By Archen Baloch
Whenever there was an absence of Baloch nationalism, Pakistan always tried to fill that gap with religious forces. Before the start of the current resistance, Baloch pro-independent forces wasted two awful decades of political struggle in the Pakistani politics from Gen Zia martial law till tyranny rule of General Musharraf.
During Gen Zia era a peaceful political movement for the right to self-determination was launched by Baloch Students Organization, BSO, led by Fida Ahmed. Unfortunately, Mr Fida Ahmed and his pro-independent comrades were assassinated one by one in mysterious circumstances. Later this massive political awareness was deliberately diverted toward Pakistani parliamentary politics which allowed the state’s secret agencies to make inroads in the secular political society of Balochistan.
In 1988 when the sudden airborne death of Gen Zia gave way to democracy, Baloch nationalists also participated in that democratic process and won with a majority of votes. Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti became the chief minister of the so-called Balochistan provincial assembly. However, Baloch leadership soon realised that there is no democracy in Pakistan. This parliamentary character of Pakistani politics soon proved to be a disastrous Trojan horse for Baloch movement for the right to self-determination.
It paved the way for Pakistani notorious agency ISI to break the ranks of nationalist forces, intimidation and buying the loyalties of some of the key ranking leaders like Dr Malik started and they were used by Pakistani military establishment to knock out Nawab Bugti from chief ministry. ISI successfully turned this lot of nationalist politicians into a bunch of corrupt stooges and prevented them from serving the public in order to defame the peaceful character of Baloch nationalism.
This movement achieved nothing except maintaining the secular feature of Baloch nationalism from 1978 till 1988, for it wasn’t a disruptive movement that could challenge the writ of Pakistani state in Balochistan, it was largely peaceful based on ideal slogans of socialism, communism and Balochi literature and cultural programs, but the most important thing that it served to Baloch society was keeping at bay the religious forces from Baloch society.
But, that peaceful movement couldn’t maintain its character of pure Baloch nationalism to prevent ISI from instilling religious forces into Baloch political society. One the one hand, Pakistani secret agency forced the secular parliamentarians to be corrupt and on the other, it supported Jummiat Ulla Islam in order to radicalise Baloch society which could dilute Baloch nationalism in favour of Pakistan-ism, with the massive funding in billions.
Today Pakistan is recruiting Mujahideen/Taliban from Balochistan for Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Salafi sect of Islam, which was created by ISI during the Afghan war against Russia. After the withdrawal of Russia from Afghanistan, it turned against India in Kashmir. According to a report, so far its 5500 members have been killed in Kashmir while fighting the Indian army. It gained world media attention when it perpetrated its deadly attack in Mumbai killing 174 innocent people. Whenever world pressure increased on Pakistan, LeT morphed into different identities, from Lashkar-e-Taiba to Jummait-al-Dawa, from JeD into Milli Muslim League, but its toxic ideology is the same that of Pakistani ideology professed by Hafiz Saeed.
Under ISI guidance, JUI helped Lashkar-e-Taiba to build a large network of Madrasas and militancy training camps where they have churned out a large number of Mujahideen from Balochistan’s rural and urban areas such as Punjgor, Kharan, Khuzdar, Awaran and Kech districts for proxy wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir.
In 1990 many young Baloch from mountainous areas of Zamuran region of Balochistan were sent to Kashmir for fighting India. One of the characters was Malek Jan Zamurani, a close associate of Shafiq Mengal, who used to recruit people for LeT but later died in a road accident. Awais son of Mulla Ilyas (suicide bomber in Afghanistan) Shahab Qazi (Afghanistan) Mujahid Baloch (Afghanistan) Mulla Ilyas, Mulla Ghulam Ullah, Haji Abdullah and Mufti Shahmeer are some of the well-known Taliban Mujahideen whose corpses returned home after being killed during the fights in Afghanistan and Kashmir.
However, Punjabi dominant Pakistan army’s strategic use of the religious card to dilute Baloch nationalism couldn’t prove to be a hard currency to be sold to Baloch political society. It is noteworthy that Baloch nationalism isn’t a secessionist one, because, Pakistan has annexed Balochistan against the will of the Baloch nation by military aggression; the term “liberation” is the best description of the nature of Baloch freedom movement.
It is widely believed that Hyrbyair Marri has laid the foundation of the current resistance movement in 1996 and he started the preparation in clandestine till 1999 for a permanent nationwide resistance against the illegal occupation of Balochistan by Pakistan. During that time he made a brief sojourn in the Pakistani parliamentary politics, he won with an overwhelming majority and became a minister in the so-called Balochistan provincial assembly.
However, it was a part of his obligatory strategic plan to prove that his moral stands in the eyes of the world are that he has the public support for launching the resistance movement. The 19 years old self-reliant Baloch resistance seems to have exhausted its sources of defence. When secular Baloch resistance was at its peak in occupied Balochistan, we witnessed a relatively calm situation in Indian Kashmir, but now it seems that Pakistan backed religious militancy is again picking up. It shows that religion card is the only tool that Pakistan is relying on to advance its nefarious design in the region.
The day when the secular Baloch nationalism got defeated by Pakistan army, it will turn Balochistan into another Afghanistan with bloody beasts of religious fanatics against India, America and Afghanistan. Balochistan, with 980 miles strategic coast, is being used by Pakistan army for launching unimaginable acts of sabotage and disruption through Islamic militancy. It was Balochistan coast from where ISI trained the terrorists and send them to India to carry out the deadly Mumbai attack of 26/11. Each day Afghan drug, worth of millions of American dollars, is shipped with the help of Frontier Corps through Balochistan coast to Europe and America.
The world should know that the Punjabi ultra-nationalism, shrouded in the garb of Pakistan-ism and Islam, but manifested in the form of religion-militancy and hegemony over the resources of Baloch Pashtun and Sindhi people, has a grandiose plan to make Pakistan the superpower of Muslim Ummah. And it is the mother of ills in the region but Pakistan cannot succeed in its grandiose plan without the help of China and China cannot outflank America and India without the help of Pakistan. And without the consent of Baloch, Pakistan will never succeed. The realisation of Free Balochistan’s dream is the key to permanent peace and prosperity in South Asia and Central Asia.
Recently, the head of Delhi Study Group and one of BJP’s prominent leaders Mr Vijay Jolly has invited the head of Free Balochistan Movement, Mr Hyrbyair Marri to visit India and participate in a conference about ‘Human Rights in Balochistan’. There is no doubt that Mr Marri will appraise the Indian government and the public about what is going on in occupied Balochistan regarding the grave human rights violations and war crimes of Pakistan army, and definitely, he unequivocally would ask the Indian government to extend its support to Balochistan’s liberation movement.
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