Tahir Afaqi

BALOCHISTAN

Balochistan’s prospects for peace and stability rely on both internal and external factors,
none of which seem to be under control. Balochistan with heavy mineral potential is the largest
(44% of Pakistan) province of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan and Iran. Balochistan mingles the
confluence of Central Asia, South Asia and Middle East. It has 770km coastline; as the hub of
all geo-economic activities particularly in the region highlights its vitality in international
system, any jeopardy in the province would not only affect Pakistan but also the international
system. Its proximity to land locked Afghanistan makes it a conduit through which drugs and
militancy is exported to Pakistan, region and international system. Balochistan is sparsely
populated province with a share of only 6.85% in total population of Pakistan. It has an estimated
12.34 million inhabitants according to 2017 census. The annual population growth was
highest between 1972 and 1981, about 7% due to immigration of Afghan conflict. The literacy
rate is 26%. The Balochistan economy is dominated by agriculture (though only 4.6 percent
of the total land is cultivated), including livestock and fisheries. It accounts for 52% of the
province’s GDP and employs 65% of the labor force. The industrial sector contributes
10.43% to the GDP, and together with mining employs 3.4% of the labor force. Minerals are
believed to be significant wealth of Balochistan. However this resource has not been fully
exploited. It contributes only about 3% to the GDP. The total value of annual production of
minerals is Rs. 3.4b out of which Rs. 3.1b come from natural gas alone.4

Balochistan is; where the alternative route of the Europe Asian Highway passes from
Zahidan in Iran to Taftan in Balochistan on to Quetta. Another alternative road turns south from
Kandhar in Afghanistan into Chaman in Balochistan; this is the route freight bond for
Afghanistan arriving through Karachi harbor. Balochistan provides a natural strategic base to
fight against international terrorism.

There are mineral resources, which are just beginning to be tapped. Natural gas pipeline
linking Iran with India via Pakistan, and the other linking Caspian Sea gas rich Turkmenistan
with Pakistan via Afghanistan: these proposed pipelines, plus the development of Gwadar5 into
deep 27-berth port that would accommodate both large tankers and military vessels.6
Balochistan rich in oil and gas and providing strategic depth to the nation state of Pakistan would
remain in focus of regional and international geo-economic and strategic transactions.

The existing dynamics of Balochistan conflict are enforced by some historical

perspectives, post independence of Pakistan and post 9/11 events.

Tribal system is exiting in Balochistan from centuries, when the Arab tribes descended
upon this territory. The tribal system has sustained itself either by selling territorial assets to
mounting external powers or exploiting the Baloch people and their sentiments of nationalism.

In 1883, the Khan of Kalat sold the Quetta district and adjoining territories to the British
government. This was an outright sale. The agreement that was signed in Dasht, included the
provision that the heirs and successors of Khan of Kalat would also be bound by the same
agreement. He received annual grant of Rs. 25000 for selling the most attractive part of
Balochistan to the British government. In the same year, the British government paid Rs. 5500
to the Bugti Sardar for his cooperation he extended to the British government. Sardar Mehrullah
Marri sold all mineral and petroleum rights of Khatan region to the British government in
consolidating its control over large areas of Balochistan in 1885. He received less than Rs. 200 to
900 per month for this disservice to his own people and took the responsibility to safeguard the
telegraph line. While the Bloch Sardars were enthusiastically selling Balochistan to the British
government, there was no support to the idea of Pakistan whereas the ordinary Baloch gave full
approval for Pakistan.

Any positive development in Balochistan would go against the interests of sardars

Marri and Mengal Sardars stood up against the Pakistan government when the law was passed to
abolish Sardari system in Balochistan to free the ordinary Balochs from the clutches of their
tribal leaders.

In British times Balochistan was divided as British Balochistan, and Native Balochistan.
The British Balochistan was 25% and mostly comprised of Pathan belt. The rest included mostly
the Baloch areas. The 75% of native Balochistan was led by Khan of Kalat, as the small tribes
were paying royalty to Khan of Kalat and he was paying it to British government. When Pakistan
came into being there were two main claimants of recent Balochistan. Khan of Kalat as ruler of
Balochistan State Union (BSU) with other secondary rulers like Jam of Lasbela, Nawab of
Kharan and Nawab of Makran in Baloch areas and Nawab Jogezai in Pashtoon areas claimed by
Afghanistan. This tribal system suppose to interject the people and the government, always
fulfilled their own interests rather than to embark upon real social and economic development.
Sardars are like demigods to their people who are their bonded subjects. They hold sway over
their life and death. How could anyone dare vote against them in an election? The sardars
become chief ministers and ministers through the electoral process. On being elected they wield
unbridled state power; which is otherwise not available to them.

People in Kuhlu recount Nawab Marri’s views on development, “the rulers will plunder
the wealth of the area once we allow roads to be constructed.” The government had been taking
away gas from the Bugti and, Sui, for decades but in return the local population got very little.

The issue is about the management of mega projects and the relationship of mutual trust
and benefit among the stakeholders. The struggle and the fighting are to determine who is the
owner of the wealth of Balochistan? The Baloch or someone else; in addition to this regional
(Iran, India, Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates) and international powers (Russia, China,
America) have their visions about Balochistan.

In constitution the wealth of natural resources belongs to native people. This

constitutional protection has never been operated to decipher the status of Balochistan. The pre
and post Pakistan independence policy makers referred to Balochistan have always considered
the doctrine of external threat. Very less compatibility exists between local, national, and
international agendas to format the political economy, as it is retrogressive to utilize the potential
of Balochistan.

The wholesale cry about the province by the natives and the center is always that the
province is deprived and poor. The center utilizes it to format a pretext to interfere in the
provincial matters and the natives try to acquire more and more benefits from the center.
Dependency, disharmony between center and the province, mistrust between the government and
the people, regional and international factors are the headlines of conflict.

Balochistan Importance:

The province of Balochistan has become the center of attention by regional and international
powers because of following reasons as opportunities: -
1. The disintegration of USSR, economic independence of Central Asian States with large
energy reservoirs and the race to exploit the energy resources of these states

2. The economic potential in Balochistan:

 Large coastal line of Balochistan of 770km from the mouth of the Hub River in the East
to the Iranian border in the west.

 Enormous mineral resources; as it sits on geological belt with world-class mineral

deposits.
o Billion tons of copper and other mineral ores, the Chaghi metallurgical belt, 480
kilometers long and 50 kilometers wide, offers the prospect of a similar potential
in Balochistan.
o Interest; of international institutions, bilateral donor agencies, International non-
governmental organizations in Balochistan -because of above given strategic and
o Commercial qualifications.

Insurgencies in Baluchistan

Balochistan consisted of four princely states. Three of these, Makran, Las Bela and
Kharan willingly joined with Pakistan in 1947 during the Partition of India. The Khan of
Kalat, Ahmed Yaar Khan chose independence as this was one of the options given to all of the
princely states by Clement Attlee. However, "Nehru persuaded Mountbatten to force the leaders
of the princely states to decide whether to join India or Pakistan and hence independence "was
not an option.

First Insurgency of 1948

The first insurgency was led by Prince Karim, the younger brother of Khan of Kalat.
The problem began soon after Khan of Kalat on 15 August 1947 unilaterally announced
independence. This led to bitter dialogue between him and Quaid-e-Azam until April 1, 1948
the Pakistan army attacked his palace actually in Kalat city and forced the Khan to sign an
instrument of accession. The Khan’s declaration of independence as head of the state made him
lost his status and privileges he enjoyed under the British. This led Khan’s brother Prince
Karim in retaliation against the Pakistan government by moving to border areas of Afghanistan
in May 1948.

Second conflict 1958–59

Nawab Nowroz Khan took up arms in resistance to the One Unit policy, which
decreased government representation for tribal leaders. He and his followers started a guerrilla
war against Pakistan. Nowroz Khan and his followers were charged with treason and arrested
and confined in Hyderabad jail. Five of his family members (sons and nephews) were
subsequently hanged under charges of aiding murder of Pakistani troops and treason. Nawab
Nowroz Khan later died in captivity.

Third conflict 1963–69

After the second conflict, the Federal government sent the Army to build new military
bases in the key conflict areas of Balochistan in order to resist further chaos. Sher Muhammad
Bijrani Marri led like-minded militants into guerrilla warfare by creating their own insurgent
bases spread out over 45,000 miles (72,000 km) of land, from the Mengal tribal area in the south
to the Marri and Bugti tribal areas in the north. Their goal was to force Pakistan to share
revenue generated from the Sui gas fields with the tribal leaders. The insurgents bombed
railway tracks and ambushed convoys. The Army retaliated by destroying vast areas of the Marri
tribe's land. This insurgency ended in 1969 and the Baloch separatists agreed to a ceasefire.
Yahya Khan abolished the "One Unit" policy. This eventually led to the recognition of
Balochistan as the fourth province of West Pakistan (present-day Pakistan) in 1970, containing
all the Balochistani princely states, the High Commissioners Province and Gwadar, an 800 km2
coastal area purchased by the Pakistani Government from Oman.

Fourth conflict 1973–77

Citing treason, President Bhutto dismissed the provincial governments of Balochistan and
NWFP and imposed martial law in those provinces. Dismissal of the provincial governments led
to armed insurgency. Khair Bakhsh Marri formed the Balochistan People’s Liberation Front
(BPLF), which led large numbers of Marri and Mengal tribesmen into guerrilla warfare against
the central government. According to some authors, the Pakistani military lost 300 to 400
soldiers during the conflict with the Balochi separatists, while between 7,300 and 9,000 Balochi
militants and civilians were killed.

Fifth conflict 2004 – to date

In 2005, the Baluch political leaders Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti and Mir Balach Marri
presented a 15-point agenda to the Pakistan government. Their stated demands included greater
control of the province's resources and a moratorium on the construction of military bases. On 15
December 2005 inspector general of the Frontier Corps, Major General Shujaat Zamir Dar
and his deputy Brigadier Salim Nawaz were wounded after shots were fired at their helicopter
in the Balochistan province. The provincial interior secretary later said that "both of them were
wounded in the leg but both are in stable condition." The two men had been visiting Kohlu,
about 220 km (140 mi) south-east of Quetta, when their aircraft came under fire. The helicopter
landed safely.

In August 2006, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, 79 years old, was killed in fighting with
the Pakistan Army in which at least 60 Pakistani soldiers and 7 officers were killed. He was
charged by Pakistan's government of a series of bomb blasts, killings of the people he professed
to protect and the rocket attack on President Pervez Musharraf.

In April 2009, Baloch National Movement president Ghulam Mohammed Baloch and
two other nationalist leaders (Lala Munir and Sher Muhammad) were seized from a small
legal office and were allegedly "handcuffed, blindfolded and hustled into a waiting pickup truck
which is in still use of intelligence forces in front of their lawyer and neighboring shopkeepers."
The gunmen were allegedly speaking in Persian (a national language of neighbouring
Afghanistan and Iran). Five days later, on 8 April, their bodies, "riddled with bullets" were found
in a commercial area. The BLA claimed Pakistani forces were behind the killings, though
international experts have deemed it odd that the Pakistani forces would be careless enough to
allow the bodies to be found so easily and "light Balochistan on fire" if they were truly
responsible. The discovery of the bodies sparked "rioting and weeks of strikes, demonstrations
and civil resistance" in cities and towns around Balochistan
 On 12 August 2009, Khan of Kalat Mir Suleiman Dawood declared himself ruler of
Balochistan and formally announced a Council for Independent Balochistan. The council's
claimed domain includes "Baloch of Iran", as well as Pakistani Balochistan, but does not include
Afghan Baloch regions, and the council contains all separatist leaders including Nawabzada
Bramdagh Bugti." He claimed that "the UK had a moral responsibility to raise the issue of
Balochistan’s illegal occupation at international level.

SOLUTION:

The history of relationship between centre and Balochistan shows a long story of political
inaptitude, economic exploitation and unfulfilled promises. State, being the major runner of the
national affairs, is to be held responsible more than anyone else for causing the crisis. Centre in
its successive policies and measures have overlooked the sociological and anthropological
peculiarities of Balochistan people and harsh economic realities under which they pass their lives
and which over 67 years have given birth to deprivation. Above all, the negligence of the
development needs created massive despair in Balochistan people.

The government must invest in human development, and politically empower the
people to take part in economic development through modern but decentralized governance
mechanism.

The strong and accountable democratic setup of governance can serve as the best
means of conflict resolution.

The real solution lies in the strong political commitment to implement independent
policy decisions in the best interest of Pakistan.

Good governance and the stamina and patience to build institutions and
reconciliation, magnanimity and humility on behalf of federal political elites, efficient and
uncorrupt public service, independent and efficient judiciary, disciplined police force, and
political will to execute the plan, can end this crisis. The establishment must come forward and
wholeheartedly demonstrate its willingness to grant self rule and political autonomy to the
province in order to build a new social contract. It remains to be seen if the government is up to
the task.

In Short, there are three components to the comprehensive solution to Balochistan

problems.
One, recognition of the legitimate demands of Baloch people and assessment of the ground
reality
Second, developments of sound policies and plans that would address the economic deprivation
and sociopolitical issues and empower people;
Third, and final, immediate, direct, accountable and transparent delivery through provincial and
local governors.