Author: Dr. Dipak Basu
Publication:
Date:
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.Meanwhile,
the Baloch have launched their "War of Independence" in Iran and
Pakistan. Liberation Movement in Balochistan:
Mir Azaad Khan Baloch, the General Secretary,
The Government of Balochistan in Exile in Jerusalem decalared recently, "Afghanistan
and Baluchistan should form a legal team to challenge the illegal occupation
of Afghan territories and Baluchistan by Pakistan in the International Court
of Justice. Once the Durand Line Agreement is declared illegal, it will result
in the return of Pakistan-occupied territories back to Afghanistan. Also,
Baluchistan will be declared a country that was forcibly invaded through use
of force by the Pakistanis; and with international assistance, Baluchistan
can regain its independence."
The Baloch freedom movement is not new but
failed to draw the attention of the world. A very serious crisis lasted from
September 1961 to June 1963, when diplomatic, trade, transit, and consular
relations between Baluchistan and Pakistan were suspended. Another insurgency
erupted in Balochistan in 1973 into an insurgency that lasted four years and
became increasingly bitter. The insurgency was put down by the Pakistan Army,
which employed brutal methods and equipment, including helicopter gunship,
provided by Iran and flown by Iranian pilots. The shah of Iran, who feared
a spread of the insurrection among the Iranian Baloch, generously gave external
assistance to Bhutto. By early 1974, an armed revolt was underway in Baluchistan.
By 2004 Baluchistan was up in arms against the federal government, with the
Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA), Balochistan Liberation Front, and People"s
Liberation Army conducting operations. Rocket attacks and bomb blasts have
been a regular feature in the provincial capital, particularly its cantonment
areas, Kohlu and Sui town, since 2000, and had claimed over 25 lives by mid-2004.
The Gwadar Port project employed close to
500 Chinese nationals by 2004. On 03 May 2004, the BLA killed three Chinese
engineers working on the Port. Rockets attacked Gwadar airport at midnight
on 21 May 2004. On 09 October 2004, two Chinese engineers were kidnapped in
South Waziristan in the northwest of Pakistan, one of whom was killed later
on October 14 in a botched rescue operation. Violence reached a crescendo
in March of 2005 when the Pakistani government attempting to target Nawab
Akbar Khan Bugti, a seventy-year-old Sardar (tribal leader) who had fought
against the government for decades, shelled the town of Dera Bugti. The fighting
that erupted between the tribal militia and government soldiers resulted in
the deaths of 67 people. Ultimately Nawab Bugti also became a martyr in the
cause of the liberation of Balochistan. The Durand Line and N.W.F.P
To this date, the relations between Afghanistan,
Balochistan and Pakistan are characterized by rivalry, suspicion and resentment.
The primary cause of this hostility rests in the debate about the validity
of the Durand Line Agreement. Dubbing Durand line as a line of hatred Afghan
President Hamid Karzai has said he does not accept this line as it has raised
a wall between the two brothers, and slices a part of Afghanistan from the
motherland. He said this on 26 January 2006 after offering condolence over
the death of Khan Abdul Wali Khan, the last surviving son of the 'Frontier
Gandhi' Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who was betrayed by Mahatma Gandhi in 1947.
Afghanistan always vigorously protested the inclusion of Pashtun and Baluch
areas within Pakistan without providing the inhabitants with an opportunity
for self-determination.
In the 19th century, Afghanistan served as
a strategic buffer state between czarist Russia and the British Empire in
the subcontinent. Afghanistan"s relations with Moscow became more cordial
after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The Soviet Union was the first country
to establish diplomatic relations with Afghanistan after the Third Anglo-Afghan
war and signed an Afghan-Soviet non-aggression pact in 1921, which also provided
for Afghan transit rights through the Soviet Union. Early Soviet assistance
included financial aid, aircraft and attendant technical personnel, and telegraph
operators.
British during their Empire in India were
anxious to award N.W.F.P to the Muslim League to minimize the importance of
Afghanistan, a pro-Soviet state. The most important party in the N.W.F.P was
the Khudai Khidmatgars who had formed the government there since 1935 in collaboration
with the Congress party of India. The opinion of the British governor Sir
George Cunningham was the same of that of the Muslim League that, since the
Hindus were not a people of the Book, and since the Khudai Khidmatgars of
Khan Abdul Gaffer Khan were working in concerned with the Hindu Congress for
national independence and freedom from British slavery, hence this partnership
was in fact a partnership with heathenish Kafirs.
The Muslim League always had been an ally
of the British, and it was wholly unsympathetic to all the Muslim organizations
fighting the British - to the righteous scholars and leaders of Deoband, whom
it did no even desist from abusing. It was not prepared to recognize the efforts
of other individual Muslims who were contributing to the national movement
for independence. On the contrary, it had kept pressing the British not to
recognize any other Muslim or Muslim organization except the Muslim League
as representative of the country's entire Muslims, when it was very unpopular
party among the Muslims in Bengal, Sindh, and N.W.F.P, all Muslim majority
areas of the British India.
The British practically handed over the N.W.F.P
to The Muslim League through a referendum where the supporters of the Khudai
Khidmatgars abstained because of the absurd advice of Mahatma Gandhi. Khudai
Khidmatgars and the Congress Party of Gandhi used to have the political power
of the N.W.F.Psince 1935. Gandhi gave them assurance that if they abstain
the referendum would be morally invalid and annulled. (Gandhi gave the same
absurd advice to the Hindus in the referendum in the Mayamansingh district
of East Bengal and as a result the whole of the district with about with about
half of the population as Hindus went to Pakistan). The British had managed
to persuade through bribing some members of the legislative assembly to support
the inclusion of N.W.F.P in Pakistan. Immediately after 1947 Pakistan had
started killing members of the Khudai Khidmatgars and most Pushtun leaders,
including Khan Abdul Gaffer Khan had to take sanctuary in Afghanistan, then
an anti-British and pro-Soviet country.
The Soviets began a major economic assistance
program in Afghanistan in the 1950s. Between 1954 and 1978, Afghanistan received
more than $1 billion in Soviet aid, including substantial military assistance.
In 1973, the two countries announced a $200-million assistance agreement on
gas and oil development, trade, transport, irrigation, and factory construction.
Since 1978, the Soviet Union started providing large-scale military assistance
to Afghanistan to protect the country from the invasion launched by Pakistan
with the full encouragement of the CIA to destroy the socialist government
of Noor Mahamed Taraki. When it became obvious that Afghanistan alone cannot
resist the aggression of Pakistan, the Soviet army came to Afghanistan in
December 1979 to help maintain its independence until 1992.
After 1979, the Soviets augmented their large
aid commitments to shore up the Afghan economy and rebuild the Afghan military.
They provided the Karmal regime an unprecedented $800 million. The Soviet
Union supported the Najibullah regime even after the withdrawal of Soviet
troops in February 1989. Russia has provided military assistance to the Northern
Alliance against the Pakistan backed Talibans. Osama Bin Laden started off
as a Mujahideen, against the Soviet backed socialist government of Afghanistan.
He was actively sponsored by the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies
and was felicitated in both the White House of Washington and the White Hall
of London.
A grand Pakhtoon-Baloch tribal convention
was held in Pesawar on 11 February 2006 where prominent Pakhtoon and Baloch
leaders endorsed a call for the elimination of the infamous and imaginary
British-made Durand Line with the objective of creating a Greater Balochistan.
Awami National Party (ANP) leader Asfandyar Wali Khan said that the Pakhtoon
nation was passing through a critical phase of its history, and therefore,
the ANP had convened the tribal convention to devise a strategy to counter
the ongoing Pakistan military operations in Balochistan and the North West
Frontier Province (NWFP). The Pakhtoon Milli Wahdat revolves around the elimination
of the Durand Line, dividing Pakistan and Afghanistan, so that Pakhtoons living
in NWFP, Balochistan and tribal areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan could form
a state of their own.
A New Map for the Middle East:
Ralph Peter, in The Armed Forces Journal of
the U.S, in June 2006, suggested that there has to be a major changes in the
map of the Middle East, including Pakistan and Afghanistan to do justice to
the ethnic groups who were forced to live under alien governments because
the British and the French after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 have
arbitrarily divided up the Middle East without thinking about the consequences
of their actions on various nationalities who used to live under the Turkish
Empire. According to this "New Map of the Middle East", Iran, "a
state with madcap boundaries", would lose a great deal of territory to
Unified Azerbaijan, Free Kurdistan, the Arab Shia State and Free Baluchistan,
but would gain the provinces around Herat in today"s Afghanistan - a
region with a historical and linguistic affinity for Iran. Iran would, in
effect, become an ethnic Persian state again.
What Afghanistan would lose to Iran in the
west, it would gain in the east, as Pakistan"s Northwest Frontier tribes
would be reunited with their Afghan brethren. Pakistan, another unnatural
state, would also lose its Baluch territory to Free Baluchistan. The remaining
"natural" Pakistan would lie entirely east of the Indus, except
for a westward spur near Karachi. Thus, even among the most conservative circle
of the USA the support for free Baluchistan and N.W.F.P is gaining ground
due to the treacherous character of Pakistan. While it is receiving massive
amount of military and civilian aid from the U.S, Pakistan is still giving
sanctuary to both Taliban and Al Queada, giving them free areas to roam in
the N.W.F.P. Pakistan no longer enjoys the unconditional support of the United
States. In a lightning visit to Afghanistan, India and Pakistan in March 2006,
US president George Bush did not conceal where his favour lay. He left India
having signed a much-coveted deal on nuclear energy, while his visit to Pakistan
left Musharraf with nothing.
India enjoys support in Kabul from not only
Karzai and his cabinet but many political elements that fought the Taliban,
especially the Northern Alliance that was supported by Iran, the U.S. and
its allies and continues to be friendly towards India. A strong, stable Afghanistan,
bolstered by American military and diplomatic support, and further strengthened
by an alliance with India, could on the other hand make Pakistan very uncomfortable
indeed. India should take advantage of this historic opportunity to free both
Baluchistan and N.W.F.P from Pakistan by giving total support to the Baluch
freedom fighters and to the Afghan government, as Mrs. Indira Gandhi has changed
the map of Pakistan in 1971. While Pakistan is continuously drawing the attention
of the world about India's so-called 'injustice' to Kashmir, which Pakistan
has invaded in October 1947, there is no reason for India to conceal the fact
that Pakistan has occupied an independent country Balochistan in April 1948.
(The author is a Professor in International
Economics in Nagasaki University, Japan)
