Human Rights Abuses in Balochistan

 By Archen Baloch

Balochistan has long been a region marred by brutality, with entire villages and cities bearing the scars of atrocities committed by Iran and Pakistan. The conflict is characterised by extreme measures taken by these states to suppress dissent and stifle aspirations for independence.

Forced Disappearances

One of the most harrowing aspects of the crisis in Balochistan is the phenomenon of enforced disappearances. Thousands of Baloch political activists, students, and civilians have been abducted by state security forces, often without legal justification. These individuals are taken to undisclosed locations, with no information provided to their families. Many victims are subjected to torture, and some are never seen again. Pakistan denies these disappearances, while Iran accuses those abducted of waging war against God or spreading mischief, often sentencing them to death in kangaroo courts.

The case of Zakir Majeed Baloch is emblematic of this tragedy. A prominent Baloch student leader and political activist, Zakir was abducted by Pakistan’s security forces in 2009. Despite years of advocacy by his family and human rights organizations, his whereabouts remain unknown, a fate shared by thousands of others in Balochistan.

Similarly, in Iran, the IRGC and intelligence agents routinely arrest, torture, and execute Baloch individuals on trumped-up charges. A notable case is that of Molavi Fathi Mohammad Naqshbandi, the Friday Prayer leader of Rask, who has been “physically and mentally tortured” for his support of anti-government protests and for speaking out against the rape of Maho Baloch by the Chabahar police chief.

After his arrest, he was accused of “disseminating false information, defaming the Islamic Republic of Iran, and acting against national security.” According to his son, Molavi Abdul Ghafar Naqshbandi, his elderly father endured torture involving a “stun gun and an ironing machine” at the Intelligence Department of Zahedan, the capital of Iranian-Occupied Balochistan.

Impact on Families

The impact of these disappearances on the families left behind is profound. Mothers, sisters, wives, and children live in perpetual grief and uncertainty, marked by protests, vigils, and desperate searches for information about their loved ones. The pain of not knowing whether a son, brother, or husband is dead or alive is a form of psychological torture that continues for years. Many family members of the disappeared carry this pain to their graves.

State-Sponsored Atrocities

In addition to enforced disappearances, the Baloch people face other forms of state-sponsored violence, including extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, and executions. The Pakistani and Iranian governments use these tactics to crush the Baloch freedom movement and silence dissent. Military operations in the region often result in civilian casualties, destruction of property, and further displacement of already marginalised Baloch nation.

International Response

The international community has largely remained silent on the human rights abuses in Balochistan. While some human rights organisations and activists have tried to bring attention to the crisis, the issue remains underreported, and the perpetrators of these atrocities continue to act with impunity.

The Baloch people feel ignored and discriminated against by international human rights groups and the global community. The UN’s silence on the atrocities, brutalities, and genocidal policies of its member states, Iran and Pakistan, is causing the Baloch to lose hope in the organisation.

Feeling abandoned, the Baloch are relying on their own strength, resisting Pakistan and Iran’s barbarism by all means available. The world must step forward to support the Baloch before it is too late.

Pakistani Potion of Lid-Laddu to the Baloch Nation

 By Archen Baloch

During a two-day visit to Balochistan, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the Chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), left no stone unturned in his efforts to appease his masters in the GHQ. In a public gathering in Quetta, the capital city of Pakistani-occupied Balochistan, he offered free healthcare services to the Baloch nation. He announced that he would provide free healthcare to those who come to Karachi for treatment and build a large hospital in Quetta where free healthcare services would be available.

Behind closed doors, however, Bhutto met with the selected Chief Minister of Balochistan, Sarfraz Bugti. According to Dawn, Bhutto’s primary objective was “to defeat the terrorism narrative and restore peace and political stability in Balochistan through grassroots political processes.” 

Before Bhutto visited Quetta, his father, Asif Ali Zardari, chaired a security meeting of high-security officials in the coastal city of Gwadar. The meeting aimed to convince the Chinese government that the “Azm-e-Istehkam operation” would pave the way for exploiting Balochistan’s regional resources.

To understand the reality behind Bhutto’s promise of free healthcare to the Baloch masses and his insistence on addressing the terrorism narrative, we need to view it through the lens of a popular story.

Bhutto’s promise can be likened to a game of lid-laddu. In the Balochi language, “lid” means camel dung, while “laddu” is an Indian sweet made from various ingredients and sugar syrup.

The story behind the lid-laddu game was narrated by the father of the Baloch nation, Khair Bakhsh Marri, during an interview with BBC Urdu. He recounted a tale about a thug in a village who saw children with laddus and wanted to have them. Instead of directly snatching the laddus and offending the children, the thug collected camel dung, which is similar in shape and colour to laddu. He then called the children to play a game, offering four lids for one laddu. In this way, he deceived the children into trading their sweets for camel dung.

The Baloch nation, in terms of natural resources, is one of the richest on earth. With a population of 65 million and a geography of 700,000 square kilometres, Balochistan is well-endowed.

The Bhuttos were brought into power in Pakistani politics to govern the masses with the so-called socialist slogan of “Bread, Clothes, and House,” a strategy crafted by the Pakistani military establishment. The Bhuttos have been selling this laddu, which is lid (dung), to the Pakistani masses. Now, this deceit has extended to Baloch society.

We must consider whether it is appropriate to detail the statistics of our resources before a foreign occupier or to kick him out of our land. They came and occupied our land and started usurping our natural resources. However, it is appropriate to let the world know what we have in Balochistan in terms of natural resources. The variety of mineral resources that we possess in Balochistan, under Pakistani occupation, are mouthwatering for other resourceless nations.

The Sui gas field, one of the largest natural gas fields in the region, was discovered in 1952 and piped to Punjab and other cities in Pakistan, depriving Balochistan of its resources. The Sor Range, Khost-Shahrag-Harnai, and Duki areas have some of the world’s longest deposits of coal. Silver, copper, and gold deposits found in Reko Diq are among the largest reserves in the world, being exploited by Chinese and Canadian companies against the will of Balochistan.

Iron ore deposits are also found in the Chagai District, along with significant sulphur deposits. Balochistan is a major producer of chromite in the Muslim Bagh area, and we have substantial deposits of high-quality marble and granite. Other natural resources include limestone, used for cement production, and high-quality gypsum reserves used in construction and the manufacture of plaster.

The Koh-e-Sulaiman Mountain range and coastal belt of Balochistan contain large quantities of uranium deposits. However, with the support of China, Pakistan is extracting these deposits and polluting Balochistan’s ecosystem by dumping nuclear waste in coastal areas.

Balochistan’s coastline along the Arabian Sea is rich in marine resources, brimming with high-quality marine life. However, it has now been turned into a marine game park for Chinese fishing trawlers. Balochistan has four seasons and produces a variety of high-quality fruits and vegetables, including dates, grapes, watermelons, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, apples, pomegranates, peaches, wheat, rice, and various beans. Balochistan is also known for livestock farming, including cows, sheep, goats, horses, and camels.

With vast open plains and high solar insolation levels, Balochistan has significant potential for solar and wind energy development.

Given our immense natural resources and our status as a large nation, why should we Baloch allow ourselves to be governed by lid-laddu thugs? We were an independent nation but became the victim of the British Great Game in our region. Pakistan occupied our country through military aggression at the behest of the British Empire. Whenever we resisted and constructed our narrative of national liberation, they dubbed our leadership as national traitors.

In their eyes, our narrative is now terrorism! Meanwhile, the looting and plundering of our resources are negligible matters, the killing and dumping of Baloch political activists are not considered crimes, and the destruction of our ecosystem is seen as a social issue, which they believe can all be sorted out with an offer of an apology. They think that their lid-laddu is a potion for taming the Baloch into submission.

Under the lens of their colonial rule, our genuine elder political leadership is often labelled by the Pakistani military establishment and its stooges as tribal chieftains because they refused to buy into the Bhuttos’ lid-laddu game. As a result, they have been defamed, character-assassinated, persecuted, hanged, assassinated, and forced into exile.

The new generation of the current liberation movement is also facing the same policies of persecution and the lid-laddu game. However, the perseverance of the Baloch resistance refuses to give in to Pakistani state terrorism. It has achieved an optimal level of success in terms of persistence and resistance.

https://archenbaluch.blogspot.com/2024/07/pakistani-potion-of-lid-laddu-to-baloch.html

Pakistan’s Sham Elections in Occupied Balochistan

 

By Archen Baloch

Pakistan conducted its general elections on February 8, 2024. It also conducted its elections in occupied Balochistan at gunpoint where only the PPP and Muslim League (N) who were recently favored by the army to make their presence for certain reasons, one of them being the stark question of how to hide Pakistan’s utter failure in containing the 24 years old Balochistan’s insurgency for liberation.

The recent induction of PPP and Muslim League (N) in Balochistan’s politics is widely seen as an attempt of the Pakistan army to hoodwink the international community into believing that Baloch are represented in Pakistan’s mainstream polity and they believe in Pakistan. Their objective is to make sure that Balochistan’s political contour merges into Pakistan’s mainstream politics whereby the nationalistic outlook of Baloch politics is erased.

However, the picture in Balochistan differs from that of expectations of the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the Pakistan army in Rawalpindi. Independent sources say that the turnout in occupied Balochistan was hardly 3 percent. The NA 261 Kalat is a case in point where the total number of voters in this constituency is 371430, out of which only 12,204 voters exercised their right to vote, thus the voter’s turnout was 3.97 percent. The average turnout stands at 2.48 of the total votes for so-called national and provincial elections across Balochistan.

Those political underdogs who failed to deliver on Pakistan’s army script have been discarded and replaced with military stooges and death squad members with no political background. The long-serving pseudo-Pashtun nationalist Mahmood Achakzai, now no more of any use to the Pakistan army after the Taliban took over in Afghanistan, divulged that a Pakistan army officer had taken money and sold his seat to another candidate.

Moulana Hedayatullah, the head of Haq Do Tehrik who won the Gwadar provincial seat with a low turnout margin revealed that the army had rigged the votes and favoured their people, he said that “thieves, under the supervision of the Pakistan army, cast thousands of fake votes at the polling stations where even the staff did not arrive, he further said that  “two Kech sub-districts, Mand and Dasht-Nagor, where no polling had ever taken place and people did not come for voting, yet an Afghan refugee was given the MNA seat with 40778 fake votes”.

The international community, especially the US, UK and the EU who each year give billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan have alleged interference, irregularities and fraud during and after the voting process and urged that these undemocratic practices should be fully investigated.

Pakistani military establishment overwhelmingly dominated by Punjab is hell-bent on stamping their will over the Baloch nation and its state manipulation has always been at work since early times when Balochistan was forcefully annexed – meddling from the pre-poll phase to election day irregularities to the post-poll counting process and cobbling together an alliance, at every stage, the will of Pakistan army is blatantly executed. Every attempt at a manipulative political manoeuvre in Balochistan is aimed at maintaining the monopoly of the Sunni Punjabi army over Balochistan. 

The fact is that the Baloch never joined Pakistan of their own free will, It was a forced annexation at gunpoint against the will of the Baloch people. A large number of pro-independent political parties and armed organizations are resisting and struggling to liberate Balochistan from the illegal occupation of Pakistan. According to Pakistani police reports 130 incidents of bomb blasts were carried out by the Baloch Liberation Army and other organizations.

The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) in statements said declared Pakistan’s elections in Balochistan a sham and illegal and vowed to resist them with their might available at their disposal.  The BLA’s spokesperson, Azad Baloch, also told the media that fighters of BLA carried out at least 43 attacks on Pakistan’s electoral process in Balochistan on 8 February 2024 making it clear to the Baloch nation and the world that the Baloch do not accept Pakistan illegal occupation and colonisation.

The bloody Black Friday: British Still on the Wrong side of Baloch History

 

By Archen Baloch 

On Friday, 30th Sept 2022 Iranian forces killed more than 60 unarmed peaceful Baloch protesters and injured more than 275 people in the streets of Zahedan, the capital city of Iranian occupied Balochistan. The protest was a spontaneous uprising by its nature, because, apparently no political party had given the call for it.

According to confirmed reports, widely available on social media in Persian and Balochi languages, the protests across Iranian-occupied Balochistan erupted when the news emerged that the police head of the coastal city of Chabahar, Colonel Ebrahim Kochzai, had raped a 15-year-old Baloch girl Maho Baloch on 27th September after arresting her for investigation. This ugly act of rape of a Baloch girl had taken place at a time when entire non-Persian nations, the Kurds and Ahvazi Arabs were protesting the murder of Kurdish girl, Mahsa Amini across Iran.

Further information suggests college and university students across Balochistan have also come out in support of the people of Zahedan and against the indiscriminate firing of the Iranian forces at peaceful protesters in Zahedan city.

One is compelled to ask that despite knowing the fact that the Persian-dominated Iranian ethnoreligious regime won’t tolerate dissenting voices, what made the Baloch public surge on the streets and protest the brutalities of the regime’s unbridled armed forces immune from public accountability? 

Religiously Shiite-dominated Iran, like Punjabi-dominated Pakistan, is also a multi-national state which is dominated and governed by an ultra-nationalist Persian majority that never bothered to accept ethnic and cultural diversity.  Hypothetically, even if the Baloch nation decides to settle for a moment for a federal solution, then who can make Iran become genuine a genuine democracy where all nations can be represented equally in its federal structure? 

Like many Middle Eastern nations, Balochistan was also a united independent nation. However, when British Raj wanted to establish a buffer zone between Central Asia and South Asia after fully conquering the Indian subcontinent, it pushed its forces towards Sindh and Balochistan in order to occupy Afghanistan and turn it into a buffer zone against Russian influence. The expeditionary forces of the British Raj in Balochistan, while on their way to Afghanistan, faced a reluctant nation that didn’t like the British invading Afghanistan by using their soil.  

In the wake of British advancement towards Central Asia –Afghanistan, we, Baloch, lost our independence and sovereignty to British military aggression. The British Raj attacked the center of the Baloch Federation; Meeri Kalat in 1839 and subsequently the Raj took the charge of our fate.

The western part of Balochistan was still under the rule of Mir Dost Mohammad Khan Baranzai, however, Iranian Persian rulers were constantly pushing their expansionist whim into bordering areas of Balochistan. “In 1927, the Persian Government made an ultimatum on Mir Dost Muhammad Barakzai to accept the sovereignty of Persia (Sykes, 1902). He was promised that the king of Persia would consider his personal privileges in case he surrenders to the Persian demands. For the general Baloch population, it was proclaimed that extensive developmental works would be initiated in return of a pledge of loyalty to the Persian state. Mir Dost Muhammad Khan Barakzai however, the legitimate ruler of Western Balochistan, refused to submit Baloch Sovereignty to the Iranian king’s expansionist desires.

In 1928, Persian King invades Balochistan and the English Raj, which was ruling the Eastern part of Balochistan, instead of defending Baloch territory under the 1876 agreement, encouraged the Persian king to commit aggression against Baloch sovereignty under an appeasement policy, for the fear that the Iranian king might side with Germany after the first world war. 

After the British invasion, the Baloch nation never saw a day of peace, every decade Baloch is forced to go through a blood bath, whether it was British, or now Iran and Pakistan, they never hesitated to riddle the chest of Baloch youth whenever they demanded their democratic rights be respected.

It was the British that broke Baloch national geography into pieces which led to 45 million Baloch at the mercy of two rouge nations, Iran and Pakistan. Even today, the British government and its agencies continue to create hurdles for Baloch national leader Hyrbyair Marri hampering his efforts to seek diplomatic support from the international community for the liberation of Balochistan from Iranian and Pakistan colonial rule.

It is our firm belief that given the geostrategic position of Balochistan and Baloch as a secular nation the establishment of a united independent Balochistan is the geopolitical solution to all regional conflicts in the Middle East and South and Central Asia and the international strategic communities have to see why British is reluctant to correct its historic mistakes in occupied Balochistan.

Enough is enough for British enmity towards the Baloch nation it should stop being on the wrong side of Baloch history and rectify its historical blunders. If it cannot support the freedom struggle, it should not support Pakistan and Iran as both have delivered nothing except terrorism in Balochistan India, and Afghanistan after their creation.

https://balochwarna.com/2022/10/03/the-bloody-black-friday-british-still-on-the-wrong-side-of-baloch-history/

The Enemy at the Gates: The Baloch Perspective

 

22nd August 2020

Photo credit: Arnica Kala / The Quint

By Archen Baloch

It suddenly emerged that China would pour a whopping amount of $ 400 billion into Iran for a 25 years’ strategic security and economic deal! This huge amount of money in the neighborhood is not only mouthwatering for the cash stripped Pakistan, but also it has raised security alarm for peaceful Gulf States, India, Israel America and the Baloch nation as well. The cash stripped Pakistan is now eyeing for a jackal’s share in this China-Iran-Nexus deal, despite the fact that it had already got its lion share from Belt and Road initiative of China in the form of China Pakistan Economic Corridor at the cost of Baloch blood.

 However, to win Iran’s confidence for the jackal’s share, Pakistan has now started to distance itself from Saudi Arabia by blaming it that it is not supporting Kashmir’s cause. In fact, for quite a time, Riyadh has been trying to keep Pakistan away from the Iranian sphere of influence by offering financial aids, which includes the recent $3.2 billion package to bail out Pakistan from the default which is still keeping Islamabad floating. However, China’s $400 billion’s deal with Iran hedged a new hope for Pakistan to turn a rebellious head towards Riyadh and its FM threatened to form another Muslim Ummah block out of OIC with Turkey, Malaysia and Iran if it failed to support its Kashmir cause.

Nonetheless, the tentacles of communist Chinese dragons have also reached fanatic Iran after Pakistan for a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership which is for sure is going against American strategic presence in the Arabian Gulf waters. It has now made the American presence in the Gulf all the more important than ever before, given the fact that Chinese aggressive posture and rapid advancement towards strategic locations of Balochistan’s waters and land (To Baloch, Balochistan is a single entity and Baloch nation don’t recognize the arbitrary border between Iran and Pakistan drawn by the occupying foreign forces).

In Baloch political circles, It is widely believed that China’s entrance into Balochistan entails a catastrophic demographical change for the Baloch nation on both sides of Eastern and Western Balochistan occupied by Pakistan and Iran respectively. The $400 billion are far more than enough to build a China-led security block consisting of Pakistan Iran, Turkey, and Russia, the harbinger of a gigantic shift of power imbalance in the Middle East for the peaceful Gulf States, Israel and India as well.

In this new scenario of West Asia’s geopolitical equation, Pakistan is the most distrusted mate, without Pakistan’ssupport, encouragement and nudge for wide a range of geopolitical considerations; China won’t have made it to dislodge India from Iran and didn’t breach the sanctions imposed by America. Many observers believe that this huge investment will surely reinvigorate Iran’s military mussels to wreak more havoc in the sphere of influence of Saudi Arabia.

What is next? National and regional security threats require permanent defensive fortification. The China Iran Nexus has emerged as a new permanent security threat to the peaceful Gulf States in the Middle East. Iran, under the current geographical order, whether ruled by fanatic Persian Mullah or Persian nationalist democrats or Persian King is either way, a permanent security threat to Gulf States’ stability. The history of the geopolitics of this abnormal country shows that hegemonic Persian nationalism never coexisted peacefully with its neighboring nations, Arabs, Kurds, and Baloch and other religious minorities.

The 14/9 Aramco oil attacks had badly wounded the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s pride as a prominent state of the Arab world, all it needed was to exact a befitting retaliation that could have settled the old and new scores with Iran which was believed to be behind the attacks on Aramco oil installations in Abqaiq. It was a rare opportunity that had just landed on the lap of Saudi and American leadership to put the genie of Iranian extremists in rest.

However, in terms of retaliation, nothing happened except some arguments, Kingdom’s possible war ally America had other strategic security priorities back then, on July 11, 2019, U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, to the Senate, rules out the probability of a war with Iran, saying that “the military is focused on a strategy of great-power competition with Russia and China”. “You mentioned war with Iran,” Milley said. “I don’t know that that would happen but if it did happen it would have a significant impact on the distribution of the force relative to those other priorities”.

The first shock that Trump’s announcement gave to the Middle East was that it would pull its troops from Syria’s north-south of the Kurdish region creating security Vacuum in the Middle East which gave Turkey a clean chit to cull the secular Kurds in the region. America failed the Kurds at a time when Iran was daring a challenge to the international community in international waters way of the Arabian Gulf. We cannot rule out the fact that American backtracking on Iranian blatant aggression on Aramco encouraged Turkey to attack the Kurds when it pulled its troops from northwestern Syria.

It means America had issued a clean chit at the time to Iran to wreak havoc in the Middle East with blanket impunity. The frustration was echoed by Dr. Ali Qureshi, an ex-Saudi army officer who tweeted that America was engaged in dialogue with Iran behind the scene, there is no possibility of America to take on Iran by offensive measures. 

Nevertheless, for all his bluster and backtrackings, President Trump is still obliged to listen to Saudi leadership for a military commitment to take on Iranian aggression for attacking Saudi Arabia. On a discounted moral ground, one needs to admit that when American sanctions provoke Iran into taking daring actions against vulnerable GCC states and their international assets, so what are then the American assurances and measures for safety and security to its allies, especially when one of its second strategic security competitors China has already arrived at the Gate of Gulf – Balochistan?

Balochistan, located at the tri-juncture of three major regions, serves as a bulwark against extremist groups and Iranian influence in the region. An independent Balochistan can play a super rule by becoming a key conduit in linking the Eurasian hinterland’s trade to Gulf ports; however, nothing can be done without the restoration of Balochistan’s independence back to 1928 and 1848 status. Baloch and Kurds are living on their lands but they’re being ruled by despotic Muslim aliens at gunpoint. Here comes the concept of power, whoever poses it would determine the fates, and power is what Baloch and Kurds lack.

Both Iran and Pakistan eulogize all good attributions of Muslim Umma and brotherhood to the world but wreak havoc across the globe to establish Caliphate in Muslim countries. Similarly, when the iron lid of their despotic dominancy over Balochistan and Kurdistanis removed, you will find nothing except the pestering wounds of Baloch and Kurds. If we closely study the attitude and their history of behavior with Baloch and Kurds – how they’ve been ruling Baloch and Kurds – we’ll find that these dominant nations are extremely ultra-nationalists, albeit they’ve succeeded in hiding their ultra-nationalism in the garb of Islam and pseudo federalism from the eyes of the international community with Iron-curtained media blackout. The illegal colonial rulers have forced Baloch and Kurds to suffer from political, cultural and economic hardship for no reason other than to dominate and exploit their natural resources!

A normalization process of relations between Israel and the Gulf States is underway in the Middle East which is largely believed to counter Iranian and Chinese expansionism in the region, it involves defensive fortification in the Gulf States, but the Iranian expansionist whim continues to remain permanent as usual in Middle Eastern Arab countries, for, almost all of these countries don’t have the required lever over Iran to control its destabilizing behavior in the region internally, except the Baloch, Kurds and Arab Al-Ahwaz cards, who’re persecuted on daily basis by the Persian mullah regime. But they’re left lurching alone.

We know that no neighboring Arab nation is happy with Iran and Pakistan for their war crimes against humanity in Balochistan because of the historical brotherly relationship between Baloch and the nations of the Gulf States. However, so far they’ve fastened their lips for some unreasonable reasons in the face of naked Iranian and Pakistani aggression against Baloch nation. Nonetheless, the Baloch nation is hoping that as a strong geopolitical leader of Arab countries, Saudi Arabia can see the light at the end of the tunnel extend its support to the Baloch nation for their liberation movement against illegal Iranian colonial rule over Balochistan.

As it is clearly stated in the US state’s foreign policy statement that “The PRC’s predatory world view has no place in the 21st century” however, the same predator is also looting and plundering Baloch natural resources without the consent of Baloch nation and Baloch are defenseless. 

Selling the ideas of federalism and democracy of western countries to Iran and Pakistan might be a rosy picture but the dominant Turks, Punjabis and Persians are extremely ultra-nationalists in their relationship with oppressed nations. These dominant nations have never bothered to set a precedent – a model of democracy – that might have guaranteed the fundamental rights of Baloch and Kurds as equal federating units. Rather, they’ve treated them as subjects instead of equal stockholders

The Western nations might find it cool that Muslim Persian daughters are wearing jeans beneath their Burkas and when the Burkas fall, a secular democracy will emerge out it, but alas, it is not the case, for Baloch and Kurds, as beneath their skins the relays the Persian ultra-nationalism which has been nurtured for centuries to subjugate Arab, Baloch and Kurds and loot their national resources in the name of federal Iran and Islam.

West, after its disengagement from the expeditions of conquering new territories after Second World War, is now afraid of a new order in the Middle East that they think that it might entail harmful consequences for their decaying old industry-based economies. Here I would like to quote my leader, Hyrbyair Marri who once said that West’s current lot of leadership has no vision and decision making will-power to review the current geopolitical order of Turkey Iran and Pakistan as to why they failed to deliver in term of peace and prosperity as member states of United Nations.

Finally, I would like to argue that given the current convulsions of the geopolitics of West, Asia and the constant new alignments of the forces in the region, Baloch and Kurds are finding it a window of hope that America and its allies including Europe, Gulf State, Israel, India and the Quad’s members will be convinced that the current geopolitical order of Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq have failed to deliver peace, stability and prosperity in the region and they’ve rather given rise to religious fundamentalism and extremism in the region. The secular Free Balochistan offers a lasting solution to the region’s security problems and plays a key role in bridging West Asia and South Asia to Central Asia for trade and commerce – as an alternative corridor to Belt and Road Initiative of China model.

https://balochwarna.com/2020/08/22/the-enemy-at-the-gate-the-baloch-perspective/

The Slogan of – Pakistan Quit Balochistan

By Archen Baloch

On 27th March 1948 Pakistan army invaded the sovereign state of Balochistan and forced the legitimate ruler, Khan of Kalat, Mir Ahmad Yar Khan to sign the merger agreement with Pakistan against the will of the Baloch nation. Baloch, under the leadership of Khan’s younger brother, Agha Abdul Kareem resisted this aggression but they were weak and the International community, especially the neighbouring countries, Afghanistan, Oman and India didn’t support them. The British Raj left Baloch at the mercy of religious Pakistan and in fact, British were instrumental in nudging and forcing Pakistan to occupy Balochistan.

Our weakness was that the British, under the divide and rule policy, had antagonized the heads of almost all tribes against the Khan of Kalat. This antagonism among Baloch tribes always rendered the federal character of Kalat extremely weak. The British Raj also never allowed Balochistan to have its own formal defence force, except a light levy force for collecting tax and serving as a police force for maintaining law and order. The control of British armed forces that were deployed in Balochistan was given to Pakistan instead of Balochistan at the time when the Raj departed theoretically from the region.

According to late Major Hayatan Shahmeer Mandesh’s historical accounts; “My elder brother, Hassan Shahmeer was working as a sepoy of levies force of Khan Kalat. He died at his earlier age and the levy force recruited me in place of him.

“I was underage at that time. After 18 days of my recruitment, the armed forces of British Raj from Soro Camp of Kalat, under the command of an English officer, came at our levy police station and told us that Balochistan had joined Pakistan, they burnt candlelight and lowered Balochistan’s Bairak (flag) of Khan Kalat and hoisted Pakistani flag. At that time we didn’t know what was going on, but later we learned that it was the invasion of Balochistan and the arrest of Khan Kalat. As we were of Khan of Kalat force, so the British forces were instructed to shoot to kill if the levy forces revolted against this order. Their fear was that we might revolt the capture of Kalat, so they were highly alert even to the level of shooting us dead.”

When Khan of Kalat was asked by M A Jinnah to Join Pakistan, he said he would ask the consent of bicameral parliament of Kalat federation, the overwhelming majority refused the idea of joining Pakistan just because of being Muslim state nation. At the joint session of the bicameral parliament, Mir Gaus Bakhsh Bezanjo, the leader of House of Common read out the resolution: “We are Muslim but it didn’t mean, necessarily, to lose our independent and merge in another nation just because of our Muslim faith. If our accession into Pakistan is necessary, being Muslim, then Muslim states of Afghanistan and Iran should also merge with Pakistan.”

The current national movement for the liberation of Balochistan is the succession of the past movements for independence, and it was launched in 1996 by patriotic Baloch national leader Hyrbyair Marri, the head of Free Balochistan Movement. The principle slogan of FBM party is to force Pakistan to quit Balochistan; it is to represent the popular demand of the sacrifices that Baloch nation offered and still offering over the years for the liberation movement of our motherland, Balochistan.

The overriding ideology for liberty from Pakistani and Iranian colonial rule is based on nationalistic patriotism believing in democratic values and universalism, However, the dynamics surrounding Baloch patriotism – that Pakistani military establishment feels could be the reasons of Pakistan’s disintegration – is the potential prospect of Indian and Afghan’s support to Balochistan’s liberation movement straddling across Durand line and Gold Smith line. Punjab’s national interests are at the heart of entire bloodbath in Afghanistan, Balochistan and Indian Kashmir.

So, as long as Balochistan is under Pakistani colonial rule, it continues to use religion as an ideological organ to dilute/blunt Baloch national patriotism, and of course, we must understand that Jihadi concept of Islam is at the core of their strategy to overshadow the force of Baloch national identity. Baloch nationalism is the antidote of the poisons of religious hatred and extremism.

Substantive problem on the agenda of major world powers now is to rid the world of Islamic religious terrorism. It is not the religious terrorism; the fact it is the existential fear of unnatural states like Pakistan Iran and Turkey who use the religion of Islam in order to save their colonial rules from the just struggle of oppressed nationalities.

At the confluence of two common interests -Baloch want to restore their lost sovereignty and western powers want to get rid of religious extremism- so they need to discuss the overriding need for a common strategy how to defeat the negative forces and put a new order with the strategic restoration of Baloch sovereignty in order to ward off future religious extremism in the region of South Asia.

http://balochwarna.com/2020/03/27/the-slogan-of-pakistan-quit-balochistan/ 

The Brief Story of 13th November, the Baloch National Martyrs’ Day.

By Archen Baloch

In 2010, almost all pro independent political parties agreed to commemorate the 13th November as the remembrance day of all Baloch Martyrs who sacrificed their lives for defending the motherland from foreign invasions. Since then Baloch nation mourns and commemorates this dark day of their national history every year across the world except in occupied Balochistan forced to live under the draconian colonial rules of both Pakistan and Iran.

 Like many other nations in the neighborhood, The Baloch too couldn’t defend their homeland from advancing expeditionary forces of British, called Army of Indus, towards Central Asia. The 13th November is the day when Baloch lost their sovereignty to British’s military aggression against the sovereign independent state of Balochistan in 1839. First martyrs were those who laid their lives while defending Meri Fort in capital Kalat of Balochistan federation. In that war our legitimate ruler Khan Mehrab Khan embraced martyrdom along with his Hindu cabinet minister, Dewan Bucha Mull Baloch.

In order to fulfill their colonial ambitions, Russia and England played the “The Great Game” in Central Asia in eighteenth century, and this game cost the weak nations like Baloch and Pashtun their sovereignty in the wake of their advancement to control the geostrategic countries like Balochistan and Afghanistan. The Russians wanted to have access to warm waters of Balochistan. According Baloch historian Dr Naseer Dashti, “The Russians, after having occupied the Central Asian steppes, had started sending diplomatic missions to Iran, Afghanistan, Sindh, and Punjab. This caused much alarm among the strategist of the British colonial administrators in India. The British perceived the Russian advances in Central Asia as a threat to their Indian possession—the backbone of the British financial prosperity and the base of their colonial power in Asia”.

So, in order to ward off Russian Advancement towards warm waters of Baloch Gulf, the British raj of East India Company devised its “Forward Policy” to move towards Afghanistan and raised a large military force called The Army of Indus, the route was Balochistan. They extracted a treaty with Khan of Kalat of Balochistan which allowed them a passage to Afghanistan.

Reluctantly, Mir Mehrab Khan, the legitimate ruler of Balochistan, entered into a treaty agreement with Britain on 28th March 1839 which allowed safe passage and supply line to the British expedition forces of Army of Indus through Balochistan on way to Kandahar through the strategic passages of Shekarpur, Jacobabad, Dhadar, Bolan, Quetta and Khojack pass. They conquered Afghanistan but couldn’t sustain their colonial rule over Kabul and Kandhar because of the tough resistance they faced from Afghan tribes of dethroned Amir Dost Mohammed Khan.

The frustrated British forces under the command of Gen Wilshire in Kandahar, seeing that their forward policy towards Central Asia to ward off the expected Russian move towards warm waters of Balochistan’s coast, turned into a debacle, decided to return and conquer Balochistan and turn it into a buffer zone under an afterthought policy - if we cannot move forwards, but we can stop them here - as result of their utter failure at the hands of Afghanistan.

The angry Gen Wilshare of British Army, while returning from Kandhar after being defeated at the hands of Afghan tribes, unexpectedly attacked the capital of Balochistan, Kalat, on a clumsy allegation that his armed forces and its supply lines were being attacked by Baloch tribes while passing through Bolan Pass. While the Khan of Kalat, Mir Mehrab Khan, scrambled to defend his country from foreign invasion was caught unarmed and embraced martyrdom alone with members of Shahi Jirga on 13th November 1839. The Baloch ruler was thinking that British would not attack his national sovereignty as he had treaty agreement with Britain.

According to historians the alleged attacks on British forces and supply lines were instigated by Akhund Mohammed Hassan, the son of an ousted minister of Shahi Court in Kalat. In order to avenge his father’s removal from Shahi Court, he secretly joined British’s forces in order to create mistrust. Later it was emerged that Akhund Mohammad Hasan was, in fact, a protégé of the British Raj.

According to Dr Dashti’s accounts, “Before reaching Kalat, the British demanded the surrender of the Khan in a humiliating letter, which was rejected by the Khan immediately (Dehwar, 2007; Naseer, 1979). The Khan tried to mobilize, but as the tribal chiefs were already antagonized, he could not assemble sufficient troops to defend the city. Instead, some of the tribal chiefs in Sarawan welcomed the invading army and supplied the British forces with provisions. Some of the tribes from Jhalawan and Kharan indeed mobilized in support of the Khan, but it was too late. On November 5, 1839, the British Army assaulted the Miri Fort in capital Kalat after intensive bombardment. Mir Mehrab Khan II and his limited force offered stubborn resistance against the invaders. The Khan embraced death with typical “Balochi Way” by walking in full view toward the enemy firing lines. Every member of his besieged force perished under heavy shelling and hand-to-hand fight with the British forces (Masson, 1974) defending his country and sacrificing his life in a heroic way and not surrendering to the enemy when death was inevitable, Mir Mehrab Khan II became one of the revered personalities in the Baloch history. The Baloch forgot all his mistakes and rallied around his son to revenge his death. However, with the martyrdom of Mir Mehrab Khan II and occupation of Kalat by the British, drastic changes occurred not only in the Baloch politics but the long colonial rule changed the fabrics of a tribal society beyond recognition”.

Ref. The Baloch and Balochistan by Dr Naseer Dashti