It is disturbing to hear news about missing persons in Balochistan and the reported US Congress Sub-Committee hearings on human rights violations in that province. I fail to understand that our former countrymen have not learnt any lessons that repression by military within their own country has only one side effect, it is insurgency, which is further cemented by this syndrome of “sort them out” that seems to be their solution to every problem.
For any nation, with varied culture and linguistic ethnicities, it is important that the state must never adopt, or be associated, with either religion or language. Imposing Urdu as national language on Bengali speaking majority was the first mistake, followed by One Unit, which effectively denied democratic majority to former East Pakistan, although Mohammadd Ali Jinnah, the founder, had very clearly elaborated that Pakistan will be a democratic welfare state, where every citizens enjoyed equal rights, equal opportunities without any discrimination as to caste, creed, faith or sex.
Those who frame Pakistan’s foreign policy need to understand that if they justify supporting US sponsored resolution in Security Council for intervention in Syria based on alleged human rights violations, they cannot then claim that similar allegations of human rights violations in Balochistan is an internal matter. The military which is only trained for a friend or foe situation can never be expected to resolve political issues.
The priority in Pakistan should shift to welfare, education, health and self-reliance, instead of welfare of a select elite like the paid civil or uniformed bureaucracy. Those holding dual nationalities can never be expected to deliver. Politicians in Pakistan are as much responsible as the British trained civil and khaki bureaucracy for failing to deliver.
MIAN JAMILUDIN AKHTAR
Dacca, Bangladesh
