By: Dr.Dipak Basu
October 12, 2006

(The author is a Professor in International Economics in Nagasaki University, Japan)

The events in Baluchistan have little or no impacts on the world and India in particular. India government as usual failed to utilize the events to dramatize the cause for the liberation of Balochistan. The reason is that for the last 60 years, Baluchistan is forgotten. Although India’s politicians particularly those who are called ‘the left’, are very much eager to express their solidarity to the people of Lebanon or Nicaragua, they do not care about what is going on in India’s immediate neighbourhood. Invasion and occupations of Tibet and Eastern Turkistan by China, Balochistan, North-West Frontier Province by Pakistan, mass murder of the Hindus in Kashmir, Bangladesh and Sri-Lanka cannot draw the attention of so-called progressive people of India. Very few people even know that Balochistan was not a part of Pakistan in 1947, but it was invaded in 1948 by Pakistan who is occupying it ever since without any protest from India or any other countries of the world. The role of India, Britain and the world community are the most shameful regarding both Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province (N.W.F.P) of what is now Pakistan.

The government of Pakistan claims that the Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti was killed recently by mistake recently. Nawab Bugti was not an ordinary individual; he symbolized Baloch nationalism. The main Baloch grievance is political in nature that, except for the short duration of Ataullah Mengal"s government in the early 1970s, the Baluchistan governments have comprised simple and crude nominees of Pakistani rulers. So much of natural gas is taken out from Balochistan and consumed in other provinces but the royalties are measly and have no relationship with the value of the goods shipped out. No central government of Pakistan has ever cared for the development of this vast and arid province; it is still the most underdeveloped area of Pakistan.

Durand Line: the line of Evil

Balochistan, along with the North West Frontier Province (N.W.F.P) are the victims of an imaginary line, called Durand Line, which was described by Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president as the “line of Evil”. In deed that line signifies both the British and Pakistani imperialism that have subjugated the Baluchs and the Pushtuns.

In 1893, the Afghan and British governments agreed to demark a 2,450-kilometer (1,519 miles) long border dividing British India and Afghanistan. The signatory of the document, known as The Durand Line Agreement, were Amir Abdur Rahman Khan, ruler of Afghanistan, and Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, the foreign secretary of the British Indian government. After a series of battles and false treaties signed by the British, ‘The Durand Line Agreement’ of 1893 divides boundaries between three sovereign countries, namely Afghanistan, Balochistan and British India. According to that agreement Britain had taken a lease of the area in N.W.F.P and Balochistan, without the knowledge of Balochistan. Sir Durand gave verbal assurance to Afghanistan that the lease will lat until 1993, but in the written agreement there is no mention of it. Otherwise just like Hong Kong, N.W.F.P would have gone back to Afghanistan in 1993.

The Durand Line Agreement should be a trilateral agreement and it legally required the participation and signatures of all three countries. However, the clever British drawn the agreement bilaterally between Afghanistan and British India only, and it intentionally excluded Balochistan. Thus, Balochistan has never accepted the validity of the Durand Line. The British, under false pretenses, assured the Afghan rulers that Balochistan was part of British India, and therefore, they were not required to have the consent of anyone from Balochistan to agree on demarking borders. Meanwhile, the British kept the Baloch rulers in the dark about the Durand Line Agreement to avoid any complications. According to International Law, all affected parties are required to agree to any changes in demarking their common borders. Hence, under the rules of demarking boundaries of the International Law, the Agreement of Durand Line was in error, and thus, it was null and void as soon as it was signed.

Also, International Law states that boundary changes must be made among all concerned parties; and a unilateral declaration by one party has no effect. However, the British government disregarding the objection of Afghanistan gave away the N.W.F.P to Pakistan after a fraud plebscite. However, it never gave Baluchistan to Pakistan in the same way the British never gave away Jammu & Kashmir to India.

When in 1949, Afghanistan’s “Loya Jirga” (Grand Council) declared the Durand Line Agreement invalid and also raised objections in the United Nations against the creation of Pakistan and its boundary decalared by the British alone, the so-called world body had ignored the plea of a small nation.

Pakistani Invasion of Indepent Baluchistan, 1948:

On August 11, 1947, the British acceded control of Balochistan to the ruler of Balochistan, Mir Ahmad Yar Khan - the Khan of Kalat. The Khan immediately declared the independence of Balochistan, and Mohammad Ali Jinnah signed the proclamation of Balochistan’s sovereignty under the Khan.

The New York Times reported on August 12, 1947: “Under the agreement, Pakistan recognizes Kalat as an independent sovereign state with a status different from that of the Indian States. An announcement from New Delhi said that Kalat, Moslem State in Baluchistan, has reached an agreement with Pakistan for free flow of communications and commerce, and would negotiate for decisions on defense, external affairs and communications.” The next day, the NY Times even printed a map of the world showing Balochistan as a fully independent country.

On August 15, 1947 the Khan of Kalat addressed a large gathering in Kalat and formally declared the full independence of Balochistan, and proclaimed the 15th day of August a day of celebration. The Khan formed the lower and upper house of Kalat Assembly, and during the first meeting of the Lower House in early September 1947, the Assembly confirmed the independence of Balochistan. Jinnah tried to persuade the Khan to join Pakistan, but the Khan and both Houses of the Kalat Assembly refused. The Pakistani army then invaded Balochistan on April 15th, 1948, and imprisoned all members of the Kalat Assembly. India stood by silently. Lord Mountbatten, Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru or Maulana Azad, then the president of India’s Congress Party said nothing about the rape of Baluchistan or later of N.W.F.P.

Throughout the period of British rule of India, the British never occupied Baluchistan. There were treaties and lease agreements between the two sovereign states, but neither state invaded the other. Although the treaties signed between British India and Balochistan provided many concessions to the British, but none of the treaties permitted the British to demark the boundaries of Baluchistan without the consent of the Baluch rulers. Once Balochistan was secured through invasion, the Pakistanis deceptively used the law of uti possidetis juris to their advantage and continued occupation of territories belonging to Afghanistan, the N.W.F.P with the full approval of the British Army in India and their supreme commander Lord.Mountbatten.

As Pakistan is in illegal occupation of territories belonging to Afghanistan and Balochistan under false pretenses, it is in Pakistan’s interest to have a weak and destabilized government in Afghanistan so there is no one to challenge the authenticity of the Durand Line Agreement.

That was the reason Pakistan has joined the conspiracy of President Carter and his national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski (as described in the interview given by Brzezinshi to the French newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur on 15-21 January 1998) to destabilize the Afghan government of Noor Mohammed Taraki in 1978 by using Pakistani army and destroy it completely through the invasions of the Muzzahideens in 1992 and Talibans later in 1995 with the approval of President Clinton who has sent his special adviser Robin Rafael to Kandahar to congratulate the Talibans. In the same way Clinton administration has sent 10,000 strong Mujahideen army, composed of Arabs, to Bosnia in 1991 to murder the Christian Serbs.

Even after 2001, Pakistani intelligence agencies have provided shelter for members of Al-Qaeada and Taliban who are committing acts of terrorism within Afghanistan to destabilize the democratically elected government of President Hamid Karzai. Pakistan has waged a proxy war against the United States through Taliban, and continues to terrorize the Afghan nation in hopes to frustrate the US to leave Afghanistan and weaken the Afghan government.Meanwhil e, the Baloch have launched their “War of Independence” in Iran and Pakistan.