Baloch Unrest has No Foreign Support: Study

WASHINGTON: “In the absence of foreign support, which does not appear imminent, the Baloch movement cannot prevail over a determined central government with obviously superior military strength” but still “can have a considerable nuisance value”, according to a new report.

The report – Pakistan: a resurgence of Baloch nationalism – has been written by Frederic Grare, a French diplomat who recently served in Pakistan and also spent four years in New Delhi. It was released on Friday by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Grare writes: “The risk of a prolonged guerrilla movement in Balochistan is quite real. Most observers concur that Baloch nationalists are raising the stakes to strengthen their negotiating position vis-à-vis the central government. Movement leaders have made it known that they would be satisfied with a generous version of autonomy. In the absence of their winning autonomy, however, the medium- and long-term consequences of the struggle for independence cannot be predicted today. The outbreak of another civil war in Balochistan between the nationalists and the Pakistan Army cannot be ruled out if the minimum demands of the Baloch are not met.”

According to the writer, almost six decades of intermittent conflict have given rise to a deep feeling of mistrust toward the central government. The Baloch, he maintains, will not forget General Pervez Musharraf’s recent promises and the “insults” hurled from time to time at certain nationalist leaders. The projects that were trumpeted as the means to Balochistan’s development and integration have so far led only to the advance of the Pakistani military in the province, accompanied by the removal of the local population from their lands and by an intense speculation that benefits only the army and its “henchmen”.

Baloch nationalism, he argues, is a reality that Islamabad cannot pretend to ignore forever or co-opt by making promises of development that are rarely kept. For the moment, with little certainty about the conclusion of an agreement between the central government and the nationalist leaders, the province is likely to enter a new phase of violence with long-term consequences that are difficult to predict. “This conflict could be used in Pakistan and elsewhere as a weapon against the government. Such a prospect would affect not only Pakistan but possibly all its neighbours. It is ultimately Islamabad that must decide whether Balochistan will become its Achilles’ heel,” he writes.

Grare maintains that three separate but linked issues bear on Balochistan today: the national question, the role of the army and the use of Islamism. The national question, he argues, is central. The four provinces of Pakistan, 58 years after independence, still reflect ethnic divisions that the central government neither fully accommodates nor can eliminate. “The elite, in particular the army elite, has never recognised ethnic identities. From Ayub Khan to Pervez Musharraf, the army elite has always tried to promote a united Pakistan,” he points out. Cognisant of their province’s strategic and economic importance, he argues, the Baloch have been all the more resentful of the military’s “arrogance and contempt”. Finally, he writes, the Pakistan Army exercises its power by “manipulating” Islam to weaken Baloch nationalism and, even more important, to conceal the real nature of the Baloch problem from the outside world. “The Baloch crisis is not just the unintended outcome of more or less appropriate decisions. The crisis epitomises the army’s mode of governance and its relation with Pakistan’s citizens and world public opinion,” he adds.

Grare writes that the present crisis in Balochistan was provoked, ironically, by the central government’s attempt to develop this backward area by undertaking a series of large projects. Instead of cheering these projects, the Baloch, faced with slowing population growth, responded with fear that they would be dispossessed of their land and resources and of their distinct identity. In addition, three fundamental issues are fuelling this crisis: expropriation, marginalisation, and dispossession. Balochistan has failed to benefit from its own natural gas deposits, he notes. He points out that the Baloch have had only a small role in the construction of Gwadar port, a project entirely under the control of the central government. The project will benefit the people of Balochistan only if a massive effort is undertaken to train and recruit local residents and if the port is linked with the rest of Balochistan, which is “certainly not the case at the present time”.