By:Farhatullah Babar
Shahtoon's cartoon in The News (April 14) showing a man taking aim at his own shadow says it all. The government's response to the insurgency in Balochistan by banning the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) is seriously flawed. Without concrete knowledge about what BLA is? its sponsors, how it is funded and what its command and control structure is, pointing a gun towards it is like aiming at the shadow.
Almost every day a bomb or two are set off in the province destroying something. The house of chief minister has been attacked with mortars. Even the army chief General Musharraf has been the target of an unsuccessful attack. Army helicopters carrying senior commanders have been fired upon. People in Dera Bugti have fled their homes. Security forces have employed gunship helicopters. In a letter to Condoleezza Rice Congressman Tom Tancredo calls it 'disturbing military operation'.
If not sustained by the people as a whole, an insurgency like this must be commanded by an organisation possessing physical structures and identifiable controllers. True, that the responsibility for most of the acts of sabotage is promptly taken by the Baloch Liberation Army through anonymous calls to newspaper offices but the truth is that no such organisation formally exists at all. Where is the face, the organisational structure or its controllers?
Take any one of the three most defiant sardars. Ataullah Mengal denounces construction of military cantonments in the province but has refrained from asking BLA to take up arms. Khair Buksh Marri is defiant but does not own its exploits. From the hideouts of his Tora Bora type caves Bugti gives press interviews but does not talk of the BLA even as he appeals the Baloch to rise for their right. The Balochistan chief minister says that there is no such thing as BLA. According to him there are only three to four thousand youth who create problems for the government. So where is the BLA that has been banned?
A great danger in banning a shadowy outfit without firm knowledge is that it gives license to the security forces to shoot at will in the name of sorting out the BLA. When shadows elude them the frustrated agencies will tend to link genuine nationalist political parties to the shadows. It is stumbling into a minefield.
The aim should be to end acts of sabotage, not merely to create an illusory organisation and ban it. How exactly will banning the BLA translate into ending the violence in the province has not been explained.
There is political vacuum in the province. As the insurgents do not have a visible face there can be no political dialogue with them. The provincial cabinet and assembly have been incapacitated by the militarization of the state and made irrelevant to any negotiated political settlement. On October 18, 2003 the Provincial Assembly adopted a unanimous resolution asking the federal government not to build cantonments in Gwadar and Dera Bugti. Without negotiation it was given a shut up call as the military went ahead with building cantonments. Never before the doors of political dialogue were slammed so rudely even on those who were propped up by the regime itself. The black hole of political vacuum thus created has sucked in extremists, be they the BLA or the Sardars or the jobless youth or even foreign agents.
Islamabad has sought to fill the political vacuum through the governor, the corps commander and the IG Frontier Corps who all depend on the advice of intelligence agencies. Their response to insurgency is undertaking development projects, announcing creation of real or imaginary jobs and supporting with arms the tribal and political opponents of the rebellious sardars.
Thus the Kalpar Bugtis expelled by Akbar Khan Bugti a decade ago from their homes were brought back under the shadows of state's guns. True, that the ouster of Kalpars was unjustified and they have a right to return to their own homeland. But propping up the opponents of the sardars with the help of state's might without preparing the political ground for it is sowing the seeds of a civil war.
It is an imperial power's approach towards a conquered territory to mistakenly take development with genuine autonomy and peoples' participation. It is the approach of a conquering army to subdue the local opposition by planting local internal resistance and making them fight. It is playing with fire.
Government spokesman Shaikh Rashid boasts that time for negotiations with the sardars is long past. His threat to fight to the finish is greeted with a chilling call by Mr Bugti to the Baloch youth through pamphlets to take up arms. Home Minister Aftab Sherpao responsible for controlling insurgency was realistic when he confessed in the cabinet meeting that he could not say how long will the insurgency last.
We must understand that decisions taken by a few in a political vacuum are like building castles on sandy foundations. Islamabad must also understand that the strategic issue to be addressed is the political rights of the people and not the so called development.
The bipartisan Parliamentary Committee on Balochistan set up last year identified the political issues thus: 'until the conclusion of political dialogue the construction of cantonments be held in abeyance', and also 'the acquisition of vast land for housing and commercial purposes is totally unjustified as well as bringing a bad name to the image of the Armed Forces'.
In the view of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan that political issues to be addressed are demilitarising the province in accordance with a time bound plan and dismantling of unnecessary check points warning also against 'stoking inter tribal feuds and arming militias'.
But Islamabad has done just the opposite. It is now chasing ghosts. By slamming the doors on political dialogue it has played into the hands of insurgents. Within two days of banning the BLA the shadows struck in Nishtar Park in Karachi. Have we sown the seeds of anarchy?
The writer is a former member of the Senate
Email: drkhshan@isb.comsats.net.p
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2006-daily/19-04-2006/oped/o3.htm |
