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Baloch insurgency is growing: NYT
NEW YORK - Pakistan faces a growing second insurgency in its southwest where Balochistan separatists are gaining strength, The New York Times reported Sunday.
Since the discoveries of the bullet-riddled bodies of three senior Baloch nationalists on April 8, the province - which makes up third of Pakistan’s territory - has been volatile, with rioting, strikes and civil disobedience, the newspaper said in a dispatch from Turbat.
“Although not on the same scale as the Taliban insurgency in the northwest, the conflict in Balochistan is steadily gaining ground,” The NYT correspondent, Carlotta Gall wrote.
Politicians and analysts reportedly are warning that Balochistan’s troubles are providing a distraction from Pakistan’s fight against Taliban militants, drawing off the US-supplied resources that are instead being used to quell disturbances in Balochistan, the dispatch said.
Her assessment contrasted sharply with Federal Parliamentary Affairs Minister Babar Awan who proclaimed to Pakistani audiences during his recent tour of the United States that the uprising had ended as a result of his government’s policy of reconciliation. Only political issues remain to be thrashed out, he added.
Interviews conducted by The NYT with people in and around Turbat revealed that instead of sending promised aid, President Asif Ali Zardari is continuing the unpopular policies of his predecessor, Pervez Musharraf, by employing the military and intelligence agencies to doggedly pursue nationalist sympathisers. “It’s pretty volatile,” Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi, the governor of Balochistan, was quoted as saying. “When you try to forcibly pacify people, you will get a reaction.”
“Their tactics are not only to torture and detain, but to eliminate,” said Mir Kachkol Ali, the lawyer of the slain nationalists who witnessed their abduction by plainclothes officers.
The Nation: July 13, 2009
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