‘Balochistan operation is a world issue’

Sunday, January 29, 2006

www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp


* Provincial opposition leader says world communities should condemn the Pakistan government for conducting the operation

Staff Report

KARACHI: The United Nations (UN), European Union (EU) and G-8 countries should take action against the Pakistani government which started an undeclared army operation in Balochistan, said Kachkol Ali Baloch on Saturday. The opposition leader of the Balochistan Assembly was addressing a press conference at the Karachi Press Club.

He said that the international communities should use their influence to bring an end it. “The operation is not just an issue that Balochistan should deal with.

It is a world issue and these communities should condemn the Pakistani government for conducting such an operation,” Baloch added. He asked the international community to send a fact-finding mission to Balochistan and be witness to the misery of its people. There are about 4,000 innocent people who are either missing or have been extra judicially kept in the custody of Pakistan’s army, he said. Their families are worried.

The government should release all the political workers otherwise a civil disobedient movement will start in the province soon, he added.

Hundreds of innocent people, including women and children, have been killed by the law enforcement agencies in the province, Baloch alleged. Almost 500 people have been killed and the government has yet to confirm the overall casualties.

“The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) also rejected the government’s claim that it is not using regular armed forces in the crackdown in Balochistan,” he said.

The HRCP had, “received evidence that action by armed forces had led to deaths and injuries among civilians of Balochistan” and that “the population had also been subjected to indiscriminate bombing”. The HRCP report said that up to 85 percent (22,000 to 26,000) of the inhabitants of Dera Bugti have fled their homes after the town was repeatedly hit by shelling by paramilitary forces, Baloch said.

The law enforcement agencies launched a crackdown against the people of Balochistan after the rocket attack of December 14. Musharraf was visiting the region at that time.