Author: Gen V.P. Malik (Retd)
Publication: The Tribune
Date: January 4, 2006
URL: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060104/edit.htm#4
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.
