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Balochistan on the boil

By Gen V.P. Malik (Retd)

Pakistan’s largest province, Baluchistan, is again on the boil. Two rocket firing incidents took place in early December, 2005. The first
incident involved firing on a helicopter carrying the Inspector-General of the Frontier Corps. In the second, a rocket was fired at a
public meeting addressed by Gen Pervez Musharraf at Kohlu. These incidents appear to have provided an immediate provocation to
launch an operation by the Pakistan Army and the Frontier Corps against Baloch insurgents.

Any operation in which 12 helicopters and air strikes by fighter aircraft are employed, and in which about 120 tribesmen are reported
to be killed in bombings has to be a major one. So far, 35 security forces personnel have been killed in the ambushes laid by the
insurgents.

Islamabad claims that the operation is against a “terrorist network” and the government is “determined to destroy it to facilitate a
development process that would bring the backward province to the same level as other developed regions of the country”. The
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has described the situation as “alarming”. Its chairperson, Ms Asma Jehangir, has
stated that Baluchistan is being pushed towards isolation and her commission would highlight “excesses, oppression and
violations” of human rights against the people of the province.

She alleged that the government had created security problems to justify the establishment of additional military check-posts.

Baluchistan has had a chequered, though not an unfamiliar, post-independence history. It has four princely states — Makran, Kharan,
Las Bela and Kalat (the largest and most powerful) — and the Kalat prince, Mir Ahmad Yar Khan, declared independence at the time
of Partition. Other Baloch chiefs sympathised with him but did not support his idea of independence. After the Pakistan Army
intervened, Mir Ahmed Yar Khan signed the accession agreement. But his brother, Abdul Karim Khan, carried on an armed struggle
from Afghanistan, which eventually failed.

In the late 1950s, most Baloch and Pashtun tribes got together and took up arms when an attempt was made to change the federal
character in West Pakistan by converting it into one unit. Sporadic guerrilla actions continued into the 1960s till the one unit idea was
finally dropped.

In 1973, the Pakistan government under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto found some Soviet weapons in Islamabad, supposedly destined for
insurgents in Baluchistan. Bhutto promptly dismissed the provincial government. Subsequently, it came to light that these weapons
were meant for some other destination and Bhutto, or Pakistan intelligence establishment, had used this “find” to get into the good
books of US President Richard Nixon. The Baloch were furious. They started a guerrilla war. About 80,000 Pakistani troops had to be
deployed to crush the uprising. The largest confrontation took place in September 1974 when 15,000 Baloch fought the Pakistani
Army which used fighter planes and helicopters extensively.

By the time General Zia withdrew Pakistani troops in 1977, about 9000 Baloch and security forces personnel had died. Since then,
the province, with more arms and refugees flooding into it due to fighting and instability in Afghanistan, has seen violence frequently.

Baluchistan remains a neglected backwater of Pakistan due to internal as well as external politics. Over the years, grievances of tribal
groups have got compounded. In addition to greater autonomy (and demand for independence by some), both Baloch and Pashtun
tribals desire larger allocation of central funds as well as royalty for natural gas, coal and other minerals found in the province.

There are explosive social issues too. In January 2005, a Pakistan Army captain sexually assaulted Dr Shazia Khalid, a 31-year-old
doctor working at the Sui gas plant, near Dera Bugti. When the Pakistan government took no action, the Bugtis attacked the heavily
protected gas plant. General Musharraf revealed Pakistan military’s contempt for the locals when he publicly declared the Army
captain to be “innocent”, and warned that if the tribal did not stop shooting, “they will not know what hit them”. The government sent
tanks, helicopters and nearly a brigade worth of troops to protect the plant. At least 15 people died in the shelling and gunfire that
followed. The incident caused further alienation between the tribes and the Pakistan military.

The Pakistan government’s decision to develop Gwadar port with Chinese assistance and Panjabi contractors, re-settlement of a
large number of ex-servicemen along the Makran coast, and creation of additional military cantonments in the province has added
fuel to the fire. The increased military presence is being perceived as a deliberate attempt to suppress the Baloch nationalists.

With land borders along Afghanistan and Iran and several tribal groups straddling across these borders, a sensitive coastline
(nautically bounded by the Persian Gulf in the west and the Gulf of Oman in the southwest) not far from Pakistan’s nuclear firing
facilities in the Chagai Hills, the insurgency in Baluchistan has strategic significance not only for Pakistan but also for the entire
region.

Baluchistan and Pashtunistan have long complicated Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan. The US, whose troops are currently
engaged in operations in southern Afghanistan along Pak-Afghan border), is clearly unhappy about a large number of Al-Qaida and
the so-called moderate Taliban settling down in the Pashtun majority areas of Baluchistan, and the area continuing to be a hotbed of
Wahabi fundamentalism. China, too, has built economic and strategic stakes in the area now. Nearly 500 Chinese are working at
Gwadar port (foundation laid by Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Wu Bangguo on March 22, 2002), which is expected to provide the
Pakistan Navy with another base and reduce Pakistan’s reliance on Karachi and Port Muhammad Bin Qasim. It will also enable
China to monitor its energy shipments from the Persian Gulf to the East.

The Baloch instability will be a negative factor in deciding the fate of Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. Indian investment on a pipeline
that passes through the insurgency-affected area will need a careful review.

The Pakistani prickliness when India expressed its concern over the most recent military crackdown in Baluchistan, not only by its
officials but also by General Musharraf himself, has surprised many in the Indian strategic community. Addressing the Council of
Pakistan Newspapers Editors in Lahore on December 29, General Musharraf alleged that India is shedding crocodile tears over
Baluchistan. He also hinted that India was involved in carrying out subversive activities in the province.

Although no one is in favour of using terrorism as a quid pro quo policy option in any part of Pakistan, strategists have often wondered
why India remains on the defensive when Islamabad never loses an opportunity to loudspeak on human rights violations in India. In
fact, there are many prickly Pakistan-related issues on which India can remain pro-active, e.g. unilateral handing over of Shaqsgam
Valley (Jammu and Kashmir) to China by Pakistan and frequent sectarian violence in the Northern Areas. According to the HRCP,
more than 67 people were killed due to sectarian violence in the Northern Areas in 2005.

It is time for the Pakistan leadership to realise that interference in each other’s internal affairs, support to terrorism and political
baiting can be a two-way street. If they persist with that, where would it lead to? Surely, not to a constructive dialogue, or faster
economic development in the subcontinent!

The writer, a former Chief of Army Staff, is President, ORF Institute of Security Studies, New Delhi.

Source: The Tribune, Chandigarh, January 4, 2005.

* Views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Observer Research Foundation.