March 11, 2013
“So I was actually tracking him, trying to find out why he was there,” he recalls. “I eventually found him, and we had a sit down chat about what he was doing there, when he came and so on. He had been there about seven years when I got there.”
“He spoke Balochi, and wore shalwaar kameez, but he had red hair. He was working for the Russians, and, he’d sit there and talk about how Balochistan was the weakest link in the chain of imperialism.”
Imran Aslam is now the president of the Pakistani television network Geo News. The year was 1976, and the man he was tracking—Herr Gurk to his followers—was an East German who spent several years coordinating the Baloch insurgency of the 1970s. Herr Gurk is now a legend, but not much else has changed since then.
The ethnic Baloch minority is still in a state of revolt against the Pakistani government, and although the Russians are no longer sending support, the Baloch rebels still seem to be getting outside help.
Over the decades, the Baloch people have fought against the long-term neglect of the central government. The Seraiki people—a minority with similar, though perhaps less pervasive, grievances—have, on the other hand, recently received a very different proposal from the Pakistani government.
In response to Baloch complaints about poor development and federal exploitation, the government has pursued an aggressive campaign of military intervention and media suppression. Last month Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari announced a plan to create an independent Seraiki province to address the issues of poor development and underrepresentation affecting the Seraiki people. But why such a difference in approach?
According to Owen Bennet Jones of the BBC, the Baloch nationalists have represented very “consistent and persistent demands ranging from provincial autonomy to full independence,” since the founding of Pakistan in 1947 and the subsequent accession of Balochistan in 1948.
“[The movement for an independent] Balochistan is a real threat to the state and to Pakistan’s unity,” says Jones, adding, “The Seraiki demand has basically been a linguistic one. No Seraiki is asking for independence…The Pakistani state feels less threatened by the Seraikis than by the Baloch.”
Spanning approximately 44% of the nation’s territory, Balochistan is home to about 9 million of Pakistan’s 180 million people. It is also home to the country’s most valuable deposits of gas, copper, iron ore and oil. Despite its natural resources, census data shows that Balochistan is the country’s poorest and least developed province. In fact, according a study sponsored by the Government of Balochistan, almost half the provincial population falls well below the national poverty line.
The Baloch nationalist movement has taken on a newfound separatist tone in recent years, and the central government has resorted to political suppression and violence in order to establish authority in Balochistan, says Jones. Close to 40,000 military and paramilitary troops have been strategically positioned in different parts of the province and state-sponsored aggression has become a regular feature of the political landscape. Disappearances, kidnappings, and extrajudicial killings have also become commonplace.
The discovery of hundreds of mutilated bodies across province, the alleged disappearance of thousands more people and the government’s refusal to properly acknowledge, let alone deal with these Baloch complaints has left many Baloch disillusioned with the state.
“Our goal,” as one rebel leader told Al-Jazeera in February, “is to gain independence for Balochistan. We want to end Punjabi rule over our land.”
Many of those missing are young men and alleged Baloch separatists. Security sources in the region put estimates at about 1,500-4,000 armed men whose support comes from powerful Baloch tribes and a growing middle class, which shares their frustration with the Pakistani government.
For Jones, the key to understanding the government’s response to the Baloch situation is the burning memory of the loss of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1971. The loss of Balochistan would “be a national disaster and humiliation for the army” whose “main object in life is…to keep the country united,” according to Jones.
While many analysts agree that comparisons of the Balochistan to Bangladesh are overreaching, according to Jones, there is a similarity in the government’s attitude towards the Baloch.
“The central government which is made of Punjabis looks down on the Baloch just as it looked down on the Bengalis. Basically, [the government] sees them as second class citizens.“
This attitude has made the government less attentive to Baloch complaints, says Jones. But, in 2010 the National Assembly passed a plan for the development and rights of Baloch people. In addition to provisions for economic and social development the package contained provisions regarding the investigation of missing persons cases, and the limitation of federal security forces in the region. Baloch leaders, however, saw it as too little, too late.
“Provincial autonomy, development, these are peanuts for us,” Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, a Baloch tribal leader told Al-Jazeera. “[They are] not the substitute of independence.”
More than two years since the proposal was passed, few of the government’s promises have been fulfilled, because as Aslam explains, “All these packages are useless unless you find a partner you can work with. The Pakistani government has no partner in Balochistan at the moment.”
While the Pakistani government has been unable to make much progress with the Baloch people, it has begun a course of reconciliation with the Seraiki people whose demands for provincial autonomy are far less menacing.Since the establishment of Pakistan in 1947, the Seraiki people of southern Punjab have lived under the domination of the Punjabi majority. According to Syed Fakhar Imam, former speaker of the National Assembly, southern Punjab has been deprived of development funds, educational and health facilities, and positions in government— problems provincial autonomy could potentially resolve.
Map of Pakistan divided by region, political association, and linguistic category.
According to Aslam, the Seraiki movement has been longstanding. The president has only chosen to act now, he says because his party “wants to break the hold of central Punjab over the Seraiki belt.”
South Punjab happens to be a bastion of political support for Zardari’s party against the opposing Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz factions, which hold most of the province. With general elections coming up this fall, many see Zardari’s decision to create a separate South Punjab province as a ploy to win political points with Seraiki people and weaken the PML-N majority.
Whatever Zardari’s motivations, the National Assembly accepted the proposal for a new South Punjab province earlier this month. The Balochistan problem, however, is still far from a resolution.In an area where local, regional, and international interests converge, with Pakistani general elections coming up, and US-Pak relations in flux, Pakistan’s reluctance to engage with Balochistan seems to speak to some deeper insecurity.
“There’s a huge amount at stake,” Jones says. “[The government is] afraid [the Baloch will] become independent. They already lost half the country with East Pakistan in 1971. So are we seeing the total failure of Pakistan as a state?”
The issue is still far from resolved, and only this much is clear–it is not going away anytime soon.
Other links:
Timeline covering the history of Baloch and Seraiki Nationalist movements: http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/41626/History-of-Baloch-and-Seraiki-Nationalist-Movements/
SHEEBARIF
FACTS:
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1. Pakistan Natural Gas Production 2011 : 42.9 billion cubic Meters
(Ref: http://www.indexmundi.com/pakistan/natural_gas_production.html)
2. International Price : $ 350 per 100,000 Cubic Meters. (Ref: Europe paying for Russian Natural Gas)
3. Russia Concessional Price for China : $ 250 per 100,000 Cubic Meters.
(Ref: http://english.caixin.com/2011-08-05/100288030.html)
4. Price of 42.9 billion Cubic Meters a year @ $ 250 per 100,000 Cubic Meters: $ 107.25 million (42.9 billion/100,000 x 250).
If Pakistan pays even 1% in Royalty to Baloch Sirdar folks for the Natural Gas it gets from their privately owned land they should get $ 1.07 million or Rs. 107 million a year.
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QUESTIONS:
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a) Could you please tell us Jimmy, how much are all those Balochi Sirdar are getting out of which they are not giving anything to their Masses?
b) If I rent my Commercial Building to any of US Government Departments, am I supposed to share rent of that I get from US Government with people of my Town in USA?
You have no answers because Pakistan does not pay even 0.5% Royalty to the owners of Natural Gas Wells in Baluchistan. Its just looting. Pakistan has been looting Baluchis for half a century now. When is Pakistan's 1948 Illegal Occupation of Baluchistan by going to end, Jimmy?
Oh yeah USA was occupying Iraq and is now occupying Afghanistan but is USA stealing anything from Afghanistan, like Pakistan?
Afghanistan must be freed from USA but not Baluchistan from Pakistan, right?
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