EDITORIAL: Root causes of terrorism in Balochistan |
13.12.2004 |
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In a joint statement, President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz have taken serious note of the bomb blast in Quetta on Friday, saying that such cowardly acts would not deter the government?Ts efforts for progress and development. They also reiterated their resolve to bring Balochistan and other underdeveloped areas at par with the rest of the country. The press note said that ?othe government would not be deterred by such heinous acts, which are aimed at disturbing peace and harmony?. The Balochistan government has announced compensation to the 11 killed and the many wounded last Friday; it then swooped down on alleged Baloch nationalists and arrested 15 of them from various parts of the country. They are suspected of working for the so-called Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) that has claimed responsibility for the terrorist act.
Balochistan Police, intelligence agencies and the Frontier Corps have raided Quetta, Dera Murad Jamali, Jaffarabad, Naseerabad, Ziarat and Khuzdar as if they were acting on a plan of action decided before the attack in Quetta. They say they have also recovered ?oa dozen bombs with timers, 122 detonators, 11 Kalashnikovs and 3,052 bullets from them?. The police chief promised that he would improve the spying system and the Balochistan chief minister Jam Yousaf has expressed the quaint desire to have more bicycle stands set up in the city where each bike would be ?ochecked for explosives by special machines?. He woke up to this new stratagem after the five bomb attacks in Quetta recently in which bicycles were used. He said that there was a plan to register all bicycles in the city. ?oBicycle owners would not be taxed, but bikes would be registered to find out the owner?Ts name after such incidents!?
The trouble in Balochistan is a double whammy. As far as the 2002 general election is concerned Islamabad almost lost Balochistan to the MMA along with the NWFP. The JUI(F) in Quetta is as aggressive as the clerics in Peshawar but its rhetoric is somewhat muted because the Muslim League(Q) has 21 seats to the JUI?Ts 18 in the Balochistan assembly and rules in coalition with the MMA. There is hardly any consensus in the assembly while on ground the JUI?Ts passions for the Taliban sway it far more than its appreciation of the PML. On the other side, the Baloch nationalists are spearheaded by the nationalists of the other ?ooppressed nations of Pakistan? who are gathered under the banner of PONAM. These people don?Tt much like the clerics and find that the post-Afghanistan situation has given them a window of opportunity to express their barely hidden separatist reaction to what they think is decades of neglect and injustice.
No one will disagree that the Friday attack has to be condemned, but one has to draw a line where the police has gone around arresting the ?onationalists? within 24 hours as if they already knew who was behind the outrage. If that had been the case, why weren?Tt these people hauled up earlier? How did the police know within hours of the bomb blast where to find the explosives and timers, unless of course it first planted them there and then duly found them as a show of efficiency? That is why President Musharraf should not treat this as a law and order issue that can be resolved by the police or intelligence agencies or indeed even the military. Nor should he forget the statement he made in London only last week that terrorism could only be ended by addressing its root causes. We think that he has to apply the same kind of judgment when looking at the unrest in Balochistan. The 15 people caught will not be subjected to a treatment in the coming days that will not endear their families, friends and tribes to the federal government; nor would it make the task of Jam Yousaf any easier, finely balanced as he is between the power of the clergy and the sardars.
The ?ouplift? for the sake of which the 15 persons have lately been arrested has been too long coming. There is a development deficit that the centre can fill only by looking into the grievances of the common man, especially the one who barely survives in drought-stricken areas of the province. More importantly, the educated middle-class Baloch without a good job in the organs of the state or in industry is without a secure future and is therefore primed to succumb to the pull of angry nationalism. Too many ?odevelopment plans? have come and gone without making much difference in the lives of these people, not least because the NFC award allocating resources to the provinces was population-based and therefore unfair to a federal unit which is almost half of Pakistan physically but populated by only 5.3 million people. The Gwadar Port is entirely a non-Baloch project and not many forthcoming projects will distract the Baloch concern about two more army garrisons planned to be raised for the province. No wonder the state of loyalty among the people is comparable to that of South Waziristan where hardly anyone feels himself a part of Pakistan. That is why the president and the prime minister must think laterally on Balochistan and apply the ?oroot cause? method nearer home.
Daily times.com |
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