Wednesday, June 21, 2006

www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp

EDITORIAL: All quiet in Balochistan?

President General Pervez Musharraf said on Monday that life was returning to normal in Dera Bugti and nearby areas because “terrorists have been eliminated from Balochistan”. Since he was speaking to the Balochistan governor, Awais Ahmed Ghani, some hyperbole was to be expected. His next claim that “no one would be allowed to hinder the development of the province” should be taken with an equal pinch of salt because that requires overturning long-settled economic practices of the province. As for the return of “displaced persons” to the areas, the claim that Balochistan has been pacified will have to be proved first. A section of the Bugtis has returned with great caution and under federal pressure and protection, but it will take just one major incident to make them flee again.

The evidence for the pacification of Balochistan is not strong. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has not ended its operations and the big sardars are still challenging the writ of the state through statements and disruptive action on the ground. Acts of sabotage against public projects have not stopped and those who are inclined to go against the “terrorists” are being picked off by the rebels. State employees who show enthusiasm in their work and thus displease the “liberation” movement walk in fear of the consequences of their “betrayal”. Above all, the linkage of insurgency with Baloch nationalism is nowhere near being broken by the efforts made in Islamabad. The nature of this outbreak of nationalism is not just fundamentally economic, uniting the Baloch part of the population with a diversified Pushtun majority, but also fed by a discernable foreign hand. The insurgency will end only if those who lead it become politically isolated in the province and are cut off from the source of money and weapons.

The rhetoric and sentiment of nationalism in Balochistan is economy-based because of the awareness of the people that Islamabad derives its major economic resources from the province. Almost in pattern with all such provinces in the world, nationalism has acquired the sharpness of separatism, which has an exaggerated effect on a centre that has been obsessed with unity in past history. One would be utterly negative if one ignored the present government’s increased attention to Balochistan’s economic plight. The 2004-05 budget of the province was Rs 26 billion, the one in 2005-06 was already Rs 42 billion, but as always close to 94 per cent of the revenue flowed from the federal government, either as its share from the divisible pool of taxes, as straight transfers, or as subvention grants for its backwardness. Only six per cent of revenues are raised inside Balochistan. Quetta complains that it pays out half a billion rupees every month to the State Bank for the overdrafts it has to rely on to meet its expenses. Yet its gas is worth many more billions than it demands as share in the national income.

President Musharraf’s opinion that the insurgency has ended in Balochistan must spring from the awareness that his “action” in Balochistan has not been the quick surgical strike the world thought it would be. The longer it takes to decide the discord in the province the more difficult it will become to pacify it. The insurgents are aware that external elements are dying to play a role in the region and are not averse to taking advantage of them. The first external factor over which there is a constant argument in Islamabad is Pakistan’s own involvement in the Taliban “option” in Afghanistan. Relations with the Karzai government have deteriorated because of exchange of recriminations over Pakistan’s interference or non-interference in Afghanistan. But the presence of the Taliban in Quetta complicates the issue of the province’s pacification.

India has denied being an actor in Balochistan’s trouble but it has officially expressed “concern” over “military action” there. Clearly India has tried to link Balochistan with Kashmir where it claims Pakistan is still retaining its “jihadi option”. Islamabad’s reluctance to relate its Balochistan policy to its overall regional foreign policy will therefore postpone any quick end to the insurgency. Every move it makes in the region — whether in the east or the west — is matched by counter-moves by its regional neighbours in the light of Pakistan’s own conduct in the decade of the 1990s. Everyone may be moved by fear and lack of trust rather than any real strategic projection, but the net result is that Balochistan continues to be the cockpit of insurgency, threatening Pakistan’s grand but still partially contradictory plan to become “an energy and trade corridor” for the region. *