Insurgency threatens Iran-Pakistan-India oil pipeline

Daily Times Monitor

QUETTA: A growing insurgency in Balochistan threatens to disrupt plans for a transnational pipeline that would deliver natural gas from Iran to Pakistan and India, Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The proposed $4 billion pipeline, a key priority for the federal government, will pass through a large swatch of the troubled province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan. Armed Baloch nationalists have been stepping up attacks on Pakistani government targets in recent weeks.

The natural-gas project holds the promise of big economic and political dividends for Islamabad and New Delhi. Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, in an interview last week, said he hoped cooperation on the project would help ease tension with India over issues such as Kashmir, while shoring up future energy supplies for both countries.

Pakistan will net an estimated $500 million in annual fees alone from the project for letting the pipeline through its territory. And the pipeline will give India access to some of Iran’s huge natural-gas reserves as New Delhi attempts to switch energy consumption from expensive foreign oil to cheaper natural gas wherever it can. “It’s more abundantly available,” WSJ quoted Indian Petroleum Minister Mani Shanker Aiyar as saying in a recent interview. “We are only one country away from [Iran], which has [some of] the largest deposits in the world.”

But the escalating political violence in Balochistan could derail — or at least delay — the project before it even gets under way. “In the present situation, one cannot guarantee the safeguard of the pipeline,” said a Pakistani expert involved in the feasibility study for the project.t.

Islamabad is beefing up its military presence in the province to meet the threat, with Pakistani military police setting up checkpoints and paramilitary troops patrolling the streets of Quetta, the provincial capital. The measures followed a spate of attacks in recent weeks by tribal insurgents on vital economic installations, government buildings and security forces.

A shadowy organization calling itself the Baloch Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Pakistani officials believe the insurgents are led by several traditional Baloch tribal chiefs, whose followers were involved in a four-year rebellion against Islamabad in the 1970s. Some of the insurgents are demanding full autonomy for Balochistan, while others want outright independence from Pakistan, officials said.

Until recently, the government has contended the BLA didn’t present a major security threat, but some officials now concede the situation is deteriorating. “They are well armed and well trained in guerrilla war,” WSJ quoted a senior Pakistani security official as saying. “The situation is serious.”

Islamabad last week sent hundreds of fresh troops to guard the Sui gas-field installations and other key potential targets, but the insurgents retaliated with more attacks, destroying railway tracks and cutting the electricity supply to Quetta for two days. In a statement issued last month, a spokesman for the BLA vowed to continue its struggle.

Political unrest has been simmering for many years in Balochistan, whose long coastline on the Arabian Sea makes it strategically important in Southwest Asia. Baloch nationalists are unhappy with Islamabad’s control of the province’s gas fields and other natural resources. They demand a greater share of the central government’s tax and other revenues, and a much bigger proportion of gas revenues in particular. Currently, the province receives just 12.5% of what the gas would fetch at 1952 prices, or a tiny fraction of what it is worth now.

The nationalists are also angry over the construction of a new deep-water port in Gwadar, about 1,000 kilometres south of Quetta. They fear that the project, being developed with the help of China, will lead to a massive influx of outside workers, reducing the indigenous Baloch population to a minority in its home province.

“This is a conspiracy to control our resources and land,” said Habib Jalib, a Baloch nationalist leader, who sees the pipeline and port projects as a means for Islamabad to assert its control over the province.

Last year, six Chinese workers were killed in a bomb attack in Gwadar. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but the government suspects BLA involvement. “People feel that they won’t get their rights through democratic and legal means,” WSJ quoted Akhtar Mengal, president of the Balochistan National Party, as saying.

Although pipeline negotiations between India and Pakistan are likely to take some time to conclude, Islamabad officials contend that Pakistan’s own energy needs are enough to get the pipeline project started. Pakistan’s economy is projected to grow 6% to 7% annually over the next five years, fueling domestic demand for gas. Pakistan faces an estimated shortfall of 200 million cubic feet of gas per day by 2010, increasing to 1.4 billion cubic feet per day by 2015 and 2.7 billion cubic feet per day by 2020.

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