Balochistan: A Story Of Pakistan’s Failures – Analysis

By Dr Anurag Tripathi

Pakistan’s paramilitary force, the Frontier Corps, launched a combing operation on May 30, 2015 to liquidate at least seven militants, suspected to have attacked a bus the previous day in which at least 22 people were killed in the Khad Kucha area of Mastung district in Balochistan. Earlier on May 29, suspected militants hijacked two passenger buses en-route to Karachi in Sindh from Pishin district in Balochistan and killed the non-Balochi passengers. The Home Minister of Balochistan, Mir Sarfaraz Ahmed Bugti confirmed that at least seven militants allegedly involved in the massacre were killed in the operation by the Frontier Corps. The United Baloch Army (UBA) claimed responsibility for the killings. A UBA ‘spokesman’ Mureed Baloch said that it “is a revenge for killing of militants in Mastung and Kalat areas by security forces”.

On 10 April, 2015, Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) militants shot dead at least 20 Punjabi and Sindhi construction labourers at point blank range in their camp in the Gagdan area of Turbat district. Of the 20 killled, 16 were Punjabis, and four were Sindhis from the Hyderabad district in Sindh. A senior administration official Akbar Hussain Durrani disclosed that the militants had lined up the labourers and shot them dead in cold blood after confirming their identity. BLF ‘spokesman’ Goran Baloch claimed responsibility for the attack, asserting, “We will continue our fight against Pakistani occupation until (the) liberation of Balochistan.”

A series of attacks on Punjabi and other non-Baloch settlers commenced in Balochistan after the popular Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti was killed on August 26, 2006, in a military operation in the Chalgri area of Bhamboor Hills in Dera Bugti district. These attacks also targeted the destruction of national infrastructure in the province. Following the Bugti killing, Baloch militant organisations such as the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) began to paint slogans like ‘Down with Punjabis’, ‘Long Live Azad Balochistan’, etc. They primarily targeted Punjabis besides other ethnic groups, especially Urdu-speaking people from Karachi and Hindko-speaking settlers from Haripur in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

Significantly, the targeted killings have created an atmosphere of fear and terror among settlers across Balochistan. According to a Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) report of October 15, 2014, more than 300,000 people have fled Balochistan over a decade due to the socio-political unrest. Tahir Hussain Khan, president of the Balochistan Chapter of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) asserted that 90,000 people who had fled the province were Punjabi and Urdu-speaking citizens who had left to escape violence against them by Baloch nationalists.

The Baloch Republican Army (BRA) General Secretary Dr Bashir Azeem observed on September 19, 2014: “The Baloch have been struggling against the excesses and tyranny of Punjab-dominated establishment of Pakistan for decades.” Resource-rich, though sparsely populated, Balochistan is the largest of Pakistan’s four provinces; but its roughly seven million inhabitants have long complained that they do not receive a fair share of its gas and mineral wealth. Despite its vast natural endowment, Balochistan is Pakistan’s poorest province. Baloch separatists allege that the Federal Government is systematically suppressing development in Balochistan to keep the Baloch people weak. Clearly the attacks on Punjabi settlers are aimed as retaliation by Baloch people against the Pakistan establishment for continuously ignoring the genuine demands of the Baloch people and want to change the region’s demography.

Even as both the provincial and federal governments persist in their neglect of the ground realities of the province, Islamabad’s strategy to support armed Islamist extremist formations and other violent proxies has enormously aggravated the situation in Balochistan. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) data, of the 3,387 civilian fatalities recorded in Balochistan since 2004 [data till June 2, 2015], at least 857 civilian killings are attributable to one or another militant outfit. Of these, 365 civilian killings have been claimed by Baloch separatist formations, while the Islamist and sectarian extremist formations, primarily Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Ahrar-ul-Hind (Liberators of India), claimed responsibility for another 517 civilian killings. The remaining 2,535 civilian fatalities remain ‘unattributed’.

Interestingly on December 30, 2013, the Balochistan government evolved a “smart and effective security policy” for security operations to commence against Baloch militant formations, like BRA, BLA, Baloch Liberation Tigers (BLT), UBA, Baloch United Liberation Front (BULF) and Baloch Liberation Front (BLF). Significantly, Islamist terrorist groups find no mention in this listing, though they are responsible for a greater proportion of attributed attacks and killings in the province. Fortunately or unfortunately, however, nothing much has been done to put this policy into practice.

Notably, Islamabad has, for the past 68 years, kept the Baloch people entirely out of the scope of development – they are the poorest in the country, with little opportunity for employment and an abysmal record on all social indices. Islamabad imposes a repressive, colonial and exploitative regime on Balochistan and there is now a comprehensive collapse of faith between the people of Balochistan and a predatory Pakistani state. Pakistan continues with its old policy of pitting one communal or ethnic group against the other, with the Government facilitating the mass settlement of ‘outsiders’ in South Balochistan through a range of policies such as allocation of land holdings to migrants from other Provinces, including preferential allocation to ex-Army personnel, in order to change the demography of the region and weaken Baloch separatism. This has created a sense of siege among Balochis in the region, precipitating ethnic violence.

Conspicuously, the security forces are preoccupied with their “kill and dump” operations, while Islamabad’s policy is to appease Islamist extremists and suppress the genuine demands of the Baloch people by raising the bogey of the ‘foreign hand’. Such a policy only wreaks devastation in the province. Meanwhile, problems deepen as Islamabad ignores legitimate demands and genuine grievances of Balochis. For instance, the recent tragic killings which target non-Baloch people highlight the cumulative failures of both the federal and provincial governments, to restore peace and justice in Balochistan.