03/01/2006
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The glass of the windows of the small house where we staying rattles due to the
ear-splitting din that resounds every morning in the Quetta skies. The rumble
is so loud that it even covers the chanting of the muezzin at the nearby mosque.
“They are the Mirages of the PAF, the Pakistani Air Force, taking off from the
air base to go bomb the guerrillas’ positions in the mountains of Dera Bugti and
Kholu,” said Zeeshan as he served us a breakfast of black tea with milk and scrambled
eggs.
The history of a conflict that has lasted sixty years. “It was then that the Punjabs who ruled the newborn Islamic state decided to
annex our region with the force of weapons. The region is very rich in natural
resources (gas, oil and precious minerals) and strategic owing to its long coastline
on the Arabian Sea, right in front of the seaways of Middle Eastern oil,” explained
Surat Khan Marri, an elderly intellectual and writer who lives in Quetta and who
has always fought for Balucistan’s independence. “We tried to make a stand, but
it was of no use. Our land was subjected to a regime of military occupation and
a colonial type of indiscriminate exploitation. In the 1950s the gas of the Sui
deposit started flowing toward the rich Punjab, without giving us anything in
exchange. Balucistan was plundered of its riches, remaining a poor, backward region
without infrastructures or any sort of social services. The local population was
not even given jobs at the new plants. All of the qualified jobs were given to
Punjabi ‘colonists’. All that was left for us were the jobs of drivers, caretakers
and mechanics. This situation created a nationalist and independence feeling amongst
the people of Balucistan, and the first revolts organised by the chiefs of the
Marri and Bugti tribes, those of the
regions surrounding Sui, started, explained Marri as he sipped his tea with milk.
In the 1950s and ‘60s the powerful Pakistani army had no difficulty in stamping
out the rising Balucistan nationalist guerrilla warfare. But things changed in
the 1970s. The Soviet Union was interested in the birth of a friendly Balucistan
state that would give Moscow access to the ‘warm waters’. Not to mention India,
which is always ready to weaken its historical enemy. With their help, our movement
gained strength. But Pakistan and the United States did not sit back and watch.
They unleashed total war against us. They bombed our villages with napalm, killing
thousands of civilians. Nobody remembers that war because it was shamelessly censured
by the western mass media. In those days Henry Kissinger reached the point of
saying, ‘I would not recognise the existence of the Balucistan issue even if it
hit me straight in the face.’ Since then the situation here in Balucistan has
only worsened. The government has started up new exploitation projects, has built
barracks and militarized the territory. It has started persecuting Balucistan
activists, thousands of whom have simply vanished in thin air. In the 1980s and
‘90s our movement was too weak to continue the armed struggle, so we chose the
path of political and trade union combat. We have tried the route of non-violent
protest. We have tried to negotiate with Musharraf’s military regime, but have
not obtained anything, only repression and new provocations. Until the word returned
to weapons.”
The new break-out of armed conflict after thirty years of truce. In order to understand how and why they went back to fighting after almost thirty
years of relative peace, we went to see Yar Jaan Badini, editor of the weekly
Balochistan Today, a publication that supports the cause of the Balucistan people.
The right-hand man of the guerrilla leader speaks out. Confirming the plight is Agha Shahid Bugti, spokesman of Nawab Adbar Bugti, leader
of the independence movement and chief guerrilla fighter. “They are using the
air force, combat helicopters, tanks and heavy artillery against us. All of the
military technology the Americans gave Musharraf to fight al Qaeda is being used against us, killing men, elderly people, women and children. We
have found bodies burned in such a way as to think they are using incendiary bombs:
napalm, phosphorous and who knows what. To make you grasp the situation, I want
to tell you a story that recently occurred. On January 11 a military lorry of
the Frontier Corps blew up on a mine close to the tiny village of Pattarnala.
Three soldiers who were seriously injured died during the night. Half an hour
later their comrades decided to take revenge by arresting all of the adult men
they could find in Pattarnala, twelve in all. The next morning the national television
network announced that twelve ‘unbelievers’ had died in combat. The women of the
village immediately went to the Frontier Corps fort to ask for the bodies of their
men. But they were not even allowed to enter. They tried the next day, with the
same result. So on January 14 two elderly men of the village went to the fort,
but they did not return. The following day the soldiers returned the twelve bodies
plus those of the two elderly men, all killed with a close-range shot to the head.
Executed! This gives you an idea of what is happening.”
“The Balucistan issue can be solved only with the end of the dictatorship in
Pakistan.” Kachkol Ali is the leader of the Balucistan nationalist opposition party at the
Provincial Parliament of Balucistan. “As long as Pakistan is governed by a military
dictator, as long as the army is in power, it will be impossible to establish
any dialogue with the authorities since as far as soldiers are concerned, there
is only one way to solve problems: by force. The demands of the people of Balucistan
could be solved simply by implementing Pakistan’s federal constitution of 1973,
which today is a dead letter in view of the fact that federalism is absolutely
incompatible with a military regime, which by its nature conceives only a centralistic
organisation of power. So we always go back there: the real obstacle is the military
dictatorship. Only a civil and democratic government can solve the Balucistan
issue. That is why we are asking for the support of the West, of the European
Union and above all of the United States. Not in the name of ideal abstract terms.
We are not naïve, and we know that the Americans do not take action to promote
democracy or a people’s right to self-determination. We appeal to their own interests,
since Musharraf’s regime is not only doing nothing to fight terrorism, but the
Chinese Gwadar project – which will be not only a trade port, but also a military
port – will give Beijing’s regime the chance to position its new war fleet in
the ‘warm’ and oil-bearing waters of the Arabian Sea. I don’t think this suits
Washington.”
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Stories from western Pakistan, where the war between the Balucistan people supporting independence and the government has reignited
From our correspondent
Enrico Piovesana
The glass of the windows of the small house where we staying rattles due to the
ear-splitting din that resounds every morning in the Quetta skies. The rumble
is so loud that it even covers the chanting of the muezzin at the nearby mosque.
“They are the Mirages of the PAF, the Pakistani Air Force, taking off from the
air base to go bomb the guerrillas’ positions in the mountains of Dera Bugti and
Kholu,” said Zeeshan as he served us a breakfast of black tea with milk and scrambled
eggs.Since December a new war that nobody seems to have noticed is being fought in
Pakistan, a war that sets the powerful army of Islamabad against the picturesque
tribal guerrillas of Balucistan. They wear turbans, sport long beards, have make-up
on their eyes and sling Kalashnikovs over their shoulders. They prey to Allah,
but are neither Talibans nor Islamic fundamentalists. Maybe that is why the world’s
media has not taken an interest in them. They write in Arabic characters, but
speak a language similar to that of the Kurds, a people with whom they share not
only remote origins, but also the fate of a ‘stateless nation’ divided by borders
mapped out by British colonialists. The people of Balucistan, shepherds and farmers,
live in western Iran, in the far south of Afghanistan and above all here in the
desert regions of western Pakistan, the historic centre of their tribal kingdom
that basically remained independent until the birth of Pakistan in 1947.
The history of a conflict that has lasted sixty years. “It was then that the Punjabs who ruled the newborn Islamic state decided to
annex our region with the force of weapons. The region is very rich in natural
resources (gas, oil and precious minerals) and strategic owing to its long coastline
on the Arabian Sea, right in front of the seaways of Middle Eastern oil,” explained
Surat Khan Marri, an elderly intellectual and writer who lives in Quetta and who
has always fought for Balucistan’s independence. “We tried to make a stand, but
it was of no use. Our land was subjected to a regime of military occupation and
a colonial type of indiscriminate exploitation. In the 1950s the gas of the Sui
deposit started flowing toward the rich Punjab, without giving us anything in
exchange. Balucistan was plundered of its riches, remaining a poor, backward region
without infrastructures or any sort of social services. The local population was
not even given jobs at the new plants. All of the qualified jobs were given to
Punjabi ‘colonists’. All that was left for us were the jobs of drivers, caretakers
and mechanics. This situation created a nationalist and independence feeling amongst
the people of Balucistan, and the first revolts organised by the chiefs of the
Marri and Bugti tribes, those of the
regions surrounding Sui, started, explained Marri as he sipped his tea with milk.
In the 1950s and ‘60s the powerful Pakistani army had no difficulty in stamping
out the rising Balucistan nationalist guerrilla warfare. But things changed in
the 1970s. The Soviet Union was interested in the birth of a friendly Balucistan
state that would give Moscow access to the ‘warm waters’. Not to mention India,
which is always ready to weaken its historical enemy. With their help, our movement
gained strength. But Pakistan and the United States did not sit back and watch.
They unleashed total war against us. They bombed our villages with napalm, killing
thousands of civilians. Nobody remembers that war because it was shamelessly censured
by the western mass media. In those days Henry Kissinger reached the point of
saying, ‘I would not recognise the existence of the Balucistan issue even if it
hit me straight in the face.’ Since then the situation here in Balucistan has
only worsened. The government has started up new exploitation projects, has built
barracks and militarized the territory. It has started persecuting Balucistan
activists, thousands of whom have simply vanished in thin air. In the 1980s and
‘90s our movement was too weak to continue the armed struggle, so we chose the
path of political and trade union combat. We have tried the route of non-violent
protest. We have tried to negotiate with Musharraf’s military regime, but have
not obtained anything, only repression and new provocations. Until the word returned
to weapons.”
The new break-out of armed conflict after thirty years of truce. In order to understand how and why they went back to fighting after almost thirty
years of relative peace, we went to see Yar Jaan Badini, editor of the weekly
Balochistan Today, a publication that supports the cause of the Balucistan people. “Over the past few years the government’s attitude has bcome increasingly aggressive
and provoking. The local work force employed at the Sui plants and in the other
so-called ‘development projects’ was sacked and replaced with Punjabi workers
brought in from Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. Strikes and protests followed,
duly ignored or repressed by the authorities. And so acts of sabotage against
the government gas pipelines began. To protect them, the government built three
new large military bases. And above all, work in collaboration with the Chinese
has begun for the huge Gwadar trade port on the Balucistan coast. Looking to the
future, this enormous project will create at least four million jobs, all set
aside for manpower coming from the Punjab. In 2004 the Balucistan parties asked
the government to dismantle the military bases and observe Pakistan’s federal
constitution, allowing our province to take part in the management and in the
profits of the local resource exploitation projects. But the
government did not want have anything to do with it. The straw that broke the
camel’s back was the sexual violence a local doctor, Shazia Khalid, suffered at
the hands of an army officer in January 2005. Based on the Balucistan code of
honour, the local tribes demanded that the man responsible be punished, but Musharraf
himself publicly defended the guilty soldier. This event is perfectly emblematic
of our situation: raped by the Punjabis with impunity. During the weeks that followed
attacks on the barracks and gas pipelines increased. That was until March, when
the army responded by bombing Dera Bugti with a shower of grenades, killing 72
people… mostly women and children… and injuring another 200. This did nothing
other than inflame the situation, which in the end exploded in December 2005 when
– in response to the launch of several rockets during a visit made by Musharraf
– the government ordered a wide-scale military attack in the regions where the
most combative Balucistan tribes, the Bugti and the Marri, operate. Since then
it has been all-out ware in the districts of Dera Bugti and Kholu. Already 300
deaths amongst the people of Balucistan and dozens of soldiers have been recorded,
and the situation seems to be getting worse day by day.”
government did not want have anything to do with it. The straw that broke the
camel’s back was the sexual violence a local doctor, Shazia Khalid, suffered at
the hands of an army officer in January 2005. Based on the Balucistan code of
honour, the local tribes demanded that the man responsible be punished, but Musharraf
himself publicly defended the guilty soldier. This event is perfectly emblematic
of our situation: raped by the Punjabis with impunity. During the weeks that followed
attacks on the barracks and gas pipelines increased. That was until March, when
the army responded by bombing Dera Bugti with a shower of grenades, killing 72
people… mostly women and children… and injuring another 200. This did nothing
other than inflame the situation, which in the end exploded in December 2005 when
– in response to the launch of several rockets during a visit made by Musharraf
– the government ordered a wide-scale military attack in the regions where the
most combative Balucistan tribes, the Bugti and the Marri, operate. Since then
it has been all-out ware in the districts of Dera Bugti and Kholu. Already 300
deaths amongst the people of Balucistan and dozens of soldiers have been recorded,
and the situation seems to be getting worse day by day.” The right-hand man of the guerrilla leader speaks out. Confirming the plight is Agha Shahid Bugti, spokesman of Nawab Adbar Bugti, leader
of the independence movement and chief guerrilla fighter. “They are using the
air force, combat helicopters, tanks and heavy artillery against us. All of the
military technology the Americans gave Musharraf to fight al Qaeda is being used against us, killing men, elderly people, women and children. We
have found bodies burned in such a way as to think they are using incendiary bombs:
napalm, phosphorous and who knows what. To make you grasp the situation, I want
to tell you a story that recently occurred. On January 11 a military lorry of
the Frontier Corps blew up on a mine close to the tiny village of Pattarnala.
Three soldiers who were seriously injured died during the night. Half an hour
later their comrades decided to take revenge by arresting all of the adult men
they could find in Pattarnala, twelve in all. The next morning the national television
network announced that twelve ‘unbelievers’ had died in combat. The women of the
village immediately went to the Frontier Corps fort to ask for the bodies of their
men. But they were not even allowed to enter. They tried the next day, with the
same result. So on January 14 two elderly men of the village went to the fort,
but they did not return. The following day the soldiers returned the twelve bodies
plus those of the two elderly men, all killed with a close-range shot to the head.
Executed! This gives you an idea of what is happening.” “The Balucistan issue can be solved only with the end of the dictatorship in
Pakistan.” Kachkol Ali is the leader of the Balucistan nationalist opposition party at the
Provincial Parliament of Balucistan. “As long as Pakistan is governed by a military
dictator, as long as the army is in power, it will be impossible to establish
any dialogue with the authorities since as far as soldiers are concerned, there
is only one way to solve problems: by force. The demands of the people of Balucistan
could be solved simply by implementing Pakistan’s federal constitution of 1973,
which today is a dead letter in view of the fact that federalism is absolutely
incompatible with a military regime, which by its nature conceives only a centralistic
organisation of power. So we always go back there: the real obstacle is the military
dictatorship. Only a civil and democratic government can solve the Balucistan
issue. That is why we are asking for the support of the West, of the European
Union and above all of the United States. Not in the name of ideal abstract terms.
We are not naïve, and we know that the Americans do not take action to promote
democracy or a people’s right to self-determination. We appeal to their own interests,
since Musharraf’s regime is not only doing nothing to fight terrorism, but the
Chinese Gwadar project – which will be not only a trade port, but also a military
port – will give Beijing’s regime the chance to position its new war fleet in
the ‘warm’ and oil-bearing waters of the Arabian Sea. I don’t think this suits
Washington.”
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