Postscript
Husain Naqi
Coming to the current issue of bombings, there is a distinct difference in the government’s response to the bombings carried out by itself in Balochistan and the ones in Bajaur. It denies the bombing of tribal people in Marri and Bugti areas in troubled Balochistan by the armed forces, or the battles against militants whom the military authorities prefer to call fararis (absconders/fugitives). (The word actually means ’rebels’ in Balochi). In the case of the Bajaur bombings, it has held the US forces responsible for the attack and the killing of innocent women and children. It has apparently lodged a protest with the US authorities and called in the US Ambassador in Pakistan to the Foreign Office and handed over a protest note.
In Bajaur, reports in the local press indicate that Pakistan’s intelligence sources had confirmed the presence there of some leading al Qaeda fugitives on the fateful day .The US forces took action on their own, not for the first time since Pakistan joined the alliance against terrorism in the wake of 9/11 (when it had received the stone-age threat of "for us or against us") instead of taking the concerned Pakistani authorities on board. It is no secret either that the US intelligence services as well as State Department authorities suspect connivance between al Qaeda and certain Pakistanis, including some in the armed services. Attacks on Pakistan’s top brass, including the army chief and the present vice-chief, involving services personnel, confirm these suspicions. It would be naïve to expect that Pakistan’s tribal territories, which border Afghanistan and are close to Central Asia would be tolerated as sanctuaries for jihadis from different countries, or that these territories in Pakistan and Afghanistan would be allowed to host the international headquarters of the jihadi movement.
These so-called holy warriors who claim to have been instrumental in the US emerging as the sole superpower are now paying the wages for their sins. Many if not all the Muslim majority countries and large Muslim populations in various countries, are under a sort of double jeopardy. They are hostage to these so-called jihadis on the one hand, and on the other, to the sole superpower that has assumed the mantle of leading the war on terror, while it indulges in similar acts itself against the innocent. So long as the present US administration’s bigwigs, who perceive a threat to their control over Middle Eastern oil from the jihadi ’prince’ (as al Qaeda ideologue Aiman al-Zwahiri describes his leader) and Osama bin Laden continue their activities, the common masses of the Muslims in targeted lands will have no respite from their sufferings. Unfortunately, the tribal areas in Pakistan fall under that category as many if not most of the clerics and some tribal elders have been providing sanctuaries for jihadis from different countries who, during the Afghan war against Soviet intervention, had also been openly receiving the hospitality of our military-dominated establishment.
The bombing in Balochistan, denied by the concerned authorities, has also to do with oil and gas. The dominant Marri tribal chief and his followers refuse to let the federal government take control of the lands where this natural resource is said to be available in abundance. The contention of Balochistan’s nationalist leadership, who seek Baloch control of natural resources in Balochistan, has received further support from the Baloch in Pakistan and abroad, and has gained greater momentum over the half a century of Pakistan’s existence with the gas find in Sui in Bugti territory. The gas find in the tribe’s land and more exploration activity and supply to different parts of the country continues to this day.
The problem is directly related to the issue of provincial autonomy that the military establishment is not ready to resolve. Military domination of the country since its very inception has complicated matters further as the army top brass only looks for military solutions to political problems this country has been facing. It has turned the state, created for the progress of people in the Muslim majority regions of colonial India, into a military fiefdom under the guise of national security. Many a simpleton believed that the present regime was serious in resolving the still outstanding issue of provincial autonomy. Little did they realize that the hunger for controlling and using the unexploited resources was the only agenda of the military’s top brass.
In Balochistan it has become brazen as the policy planners thought that the operation would become much easier by building cantonments, with the simultaneous taking up of the needed infrastructural projects to facilitate supplies. The induction of paramilitary forces under the command of army officers, with superficial control by the civilian bureaucracy to police the whole of Balochistan proved counterproductive as the personnel acted in a highhanded manner, humiliating not only the commoners among the people but also the Baloch leaders, particularly the Marri and Bugti Sardars and the Nawabs and their kith and kin. For any serious student of Pakistan’s political history, it is interesting to note generals and their surrogates pointing accusing fingers at Waderas, Sardars, Nawabs and Khans and talking about their excesses and highhandedness. Especially since for most of Pakistan’s history of some 60 years, both before and after the establishment of Bangladesh, it was the gentlemen from the army who have exercised political power and wielded decisive authority. Without serious land reforms, if the settled ’tribes’ even in Sindh have resumed deciding disputes through jirgas (overseen by government functionaries), where the Nawabs and Sardars continue to be chosen and trusted as collaborators of the military-dominated establishment, why should political watchers and independent scribes grudge the alleged excesses of the Sardars and Nawabs, who at least demonstrate the courage of their convictions at the risk of their lives and the lives of their kith and kin. Why does Bhutto’s ghost still haunt the political landscape while the Ayubs, Yahyas, Tikkas, Niazis and Ziaul Haqs have quietly faded into the pages of unrecorded history. Maybe a defiant Bugti, Marri or a Mengal Sardar will emerge as a martyr - a hero!
The writer is a senior journalist who has held editorial positions in various newspapers
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