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| Time to eat humble pie |
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Sunday, October 25, 2009
Gibran Peshimam
Amidst unrelenting suicide attacks, audacious assaults on the armed forces, Operation Rah-e-Nijaat in full flow and the NRO question reaching a zenith, talking about the alarming situation in Balochistan may seem a bit trivial and off-topic.
This has always been the case, hasn't it? Something always comes along pushing the issue of Pakistan's perpetually troubled province into the fringes. If it's not the secession of East Pakistan, then its Zia's coup; if it's not the Afghan Jihad, then it's political subterfuge. Today, it's the war on terror.
Well, it has been a mistake each time.
If there's one thing that history has shown, it is that Balochistan is a problem that just will not go away despite being continuously being pushed into the background. All those supposedly 'more urgent' issues have passed and have been resolved in their own twisted ways. Yet when the dust settled, Balochistan remained. Festered, worsened.
Balochistan is Pakistan's original sin. And that readily-ignored sin has now taken a not-so-ignorable turn.
Today that luxury of 'we'll-get-back-to-this-later' approach may no longer be available because the province is the limelight again for two fresh reasons. One involves the US' concern regarding the activities of the Quetta Shura and refuge for the Taliban leadership, and, more recently, Iran's concern at the activities of Jundallah, and the attacks being launched against it from Balochistan.
To accompany the already discomforting murmurs regarding the possibility of the US expanding its targeting of Taliban leaders into northern Balochistan ("beyond FATA" as they would call it), there are now voices in Iran calling for the chasing of Jundallah across the border into parts of Pakistani Balochistan following a high-level suicide hit recently. This matter is serious, and will only become more serious with time.
This is over and above the now traditional spectre of Balochistan's most long-standing issue – its own indigenous nationalist movement. You now a have troika of unique, mutually exclusive problems that will give the best in the policy business nightmares.
Chess with Kasparov would be an easier and potentially less humiliating task.
How does the government appease the US, whose money it needs, Iran, whose gas and regional friendship it needs, as well as the nationalists, whose antagonism will render it unable to do much about either Iran's or the US' concerns to begin with?
If you think that the military and border security is overstretched dealing with the NWFP-Afghanistan border on the west, the India-Pakistan border on the East, and along the Line of Control in Kashmir, imagine what will happen if you try to secure the rugged borders and unsympathetic heartland of your country's largest province as well – that too amidst unprecedented hostility on the part of vast majority of the local population. The NWFP situation is nothing compared to the task of Balochistan.
The pressure is on Pakistan to act now in its largest province. So what do we do?
This is how it stands: Iran has beef with the Jundallah, who they say are supported by the US and Israel (some say they are supported by Saudi Arabia as well) with the help of Pakistan. The US' problem is with the Taliban are supported by anti-US groups, including Iran. Pakistan, meanwhile, complains that the Baloch nationalists are supported by outside forces. The three groups' agendas are not congruous with one another.
For starters, any attempt to conflate the issues of traditional nationalist angst, quasi-ethnic/religious irredentism (or what is perceived irredentism) and religious militancy will be a big mistake.
Another surefire thing is that the authorities cannot tackle each and every issue separately. They do not have the military capacity given the currently stretched resources, the political option given the Gordian Knot in terms of agendas, or the credibility/ability to do it diplomatically.
The truth is that, though the three are mutually exclusive, the policy regarding one will have to be strongly based on the policy regarding the other two. There is one sustainable way out, which can, in fact, work well for Pakistan in the long run. But this will require one thing that our administrations have historically lacked: Humility.
Pakistan now more than ever has to first come to terms with the fact that the nationalist movement that it has vilified for so long with barbs of traitor is in fact a legitimate movement born out of legitimate concerns. The sooner the government is able to abandon its age old policy regarding the Baloch movement, the better.
Whether or not it is funded by foreign organisations is not the issue. Its basic premise is and was legitimate. Foreign infiltration only came in after the brutal suppression of Baloch rights in the past.
Remember that the Pakistani state, after all, has no say in huge swaths of Balochistan thanks in no small part to the estrangement of the Baloch over the years. If the Baloch were on board in the first place, infiltrating the harsh terrain of Balochistan by foreign actors would have been a lot less possible over the years. It is with this understanding that the current situation needs to be tackled. Get back to the root cause.
How it will be done is a subject that is too vast to state in mere columns. It is a subject worth a thesis-sized discourse. It will have to involve a whole lot more than a hollow Balochistan package – that is for sure. It will require drastic concessions; a major change in rigid archetypes. It will require ditching non-representative leadership for short-term gains.
Those who argue that we will lose Balochistan in this effort should realise that at the moment, the centre does not 'have' Balochistan to begin with. In fact, keeping the province in its current political state will be only hurt the country further by allowing outside operatives to continue to infiltrate as well as marking a huge bulls-eye for neighbouring forces.
Give Balochistan to the Baloch and you secure Pakistan. As it stands, there may be no other option.
Time to eat humble pie.
The writer is city editor, The News, Karachi. Email: gibran.peshimam@ gmail.com
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