The appalling poverty, desolation, unemployment, worsening health conditions, malnourishment, tribal in-fighting, mounting corruption, support for drug barons and religious fundamentalism in historically peaceful and secular-oriented Baloch society are the domino effects of systematic policies imposed by the Islamabad super-establishment.
The citizens of Balochistan, all Muslims, are engaged in a freedom movement that is being brutally suppressed by the pakistan Army, through political assassinations, attacks on Baloch territories using Artillery shelling & Nuclear-capable F-16 aircrafts, all supplied by the United States of America, the self-proclaimed vanguard of democracy and human rights worldwide. News of rampant sexual abuse of Baloch women at the hands of the Sunni Punjabi pakistan Army, who kidnap these women and ensnare them into the world of sexual slavery, are all suppressed by the Army whose powers exceeds all of the others in the country.
Initially, the central government and its operational arms, i.e. military and paramilitary troops and security agencies, used co-option as a powerful instrument to buy sympathy for Islamabad’s colonial policies. They also practiced the policy of ‘divide and rule’ by instigating inter-ethnic and tribal rivalries to undermine the Baloch people’s logical movement for the right to self-determination.
After successive failure in both strategies to intimidate moderate political activists and co-opt the legitimate Baloch leadership, the Centre is applying new tactics to create mass fear and eliminate forward thinking Baloch nationalists.
The military unleashed an unjustified air and ground operation against the people of Dera Bugti and Kohlu in December 2005. The disproportionate and indiscriminate use of power by troops against the civilian population was immense. The operation resulted in loss of life, property, displacement and killing of veteran Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti and Mir Balaach Marri.
Government-backed serial killers are openly targeting senior Baloch leaders, and security agencies are ‘disappearing’ and then throwing the mutilated bodies of political activists on the streets.
The cold-blooded murder of Balochistan National Party (BNP) leaders, i.e. Mr Habib Jalib Baloch in July 2010, Haji Liaquat Mengal in July 2010, Attaullah Baloch in August 2010, Mir Noordin Mengal in October 2010, and the recent target killing of National Party senior leader Maula Bakhsh Dashti in July 2010 in Turbat, BNP Karachi president Zahid Baloch in 2008, brutal daylight abductions and killing of three senior Baloch leaders in April 2009, Rasool Bux Mengal in August 2009 and assassination attempt on prominent Baloch intellectual Jan Mohammad Dashti in February 2009 and on Baloch Student Organisation vice-chairman Rasheed Baloch in Khuzdar represent a fraction of the systematic and slow-motion genocide in Balochistan.
Besides this, the pakistan Army is also engaged in resettling the Pashutn Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters from the North of pakistan in to the sparsely populated Baloch province, bring about demographic changes to suppress the freedom movement being waged by the citizens of Balochinstan against the brutla oppression and occupation of its country by the Punjabi pakistan Army.
The government and its armed militias, reluctant to curb Taliban activities in Balochistan, are ‘heroically’ employing the policy of ‘collective punishment’ against the innocent Baloch civilians. During a recent military operation in district Awaran’s Mashkay area, security forces burnt shops of those who had been selling cloth resembling nationalists’ flags, and torched tailors’ machines on suspicion of their sewing the flags. Moreover, they set on fire the property and houses belonging to family or clan members of political activists.
Instead of being protected by the law and the judiciary, the Baloch are actually harassed by the law enforcement and legal institutions.
Enforced disappearances in Balochistan continue unabated as the situation worsens and the recovery of a number of bullet-riddled bodies in the province is at an all-time high. Twenty-one bullet-riddled bodies of missing persons, including two lawyers, have so far been found from different areas of Balochistan, including Quetta, Mastung and Khuzdar since July 4, 2010. Invariably, all victims were Baloch and were killed in a similar manner.
Tthe security establishment is using dummy organisations such as the Baloch Musalla Defai Tanzeem (BMDT), the Sipah-e-Islam and the Ansar-ul-Islam to eliminate forward-looking Baloch nationalists. It is a known fact that these ‘killer squads’ are the brainchild of the FC and the intelligence agencies.
The international community and international organisations, including human rights mechanisms’ negligence and silence are adding to the Baloch miseries.
Inattention of the international community will further aggravate the current instability and a rapidly developing Darfur and Somalia-like situation in Balochistan will have serious implications for long-term peace and stability in the region.
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