The Balochistan predicament

An acid test awaits Malik and Nawaz

There are problems in Balochistan that Chief Minister Abdul Malik Baloch can tackle himself. There are other problems that can be resolved if the federal government lends him full support. There are still others which can only be dealt with by the federal government.

Sardar Aslam Raisani was a corrupt politician and an absentee chief minister who should never have been given the charge of the province. He owed the office to the PPP and considered himself accountable to Asif Zardari rather than the people of Balochistan. Abdul Malik Baloch is a middle class politician who has risen from the ranks of student activists and has worked hard to reach the provincial legislature. He has been thrice elected to the Balochistan Assembly and has been a provincial minister. He is a whole time politician with sizable political following and administrative experience. His appointment as CM has led many to hope for a turnaround in the province.

Malik knows that his political existence depends on delivering. His voters expect him to resolve the numerous and pressing problems of the province. His rivals in the nationalist circles have already started insinuating that he will not be able to fulfill his promises. The Baloch extremists who have taken up guns maintain that the Punjab dominated establishment will never allow the Baloch to run their own province with maximum autonomy or let the Baloch benefit from the resources of their province. The Baloch separatists would go to any extreme to foil Malik’s attempts to provide relief to the people of Balochistan. The new CM has to work overtime to prove that democracy can help people of get their long denied rights.

Hopefully Malik would make significant headway in improving the law and order situation. For this, the police needs to be made more efficient so that it is able to replace the highly unpopular FC –which should be sent back to the border at the earliest. One expects the new administration to stop kidnappings for ransom, undertaken among other criminals by some of the tribal dignitaries themselves. He has also to stop carrying of weapons and the use of vehicles with tinted glasses in Quetta for forced disappearances and kidnappings.

One expects a better use of the funds available to the province. Instead of distributing them among the ministers for fictitious development, these have to be spent now on the uplift of the common man, on education, manpower training, health facilities and projects that create jobs. Initially a fair amount will have to be diverted to the rehabilitation of hundreds of families displaced on account of military/FC operations in Dera Bugti and Marri area. Similarly more funds would be required to better equip the police. If the policy is pursued efficiently, the common man will find a visible improvement in his life. This alone can wean him away from the lure of the armed struggle against the state.

To be able to maintain public support, the phenomenon of enforced disappearances, torture and dumping of bodies has to be brought to an end at the earliest. Its continuation would discredit the new government. It is here that the CM will need full and active cooperation from the federal government. The number of the persons made to disappear is staggering. According to Nasrullah Baloch, the chairperson of the ‘Voice for Baloch Missing Persons’, there are 23,000 registered cases of the sort.

Who has forcibly separated all these people from their families in violation of law? In June 2012, a three-member Supreme Court bench issued an interim order holding Frontier Corps (FC) responsible for the disappearances across the province. The order stated that the helplessness of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) was against the expectations, while it was also found that the agencies, especially the FC, were involved in disappearances.

It suited the Raisani administration to maintain the policy of “see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil”. This helped him concentrate on misappropriating public funds. Raisani reconciled with whatever was going on with the blessings of the federal government. A man whose political career depends on putting an end to disappearances, dumping of mutilated dead bodies and recovery of those made to disappear cannot afford to ignore incidents of the sort. Unless the federal government persuades the security establishment to cooperate with the Balochistan government, it is bound to be confronted by the new CM who has vowed to resign if he failed to put an end to the outrage.

Will Nawaz Sharif’s government risk confrontation with the hawks in the security establishment? The decision to appoint the National Party chief as CM and a nominee of the PkMAP as governor indicates that Nawaz has an inkling of what needs to be done. Enjoying a solid mandate, he should be in a position to persuade or pressurize those behind the gruesome activities to put a stop to them. He also needs to tell them to release those who have been forcibly taken away. In case anyone has committed a crime he should be charged in accordance with law and taken to the court. It remains to be seen however if Nawaz is willing to use his authority. Unless he puts his weight behind the new CM, the sincerity of the PML-N in resolving the issue of Balochistan is liable to be questioned. Nawaz would subsequently be accused of missing the last chance of saving Balochistan.

The second source of violence and sabotage are the Baloch separatist groups that sprang up in the wake of Akbar Bugti’s killing. They have targeted Baloch nationalists for supporting mainstream politics as well as people from other provinces including Punjab, Pushtun labourers working in coal mines or constructing roads, police and FC personnel. They have attacked government installations, blown up railway tracks and power pylons. There is a need to hold talks with them with the aim to persuade them to join the mainstream politics to seek the redressal of whatever grievances they have. The Baloch nationalist leadership is best qualified to hold talks with the separatists. In case the new government in Quetta succeeds in introducing a better governance, improving the livelihood of the people and giving them a feeling of participation in running their own province, this would take much of the wind out of the sails of the separatists.

The third source of lawlessness and bloodshed in the province are the terrorist networks with a countrywide reach. These include TTP which has mainly targeted the ANP and the law enforcement agencies in the province. Then there is the LeJ and other sectarian terrorists who continue the ethnic cleansing of the Hazara Shia community in Quetta. These terrorist networks have killed thousands of people all over the country during the last ten years. It is time the federal government decides how to deal with them. No provincial government can eliminate them on its own.

The writer is a political analyst and a former academic.