Prepare for regime change

www.dailypioneer.com/columnist1.asp

Initial reports suggest that the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti could turn into a serious political movement against Gen Pervez Musharraf

The unwarranted and brutal slaying of veteran Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti raises two questions. First, will the killing trigger ethno-national conflict in Pakistan threatening its federal structure? Second, should we start preparing to deal with a Pakistan without Gen Pervez Musharraf in the near future?


Varying shades of ethno-nationalism has been in existence in Pakistan since its formation. Three of the well-known strands of this ethno-nationalism are Balochi, Sindhi and Pakhtoon. To a large extent, Pakhtoon as well as Sindhi nationalism have since been "Punjabised" with increased participation in the military and business. It is the Balochis who have remained on the fringe all these years and have been forced to reiterate and reinforce an independent idea of Balochistan as a nation.


It is important to keep this perspective in mind while analysing the present situation, especially the killing of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti. There is no love lost between Punjabis who dominate and rule Pakistan, and the Balochis who are, for all practical purpose, the marginalised people. Though unlike Punjabis and Pashtuns, Balochis have never lived under a foreign rule, they are considered in rest of the Pakistan as primitive people ruled by selfish and greedy sardars (tribal leaders) who believe in propagating dynastic rule. This contempt was reflected aptly in what Gen Tikka Khan said in 1973 - "I want the territory, not the people of Balochistan.'' Balochis believe, and not wrongly, that Punjabis and Sindhis) would overwhelm them in their own home. This is not an unfounded fear. The Pakistan establishment, particularly the Army, has engineered large-scale demographic changes in Northern Areas, Sindh and Balochistan.


Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, for all his faults, represented the Baloch struggle to protect its identity and interest. He was not keen on fighting the military. It is an impossible, and foolish, task to take on the might of the battle-hardened Pakistan Army. Bugti very well knew about it and he was, therefore, willing to settle for a negotiated settlement. However, the Pakistani Army was not so accommodative. By killing Bugti, Gen Musharraf has only strengthened the Baloch struggle, raised fears of similar reprisal in Sindh and Northern Areas, and generated a widespread debate in Pakistan about the grave fallacy of letting a General dictate the destiny of the country.


This is where the second question about the future of Gen Musharraf comes in. President Musharraf has been juggling with a wide spectrum of troubles, most on the domestic front for quite sometime. To delineate the critical ones, it is fair to count Jammu & Kashmir, the US and War on Terrorism both within and outside Pakistan as the three most important issues. On Kashmir, it is widely believed in Pakistan (and elsewhere) that Gen Musharraf has compromised on the traditional Pakistan stand. The jihadis who were asked to cool off a bit on Kashmir in 2002 (noted Pakistani author Hussain Haqqani, in his book Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military, has referred to a news report about senior ISI officials telling jihadi leaders to lie low) have accused Gen Musharraf of first selling the Taliban and then Kashmir to the US. The religious political parties, too, accuse Gen Musharraf of diluting the Pakistani stand on Kashmir.


Even within the Kashmiri militant groups there is a growing suspicion of the General bartering away their interests on the alter of geo-strategic games of the US. On Gen Musharraf's support (not unconditional) for the US-led War on Terrorism, there is equally strong reaction among the public, clerics and retired Generals. The General's failure to rein in sectarian (Sipah-e-Saheba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi) and terrorist (Lashkar-e-Tayyeba) groups (it is widely believed that the Army supports these groups) has only raised doubts about his capability to deal with domestic issues. Both on the external as well as internal front, Gen Musharraf had never faced such multitude of problems at a given point of time.


The killing of Bugti has only added to his troubles. This could mean a perpetual turmoil in Balochistan, in varying degrees. A persistent cycle of violence will make investors wary, if not deter, jeopardising the dreams of turning Gwadar into a second Dubai. More critical fallout, for Gen Musharraf, will be political. Various political forces are gathering strength and support against him in the run up to the election in 2008. The former Prime Ministers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharief, are leaving no chance to criticise and provoke Gen Musharraf.


The religious alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, is determined to lay siege on Islamabad in the coming months, forcing, the leaders hope, the General either to relinquish the post of Chief of Army Staff or announce that he will not contest the election. Bugti's killing has only galvanised this opposition against Gen Musharraf.


Though none of the parties have any love lost for the slain Baloch leader, they will not miss a chance to exploit the confusion and protest created in the wake of Bugti's killings to gherao Gen Musharraf. This could turn into a serious political movement against the Gen Musharraf's rule as indicated by the wide-spread criticism, especially from the political and military elite. The two recent letters written by retired military officials, academics and political leaders requesting Gen Musharraf to step down as the Chief of Army Staff only adds to this growing clamour for democracy in Pakistan. With a rising popular opposition to his regime, the most significant question that needs to be addressed is: When will the Pakistan Army consider Musharraf a liability?


- (The writer is senior fellow, Observer Research Foundation)



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Personal Thought: What next after Bugti's exit?

www.centralchronicle.com/20060913/1309304.htm

A few days back in a surgical military operation Pakistan armed forces blasted off Baloch rebel leader Nawab Akbar Bugti and a bunch of his loyalists who were holed up in a cave in the mountain ranges of Kohlu district of Balochistan. Happy at the liquidation of formidable separatist Baloch leader, General Musharraf congratulated the troops on their success. In a stern warning to the dissident voices, he pulled up those leaders of the ruling PML (Q) who had the temerity to express concern over the death of Bugti.
In Bugti's death, the Pak media saw the beginning of the troubles for Pakistan and expressed fears that Bugti's elimination instead of solving the problem would further fuel antagonism between the Balochs and the Punjabi rulers of Pakistan. A number of former Generals including Mirza Aslam Beg, Assad Durrani, Talat Masood and Hamid Gul expressed serious reservations over the wisdom of liquidating Bugti. Of the political groupings, the Baloch leadership, the MQM and the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) predicted a serious backlash.

When the news of Bugti's killing broke out there were public demonstrations and protests in different parts of Pakistan particularly Quetta, the capital city of Balochistan and Karachi that have sizable Baloch population. After a week of violent protest demonstrations normalcy seems to have returned to Pakistan. The Punjabis may show lip sympathy for the Balochs but in the hearts of their hearts they realize that the Baloch anger was directed against them, as they perceive Punjabis to be the villains of the piece. The Pushtoons also did not protest for they have a grouse of their own against the Balochs. There are about a million Pushtoons in Balochistan. There have been noticeable tensions there between the Balochs and the Pustoons.

Under the circumstances, the Balochs might have to fight alone and until they unite they may not be able to achieve their objectives. True, the Balochs have numerous grievances against the Punjabi dominated federal government. They have been very unhappy over the fact that their mineral-rich homeland had been exploited by the federal government to benefit the Punjabis. Further, Balochistan, though liberally endowed by nature, is the least developed province. Literacy rate is 30% against 64% of the rest of Pakistan. Baloch representation in the Pakistan Army and bureaucracy is negligible. Pakistan Army is in the process of setting up several cantonments in Balochistan, which the Baloch fear is being done with the purpose of enslaving them further, that has been resented in the past.

However, all this does not amount to much when you take into consideration the fact that the Baloch leadership has never been united in their fight against Islamabad. If one Baloch tribe sided with a particular rebel Baloch leader, others sided with the government. For long Bugti sided with Islamabad and he was rewarded for his loyalty with the post of Governor and the Chief Minister of Balochistan. The Balochs follow the Sardari system and the Sardars have felt secure in keeping education and development out of bounds for their followers. In many ways the Sardars have been the cause of their backwardness. In the long run, the government will tire them out. Moreover, there can't be a repeat of Bangladesh because East Pakistan was separated from the mainland Pakistan by 1300 miles and defending it was a logistical nightmare. Pakistan has no such problem with regard to Balochistan, a contiguous territory. Come what may, Pakistan will not let it go the Bangladesh way.

Yet, there is no denying the fact that the opposition can take advantage of the developments to run a vigorous campaign for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan. Gen Musharraf has been in power for 7 long years. If the fledging movement for the restoration of democracy succeeds in spearheading large-scale civil unrest, Musharraf may find it difficult to get reelected as President. Some signs are there. In a meeting of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) held in Lahore, Liaqat Baloch, the Spokesperson of the ARD and senior leader of the Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA) declared that they were against Musharraf continuing with or without uniform. Next one year will be crucial. All will depend on the build up by the ARD.

The developments in Balochistan have implications for India. One, Convinced of India's hand in Bugti-led Baloch rebellion, Pakistan is bound to raise the issue in bilateral and multilateral meetings. PML-Q and most Islam-pasand political parties have expressed the same view. MMA leader Liaqat Baloch while demanding Musharraf's exit accused India of fishing in troubled waters Two, Pakistan looked askance at India's expression of sympathy for the Baloch struggle and advice to Pakistan to explore other means than the use of force for settling domestic issues. Three, Pakistan Government has made up with the Taliban and can use them for increased infiltration into J&K. Four, Musharraf is bent upon winning the next Presidential poll before the general elections. The only plank that unites the Pakistanis is the rhetoric and posturing against India. Musharraf is not averse to using this tool. This may see heightening of tensions between India and Pakistan and increased terrorist activities in India.

RJ Khurana

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Balochistan blaze

www.hinduonnet.com/fline/stories/20060922004411400.htm

NIRUPAMA SUBRAMANIAN

The killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti gives Baloch nationalism a martyr around whom to build itself and galvanise the Opposition in Pakistan.


SOMETIMES, the first spark comes from the most unexpected of quarters. As protests raged all over Pakistan against the killing of the Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, the question uppermost in people's minds was whether General Pervez Musharraf, who completes seven years as President this October and has indicated a desire to continue in office beyond 2007 when his term ends, may have acted unwittingly against his own ambitions.

In a province that is strategically located, rich in natural resources, where Pakistan believes India has been meddling to cause unrest, where China has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build a port in Gwadar, and in which several other international powers are said to be interested, it was finally Islamabad that lit the match on August 26, when Pakistan's military carried out an operation in Kohlu that killed the 79-year-old leader of the Jahmoori Watan Party (JWP).

The killing set Balochistan ablaze for three days and gave Baloch nationalism a martyr around whom to build itself. In his lifetime, Bugti, a consummate politician, had as many detractors as admirers. He was often seen as a divisive figure in the Baloch nationalist cause, and his metamorphosis as the most prominent face of the Baloch insurgency was a latter day development. It had as much to do with his personal gripes against Musharraf over the amount of government royalties to him for the land in Sui (from where the government extracts natural gas), as with Baloch demands for more provincial autonomy.

Bugti retained ties to the ruling party until almost the end, keeping his options open on a political deal with Islamabad. His death has transformed him from a pro-Pakistan, and at times, disliked figure in Baloch politics and cast him in the mould of the Baloch freedom fighter that he never was. It is around this image that the protagonists of the simmering nationalist cause in the province are now rallying.

So deep-rooted are the grievances in Balochistan that the resource-rich province, where the security forces have grappled with a low-intensity conflict since 2002, was just waiting to erupt. The news of Bugti's killing virtually ignited the province, and brought together a fractious Baloch leadership.


ATHAR HUSSAIN/REUTERS

A PROTEST IN KARACHI against Bugti's killing.

Bugti and the two other prominent tribal sardars - Attaullah Mengal and Khair Baksh Marri - were often at odds. Mengal and Bugti have had a love/hate relationship. However, a reconciliation of sorts between the Marris and the Bugtis was evident earlier this year, when Marri offered shelter to Bugti on his territory after the latter's ancestral home in Dera Bugti came under direct attack from the security forces. Kohlu, the area where Bugti met his end, was in Marri land. After Bugti's death, both Marri and Mengal have been in the forefront of the protests.

The four-party Baloch Alliance, comprising Mengal's Baloch National Party, the Baloch National Party, the National Party, and Bugti's JWP buried internal differences to organise protest rallies and strikes in Balochistan. All four members of the Baloch National Party (Mengal) even resigned their seats in the Senate, the National Assembly and the provincial assembly.

Bugti's killing, the first political figure to be killed since Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's hanging by Zia-ul-Haq, sent shock waves through political circles. It also galvanised the Opposition parties into action. They organised protest rallies, strikes and shut-downs and put up spirited shows in Parliament, complete with noisy scenes and walkouts.

The Opposition parties had moved a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz much before the Bugti killing, focussing on alleged government corruption in the privatisation of Pakistan's steel mills, and in the stock market. In this, the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, a 12-party coalition headed by Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam) or (PML-Q), joined hands with its ideological opposite, the Muttahida-Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a coalition of six religious parties.

By August 29, when the motion was taken up for debate, Bugti had been killed. It was inevitable that the Opposition would take this up in a big way during the debate. There was never a chance that the motion would find the required support of 172 members in a 342-member National Assembly. With the combined Opposition's strength totting up to 141 (on that day it was 136), the motion was defeated. But the Opposition did not give up and took the battle against the government outside the National Assembly.

Opposition leaders are telling the country that the killing of Bugti has underlined the importance of restoring democracy, that it is further proof that a military regime knows only about using force, and that this does not solve a nation's problems.


BANARAS KHAN/AFP

BUGTI AND HIS tribal bodyguards in the remote mountainous area of Dera Bugti in Balochistan province.

Interestingly, even the MMA, a partner in the Balochistan government with the PML (Q), which had no love lost for the secular Bugti, joined in the condemnation of his killing and supported the other protests.

No one has bought the government's explanation of August 30, four days after the killing, that Bugti was not targeted by the military, that the intention was to apprehend him alive, and that the cave in which he was hiding collapsed owing to a mysterious blast just as military personnel were entering it to talk to him.

The first statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations, the military's public face, was that the cave came to the notice of the security forces when one of their helicopters came under fire from the cave on August 23 and 24, provoking the operation on August 26. At a press conference on August 27, Minister of Information and Broadcasting Mohammed Ali Durrani said there was no chance of taking the Nawab alive. Resistance from the cave was so intense that it necessitated a heavy response, he said.

The "mysterious blast" theory was obviously aimed at containing the fallout of the Bugti killing, but it had little impact. What stayed in people's minds was the message from Musharraf immediately after the Bugti operation congratulating the military on its "victory". More than anything else, this helped cement the view that the killing was the result of a planned attack.

If the contradictory and confused statements emerging from the military and the government in the days after the killing were bad, the mishandling of the issue of Bugti's remains was worse.


RIZWAN SAEED/REUTERS

BALOCH NATIONALIST LEADER Akhtar Mengal addresses a protest rally in Quetta on September 3, condemning the killing of the rebel leader.

It took the government five days to recover the body, by which time all kinds of rumours were abroad - that the body had been recovered and was in a hospital in Quetta; that the body had been recovered from the cave immediately after the operation but the government was using it as a bargaining chip with his family; that chemical weapons had been used in the assault on the cave, which was why the government was reluctant to hand over the body; even that Bugti was not killed in the cave as the government claimed but in an encounter in the open, and that his body was in a hospital in Islamabad.

When the government flew Bugti's remains to Dera Bugti on September 1 and buried it in a locked and sealed coffin, opening it briefly to allow only the maulvi leading the funeral to take a look, the Bugti family and the Opposition protested vehemently.

For the first time, even ruling party leaders expressed disquiet at the manner in which President Musharraf has sought to bulldoze the Baloch question through military operations. In the immediate aftermath of the Bugti killing, PML (Q) president Chaudhury Shujaat Hussain, and secretary-general Mushahid Hussaid Sayed, both good friends of the Nawab, put out statements that seemed out of step with the President's jubilation. Sayed's statement described Bugti's death as a "tragedy" and said the need of the hour was a political settlement to the grievances of the Baloch people.

All signals from the Musharraf regime gave the impression of a government that had badly miscalculated the fallout of the Bugti killing. The situation was not helped by Musharraf's statement that "those who want to fight Pakistan will first have to fight me".

Baloch Nationalism

The President has long held the view that the three tribal chiefs - Bugti, Mengal and Marri - are the main reason for the troubles in Balochistan, helped by a "foreign hand". He accused them of blocking development and of pocketing the money from the royalties they received from the government to build personal wealth instead of using it for the welfare of their tribes. While many agree that there is an element of truth in this accusation, there can be no denying that Baloch nationalism is real and not just the creation of the tribal triumvirate for their own vested interests.

The killing of Bugti has certainly not finished the nationalist cause built on a foundation of legitimate grievances articulated by several Baloch parties in the province, and outside. Indeed, from now on, attitudes against Islamabad may harden.

Increasingly radicalised youth are attracted to the possibilities presented by a shadowy group called the Baloch Liberation Army, which has been linked to several bomb attacks and other acts of sabotage on gas pipelines and infrastructure in the province over the last four years. Whether or not the group really exists, there is no denying that militancy in Balochistan has resurfaced after nearly three decades.

While this will strain the Pakistan federation, it is doubtful if the insurgency itself will intensify. Although slogans of `Free Balochistan' rented the air during the protests over the Bugti issue, and many have talked of a 1971-like situation, a militant secessionist struggle by the Baloch against Islamabad is improbable.

The political demand of the majority of the Baloch people is still provincial autonomy, not secession. In any case, with a population of less than six million, the Baloch lack the capacity and resources to build the critical mass required for such a struggle.

The crucial question for the Opposition is whether it can sustain the momentum it has built through its campaign over the Bugti killing to force a free and fair election in 2007. As the protests and strikes have shown, even after seven years of military rule, it certainly has the energy, the capacity and the willingness to take up issues and put them up before the people.

But as the no-confidence vote showed, there are limits to what the opposition - even a combined opposition - can achieve in Parliament. And Pakistan is no Nepal where the monarch had lost control over most of the country, and the final month of street protests just tipped it over.

Aside from the early dissonant notes, the ruling party has by and large stood behind Musharraf, and so has the military.

For the Opposition, the key to a return to power and making the transition to a full democracy lies in the coming elections. The main challenge for them is to ensure they are free and fair, and meanwhile, avoid the temptation to do a deal with the regime.

"Momentum or no momentum, it depends finally on whether the elections are free and fair. If there are free and fair elections, the democratic parties will win; if there are not, then we will see the stresses and strains increase," said Samina Ahmed, South Asia Project Director of the International Crisis Group.

Thus far, reaction from the international community has been muted, with only India expressing concern at the Bugti killing, and the United States appealing for calm in Balochistan. The Opposition parties will certainly hope that Washington, which has given Musharraf unstinted support since 2001, will read him a stronger message when he visits the U.S. later this month.

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Shocks to come

www.hinduonnet.com/fline/stories/20060922004611800.htm

PRAVEEN SWAMI
in New Delhi

Nawab Akbar Bugti's killing could have consequences for the whole region.

SHAH MARAI/AFP

MUSHARRAF IS UNDER assault from the military establishment.

WHEN the Pakistan Army killed Nawab Akbar Bugti last month, it did more than eliminate the most visible icon of the Baloch nationalist struggle: the shock waves from the bombing of his mountain hideout could have profound consequences for the future of India-Pakistan relations.

Since the death of the ageing and arthritic politician, commentators across South Asia have considered the consequences the violence that followed might have for Pakistan and the region. One real risk, however, has passed almost unnoticed. Escalating conflict in Balochistan, coupled with his domestic political vulnerability, could push President Pervez Musharraf to adopt an aggressive position against India, and even fuel a fifth India-Pakistan war.

In recent weeks, Pakistan has repeatedly charged India with financing the Baloch rebellion. Pakistan claims that Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) stations in Teheran and Kabul have funnelled funds to organisations such as the left-wing Balochistan Liberation Army, and that President Hamid Karzai's regime in Afghanistan is providing training camps for the rebels.

Battered by the growing violence in Balochistan and bereft of political allies, President Musharraf is desperate for an issue with which he could restore his fragile legitimacy. More than a few experts now believe that renewed hostilities with India is the sole card Pakistan's military ruler has left in his deck.

Pakistan on edge

Pakistan's domestic political life is shaping the fallout from Bugti's killing. Heading into elections scheduled for 2007, Musharraf is under assault from his core constituency: Pakistan's military establishment. In July, 18 prominent figures in Pakistan's public life - including former Inter-Services Chiefs Lieutenant-General Asad Durrani and Lieutenant-General Hameed Gul, and former Balochistan Governor Lieutenant-General Abdul Qadir - wrote toMusharraf demanding that he either resign as President of Pakistan or the Chief of the Army Staff.

"Besides being a constitutional office," their letter argued, "the office of President of Pakistan is also a political office. Combining the presidency with the office of Chief of Army Staff politicises the latter post as well as the Army." No democracy, its authors said, could exist, unless the institutions of state abided by their Constitutional roles, and respected the principle of separation of powers. "The elections scheduled for 2007," it concluded, "will not be credible without neutral and impartial caretaker governments, both at the Centre and in the provinces."

Not surprisingly, India's military establishment has been watching Pakistan's military deployment patterns with some disquiet. On the face of it, Pakistan is in no position to risk an offensive military enterprise, whatever Musharraf's political concerns might be. Pakistan's Mangla-based I Corps, its northern army reserve and a string of other formations that protect Punjab, are drained by counter-terrorist commitments along the Afghanistan border in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas and Balochistan. In recent months, the Peshawar-based XI Corps' 7 Division, which is fighting the Taliban in the NWFP, is thought to have received two reinforcement brigades from the I Corps' 17 Division. Two more brigades of the Pannu Aquil-based XXXI Corps' 37 Division are also thought to have been moved to support the 7 Division's operations. Similarly, the Kohat-based 9 Division, which is engaged in the NWFP, has received a brigade each from the Multan-based II Corps' 14 Division, the Quetta-based XII Corps' 16 Division, the I Corps' 35 Division and the XXXI Corps' 41 Division.

But Pakistan still has offensive options if it believes India will not punish a localised offensive across the Line of Control (LoC) by a full-scale offensive against Punjab and Sindh. In 1986-1987, India was deterred from retaliating against Pakistan's support for Khalistan terrorist groups through a conventional military offensive because of fears that the conflict might escalate to unmanageable levels.


ARIF ALI/AFP

A PROTEST IN LAHORE against the killing of Bugti.

Since then, Pakistani strategists have come to believe that their nuclear shield guarantees them the freedom to wage small, localised wars, or to support enterprises like the jehad in Jammu and Kashmir. To Pakistan's military, India's decision not to cross the LoC during the 1999 Kargil war, or to risk a conflict in 2001-2002 after the terrorist attack on Parliament House, demonstrated that this belief was robust.

Some in India's Military Intelligence establishment believe Musharraf is again considering a Kargil-style enterprise. In recent weeks, the 19 Division, a reserve formation of the Muree-based X Corps, which has its peace-time headquarters at Jhelum, moved to a concentration area at Chakoti, in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Troops of the Mangla-based 26 and 28 Brigades, along with the 7 Azad Kashmir Brigade from Jhari Khas are thought to have reinforced the division, along with significant numbers of Special Forces personnel.

In addition, the Jalalpur Jattan-based 333 Infantry Brigade, part of the 23 Division's reserves, has moved to a forward position facing the town of Naushera, in Rajouri. Such movements typically precede a sharp, localised military thrust, which in this case would threaten Indian positions in Gulmarg and Poonch.

No one believes these troop movements are in themselves indicators of war. Indeed, they are likely a careful threat - a warning of just how Pakistan might react if India extends significant support to the Baloch insurgents as tit-for-tat retaliation against the jehad in Jammu and Kashmir. However, the idea of a limited war in Jammu and Kashmir continues to engage the minds of Pakistan's military strategists even after its defeat in Kargil.

An Indian strike against terror training camps in Pakistan, provoked for example by a massive terrorist attack of the kind seen in Mumbai in July, could be the pretext for such an attack. So too could large-scale artillery exchanges along the LoC. Most important of all, a massive escalation of violence in Balochistan on election-eve is certain to provoke charges that India is underwriting the secessionists - and push Musharraf to appropriate nationalist sentiment through military action.

"Don't push us," Musharraf warned Baloch leaders soon after the fifth Baloch rebellion broke out early last year. "It isn't the 1970s when you can hit and run, and hide in the mountains. This time you won't even know what hit you." Ironically enough, the General is the one who has been looking for cover ever since that threat.

Fighting in Balochistan has been escalating steadily since January last year when tribesmen owing allegiance to Bugti stormed the Sui gasfields, which produce an estimated 45 per cent of Pakistan's consumption. The attack followed the Pakistan Army's refusal to act against a junior officer alleged to have raped Shazia Khalid, a doctor who was subsequently pushed into quasi-exile by Musharraf's regime. Bugti insurgents fired 430 rockets and 60 mortar rounds at the Pakistan Petrochemicals Limited production facility in Sui, killing eight people and disrupting supplies for over a month. Steel and fertiliser production across Pakistan was hit as a consequence of the Bugti raid.


THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY

THE KHAN OF KALAT, the quasiautonomous monarch who ruled under the British and launched the People's Party in the 1950s representing Baloch nationalism.

As with many conflicts in South Asia, the war in Balochistan has a long and complex history. In 1947, the Khan of Kalat, the quasi-autonomous monarch who had ruled Balochistan under the umbrella of the British empire, chose independence. While Pakistani troops moved into the region in March 1948, the Khan of Kalat dragged his feet on signing the legally necessary Document of Accession until early in the next decade.

Across the border in India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had wheedled and coerced wavering monarchs to sign away their independence; Pakistan chose to settle the issue by despatching two newly acquired combat jets to strafe the Khan's palace. In the event, the accession of the Khan of Kalat's territories settled little. By the middle of the 1950s, the Prince of Kalat launched the People's Party, representing a new Baloch nationalism that cut across tribal and linguistic lines. In 1972, the People's Party and the NWFP-based National Awami Party allied with the Islamist Jamait-ul-Ullema-i-Islam to oppose the centralising regime of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Having won the elections, the alliance sought to increase the representation of the ethnic-Baloch in government, and demanded greater control over development and industrialisation. Bhutto, representing the national ruling class of Pakistan, resisted this effort by the regional elite to assert its authority.

Matters came to a head in March 1973, after Pakistan's covert services interdicted a consignment of weapons believed to have been despatched by Iraq's covert service to Sardar Ataullah Mengal, the head of the Balochistan provincial government. Bhutto dismissed Mengal's government, leading to the outbreak of civil war. Led by the Marxist Balochi People's Liberation Front and the Balochi Students' Organisation, some 10,000 guerillas took on six divisions of the Pakistan Army, which received helicopter gunships and armour from the regime of Mohammad Reza Shah Pehlavi, the despised monarch of Iran. The use of napalm was reported in the destruction of the Baloch tribes' most valuable economic asset, their livestock. Five thousand three hundred insurgents, 3,300 Pakistani troops and perhaps tens of thousands of civilians were killed in the fighting, which dragged on until Bhutto was overthrown and the military regime of General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq arrived at a political settlement with some Baloch leaders.


RIZWAN SAEEED/REUTERS

TRIBESMEN OFFER PRAYERS after Bugti's burial in Dera Bugti on September 1.

Over the following decades, pipelines began to carry gas from Sui to distant Karachi, and work began on a massive port at Gwadar. However, a considerable section of the benefits went to the growing numbers of ethnic-Punjabi and ethnic-Sindhi migrants who arrived in the province to capitalise on new opportunities. Of the 33,275 personnel of the Frontier Constabulary deployed in Balochistan, Mengal pointed out at his Karachi press conference, only 300 were from the province. Only three per cent of the coastguards deployed in Sindh and Balochistan were ethnic-Baloch; 62 per cent were Punjabi. Moreover, investment in itself did little to bring about social development. For instance, women's literacy in the region stands at just 7 per cent, the lowest in Pakistan. Balochistan was a perfect illustration of what the economist William Easterly has described as "growth without development".

Political engagement could have offered a way forward - but the Pakistan Army was not interested. To the veteran Baloch politician Sherbaz Khan Mazari, there was a grim historical parallel. In the build-up to the Bangladesh war, he recalled, Bhutto was "determined to crush Mujib [ur-Rahman, the East Pakistan leader]. I think our generals held the Bengalis in contempt. The present Balochistan situation has some similarity to 1971."

Crisis ahead

Musharraf's policies on India will be shaped by how desperate his situation becomes - but if the Baloch media is a good index of sentiment in the province, a full-blown secessionist war, of the kind Mazari warned of is not far ahead.

For The Balochistan Express, the protests that broke out after Bugti's death were similar in their character and intensity to the mass protests which broke out after General Yahya Khan decided to call off elections which would have brought East Pakistan Awami's League to power. Bengali nationalists responded to the military dictator's decision by launching a massive popular mobilisation, which in turn was met by a brutal military crackdown. The Baloch protests, the Express asserted, were "of the same level that was [seen] in Bangladesh on March 1 1971, which was the beginning of the end of politics".

Azaadi, an Urdu language newspaper, argued that Islamabad had repeatedly "betrayed" the Baloch people. "Nawab Norooz Khan Zehri, 90, a Baloch fighter, received promises from [Field Marshall] Ayub Khan's government that he would be granted an amnesty once he surrendered," it recorded. "But," the newspaper continued, "the government backtracked from its promise and killed the aged leader. This time, they have repeated the same deceitful act with Nawab Bugti." Some newspapers found words inadequate to express their anger. The widely-read Asaap chose to publish just five lines of commentary condemning Bugti's death, filling in the rest of the space normally reserved for the editorial with a black box.

Judging by events in recent days, it seems likely the anger demonstrated by Asaap's editors will drive political mobilisation in Balochistan. On September 3, the Akhtar Mengal faction of the Balochistan National Party announced that it would resign four seats in the Provincial and National Assemblies, as well as Pakistan's Senate. Two members of the Provincial Assembly and one of the National Assembly subsequently resigned. Senator Sanaulla Baloch, who threatened resignation, is out of the country and on the exit control list. Other Baloch parties who might have been valuable interlocutors for Pakistan's military seem to have been alienated beyond the point of return. Tens of thousands of protesters were reported to have participated in a recent rally organised by the four-party Baloch Alliance and the Alliance for Restoration for Democracy against Bugti's killing.

While Baloch political resistance against the military regime in Pakistan clearly escalated, the military consequences of this development are still unclear. Several Pakistani commentators have suggested that Bugti's death could become the catalyst for thousands of new recruits to the ranks of Balochistan's secessionist militias. Baloch groups have already demonstrated both the capability and material resources to engage Pakistan's armed forces in a bitter war of attrition. Younger leaders like Nawabzada Balach Marri or Bugti's grandson, Brahmdagh Baloch, could well decide that an escalation of the conflict will serve their interests.

Egged on by hawks in Pakistan's military, Musharraf hopes Bugti's killing will signal to secessionist groups in Pakistan the costs of raising their heads. But Pakistan's President knows the risks this desperate manoeuvre contains within it: after all, Bhutto paid for the failure of the Pakistan Army in Balochistan with his life. Could a General this time be sacrificed for the Pakistani military's errors of judgment? Perhaps. Musharraf is, more likely than not, aware of the abyss that lies ahead.

In a desperate moment, a desperate man could well stake his future on the desperate belief that a small war in South Asia is an acceptable price for survival. India's strategic establishments will have to watch events in Pakistan with the greatest possible care - and respond with the greatest possible caution.