Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 30 Jun, 2009
Nothing has been done on the ground to meet the demands of the disgruntled Baloch.
All is not well in Balochistan. The simmering insurgency there shows no sign of abating. But why should it? After all nothing has been done on the ground to meet the demands of the disgruntled Baloch.
The provincial budget with an outlay of Rs72.2bn hardly reassured those in the province who are demanding control over their resources. Be it the gas in Sui, the mineral wealth of Saindak and now the deep-water port in Gwadar, one knows well that the underdeveloped province will not be the major beneficiary of these projects. Even the NFC which divides taxes collected by the centre among the provinces works against Balochistan, which is contributing handsomely to the treasury but gets very little in return. The allocation is made on the basis of population and Balochistan happens to be sparsely populated.
The province needs proportionately more funds to develop infrastructure throughout its sprawling territory and make facilities accessible to its scattered population.
Long overdue, a new NFC Award is being promised but nothing has been delivered. And, with summer in full swing, it is a major blow to a water-starved province to be deprived of 30 per cent of its water entitlement.
Seen against this backdrop, it is shocking that Islamabad doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to put matters right. Since the PPP government assumed office more than a year ago it has been reiterating its commitment to negotiate with the Baloch to resolve problems that have already been identified — many of them by committees and subcommittees set up by the centre itself. An apology has been offered by the president and the need to grant autonomy to the province has been conceded. But this is just talk and no one walks the walk. As a result we now have a hardening of the Baloch nationalists’ stance which may take them to the point of no return.
On Sunday Sardar Akhtar Mengal, head of the BNP-M, said that even a compromise is not acceptable on the national rights of the Baloch. It is disturbing that the nationalists are now convinced that they are being taken down the garden path with offers of dialogue and negotiation that are designed to appease and not necessarily solve any problem. This is most disquieting because our failure to respect the political sensitivities of one province led to the loss of half the country. We cannot push another province over the brink. The government itself says that there is many a foreign power interested in continued turmoil in Balochistan. Why should we so willingly help?
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/provinces/16-solutions-needed-hs-03
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