Murky Balochistan

Over the weekend there was this report from Balochistan:

Some 600 rebel tribesmen have surrendered to the authorities in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan, a government spokesman said on Sunday.

The fighters, led by three commanders, agreed to lay down their weapons at a parley with Baluchistan's Home Minister Shoaib Nausherwani in Dera Bugti district on Saturday.

Khan Mohammad Masoori, one of the commanders, pledged to halt attacks on government installations as his men handed over AK-47 rifles, machineguns, rocket launchers and mortars in Baker town, 400 km northeast of Quetta, officials said.

Baluch government officials hoped the fighters' decision to stop fighting would sound the death knell for a revolt led by tribal chieftain Nawab Akbar Bugti.

"It is a big success for the government and setback for the rebels," Raziq Bugti, a spokesman for the Baluch government in Quetta, told Reuters. "The Bugti chapter has almost been closed now and militancy won't come back."

The Bugti tribe is one of the main tribes in Balochistan, and it would be a significant development if hundreds of fighters turned in their weapons.

However, this is being disputed.

Armed tribesmen fighting the government in Dera Bugti have spurned official claims that tribal leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti and his allies have deserted their positions and taken refuge elsewhere.

“The Nawab is still there and bravely fighting against forces engaged in constant bombing and shelling,” said Wadera Alam Khan, spokesman of the tribal fighters, while calling from an unknown place via satellite phone. He said the government was losing its war against the tribesmen and had thus been driven to “baseless propaganda”. He said that not more than 35 people had surrendered before the government in an official ceremony at Bakad area. Khan said that helicopters had continued shelling and bombarding Paylawag and Kanza on Sunday. “They also destroyed some 40 empty houses belonging to local people,” he said.

The spokesman said that the militants’ were getting stronger and gaining more popularity among the Baloch youths. As many as 40 young men had decided to join the armed struggle and fight for the “Baloch national struggle”, he said.

It is certainly in Pakistan's interest to give the impression that the independence movement is sputtering out. That's why such reports should be verified before being taken at face value. Also, Balochs that work with the Pakistani government are not especially appreciated by those in the independence movement. From the GoB Exile blog:

On June 6th, 2006, during a political speech at Meezaan Chowk in Quetta, Mehmood Khan Achakzai, an ethnic Pashtun politician, called upon the Baloch people and said, “Any Baloch who does not support His Greatnesses Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti Sahib and Nawab Khair Buksh Marri Sahib – especially during the present crisis in Balochistan – is a ‘Bay Ghairat’ (one without any honor).”

The Pakistani military dictatorship of General Pervez Musharraf has systematically used the names of Baloch (those who are loyal to the occupying forces) in their media assault on the Baloch nation. These loyalists appear out of nowhere and start making ridiculous statements against the “Baloch War of Independence”, Baloch freedom fighters, and Baloch nationalist leaders. However, there are also notable “Baloch Loyalists” such as Jam Mohammad Yousaf, Zubaida Jalal and many more who continue to batter the Baloch struggle for freedom.

The ongoing “Baloch War of Independence” is a very important moment in the history of Balochistan. This is an event that has drawn a clear-cut line between those who support the sovereignty of Balochistan as a country, and those who want the Baloch nation to continue to live as slaves of the occupying forces of Iran and Pakistan. In other words, this division is between “Baloch Nationalist” and “Baloch Loyalist”.

As a sign of what the Pakistani government (or intelligence service) may be capable of, over the weekend there was also a report of an assassination attempt against Senator Sana Baloch.

Unconfirmed reports from London and US say that there was an attempt on Baloch leader Senator Sanaullah Baloch in London . When IntelliBriefs contacted Dr.Wahid Baloch , President of Baloch Society of North America , said that he spoke with Mr.Sana Baloch and confirmed the news . According to Dr.Wahid " some people of Pakistani origin threw a home made bomb on Mr.Sana Baloch and Mr.Mumtaz Bhutto as they were leaving the Third world Solidarity conference in London, to assassinate him in the daylight."

The Senator has been a voice for independent-minded Balochs in Pakistan's government, and perhaps he is becoming too much of a thorn in Pakistan's side. Senator Baloch participated (from afar) in the panel discussion I blogged about here.

No less serious, there were also reports that two of the Senator's brothers were picked up in Quetta. The Daily Times says (same link as above):

Meanwhile, a Balochistan National Party (BNP) spokesman said on Sunday that two brothers of BNP Information Secretary Senator Sanaullah Baloch, Haji Abdullah and Sami Baloch, had been “picked up by secret agency personnel” from Quetta airport. “It’s regrettable that more than 4,000 people are currently being held by intelligence agencies. The courts must taken action against this phenomenon and bring an end to the trend of mysterious disappearances,” the spokesperson said.

If element in Pakistan are putting such extreme pressure on the Senator, I am inclined to believe they are concerned about the ongoing independence movement, and reports of mass surrenders are probably not true.

Two Baloch leaders were put under house arrest.

The law enforcement agencies put two prominent members of the Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP), which is headed by Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, under house arrest on Sunday.

Security forces have been deployed at the residences of Senator Agha Shahid Bugti, JWP secretary general, and Humayun Khan Marri, JWP provincial president.

“I have been kept under house arrest since this morning,” Senator Bugti told Daily Times via telephone. He said that Hamayun Khan Marri was also under house arrest.

“Our house arrest comes only two days after the kidnapping of my brother Bilal Bugti and another JWP activist Murtaza Bugti in Karachi. This is an illegal and unconstitutional action which we strongly condemn,” he added. Law enforcement personnel deployed at the residences of the JWP members said they had orders to restrict the movement of the two Baloch leaders. “We will stay here until we are ordered to leave,” one guard said.

As for why Bugti tribesmen might want to keep fighting, consider this story from Dawn:

Fifty-something Fateh Ali says he is too proud a Baloch to cry over the death of a child in public. Yet he struggles to hold back his tears as he recalls how his young daughter was killed when army helicopter gunships strafed the suburbs of Dera Bugti one chilly night last December in an operation that was ostensibly meant to target militants engaged in anti-state guerilla warfare.

“My girl had just had her evening meal when she was hit by shrapnel from one of the many bombs dropped by the army helicopters that hovered over our mud-brick huts near Haft Wali for hours that night. The troops who took part in the operation must have known full well that they were attacking a civilian settlement unable to return fire,” he says, clenching his fists in helpless anger. “I wish I had the means to take revenge.”

Ali now lives with hundred-odd Bugti tribesmen on desolate farmland irrigated by the Pat Feeder canal, lined with eucalyptus and acacia trees, in Jafarabad.

With womenfolk confined to an improvised thatched hut, the men, with long-barreled rifles slung over their shoulders, lazily take turns to graze whatever cattle they are left with.

“The army helicopters destroyed our standing wheat crops. They also destroyed the grain stored from last year’s crop.

We fled the area in such haste that we left behind the bodies of our near and dear ones unburied. Our children are not going to school anymore and young, able-bodied members of our tribe, who were previously employed, are constantly harried by law-enforcement agencies,” says Ali Nawaz.

Showing remarkable courage in the face of adversity, these displaced tribesmen say they still look up to Nawab Akbar Bugti with unimpaired loyalty.

Asked how they would have felt if the Nawab had mended fences with the establishment through negotiations and they would not have been dislodged from their ancestral towns, they give incensed looks and a curt reply: “No, the Nawab is a fighter.

“Like us, he is also suffering. And we will go back to Dera Bugti only when he returns to his house. We will win our war,” says Nawaz with the resolution of an armed warrior, although, by his own admission, his only worldly possession is a worn-out sheepskin water-container, known as the “khalli” in the vernacular.