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EDITORIAL: What ‘good news’ from Balochistan?

Just as unknown killers shot to death a professor of Government Degree College Quetta — two days after the killing of the principal of a Government High school –Interior Minister Mr Rehman Malik told the Senate in Islamabad that there could be “good news in two to four weeks about Balochistan” as a result of secret “back-channel” contacts. He did not name India as a mischief-maker and left the reference to “back-channel contacts” hanging in the air; but he did speak about his recent meeting with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and the agreement he had reached with him on the establishment of “three bio-metric checkposts on the border” to stop the movement of militants he said were being trained at training camps in Afghanistan.

The senators had raised other questions, however. For instance, why had Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani not yet convened a promised all-parties conference on Balochistan? They had also voiced their concern about what they called an “East Pakistan-like situation” in Balochistan where non-Baloch settlers, including teachers, were being killed, and the national flag and anthem were not allowed to be observed in educational institutions in some areas. But Mr Malik was firm about having no truck with the separatists among the Baloch. He pledged action — of an unspecified nature — against Hyrbair Marri, the leader in exile of the Balochistan Liberation Army, who had recently told a TV channel that he “did not recognise Pakistan”. But Mr Malik insisted, “With some back-channel talks going on, God-willing, problems will be resolved.” More specifically, he said that because of efforts to “persuade those estranged”, it is possible that he might come up with “a better good” news in two to four weeks.

Anyone in Pakistan will tell you that the crisis of Balochistan will not be resolved by putting up a few checkposts on the Balochistan-Afghanistan border. While it is true that India is fishing in troubled waters in the province, its problems have not been created by it. The mention of Balochistan in the recent Indo-Pak joint statement at Sharm al Sheikh may have sent a shiver of unfamiliar triumph up Islamabad’s spine, but it has not led to any softening of the Indian attitude. In fact quite the opposite has happened.

Pakistan has been “path dependent” — tied to past policy decisions that deter policy change in light of new developments — on its Taliban policy in Afghanistan and is now facing its backlash. Balochistan is no longer a place made tough by the simple question of Baloch rights, it is also a region under Talibanisation. The killing of teachers is not far divorced in thinking from the destroying of girls’ schools in the tribal areas and the NWFP. It is no longer the Baloch sardars who have to be placated; we have to look at the growing strength of the immigrant Pashtun who threaten the local polity with their linkages with the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

There is a Tehreek-e Taliban Balochistan (TTB) that undercuts the secular Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKAMP), vows lack of connection with Baitullah Mehsud, boasts “no enmity” with the JUI, and now speaks for people other than the Baloch. The grievances of the Baloch have been inquired into in great detail in the past by Senate committees. Much of what Pakistan has to do to save Balochistan has been spelled out there and can be the basis of negotiations. But the province is too disturbed to allow that process to take place.

Mr Rehman Malik is hamstrung also by nationalist backlash against his soft approach towards India. If you want to get ahead in Pakistan these days, be hawkish with India. But expect no respite from New Delhi, either. Balochistan needs to be tackled but before the talks with the Baloch begin the terrorists have to be taken care of. The media is hostile to the PPP government and will accept only mid-term elections as a precondition before it is helpful. The petroleum minister in Islamabad is already thinking of taking the Iranian gas pipeline through the sea.

Good news will take some time coming. Pakistan’s national politics is opposed to the deep self-correction that the state requires in foreign policy as well as the internal policy about the non-state actors which the state used to patronise in the past. *

SECOND EDITORIAL: And now JSQM has a score to settle

Riots have broken out in most of the Sindhi-dominated areas of Karachi, Hyderabad and rest of the Sindh province after the killing of a leader of the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) in a street of Karachi. Four hitmen, riding two motorcycles where double-riding is banned, have assassinated the Thatta chief of JSQM, Mr Mushtaq Khaskheli. After that people torched cars in Hyderabad, blocked road traffic and attacked markets that refused to close down in Karachi.

The JSQM leaders were on their way to a part of Karachi to protest the failure of the police to arrest the killers of one of their workers. They were in a procession of ten cars when the front car was subjected to Kalashnikov fire. In return fire from the JSQM security men, one assailant was killed and another captured wounded. The JSQM finance secretary, Mr Waqqas Memon, alleges the two killers were both sub-inspectors and belonged to the intelligence agencies.

The incident is unfortunate and hopefully the police will disclose the real facts of the incidents, whether the two killers belonged to the police or not. The offended party is not accusing another political entity and therefore is quite focused on who should pay for the murder of its leader. Already Karachi is the victim of killings that no one is willing to explain although the scorecard of daily death clearly points to who is killing whom. It will be a pity if JSQM too takes to the street to make the lives of Karachiites more miserable.

JSQM is a “nationalist” party standing up for Sindhi rights and non-influx of outsiders into Sindh, including the IDPs from the tribal areas. It frequently runs into trouble with the government. The state has suspected it of secessionism in the past and in January this year 300 JSQM workers were booked on charges of sedition after a party event celebrating the birth anniversary of the Sindhi founder, GM Syed. It is understandable therefore that the party thinks the state has killed their leader. *

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