Nawab Marri who is the most veteran leader and without his advice and patronage the ‘Charter’ will not succeed in achieving its goals.
The fissures over the ‘Charter’ are linked to another wider issue facing the Baloch nationalist movement which has faced serious internal crisis in recent days when Baloch statesman Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri was targeted. Articles were written on Baloch websites that called Nawab Marri names and questioned his judgement. It was alleged that Nawab Marri was supporting his youngest son Mehran and his politics over his other sons and this was going against the “principle, belief, ideology” of the nationalist movement.
It is believed that the article was written after Sardar Akhtar Mengal’s recent visit to Pakistan. The article questioned why Nawab Marri had given “Mehran Baloch and Brahumdagh Bugti the go-ahead to form an alliance with Sardar Akhtar Mengal's older brother Javed Mengal”, suggesting that the close familial relations between the three are a plot.
It was alleged that Nawab Marri was giving “precedence to blood ties on national imperatives” and was “uprooting” the very plant that he planted and for which a whole generation gave its blood to help it grow to become a tree. It was further alleged that Nawab Marri was encouraging Brahumdagh Bugti to call for a referendum because "Brahumdagh has said that he gets advice from Nawab Marri on every matter”.
Mehran Baloch confirmed to The News that some “sponsored so-called nationalists were running a vicious campaign to tarnish the image of Baloch heroes who have sacrificed their comfort for the better future of a nation”. Mehran, however, refused to comment why he was opposing the ‘Freedom Charter’ at a crucial time in the Baloch nationalist struggle when there should be unity of action and thoughts.
Hyrbyair Marri said that it didn’t matter to him whether traditional Baloch leaders from his own tribe or the affiliated tribes supported the ‘Charter’. “What matters is the support of common people who are most affected by the human rights violations. The Freedom Charter has received enormous support from Baloch Elders' Council from 22 provinces of Afghanistan. The Council supported the aims of the Charter word-by-word, by consensus. They appealed to the Balochs of the world to be united and that’s what the Charter is about. If Sardars are against it then it’s their problem and show that they live in a cuckoo land,” he added.