The Balochistan Conundrum

The hor­rif­ic killing of at least 14 peo­ple — most­ly com­pris­ing police per­son­nel guard­ing a team of polio work­ers in Quet­ta — has marked anoth­er atroc­i­ty in the already trou­bled Balochis­tan province. While this isn’t the first or only ter­ror­ist attack on polio work­ers, it has caused con­sid­er­able waves of fear and dread among the peo­ple of the city. These killings occurred just two weeks after the Pathankot Air­base attack by a Pak­istan-based mil­i­tant group, and have led to the usu­al con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries that India is once again angling to desta­bilise Pak­istan. In fact, the case seems to be com­plete­ly the oppo­site.

The TTP claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for the attack soon after, with the aim of dis­rupt­ing the polio mis­sion. The bru­tal ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion seems to be focus­ing on Balochis­tan to under­take its mis­guid­ed ide­o­log­i­cal activ­i­ties. Indeed, the attack seemed to have been orches­trat­ed to con­vince the so-called polit­i­cal elites to dis­rupt and re-route the Chi­na Pak­istan Eco­nom­ic Cor­ri­dor (CPEC) due to the law and order sit­u­a­tion.

The CPEC will pro­vide the oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op west­ern routes; to estab­lish indus­tri­al zones, con­struct roads, install rail­way tracks, fiber optics and gas pipelines, all of which will help alle­vi­ate the griev­ances of the peo­ple of Balochis­tan. The peo­ple have long been plagued by pover­ty, illit­er­a­cy, law­less­ness, mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion, sec­tar­i­an­ism, and the lat­est sep­a­ratist insur­gency.

So how can the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment over­come the incom­pat­i­ble views and griev­ances of the peo­ple of Balochis­tan, who have suf­fered so great­ly? The CPEC was a step in this direc­tion; many in the province were hap­py in the ear­ly days of the project, when it was signed between Pak­istan and Chi­na. How­ev­er, today the hope and hap­pi­ness of the local Pash­tun and Baloch seem to be dimin­ish­ing due to the antag­o­nis­tic and biased atti­tude of the cen­tral gov­ern­ment.

Fur­ther­more, the inept Pash­tun and Baloch nation­al­ist lead­er­ship has failed to secure their basic rights from the state. Con­se­quent­ly, the resource-rich province of Balochisan has suf­fered eco­nom­i­cal­ly, polit­i­cal­ly, and social­ly.
The con­flict in Balochis­tan first began in 1948, in response to the activ­i­ties of the Pak­istan army, and from 1948 to 2005 the army has inter­fered numer­ous times in the province. The ten­sion esca­lat­ed con­sid­er­ably after the killing of Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, which served to aggra­vate griev­ances even fur­ther.

More­over, the ‘fifth war of inde­pen­dence’ (as the Baloch claim) turned into a full–fledged insur­gency in which thou­sands of Baloch polit­i­cal activists and stu­dents lost their lives. The state pol­i­cy of dis­ap­pear­ances, killings for ran­som, and dump­ing the muti­lat­ed bod­ies of abduct­ed Baloch stu­dents and polit­i­cal activists have ghet­toized the ‘Baloch nation’. Con­se­quent­ly, mul­ti­far­i­ous sep­a­ratist orga­ni­za­tions were formed as a result of these atroc­i­ties, includ­ing BLA, BLF, LeB, UBA and oth­ers.

In addi­tion, one of the biggest chal­lenges fac­ing Balochis­tan is the influx of mil­lions of Afghan refugees, who came in the 1980s and in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The is also hav­ing an adverse impact as thou­sands of sem­i­nar­ies have been con­struct­ed near refugee set­tle­ments and the local peo­ple have been mar­gin­al­ized. These places are now known as some of the most effec­tive hide-outs for Afghanistan and Pak­istan-based mil­i­tant and sec­tar­i­an out­fits.
To sum up, the grue­some killings of police in Quet­ta city recent­ly has been yet anoth­er cause of fear and dread for ordi­nary peo­ple. The already ostra­cized province has been deprived of its rights as well as the CPEC project. These devel­op­ments seem to spell even more vio­lence and chaos for Balochis­tan in the days to come.