinct national identity was snuffed out. Over the decades, the injustices have been fuelled by broken promises, and betrayals like the arrest, imprisonment and execution of Baloch leaders after the revolts of 1948 and 1958 despite solemn guarantees of amnesty and safe passage, sworn on the Koran. This was followed by the arbitrary dismissal of three democratically elected provincial governments, especially the one in 1973 that led to the four-year insurgency. Compounding matters was the killing of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti in August 2006 that has become a defining moment in the current insurgency. Other injustices include: the lack of, or inadequate representation of the Baloch in the state and administrative structures of Pakistan; the continued exploitation of the province’s natural gas and other resources for the benefit of other provinces, especially Punjab; the appalling socio-economic indices of the province; the construction of mega projects like Gwadar deep-sea port and the CPEC that do not factor in Baloch aspirations and ownership and could turn them into a minority in their own province. Topping it all are the brutal tactics of enforced disappearance and especially the wanton kill-and-dump operations adopted by the army. The weight of such past and present injustices cannot be lightly brushed under the carpet by touting distant development goals.

  Perhaps the former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry summed up the conundrum best during a hearing on the law and order situation when he remarked: ‘We are all responsible for the destruction of Balochistan ourselves.’7

  Facing absorption and subjugation, a growing section of the Baloch seem to have had no other choice than to resort to arms. They have chosen the option to fight to be alive rather than being submissive and becoming extinct. As Declan Walsh put it, ‘Balochistan’s dirty little war … highlights a very fundamental danger—the ability of Pakistanis to live together in a country that, under its Islamic cloak, is a patchwork of ethnicities and cultures.’ He quotes Haris Gazdar, a Karachi-based researcher, saying, ‘Balochistan is a warning of the real battle for Pakistan, which is about power and resources and if we don’t get it right, we’re headed for a major conflict.’8

  The roots of these problems lie in Pakistan’s failure to acknowledge and accommodate its ethnic diversity, economic disparities and provincial autonomy. In the process of constructing a national ideology based on a purely mechanical unity and simplistic idea of religious homogeneity, the ruling classes of Pakistan
neglected the diversity of its people and ignored the interests of ethnic and regional minorities. This gave a deathblow to Pakistan as it was created in 1947. A majority of its people broke away to form a separate country in 1971—Bangladesh. The remainder of Pakistan is marred by ethnic and sectarian conflicts, religious terrorism and economic inequality.9

  For Pakistan the dilemma is that given the economic and strategic importance of Balochistan, it cannot afford to fail. Loosening of the links with Balochistan would be a signal for other nationalities, like the Sindhis especially, to put forward claims for independence of their own. However, continuation of the conflict, let alone its escalation, could seriously impact the image of stability and could potentially raise doubts about its territorial integrity. Thus for Pakistan, Balochistan is a test case of its resolve not only to hold Pakistan together but also to weld the various nationalities into a larger whole. However, the way it is doing so is ensuring just the opposite.

  As the equations stand today, the needs and interests of the state establishment and the Baloch are diametrically opposed to one another. The Baloch are fighting for their identity and their cultural, historical, geographical and economic rights. The state, including the army, is concerned with making an artificial Islamic nation, politically marginalizing the Baloch and ruthlessly exploiting Baloch resources. For the army, to reverse the course in Balochistan will not be easy given its mindset.