The Caravan of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) Reached Gaddani Town of Balochistan

Archen Baloch 11/19/13

 Balochistan Quetta - The Caravan of  the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), led by Mama Qadeer and Sister Farzana Majeed with their blistering feet, has reached at Adam Kund near coastal Town of Gaddani famous for ship breaking and Marble industries, reported Cheraag Baloch a social media activist closely observing the long march  which begun on 27^th September 2013 from Quetta Press Club.  

At Guddani Turning Point, he said the local people have managed to receive the long march participants with a large number of local people.

According to schedule, Cheraag told me that when the Caravan of the missing persons of (VBMP) reaches Hub City of Balochistan close to Karachi, The Committee of Baloch Students and local people of Hub will receive them with spectacular love and affections.

At the last leg of the 700km long journey, the Committee of Baloch Students will join the long march from Hub City onto Karachi, and on the way at Naval Colony other friends belonging from various human rights organizations and media will also join the procession of the long march to Karachi Press Club.

It is noteworthy to mention here that VBMP started their journey from Quetta Press Club on Sunday 27^th for a sit-in protest at Karachi Press Club in an effort to attract the attention of international community towards the thousand missing persons of Baloch activists at the hands of FC among them plus 700 activists have been tortured to death so far. And the feat of abduction, kill and dump is still ongoing unabated in Balochistan with no hope in sight.

The killing of Waqar Naseer a Naked Aggression: BSO Azad

By Archen Baloch - 29/10/2013

Quetta - In a statement to Baloch media, the central spokesperson of BSO Azad termed the brutal killing of Waqar Naseer by Pakistan army as a naked aggression. The spokesperson said that Wakar Naseer was traveling from Quetta to Karachi in a passenger bus when intercepted at Wadh check post. The statement said the army shot him dead in broad daylight after unbearable beating as soon as he was taken off the bus after checking the identities of passengers.  Martyred Waqar Naseer is the son of Baloch Republican Party’s President Naseer Ahmed of South Korean chapter.

The statement further said that Pakistan has further intensified its brutalities ‘on the spot form of extra judicial killing, of political activists after continuous abduction and killing.

Regarding the historical long march of Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, the spokesperson said that people were joining the long march en masses wherever it passed the villages and towns on the way to Karachi denoting the defeat of Pakistani colonial rule.

The family members of the enforced missing persons have exhausted all peaceful means of political protests including set-in, protest rallies and hunger strike to highlight Pakistan’s human rights abuses in Balochistan.

Despite of all successful efforts of creating awareness in all international forums and human rights organizations, including the concerns expressed by UN and its working group’s subsequent visit to Balochistan, the international community has failed to take concrete step to deter Pakistan from its crimes against humanity in Balochistan. BSO statement asked UN to put pressure on Pakistan so that it produces the missing persons before the courts.

Encouraged by the criminal silence of international community, the statement said that Pakistan has intensified its criminal acts of Baloch genocide; even the sufferers of earthquake are not spared by Pakistani aggression. 

Pressurising tactics: Security agencies tried to abduct my brother in Quetta: Nasrullah Baloch

2013-10-28
Quetta :  Reported by Archen Baloch Speaking at Quetta press Club, Nasuralla said the secret security agencies abducted his younger brother Samiullah Baloch at Shahwani Road Quetta but luckily he made a successful escape after the agencies car stopped at due to traffic jam. He said: My younger brother was walking on Shawani road in Quetta when the armed men of secret agencies whisked him and put him in their vain but, because of the traffic jam he jumped off the vehicle and escaped from the brutal clutches of the agencies.” He said his brother brutally beaten up while by the security agencies in their car. He warned that government secret agencies will be held responsible for any harm to him or any of his family members during the course of his struggle for the safe recovery of abducted Baloch. He said his brother had nothing to do with his activism for missing persons’ rights. He also said that his younger brother was not affiliated with any political party. The arresting and beating up his brother was a pressure tactic of Pakistani agencies to force him [Nasrullah] to abandon the long march. He made it clear that he will not back down from long march and the intimidating tactics cannot weaken his resolve for the rights of the Baloch people. He informed the press that the long march headed by Mama Qadeer Baloch has crossed Lukpass Mountain and it is well on its way. He said the long journey in support of missing persons set off Sunday from Quetta to protest the illegal abduction and enforced disappearances of Baloch people in Balochistan. “Baloch children and elderly people are participating in the 700km long march,” he said. The long march he said would take around 15 to 20 days to reach to Karachi. He said the government would be held responsible for any ham or displeasing occurrences to any participant of the long march during this humanitarian journey. He added: “Voice for Baloch Missing Persons had asked the government for security arrangement but they did not heed to our request. We are marching all alone.” He told the press that nothing can deter the long march from its journey until it achieves its objective. In reply to a question, he said that no official from government had contacted VBMP in this regards. At the end of the press conference, he appealed the Edhi Foundation to provide an ambulance of doctors and other necessary apparatus to the caravan of Voice for Missing Persons for emergency help.

http://balochwarna.com/xnews/articles.389/Pressurising-tactics-Security-agencies-tried-to-abduct-my-brother-in-Quetta-Nasrullah-Baloch.html#.Um6kkT8HwjQ.facebook

Pakistani Punitive Sanctions against Balochistan

20/10/2013

By Archen Baloch 

As if Pakistan made death and destruction were not enough, Mother Nature struck the 6th most powerful quake to Balochistan on Tuesday, 24 September killing almost 1000 people and injuring scores. This merciless earthquake was so powerful that it gave rise to a small island off the Gwadar coast which is reported to be about 200m long, 100m wide and 20m high. According to US Geological Survey the earthquake measured at magnitude 7.7, recording its duration as eight seconds. At a depth of 15 kilometres, it struck at 4:29 pm local time, 60 miles southwest of Khuzdar city in occupied Balochistan.

Pakistan army, consists of Punjabi and Pashtun ethnic, is a red rug to bull in Balochistan. Almost all Baloch resistance organizations have made it loud and clear that they would oppose Pakistan army to carry out relief operation in Balochistan but the military is hell bent to control everything in Balochistan. In the cover of relief operation it has established so far 15 check points in Mashkai alone forcing the locals to carry out the banker and check post construction work in several other areas including Perwar, Meyani Kalat and Bansar of Awaran district.

“Baloch have the capacity to weather this storm, if only Pakistani army intervention is stopped! But I feel we’re lurching in isolation and UN has turned a blind eye to our plight. We need political support, rather than relief aid as Pakistan army has utterly refused to allow aid work to be carried out in Balochistan,” said a political activist on condition of anonymity. More than hundreds relief trucks are stranded in Mangoli and Jebri army camps; army is adamantly refusing them to reach to the needy people. Several vehicles loaded with relief goods, belonging to different NGOs and Baloch Welfare Associations have been confiscated by army. In the name of data registration, youth are specific targets, he said.

Meanwhile, the pro freedom Baloch political and armed organizations have repeatedly said that they would welcome international and local aid agencies to carry out humanitarian relief works in Balochistan with the help of local people. And people also refused to take aid from Pakistani army.

Almost every day Pakistan army conducts unwarranted punitive operation in quake affected areas in Awaran. According to local reports army has forced people to evacuate these areas and established check post and bunker in strategically important locations. As result, people are fleeing the area and seeking refuge in neighbouring districts. The helpless condition isn’t the only reason that has forced people to flee the area, the arrest and harassment of people by army is a daily routine in Awaran district. Pakistan army has abducted more than 16000 political activists, Journalists, educators, doctors. Out of them 1500 activists have been tortured to death and thrown in ditches across Balochistan since 2011, despite repeated protest and concerns raised by international human rights organizations, Pakistan refused to acknowledge the disappearances and the killing of the political activists. Pakistan’s apex court so far conducted more than 80 hearings of the enforced missing persons, but it failed to convict the culprits.

The fact is that Pakistan is afraid of the exposure of Balochistan landscape to international media, where it has contained Baloch society into abject poverty for 67 years.

Given the media blackout and restrictions, Balochistan is off limited for international media and aid agencies. Oxfam and UN have a better understanding of the situation in Balochistan regarding Pakistani sanctions over Balochistan.
Pakistan has imposed such a steel coated media blackout in Balochistan that it has made it virtually impossible for world community to peek into Baluchistan’s inner parts where its army has wreaked havoc and forced Balochistan to meet human catastrophe. Pakistani Urdu and English media, Instead of covering the devastation, acting on the line of state containment policy of Baloch nation, seem to have embarked upon two types of campaign against Baloch resistances forces, Urdu media with the task of a psychological war frightening people of the God punishment – implying that Pakistan is a mystical entity, if you go against it, it invokes the ferocity of the divine in the form of Quake. And English media with specific guidelines and narratives has been assigned the responsibility to portray Baloch resistance as a terrorism menace associated with religious outfits to frighten international aid agencies and media from coming to Balochistan.

All entrance ways into Awaran have been bottlenecked with new check posts, where Baloch parties and relief givers are forced to go through harsh scrutiny. But Jumaet-e Dawa, JuD and other religious organizations, including the pro Pakistan pocket parties are at their leisure to distribute propaganda leaflets inscribed with Islamic teachings – asking to people have faith in God!

When the quake gave rise to a mini Island off the Gwardar coast, we saw Pakistani media was quick to call it a tourist spot and Pakistan Navy took over the guard, hoisted Pakistani flag, and declared it an off-limited zone for local fishermen. NASA also captured its photo and posted it in its site, but failed to present the extent of the devastation in photographic details in Awaran and Kech districts. The geographical location and its vast mineral resources at the juncture of three important regions in Asia have marked Balochistan as an important land on this earth!

The pillage of Baloch mineral resources including Natural Gas in Sui and Dera Bugti, Cold and Copper reservoirs in Chagai, Marine products of Baloch Sea is not limited to Pakistani itself; it has also involved Chinese Dragon to suck the Baloch blood. The Saindak copper and cold project and Kashgar-Gwadar economic corridor have underscored the Pak-Chinese predatory collusion in Balochistan.

Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in Chagai – Balochistan – on 28, May 1998 against the will of Baloch nation. The blasts have devastating impacts on local people and wildlife in the Chagai and its surrounding areas. The international scientists and investigators have not so far visit the site to gauge the effects of these blasts on people. The international community, especially, the IAEA has neither protested against such inhuman acts of Pakistan nor did they insist on carrying out a survey of the area.

Given Pakistan’s state policy of Baloch punishment, containment and exploitation, it goes without saying that Baloch are facing undeclared Pakistani state imposed political and economic sanctions right under the nose of 21st century’s ‘enlightened world’.

http://balochwarna.com/features/articles.104/Pakistani-Punitive-Sanctions-against-Balochistan.html

Pak Army kills Two common Baloch in Sui

Archen Baloch  7/9/2013

 Occupied Balochistan,  Sui -   Local Media in Sui reported that Pakistan army with the help of a state sponsored local death squad, called Aman force,  has shot to dead Ali Khan s/o Samand Khan Bugti and Gazzo  s/o Shoukat Ali Bugti, during a an unwarranted search operation in Yaropat of Sui district, Balochistan.  

Both were common peasants in Yaropat killed by the occupying forces without any known reason. 

It has now routinely become a common practice of the Pakistani security forces to shoot to kill unarmed people without any judicial accountability to courts or public all over Balochistan. After all, it is Islamic Republic of Pakistan and what good a common Baloch can expect from it, but death and destruction? 

Heavy Attacks on Pakistan Armed forces in Sui, Gen Kaya Escaped Unhurt

By Archen Baloch 6/9/2013

 Occupied Balochistan- Sui, According to reports Gen Kayani on Friday visited Sui Military garrison in Balochistan where most of the gas wells are situated and piped directly to Punjab. But, as Sangar Media reported that the Sarmachars, the Freedom fighters, have welcomed him with heavy rocket attacks on the camp he visited.

General Pervis Ashraf Gayani, a Punjabi general hails from dominant Punjab and is the chief of Pakistani armed forces is on a mission to boast the morale of his armed forces, predominantly consist of Punjabis, in Balochistan where Baloch resisting armed organizations are constantly attacking his weary forces in a guerilla warfare that has sapped them of their will of fight.

General Kayani was programed to stay in the camp until evening, but he had to abort his stay because of the attacks on the camp and the escorting helicopters, local media reported the continuation of heavy exchange of firing from both sides as I compiled this report.

Until  now no armed organization accepted the responsibility of these attacks, but it is widely believed that Baloch Republic Army, an armed organization seeking to liberate Balochistan from Pakistani occupation,  could be the force behind these attacks as it is highly active in that area attacking state installations and gas pipelines running to Punjab and other provinces of Pakistan.   

Just two days back, before visiting his troops in Balochistan, Gen Kayani visited forward positions along the tense Line of Control (LoC), which divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

It is worth mentioning here that Pakistan is facing a guerilla war in the terrain of Balochistan and it has greatly limited her forces within the camps. But Pakistani media in Balochistan greatly shuns the events of the war that have international bearing.

Journalist Haji Abdul Razzaq, the Latest Victim of Baloch Genocide in Pakistan

By Archen Baloch 

   

  I didn't believe they would kill Baloch Journalist, Haji Abdul Razzaq who was arrested on March 24, 2013 in Karachi by Pakistani secret agency ISI and today Baloch media reported his mutilated dead body was found in Surjani area of Karachi along with another Baloch labour, Patan Bugti.Based on two assumptions I thought that firstly, his abduction has been well reported in international media and in international human right organizations and secondly, the newly ‘elected democratic’ government of Nawaz Sharif in Islamabad would at least spare the lives of Journalists in Balochistan. Unfortunately, I was wrong on both assumptions. It shows that Pakistan gives a tinker’s damn about what the international human rights organizations say and international media reports.

It goes without saying that Baloch Journalism is too hard to be digested by Pakistani state because, it refused to promote jihadi concepts and rather it sought to adhere to the truth and Razzaq was one of those Baloch Journalists who promoted secular values and Human Rights through his journalism and as a political activist. Dailytawar.com was his only media platform through which he could reach to the general public and wider world community.

After 11 days of his arrest, Dailytawar.com in the form of Paper vanished from the streets of Balochistan’s cities and villages and went offline from net service since the day when its head office in Karachi was rampaged by Pakistani security forces in the early hours of Saturday on 6th April, 2013.

None of Pakistan’s so called mainstream media outlet protested against the attack on Daily Tawar’s office and burning its entire archive, but again, just for international media consumption, they often raise their concerns about the media freedom and of course about the welfare of Journalists in Pakistan too.

Daily Tawar did not stop its publication just because of security threat its reporters and writers received, but because of the state’s systematic clampdown on the paper, which made it utterly impossible for it to reach to general public, from printers to transporters from street hawkers to bookshops all were prevented from cooperating with it. And an online ban to dailytawar.com is in place to date.

Javid Naseer Rind, Razzaq Gul, Lala Hameed, Ali Sher Kurd, Rahmtulla Shaheen and Ahmed Dad all were arrested by Pakistani security agencies and put to death when they refused to submit to state repression and their mutilated bodies were recovered in desolate areas . All district press clubs and journalist associations across Balochistan have received their fair share of gifts of mutilated dead bodies of reporters with a single massage - How dare you speak the truth??

Naseer Rind Tagrani, subeditor of Daily Tawar based in Hub city of Balochistan lost his life when he was arrested along with Samad Tagrani, a leader of Baloch National Movement. Samad Tagrani too was brutally killed and the bodies of both men were found dumped in Naal area of Khuzdar district.

Noor Ahmed’s only sin was that he reported about military operations from besieged towns of Sui and Dera Buigti where Pakistani’s main energy arteries are situated that carry gas to Pakistan’s dominant province of Punjab and other provinces whereas the owners of the Sui gas fields are still forced carry woods from miles to use for burning their homes.

Siddique Eido, a famous Baloch journalist and human rights activist hailed from Balochistan coastal city of Pasni where Pakistan’s second biggest Naval Base is situated after Karachi. His reporting of military excesses against local fishermen irked ISI. Hence they abducted him and subsequently his mutilated dead body was found near Gwadar zero point.

Entire Khuzdar city of Balochistan has been cleaned of Journalists, Mohmmed Khan Sasoli, one of the most senior Journalists lost his life in a targeted attack by state sponsored death squad when he refused to shut down Khuzdar Press Club even after losing all of journalist colleagues. The brave Baloch Journalist, Saiful Rehman lost his life when he rushed to the site where the deadliest suicidal carnage was inflicted upon Balochistan’s religious minority Shiite Hazara people in Quetta.

In some cases, Pakistani state agencies create a wall of obstacles with false reports against the asylum seeking Baloch Journalists so that their applications for asylum are rejected. Regular contributing journalists like Hafeez Hasanabadi, Shabir Baloch, Salam Sabir and many others were forced to seek refuge abroad as the state security apparatus made their live hell in Balochistan.

Khadim Lehri, the Chief Editor of Daily Tawar went into hiding with his family when he saw that reporters and journalists associated with his paper were being brutally killed by state functionaries. He narrowly escaped abduction and subsequent as he went underground just before his office was ransacked. He fled the death lurking behind him every day as consequences of publishing the Daily Tawar. Once he was summoned by a high ranking official of Pakistan’s secret agencies for a “Mutual Understanding” and a message through him was conveyed to Hafeez Hasanabadi that said he should refrain from writing against Pakistani state policies.

Hafeez Hasanabadi, a senior Baloch journalist, who mostly writes in Urdu but has a good command on Russian, Balochi and Persian languages, has been alleged with blasphemous remarks by religious death squads. The death squads threatened to kill him and harm his family abroad. With such allegations, neither can he freely travel nor can live among his people in Pakistani occupied Balochistan where religious elements, supported by state security agencies, are freely roaming and brandishing fatwa against those who speak against atrocities of Islamic Republic of Pakistan. He and his family have gone in hiding to save their souls.