by B.Raman

The freedom struggle, being waged by the people of Balochistan in Pakistan, continues to gather momentum despite the ruthless military operations launched by Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf since December last year.

2. The deployment of over 40,000 Pakistani troops and para-military forces---with many of them shifted from North and South Waziristan, where they were engaged on the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other remnants of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Jundullah and various Chechen groups-- and the use air strikes have not had any negative impact on the freedom struggle and on the determination of the Balochs not to let themselves be defeated this time.

3. Afraid of moving out of their fortified posts lest they be ambushed and attacked by the forces of the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the Pakistani security forces have been extensively planting mines in different parts of the State in the hope of thereby preventing the free movement of the freedom-fighters and causing casualties among them, without getting involved in a face-to-face fight with them.

4. The indiscriminate planting of mines by the Pakistani security forces have been causing fatal casualties not only among the freedom-fighters, but also innocent civilians. The BLA has instructed its fighters to exercise due care and caution in order to avoid casualties of innocent civilians.

5. The ruthless use of air strikes and mines by the Pakistan Army has not affected the morale of the BLA and other groups of freedom-fighters. Through innovative modus operandi, they have managed to maintain a regular barrage of attacks on the gas infrastructure in the province in order to disrupt the flow of gas to Punjab and other provinces of Pakistan. Last week, about 80 per cent of Balochistan was in total darkness following the disruption of the power supply by the BLA.

6. The freedom-fighters have been making imaginative and effective use of medium and long-range mortars captured from the Pakistan Army for attacking the posts of the security forces and for disrupting the movement of the security forces. Industrial and business enterprises owned by Punjabi and Pashtun businessmen continue to be the favourite targets of the BLA. The fear of the landmines has not prevented the BLA from making frontal attacks on Army posts in order to replenish their weapons holdings.

7. The people of Balochistan, despite the temporary economic difficulties caused by the on-going freedom struggle, have been extending their full support to the BLA and other groups of freedom-fighters. They understand and appreciate that such temporary difficulties are unavoidable in any freedom-struggle. The flow of volunteers to the BLA continues to remain high and their morale and motivation undiminished.

8. President Musharraf and his military-intelligence establishment have been greatly concerned over the increasing attention which the Baloch freedom struggle has been receiving in the US. Even widely-read newspapers like the "New York Times" have taken notice of the freedom-struggle and started publishing articles on the happenings in the province.

9. In a widely-disseminated (inside Balochistan) article, Carlotta Gall of the NY Times, has drawn the attention of the world to the worsening situation in the province. She wrote: " One visit makes it clear that, despite official denials, the Government is waging a full-scale military campaign here."

10. Concerned over the impact of the article on the minds of the Balochs, the Army has banned its dissemination and the police has been asked to arrest anyone distributing copies of the article. Till now, reports in the Indian media about the atrocities being committed by the Pakistan Army and Air Force were being dismissed by the Musharraf Government as mischievous Indian propaganda, but when a correspondent of a respected American daily, after a visit to the province, highlights the true picture, it is no longer possible for the Army to project that there is nothing abnormal in Balochistan.

11. Even earlier, the panic buttons were pressed in Islamabad, when, during a visit to Pakistan on March 13 and 14, 2006, Mr. Samuel W. Bodman, the US Energy Secretary, told the Pakistani journalists that the security situation in Balochistan was “an impediment” to foreign investment in Pakistan. In its issue of March 14, 2006, the "Daily Times" of Lahore quoted him as saying as follows: “The security situation needs to be improved as it is an impediment to investment. Until there is an improvement, substantial investment is not possible.”

12. He was also reported to have told his official Pakistani interlocutors that all talk of oil and gas pipelines from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan would remain a pipedream till the security situation improved in Balochistan.

13. Following his visit, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Gen.Musharraf visited Balochistan one after the other to announce a number of economic sops for the Baloch people such as increased job quota for the Balochs in the Government service, preference for Balochs for recruitment in local development projects etc. These have been greeted with skepticism. In the past too, similar promises were made, but they remained unfulfilled.

14. Moreover, this time the Balochs are determined not to be satisfied with anything less than independence. Overtures for a dialogue have been made to them by politicians belonging to the military-created Pakistan Muslim League (Qaide Azam), but the freedom-fighters have been insisting that any dialogue has to be preceded by the abrogation of the plans for the construction of new cantonments, the de-militarisation of the province, an announcement of the willingness of the Government to order a review of the Chinese-aided projects in Balochistan and an acceptance by the Government that any future dialogue would have to be on the basis of an independent Balochistan, which might voluntarily decide to maintain some links with the other provinces of Pakistan.

15.The freedom fighters are also reportedly of the view that any dialogue between them and the Government should be on the pattern of the dialogue between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), with Norway serving as a facilitator. They understand that India would not be acceptable to Islamabad as a facilitator. They are, therefore, not averse to Norway or Switzerland acting as the facilitator.

16. The duplicity of the Musharraf Government has become evident once again from the fact that even while making some seeming overtures to the freedom-fighters, Musharraf has gone ahead with his policy of divide and rule and make Baloch fight Baloch by pressurising Balochs living in other provinces of Pakistan for many years to go back to Balochistan under the protection of the Army and confront the freedom-fighters. The re-settlement of Punjabi and Pashtun ex-servicemen in key areas of Balochistan and constituting them into self-defence forces have also been stepped up by the Army in order to reduce the Balochs to a minority in their historic homeland.

17. The Shias of the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan), the Sindhis and the Mohajirs continue to extend political and moral support to the Balochs in their freedom struggle, but they are not yet in a position to launch a similar freedom struggle in their respective areas.

18. In the meanwhile, political and moral support for the Baloch independence struggle has come from an unexpected quarter--- the Maoists of India and Nepal. They have both condemned the reign of terror unleashed by the Pakistan Army against the Balochs. The Nepali Maoists have been angered by reports of the supply of arms and ammunition by the Musharraf Government to the King of Nepal to enable him to suppress the Maoists. They have retaliated by supporting the Baloch freedom-struggle. It remains to be seen whether the LTTE also would retaliate against Musharraf by supporting the Baloch freedom struggle because of its anger over reports of Pakistani assistance to the Government of President Mahinda Rajpakse for raising a Muslim regiment in the Sri Lankan Army to confront the non-Muslim Tamils in the Eastern Province.

19. In a statement titled "Support the Just Struggle of the Baloch People Against Pak Terror" disseminated last month, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) has stated as follows:
"In December 2005 the Pakistan Army began massive attacks against the Balochi nationalists. They attacked by land and air bombing villages. Using combat jets, helicopter gunships and artillery, the military has been pounding tribal guerrillas in the gas-rich and strategically crucial Balochistan since mid-December. Hundreds have so far been killed. The Sui gas fields are said to have the largest reserves in the world. The crackdown coincided with the announcement of plans to privatize two gas distribution firms in the province.

"The Balochis have been facing a step-motherly treatment from the Pak rulers ever since the formation of Pakistan. The Balochi population is divided between Pakistan and Iran, but they consider themselves neither Pakistani nor Persian. In the Pakistan section they have a population of five lakhs. In all these years, they have been deprived of all political, social, cultural and economic rights. They have little educational facilities and have been kept in a state of backwardness.

"There are no Balochis in the top bureaucracy and of the 52 secretary level posts 31 are from Punjab alone. According to the secretary of the Baloch Nationalist Jamuri Vatari Party, Aga Shahid, both Pakistani and Irani secret police routinely arrest and torture Balochi youth, students and political activists. Over the years thousands have been killed. In the Pakistan part of Balochistan there are over 600 check posts and over 60,000 military forces present. Musharraf has further alienated the Balochis by sideling mainstream parties in favour of Islamists. He has alienated both the old non-religious tribal leadership as well as the new secular urban middle classes of Balochistan, who see no economic or political place for themselves in the present military-Islamic dispensation.

"Balochistan is not only rich in gas but is strategically placed; the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline will have to pass through it. The gas resources are in the control of Anglo-American consortiums.

"The struggle of the Balochi people for their right to self-determination including secession is a just struggle. The people of India lend support to their struggle against the terroristic Pakistani rulers, and at the same time oppose all forms of interference by the Indian double-dealing rulers in their struggle. No amount of repression can stop their struggle for self-determination. On February 7,2006, tribal guerrillas blew up several gas pipelines in the South-west region cutting off supplies to a US and British-owned power plant for the fourth time in one month. The main shareholders of the plant are Britain’s International Power Plc. and US firms Tenaska Inc. and GE Capital."

20. The Maoist parties of Asia have also strongly criticised the "revisionist" Chinese leadership in Beijing for helping the military clique in Pakistan in its efforts to suppress the Baloch freedom struggle.

21. The increasing US concern over the situation in Balochistan arises from the following factors:

The growing Chinese presence in a strategic area.
The safety of American investments in oil and gas exploration in the Province. Much of that investment has come from President George Bush's home province of Texas. In the fiscal year 2003-04, for which figures are available, the total value of private American investment flows into Pakistan amounted to US $ 238.36 million, of which US $ 125.80 million was for gas and oil exploration in Balochistan.
The shifting of the Pakistani troops from North and South Waziristan to suppress the Balochs has enabled the Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the International Islamic Front (IIF) to set up what is described as the provisional headquarters of the international Islamic Caliphate in the Waziristan area with Osama bin Laden as the Amir and bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Mulla Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Taliban, Jalaluddin Haqqani of the Taliban and Prof.Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed of the Lashkar-e-Toiba and a representative each of the IMU and the Chechens as members of its Shura.They have stepped up their activities in Afghanistan from this rear base of the Caliphate.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: itschen36-AT-gmail.com )