Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
At present the Baloch naturally ask the question: an amnesty to what end? They say that they were in amnesty, i.e. not at war, before they started resisting the injustices and if they had opted to remain acquiescent to the injustices there would not have arisen a need to fight and consequently of an amnesty
Opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on December 7, opening the projected three-day debate in a joint sitting of the National Assembly and the Senate, demanded an urgent dialogue with the Baloch leadership not represented in parliament or not consulted yet, as well as dissidents who took up arms after granting them what he called a ‘meaningful amnesty’.
The word ‘amnesty’ conjures up different meanings in the minds of different people, depending on the past experiences and future consequences of it for them. For the Baloch the word amnesty creates horrendous images because it was used as weapon of war with the intent of annihilating their leadership and destroying their struggle.
The Baloch have a bitter past experience of accepting amnesties. Soon after Kalat was forcibly annexed to Pakistan in March 1948, Shahzada Abdul Karim with his companions went into the mountains to resist this injustice. He went to Afghanistan but disappointed by the lack of support returned to continue the resistance. He was then offered amnesty with the assurances that their demands would be met but was then bundled off to jail along with many of his comrades and languished there for years.
After the second unjust and illegal assault on Kalat, October 6, 1958, once again on false pretences and premises, Nawab Nauroz Khan Zarakzai, a septuagenarian, took up arms and led the Baloch resistance. On May 19, 1959 he along with his fighters accepted the amnesty offer after the authorities promised on the Holy Quran that his demands would be met. But instead they were shifted to the Quetta cantonment and tried by a special military court and sentenced on July 7, 1960.
The death sentences were carried out on July 15, 1960 at Sukkur and Hyderabad Central Jails simultaneously. The Nawab’s eldest son Battay Khan Zarakzai, along with Sabzal Khan Zarakzai and Ghulam Rasool Nechari were hanged at Sukkur while Jam Jamal Khan Zehri, Masti Khan Musiyani, Wali Mohammad Zarakzai, and Bahawal Khan Musiyani were hanged at Hyderabad. The transportation to Balochistan of those martyred at Hyderabad was arranged by my paternal uncle Mir Rasool Baksh Talpur, that too at the time when Ayub Khan and his Martial Law had sown fear in the people’s hearts. Nawab Nauroz and his minor son Mir Jalal Khan were imprisoned for life. I had the honour of meeting him on Eid day in 1962 in Hyderabad jail. Nawab Saab himself died in prison on December 25, 1965.
These bitter memories are etched on the psyche of the Baloch and they will approach any proffered amnesty with a lot of caution and doubt. They will not be persuaded into acceptance of something that they pathologically distrust.
The Zia amnesty too needs to be touched upon because it followed a sustained and brutal campaign against the Baloch unleashed by Z A Bhutto in 1973-1977 forcing the people to seek safety in Afghanistan. I too had trekked to Afghanistan along with some Marri Baloch families in June 1978 to escape persecution, when this amnesty was announced. Most of the leaders there, i.e. Mehrullah Mengal, Aslam Gichki, Khair Jan and others opted to avail the opportunity.
Mir Hazar Khan Marri, the educated cadre and tribesmen unanimously decided not to return. It was decided not to accept the offer because the situation had not changed in spite of all the sacrifices and it would have been pointless to return without achieving significant rights. It should be remembered that the tribes and fighters of the leaders who opted to return were not in Afghanistan while hundreds of Marri families had taken refuge in Kandahar and Zabul provinces during the fighting in Balochistan.
At present the Baloch naturally ask the question: an amnesty to what end? They say that they were in amnesty, i.e. not at war, before they started resisting the injustices and if they had opted to remain acquiescent to the injustices there would not have arisen a need to fight and consequently of an amnesty. They also realise that by amnesty the government means that they surrender their right to struggle and accept living in the pre-struggle unjust status quo.
The groups that may be offered amnesty rue their folly that they committed in September last year by declaring a unilateral ceasefire. They ended their ceasefire in January this year with an attack on a train after realising that the government was not at all serious about resolution of the problems and was making empty promises to buy time. Nationalist leaders whose influence and charisma carries weight in the context of the Baloch struggle were disappointed at the unilateral ceasefire and had expressed their reservations in unequivocal terms.
There are indications and rumours that government functionaries are in touch with the political leadership and in some cases also the leaders of fighting groups, but nothing meaningful can be achieved unless the political leadership, the fighters and the people whose voice they are, be on board, otherwise, there can be no lasting peace. Remember the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland; it became possible only when the Irish Republican Army (IRA) agreed to decommission its weapons on persuasion of Sinn Fein. Without the IRA accepting the political leadership of the Sinn Fein, there would have been no agreement and yet the Provisional IRA emerged.
There is almost pathological distrust of the intentions of the government among common people which has progressively increased and is not without reason. Nawab Akbar Bugti was relentlessly hounded and killed, Nawabzada Balaach was martyred, and then we saw the Baloch National Movement (BNM) Chairman, Ghulam Mohammad Baloch, Lala Muneer Baloch and Sher Mohammad Baloch of the Baloch Republican Party brutally murdered in Turbat in April, and after them Rasool Baksh Mengal in August. These last four murders came after the President had visited Quetta in March and assured the people about a change of attitudes.
At best any amnesty offer, of which formal and final shape is yet to come like the package, faces a veto from the militant groups, political leaders and people. The underlying reason being that the Baloch do not think of themselves as having committed any wrong while struggling for the rights for which they are being punished and should seek forgiveness for that supposed transgression and submissively accept whatever the state thinks is right for them.
There is little doubt that many will blame the Baloch for intransigence for not accepting the package and amnesty, but it would not be out of place to mention that it was the intransigence and inflexibility of the state, which foolishly squandered the unlimited goodwill that was at its disposal in the initial years after partition. The attitudes have gradually hardened and more so since Musharraf started the latest round of operations. Much more than flowery phrased packages and amnesties will be needed to convince the Baloch.
Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur has an association with the Baloch rights movement going back to the early 1970s. He can be contacted at mmatalpur@gmail.com
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