Dr Wirsing suggests reviewing policies towards Balochistan | Wants Baloch to be made partners in energy development
ISLAMABAD: A latest research of the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College has said that Pakistan with the help of states supporting the Islamic country should undertake on an urgent basis a re-examination of its policies towards Balochistan to avoid any possible protracted conflict in the province.
The best overall way to do this was to make the Baloch partners to energy development not antagonists of it, the institute suggested. The paper entitled "Baloch nationalism and the geopolitical energy resources: the changing context of separatism in Pakistan" is authored by Dr Robert G Wirsing, who has also written numerous studies on Pakistan.
The paper says that it is recognised that getting the Pakistan government to reverse course in Balochistan and to engage the Baloch nationalists politically instead of only militarily will not be easy. It is not just that a presumed force-reliant military mindset will get in the way; the problem of resolving the political fortunes of Balochistan is much more complicated than that.
"Today, a formidable array of energy-related and other strategic forces impinge on that part of the world. As in the 1970s, Balochistan still falls in the shadow of strife-torn Afghanistan, which confronts Islamabad with an endless source of policy dilemmas. However, innumerable other shadows, equally problematic and all with their own set of imperatives, have now been added."
The paper says that Pakistan's quest for energy security has run up against a resurgent tribal separatist rebellion in its sprawling south-western province of Balochistan - an area which, by virtue of both its own energy resources and its location, is key to Pakistan's energy future.
To ensure its energy future, its government is active on several fronts, including efforts to more fully exploit the country's own energy resources, to negotiate the construction of trans state natural gas pipelines, and to build a new coastal seaport at Gwadar, an ambitious project which its developers hope will enable Pakistan to occupy an important place in the emerging Asian energy refining and distribution system.
It says that the rebellion pits a government determined to let nothing stand in the way of its energy agenda against the Baloch nationalist movement equally determined to have a greater voice in the future of Balochistan. The paper makes a clear case that successful resolution of the Baloch question essential to Pakistan's achievement of energy security. It examined that the Baloch insurgency that has resurfaced in recent years in sprawling Balochistan province.
The author maintains that the context of today's insurgency differs in certain important respects from that of its 1970s predecessor. Most fundamental of these differences are those stemming from energy resource developments in what some are calling the "Asian Middle East" (embracing parts of South, Central, and Southwest Asia).
In particular, the paper looks at how Pakistan's mounting energy insecurity - a product of rapid increase in demand coupled with rising scarcity and the region's intensified energy rivalry - has magnified the economic and strategic importance of Balochistan, while at the same time complicating Pakistan's efforts to cope with the province's resurgent tribal separatism.
"This change in the energy context exerts a powerful threefold impact on the insurgents' prospects." It says that in the first place, the paper says, it lifts Balochistan and Baloch nationalism to a position much higher on the scale of the central government priorities, thus seeming to warrant, as the government sees the problem, zero tolerance and ruthless crushing of the insurgency.
Second, it arms the Baloch insurgents both with greater incentives than ever for reclaiming control of Balochistan and with the novel capacity to drive the economic and political costs to the government of continuing insurgent activity far higher than ever in the past. Third and on a more hopeful note, by promising to turn Balochistan into an important corridor for energy trafficking in the region, the changed context create major opportunities for addressing Baloch nationalist demands in a positive and peaceful manner.
While conceding that the counterinsurgency strategy pursued by the government thus far has a conspicuously dark side, the author insists that Balochistan's rapidly changing energy context could supply both the means and the incentives for bringing the insurgency to a swift, negotiated, and amicable end. The study highlights the manner, in particular, in which Pakistan's energy imperatives crowd in upon its policymaking in regard to the circumstances in Balochistan.
These imperatives include not only its own natural gas resources, but also the proposed import of natural gas from Iran and or Turkmenistan and its all-important collaboration with China in the laying of groundwork for a north south commercial and energy corridor. It seems highly unlikely that these imperatives will grow any less pressing as time goes on. As a consequence, persuading the government to give significantly higher priority to accommodation of the Baloch tribal minority will unquestionably be a hard sell.
The other publications of Dr Wirsing includes Pakistan's security under Zia 1977-1988 (St Martin's Press 1991); India, Pakistan and the Kashmir dispute (St Martin's Press 1994); Kashmir in the shadow of war (ME Sharpe 2002); Religious radicalism & security in South Asia, as co-editor (Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies 2004) and Ethnic diasporas & great power strategies in Asia, as co-editor (India Research Press 2007).
Dr Wirsing is the faculty member of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Honolulu, Hawaii. A specialist on South Asian politics and international relations, he has made over 40 research trips to the South Asian region since 1965. His recent research focuses primarily on the politics and diplomacy of natural resources (water and energy) in South Asia.
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