By:Rashed Rahman
One sub-committee under Senator Wasim Sajjad was charged with producing a consensus constitutional reform package to take account of the persistent demand for provincial autonomy. It failed to reach consensus, and then decided to forward the respective positions of the government and opposition to the parliamentary parent committee for final decision. The bone of contention was the Concurrent List in the 1973 Constitution, which gives the federal government’s writ priority on subjects that should properly belong to the provinces. This Concurrent List was intended to be done away with and the subjects in the List transferred to the provinces a decade after the promulgation of the Constitution in 1973. That compact withered on the vine. The government side in the sub-committee was prepared to concede doing away with most of the subjects in the Concurrent List immediately, but not all, whereas the opposition was adamant that the List entire be abolished. There were also voices raised in the sub-committee arguing along the lines of long standing nationalist demands that the Centre should only have defence, currency and communications under its purview, and all other subjects should be the domain of the provinces. It is not yet clear what will be the fate of the recommendations of this sub-committee, given the wide divergence of views expressed before it. No doubt the final decision rests with General Musharraf, but whether that will satisfy nationalist opinion in Balochistan and other provinces remains to be seen.
The second sub-committee headed by Senator Mushahid Hussain looked into measures to extend greater employment to the people of Balochistan, both in government services and in the mega projects launched with much fanfare by the Central government in the province. This sub-committee has recommended opening the doors to employment for Baloch youth, extending training and skill enhancement where required. But the problems remain formidable, especially in projects such as the copper extraction plant in Saindak, built and currently being operated by Chinese contractors and in which no Baloch are employed. In Gwadar, the strategic port and naval base being developed at the mouth of the Gulf has seen little if any local participation, to the extent that even the Master Plan of the port and city proposed are not available to the provincial government, despite demands from the Balochistan Assembly that the Plan be presented before it.
The third sub-committee examined the cause of much heartburn - the fact that the oldest gas field in Sui receives far less royalty than later gas fields discovered in Sindh and Punjab. It has recommended an increase in the royalty and gas development surcharge that go to the province.
The Musharraf regime’s plan to build a Rs. 100 billion road network to link the province with the rest of the country and enable it to become the hub of trade with China and Central Asia through the Gwadar port is eerily reminiscent of earlier such schemes under previous regimes. For example, when General Ziaul Haq made ’peace’ with the Baloch guerrillas of the BPLF, he unveiled a $ 1.97 billion (Rs. 120 billion at current rates of exchange) Special Development Plan for Balochistan, with a $ 765 million road construction component. Before him, Bhutto had boasted of similar plans and achievements during the years of the fourth Balochistan war.
Baloch nationalists argue that the location of many of the new roads was not determined by economic priorities, but to allow the army to penetrate the otherwise inaccessible guerrilla base areas. Even where roads were put down to open up exploration for oil, the nationalists contend the resulting profits would flow to the Central government and foreign oil companies rather than to the province. Similar reservations are expressed about Gwadar and other mega projects. The fact that in 2005, the Musharraf regime is again announcing such programmes for Balochistan is not simply because of the new opportunities of trade with China and Central Asia, but also indicates how much of these recurring plans have remained on paper only.
The Musharraf regime may also be contemplating utilizing the historical Pushtun-Baloch divide in the province to offset Baloch nationalist strength. It would be helped in this endeavour by the demographic changes that have occurred in the province during the Afghan wars. Massive numbers of Afghan refugees flooded into Balochistan during the anti-Soviet resistance and the later internecine Mujahideen civil wars. A number of these Afghan refuges have acquired Pakistani nationality, bought properties in Balochistan, and strengthened the demographic weight of the Pushtuns in the province. Naturally this ’invasion’ is bitterly opposed by the Baloch nationalists, who point to this phenomenon as a practical demonstration of their fears regarding being swamped by waves of outsiders in the wake of the government’s mega development projects. But attempts to exploit Pushtun-Baloch rivalries have come to grief in the past, notably during Bhutto’s failed campaign to suppress Baloch nationalism by military force in the 1970s. It remains to be seen whether in the new context, with Pushtun numbers swollen by erstwhile Afghan refugees who have melded into the local Pushtun community, the government’s efforts achieve more success than in the past.
As these lines were being written, news arrived of armed conflict having broken out again in Balochistan. This time, the eight rockets that slammed into a Frontier Constabulary (FC) camp on the outskirts of Kohlu while President General Pervez Musharraf was visiting, and the bullet injuries to the DG and IG of the FC the next day when their helicopter was fired on, proved the last straw as far as the army is concerned. In an undeclared military operation, 2,000 FC troops and 17,000 regular soldiers have been deployed, the former moving into the Marri and Bugti areas behind a hail of aerial strafing and attacks by helicopter gunships, the latter in readiness at Sui.
Operations from the air and on the ground involve, according to eyewitness accounts filtering out, jets, helicopters and ground troops being reinforced by hundreds of ’vehicles’ with (undisclosed) ’modern’ equipment in Kahan, Mawand, Bhambore, Kohlu, Fazilchal and Talli in the Marri area. Offensives are being launched or prepared from Barkhan, Sibi, Loralai and Sui around the periphery of the Marri area. The Bugtis too are unlikely to be spared. Dera Bugti has been ringed by troops. In panic, the worst victims of the bombardment of Dera Bugti in the aftermath of the Dr. Shazia Khalid rape case, the Hindu community, is fleeing Dera Bugti en masse.
The ISPR is trying to play down the whole affair as a police action against the miscreants responsible for the rocket firing and other acts of sabotage. But the extent and numbers of troops deployed suggests a full-scale military operation is underway, whose consequences may well be the outbreak of another war in Balochistan.
Given the sorry past of successive Central governments attempting to suppress the people of Balochistan to gain unhindered access to their natural resources without any share for the locals, it is necessary for all nationalist, democratic, liberal and progressive forces all over the country to stay the hands of the hawks who seek to use military force once again in the fifth Balochistan war since independence to crush the legitimate grievances and aspirations of the people. Only such an active solidarity in practice can ensure the continued existence of the state of post-1971 Pakistan.
(to be continued)
The writer is the Executive Editor of The Post. |
