By Ahmar Mustikhan
WASHINGTON DC: A prominent Mekran notable and former leader of the Pakistan National Party and Pakistan Peoples Party on Monday announced his decision to work for the American Friends of Baluchistan as he said Baluchistan is passing through one of the most critical periods in its history and every Baluch must pitch in.
Mohammed Ali Baloch, former president of the Panjgur district of Pakistan Peoples Party, said the situation in Baluchistan and so have the demands of the Baluch people have drastically changed since the killing of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti in August 2006.
"Nawab Bugti was a former governor and chief minister of Baluchistan and president of the Jamhoori Watan Party, besides being the chief of the Bugti tribe. Baluch people are feeling totally unsafe after his killing at the hands of Pakistan army," Baloch said.
Even U.S. officials were appalled at the killing of Nawab Bugti. Former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Robert Oakley, who is now an expert at the National Defense College, condemned Bugti's assassination and called him a "martyr for a just cause.".
Baloch, who was also the vice president of the Pakistan National Party under the late nationalist leader Mir Ghous Bakhsh Bizenjo, said after the slaying on Nawab Bugti the Baluch people and youth want nothing short of an independent state where their lives would be safe and Baluch culture and language would protected and promoted. "Baluch now demand their own flag and currency.
They want a sovereign parliament to become masters of their own destiny," Baloch said.
Baloch said A.F.B. represents the needs of both the Baluch and American people as lives of the two people are endangered by terrorists who have been given a free rein on Pakistan's borders with Afghanistan. "The terrorists are creating a big problem.
The Baluch desperately need U.S. aid, support and favor to save their souls from the Pakistan army and terrorists."
He said solid relationship between the Americans and the Baluch are also necessary to retrieve Baluchistan out of the backwardness that Islamabad has imposed on the Baluch homeland since its forced annexation in March 1948--seven and half months after Pakistan's creation.
Baloch said soon after the assassination of Nawab Bugti, the De Jure Ruler of Baluchistan, the Khan of Kalat Suleman Daud Ahmedzai, called a historic jirga at the Shahi Palace in Kalat where hundreds of Baluch sardars and notables unanimously said enough is enough,that they no longer felt safe in Pakistan, and asked the Khan of Kalat to take the issue of Baluchistan to the International Court of Justice at the Hague.
Baluchistan is the name of the home of the ethnic Baluch people, who are spread out in geographically contiguous swathe of land the size of Texas, divided among Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.
"The irony is that Pakistan forced an Instrument of Accession on the then Khan of Kalat, Mir Ahmedyar Khan, but never honored even that piece of document," Baloch said. "The Baluch people are demanding the return to their independent statehood, a status they enjoyed before the Instrument of Accession was shoved down their throat in March 1948," he added.
Baloch lauded the efforts of the Khan of Kalat, who is now in self-exile in the U.K., to seek justice for the Baluch people. He conveyed his condolences to the Khan of Kalat, whose close relative Agha Nauorz Jan was killed by the Pakistani agents in the wee hours of July 16 this year.
He said he had felt so disgusted at the treatment of the Baloch in the name of Islam and the personal torture he faced at the hands of the Pakistani police that he decided to get baptised as a Christian.
Baloch was imprisoned in Karachi's infamous Landhi Jail and upon freedom fled to the U.S.
Baluch's native Mekran area in Baluchistan forms the upper lip of the strategic Straits of Hormuz.
Baloch, who belongs to the influential Rind tribe in Mekran from his mother's side and the Mamasani tribe from his paternal side, launched his political career from the platform of the Baloch Students Organization and was the president of the nationalist B.S.O. in Panjgur way back in 1972.
The B.S.O. who primarily represent the educated middle class of Baluchistan has been a powerful voice of dissent for the Baluch for four decades now.
Meanwhile, A.F.B. founder Ahmar Mustikhan and president Robert Selle welcomed Baloch's decision to join the A.F.B., saying he would be an asset for the organization. Baloch has been tasked to contact the Baluch community in the U.S., Arabian Gulf and Baluchistan to push the A.F.B. goals.
A key area of A.F.B. work is global outreach on the Khan of Kalat case at the I.C.J. and the organization advocates world leaders and legislators to talk directly to London-based the Khan of Kalat and other Baluch leaders.
Founded in the backdrop of Nawab Bugti's assassination in fall 2006, the A.F.B. groups together both Americans and Baluch and has become a voice for the Baluch people at the U.S. capitol. In a span of less than two years, key U.S. legislators, think-tanks, army generals and the diplomatic community in Washington D.C. have been contacted by the A.F.B. as part of its global outreach. |
