THE PPP-led government ought to take notice of the revelation made by Mushahid Hussain Syed in the Senate on Friday. Speaking after Senator Sanaullah Baloch resigned his Senate seat, the PML-Q secretary general said that hawks in the military establishment had sabotaged the two parliamentary committees’ reports which had made valuable suggestions to the government for a peaceful solution to the crisis in Balochistan. Mushahid Hussain knows. He is an insider, for he headed one of the two parliamentary committees which were charged with the task of investigating the causes of insurgency in what is the country’s largest province territorially, and coming up with a solution. Though some ‘nationalist’ Baloch leaders on the committee boycotted it, the Mushahid Hussain panel, nevertheless, met a cross section of Baloch leaders and came up with some valuable suggestions aimed at alleviating the Baloch people’s grievances. Calling for a revision of the existing policies, the report paid special attention to minerals, including gas, and called for royalty to be paid to the districts where the mineral was exploited, recommended strict implementation of the 5.4 per cent quota reserved for the Baloch in federal jobs, and laid down priorities for jobs in Gwadar, shifting the headquarters of the port authority from Karachi to Gwadar, and building more highways and roads. If implemented, these proposals would have had a positive impact on the political situation in the province. The recommendations were made public in 2004 and then went into the deep freezer, and the nation never heard again about the Mushahid Hussain committee and its proposals. On Friday, Mushahid Hussain informed the Upper House of the reason why the recommendations had not been implemented.
Resigning his Senate seat, Sanaullah Baloch said he had done so on the recommendations of his party, because he wanted to see Baloch control over the province’s natural resources. Quite appropriately, PPP Senator Mian Raza Rabbani tendered his ‘unqualified apologies’ to the Baloch people for the past excesses of ‘the outgoing military government’. However, Senator Rabbani should have also apologised for the military action launched in Balochistan by his government in the 1970s. Sanaullah Baloch’s resignation will be regretted. The BNP (Mengal) leader could advance his people’s cause by staying in parliament rather than quitting it. Abandoning the democratic path strengthens the hands of those in the establishment who are ever so keen to find a military solution to Balochistan’s political problems. The PPP government has taken a number of positive decisions, including the release of a number of Baloch leaders, apologising to Balochistan for past excesses and pledging itself to a political solution to its problems. Mushahid Hussain’s statement should alert the Gilani government to the possibilities of the hawks sabotaging the PPP-led government’s policies on Balochistan.
http://www.dawn.com/2008/06/09/ed.htm |
