Situation grave in Balochistan, says Carnegie Foundation expert

Washington: Frederic Grare, an expert attached with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has described the human rights situation in Balochistan, Pakistan's fourth and smallest province, as very grave, especially in the wake of reports of acts of aggression by the Pakistani army.

Grare, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says the current situation in Pakistan's southwestern province, where Pakistan's top rights group has said that a “war-like situation” prevails, is emblematic of Pakistan's broader problems.

Baloch militants have been waging a low-level insurgency for decades to serve greater benefits, control of gas and other natural resources.

Earlier this week, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) accused President Pervez Musharraf's military-led government of “gross human rights violations” in Baluchistan province.

The HRCP also rejected government claims that it was not using regular armed forces in a crackdown launched last month in the southwestern province to counter rocket attacks by tribal militants battling for greater autonomy and control of lucrative natural gas fields.

The group said it had “received evidence that action by the armed forces had led to deaths and injuries among civilians” and that the “population had also been subjected to indiscriminate bombing”.

The HRCP report said that up to 85 percent of the 22,000-26,000 inhabitants of the Dera Bugti area of the province had fled their homes after it was repeatedly shelled by paramilitary forces.

Grare, who recently released a report “Pakistan: A Resurgence of Baloch Nationalism”, after his posting in Pakistan, said the situation is grave in the Muslim nation's mineral rich province.

“The Baloch crisis is not just the unintended outcome of more or less appropriate decisions. They say it epitomizes the army 's mode of governance and its relations with Pakistan's citizens on one side and the world on the other,” Gare said while addressing a seminar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Grare, a French diplomat, explained that the American policy towards its alliance with Pakistan is based on the war on terrorism and Islamabad's commitment to assist in this global fight.

“A great deal of our support as you said to this present regime but to previous regimes as well was based on the assumption that somewhere there was an Islamic threat there. And because of that, we supported whoever was in power, provided he was giving us the assurance that he would more or less control those guys, which had the perfect effect of uniting whoever was in power with the people who were suppose to fear and use it as a sort of bargaining asset,” he said.

After the September 11, 2001 attack on the U.S. several nations, including Pakistan, had vowed to support the U.S. in its global fight against terrorism.

But on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's allegation that India was arming and financing rebels in Balochistan, Grare said sensing the present situation Balochs were acting on their own.

“The very idea that there is a foreign intervention cannot be totally dismissed. But it certainly is a) not the cause and b) not significant or not significant so far,” he said.

New Delhi last month said it had noted with concern reports of the use of helicopter gunships and jet fighters in Balochistan and hoped Islamabad would show “restraint”.

Pakistan's army launched a crackdown against Balochistan militants after a December 14 rocket attack while Musharraf was visiting the region. Baloch nationalists say 200 people have since been killed, but Pakistan has not commented on casualties.

Rather, Grare, said a civil war could not be ruled out in the troubled province.

“I see that nowhere, and that's why, I believe we are heading towards a situation where we might have additional trouble in Pakistan, but not to the point that should lead to collapse. And, I think that many of the Baloch leaders do understand that and do not want to go that far. As I said in the paper and I repeat today, they are in a period where they are just raising the stakes, increasing their leverage within the central government, but no more than that,” said Grare.

“The outbreak of another civil war in Balochistan between the nationalists and the Pakistan Army cannot be ruled out if the minimum demands of the Balochs are not met,” Grare analysed in his study.

He said the root cause of the problems in Balochistan was deep feeling of mistrust amongst the Baloch people towards Islamabad because of six decades of intermittent conflict.

Opposition parties in Balochistan accuse the government of using helicopter gunships and warplanes to rocket and bomb civilians in northern Balochistan.

Grare also expressed his unhappiness over Islamabad's strategy in negotiating with the leaders of Balochistan's secessionist and nationalist movements.

“Dealing with the sardars is certainly not an easy issue. But there are things, which can be done. And if you are serious about negotiating, And you are uncomfortable with the problem, you don't start by showing your strengths, especially when you are not sure of your strengths. I mean, if you deliver what ever is acceptable from a federal perspective, you also suppress the claim of those people. On which ground they then will fight. I am confident enough that they can find other ground to fight, yes, still,” he said.

Grare noted that new leaders of the push for Baloch nationalism and secession have ties dating back to the university student movements of the '1970s. Now these people are adults, making their own impact on the movement and taking it in a new direction.

However, Selig Harrison of the Center for International Policy is of the view that Balochistan is in need of desperate help from the international community.

“I would just say that I think its important to recognize that whatever the validity of the Baloch figures which are six brigades of the Pakistan armed forces plus 25,000 frontier constabulary, whatever the validity of those numbers, is the fact is, a lot of bombing and strafing is killing a lot of people, including women and children, is going on right now. And that Musharraf is, and it was after Musharraf's visit and the ill-fated attempt to get him whether it was stage-managed or real, that all this has been intensified. And so I wanted to make that point because I think now we're at a human rights crisis, as well as a political one,” said Harrison.

In the past month, mines planted by militants have killed five troopers of the Pakistan Frontier Corps and destroyed seven vehicles, a paramilitary official said.

The crackdown in Dera Bugti and in nearby Kohlu District began in mid-December after a string of rebel rocket attacks, including one during a visit to the area by President Musharraf.