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Resolve Baloch issue or Pakistan will disintegrate says parliament - National Geopolitics | Examiner.com
On Monday members of Pakistan's upper house called on the central government to take critical steps towards addressing the human rights crisis in Balochistan. The Senators said, according to The Daily Times, that if the current trend continues Balochistan would "totally disconnect itself from Islamabad" and Pakistan could disintegrate.
PML-F's Senator Muzaffar Hussain Shah accused Pakistan's government of treating Baloch nationalists unjustly and urged giving consideration to the views of Baloch leaders. He warned that the country would disintegrate otherwise.
Opposition leader in the House, Abdul Ghafoor Haidri, said to ensure peace the government must stop target killings and suicide attacks in Balochistan. He added "if we fail to stop killings in Balochistan, improve economic conditions of the country, then there is no justification for being in parliament".
PML-Q's Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed said if the government can talk to India it should be able to engage in dialogue with Baloch leaders who have picked up arms to fight for their rights after years of oppression.
The parliament's attitude stands in stark contrast to the venom spewed in Pakistan's press lately against the Baloch for daring to ask for independence. The senators have been no doubt motivated by the recent resolution introduced in the U.S. congress last month by Representative Dana Rohrabacher which recognized the Baloch right to self-determination.
Many Pakistani news outlets have been propagating the absurdity that nearly every other country on earth is responsible for the ongoing human rights violations in Balochistan except for, of course, Pakistan.
After Pakistan was condemned by a U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing arranged by Rohrabacher in early February, Pakistan's security forces responded ruthlessly, outraged the Baloch would dare seek external help to escape a nightmarish existence.
On February 13 the bullet-riddled body of a prominent Baloch leader was discovered who had been missing for over two years. The gruesome operation is called "kill and dump" and is the calling card of Pakistan's spy agency – the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
As a result of "kill and dump" operations along with enforced disappearances at a clip that rivals Pinochet's Chile, over 10,000 Baloch have gone missing who are either dead or holed up in Pakistani detention centers in locations unknown, in what historian Selig Harrison described as "slow-motion genocide." Balochistan has also been economically deprived by Islamabad. Though most of Pakistan's natural resources are located in Balochistan -- including natural gas, oil and minerals -- the Baloch see a mere fraction of it.
Today the U.S. and Pakistan's "special relationship" has enabled Islamabad and Rawalpindi to continue repressing the Baloch. During the recent hearing in the U.S. Amnesty International Director Mr. T. Kumar reported that weapons the U.S. provided Pakistan to fight the war against the Taliban were being used to crush the Baloch movement.
Pakistan's central government has reacted defensively by denying allegations of wrongdoing. Pakistani Ambassador Sherry Rehman in a letter her office sent to House Speaker John Boehner on Sunday claimed the Rohrabacher resolution could undermine U.S.-Pakistani relations.
Earlier this month embassy officials appeared at a presentation by Baloch journalist Malik Siraj Akbar at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to refute allegations that the Pakistani state was responsible for thousands of Baloch that have been murdered or gone missing.
Balochistan was an independently governed entity known as the Baluch Khanate of Kalat until it was forcibly incorporated into the Pakistani state in 1948.
==
Michael Hughes is a journalist, a Baloch human rights advocate and a policy analyst with the New World Strategies Coalition, a native Afghan think tank.
For more stories on Balochistan and geopolitics go to
MICHAEL HUGHES
On Monday members of Pakistan's upper house called on the central government to take critical steps towards addressing the human rights crisis in Balochistan. The Senators said, according to The Daily Times, that if the current trend continues Balochistan would "totally disconnect itself from Islamabad" and Pakistan could disintegrate.
PML-F's Senator Muzaffar Hussain Shah accused Pakistan's government of treating Baloch nationalists unjustly and urged giving consideration to the views of Baloch leaders. He warned that the country would disintegrate otherwise.
Opposition leader in the House, Abdul Ghafoor Haidri, said to ensure peace the government must stop target killings and suicide attacks in Balochistan. He added "if we fail to stop killings in Balochistan, improve economic conditions of the country, then there is no justification for being in parliament".
PML-Q's Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed said if the government can talk to India it should be able to engage in dialogue with Baloch leaders who have picked up arms to fight for their rights after years of oppression.
The parliament's attitude stands in stark contrast to the venom spewed in Pakistan's press lately against the Baloch for daring to ask for independence. The senators have been no doubt motivated by the recent resolution introduced in the U.S. congress last month by Representative Dana Rohrabacher which recognized the Baloch right to self-determination.
Many Pakistani news outlets have been propagating the absurdity that nearly every other country on earth is responsible for the ongoing human rights violations in Balochistan except for, of course, Pakistan.
After Pakistan was condemned by a U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing arranged by Rohrabacher in early February, Pakistan's security forces responded ruthlessly, outraged the Baloch would dare seek external help to escape a nightmarish existence.
On February 13 the bullet-riddled body of a prominent Baloch leader was discovered who had been missing for over two years. The gruesome operation is called "kill and dump" and is the calling card of Pakistan's spy agency – the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
As a result of "kill and dump" operations along with enforced disappearances at a clip that rivals Pinochet's Chile, over 10,000 Baloch have gone missing who are either dead or holed up in Pakistani detention centers in locations unknown, in what historian Selig Harrison described as "slow-motion genocide." Balochistan has also been economically deprived by Islamabad. Though most of Pakistan's natural resources are located in Balochistan -- including natural gas, oil and minerals -- the Baloch see a mere fraction of it.
Today the U.S. and Pakistan's "special relationship" has enabled Islamabad and Rawalpindi to continue repressing the Baloch. During the recent hearing in the U.S. Amnesty International Director Mr. T. Kumar reported that weapons the U.S. provided Pakistan to fight the war against the Taliban were being used to crush the Baloch movement.
Pakistan's central government has reacted defensively by denying allegations of wrongdoing. Pakistani Ambassador Sherry Rehman in a letter her office sent to House Speaker John Boehner on Sunday claimed the Rohrabacher resolution could undermine U.S.-Pakistani relations.
Earlier this month embassy officials appeared at a presentation by Baloch journalist Malik Siraj Akbar at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to refute allegations that the Pakistani state was responsible for thousands of Baloch that have been murdered or gone missing.
Balochistan was an independently governed entity known as the Baluch Khanate of Kalat until it was forcibly incorporated into the Pakistani state in 1948.
==
Michael Hughes is a journalist, a Baloch human rights advocate and a policy analyst with the New World Strategies Coalition, a native Afghan think tank.
For more stories on Balochistan and geopolitics go to
MICHAEL HUGHES
