Pakistan’s
populist Supreme Court is seized with the issue of insurgency in Balochistan.
Every word of observations that the honorable judges utter during the
proceedings turns into music for anti-Pakistan media. It is the very same media
which has launched campaign against Pakistan in general and its security forces
in particular. The basis for the sinister campaign is perceived brutalities of
the security forces in Balochistan.
Balochistan,
Pakistan’s largest province, is no ordinary piece of land; its geographical
location and its untapped mineral reserves make it a target of special interest
among players of regional politics including the US, India, former Soviet Union,
UAE and even Afghanistan. All these countries have one converging interest in
Balochistan; the province should become an independent state in their geo-strategic
interests. Located very close to the oil lanes of the Persian Gulf and having a
common border with Iran and Afghanistan, Balochistan is strategically very
important. Commanding almost the entire coast of the country – 470 miles of the
Arabian Sea, and boasting of a deep sea port recently completed with Chinese
assistance at Gwadar, Balochistan comprises 43 per cent of Pakistan’s total
area but is home to just over five per cent of the population, 50 per cent of which
are ethnic Pakhtuns. Balochistan has always been ruled autocratically by sardars
(tribal chiefs) who have kept their people backward, illiterate and deprived.
These
sardars have been extorting billions each year from big corporations, federal
government and equal billions in the name of development funds. They remain up
in arms against the government to keep the funds flowing. Their other sources
of funding are money from regional players channeled as donations. Mainly three
sardars of Bugti, Marri and Mengal tribes have been in revolt against the
federation from time to time. These sardars used to inflame nationalist
sentiments and demand for greater provincial autonomy and control over the
province’s natural resources developed into a demand for independence. The
armed insurgent group, Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has been active in
acts of terrorism to keep the province destabilized for various long-term and
short-term objectives which serve the interests of sole civil power and the
states under its influence.
According
to Institute
for Study of Violent Groups, BLA was formed in 1999 and has 500
active members. Like many guerrilla and terrorist groups, the BLA has a
structure comprised of both paramilitary and cellular components. The majority
of the organization is composed of various units assigned to different training
camps under various leaders, but some are assigned to urban cells and are
responsible for the planting of explosives and reconnoitering targets. Some of
the cells are ad hoc and once a BLA member has completed a mission, he may
return to his paramilitary unit. There is no shortage of weapons in Balochistan
available to the militants; many are regularly supplied from across
Pakistan-Afghanistan border courtesy a host of “consulates” established for
this very purpose. Other weapons are left over from previous conflicts in
Afghanistan. Common weapons in the region include Russian Kalashnikovs,
RPGs (rocket propelled grenades), and various types of land mines.
Pakistan
has always asserted that an “outside hand” is playing a role in the Baloch
insurgency, though conclusive determinations are difficult to come by. One of
the most widely cited examples of outside aid occurred in 1973 when Pakistan
authorities entered the Iraqi embassy in Islamabad and uncovered a small
arsenal of weapons, including 300 submachine guns and 48,000 rounds of
ammunition. Akbar Bugti extended a helping hand in dismissal of ANP government
and was made governor as a reward. He is the one who supervised the worst military
operation against the insurgents. The government claimed that the arms were
destined for Balochistan; these accusations were never proven.
The
BLA is not believed to have an organized recruitment effort in place; rather,
the group is capitalizing on popular sentiment in the province and giving Balochs
with nationalist tendencies a way to fight back at the government. The chief
means of attracting poor, uneducated Baloch youths are the dozens of training
camps believed to be in operation in the province. The group’s targeting and
tactics are designed to reduce the economic incentive for the central
government’s presence in the province. Accordingly, sites where natural
resources are harvested by the government are the most common target; these
include natural gas pipelines and oil fields. Soldiers and civilians
working in government capacities in Quetta are also prominent targets, in
addition to journalists. The BLA has shown equal proficiency with both
bombings and armed assault, though it appears that members prefer the use of
RPGs as opposed to planted explosives, some of which appear to have been
planted by younger members with little or no insurgency experience.
The
insurgents and their sponsors may have disintegration of Pakistan and
establishment of an independent state of Balochistan as their long-term
objective but their short-term objectives are very clear; closing down of
deep-sea port of Gwadar and failing Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project. India
and UAE have direct stakes in the first objective whereas the US does not want
to allow the pipeline project to go ahead. Gwadar port has both strategic and
commercial implications for UAE and India. Chinese involvement in building the
port, aimed at generating economic activity in Balochistan and facilitating the
Chinese to import oil and raw materials from the Middle East and Africa and
export goods through a land corridor extending from Gwadar to China’s Sinkiang
province, became the sore of many eyes. An oil refinery in Gwadar and
recovering huge mineral deposits in the province to serve as the precursor of
another enormous economic opportunity – a trade corridor for Central Asia,
particularly for its oil and gas.
Dissident
sardars rose up in arms in an effort to destroy the project and its profound
impact on Balochistan’s economy for fear of losing their hold on the people. In
a sustained campaign, aided and abetted by outside interests opposed to Gwadar
port, fears were expressed that this was an effort to colonize Balochistan. In
this backdrop, a low intensity insurgency festered in Balochistan for a few
decades now.
India
began meddling in Afghanistan in the mid-1970s in the post-Bangladesh era. By
fostering an insurgency, India tried the same model in Balochistan – exploiting
the disaffection between the state and the dissident sardars. The aim was to
deny Pakistan the energy resources, bleed it economically, and fragment it
ultimately. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) – the most active insurgent
group today, made its debut in 1973. Arms from the former Soviet Union found
their way into the province and many insurgents were clandestinely trained and
educated there. Down the road India became concerned at the development of
Gwadar port which, besides making the Baloch people economically independent,
was to be of strategic importance to the Pakistan Navy. India did not like the
Chinese presence at Gwadar as this was to interfere with its desire of
controlling the Indian Ocean region with its upcoming blue water navy. Leaders
of Baloch insurgencies have publicly listed India among their sponsors.
Brahamdagh Bugti, a BLA leader, said that he accepted assistance from India and
Afghanistan to defend the Baloch nationalist cause.
Baloch
Media Network quotes Wahid Baloch, President of Baloch
Society of North America, as saying, “We love our Indian friends and want them
to help and rescue us from tyranny and oppression. In fact, India is the only
country which has shown concern over the Baloch plight. We want India to take
Balochistan’s issue to every international forum, the same way Pakistan has
done to raise the so-called Kashmiri issue. We want India to openly support our
just cause and provide us with all moral, financial, military and diplomatic
support.” Not to be left behind was the former RAW agent B. Raman who wrote
this to Sonia Gandhi: “struggle for an independent Balochistan is part of the
unfinished agenda of the partition”. With Afghanistan coming under US occupation,
Mossad, MI6 and the CIA jumped into the fray with an agenda of Greater
Balochistan, providing new partners to India.
Small
pockets of local resistance mushroomed into organized foreign funded, armed
groups, which were discretely supported by the three dissident tribal chiefs.
As a hub for joint operations, India established a ring of 26 consulates along
the Balochistan border in Afghanistan and Iran that began funding, training and
arming the dissidents.
Interestingly,
major stakeholders of insurgency are not the common people of Balochistan. The
insurgent groups are led by the scions of the three rebel chiefs who are in
line to succeed their aging patriarchs. The movement offers no substitute to
the Sardari system. By creating instability through acts of terrorism they hope
to chase the Chinese away and create obstacles for the Iran-Pakistan gas
pipeline, which is opposed by Washington.
According
to the analysis of Baloch Media Network, the selection of targets and use of
modern weapons demonstrates quite clearly that the dissidents have been trained
by military experts. Insurgencies of this magnitude cannot last without very
large funds that the insurgents cannot raise on their own. According to an
estimate the financial outlay for BLA alone is 50-90 million rupees per month.
Reportedly, massive cash is flowing into their hands from Afghanistan through
American defence contractors, CIA foot soldiers and free lancers. The Americans
have developed an interest in Balochistan for several reasons. It is the only
available route for transportation of oil and gas from Central Asian and
Caspian Sea region after alternate routes via Russia or China were not found
feasible. Then Balochistan itself had an estimated 19 trillion cubic feet of
natural gas reserves and six trillion barrels of oil reserves in addition to
gold, copper and other minerals, making it attractive for exploration. Like the
Indians, the Americans also did not like the Chinese breathing down their neck
in Gwadar – so uncomfortably close to the oil lanes of the Straits of Hormuz
and the US bases in the Indian Ocean, although at no point did Pakistan and
China contemplate Gwadar to become a Chinese military base. Balochistan shares
a long border with Iran along Iranian Balochistan, which is inhabited by a
large Baloch population.
Look
at the demand of Baloch sardars which was accepted for political expedience;
remove army cantonments and garrisons from Balochistan. The armed forces are
virtually absent from Balochistan yet they are held accountable for act of
brutality unleashed by the terrorists. The BLA have all the characteristics of
a foreign funded terrorist organization. It has massacred thousands of innocent
civilians simply in order to spread fear and keep the province destabilized to
serve foreign interests. Its victims include Punjabi settlers and even Baloch
youth itself. Its tactics are the very same employed by Mukti Bahini in East
Pakistan insurgency. They kill, loot and vandalize in the garb of security
agencies’ personnel and successfully manipulate the obliging media. Yet it has
not been declared a terror outfit because it is sponsored by CIA, MI5 and RAW
besides intelligence agencies of UAE and Afghanistan. The reasons are obvious.
