Balochistan’s Situation and Pakistan Military’s Role

Recently, the Director General Military Operation (DGMO), Major General Ishfaq Ahmed Nadeem assured through the media that there is no single operation being carried out now in Balochistan and every soldier is in his barracks. He called such a notion part of propaganda against the military, which can only worsen its image, and not just amongst the Balochs but also the rest of the country.

The development work taking place on Chamalang Coal Mines has provided employment to thousands of Balochs and is being looked upon as a way by the military to bring peace to the region. There are many seminars and conferences as well as workshops held across Pakistan to assess and explain the situation in Balochistan. But there seems to be not many ways out of what had happened. Never the less, Balochistan’s question remains to be solved through political
means and the military has made itself very clear as to where it stands. Pakistan military strongly supports a political solution to the Balochistan issue.

The need of the time asks for everyone to work together rather than approach the issue in an escapist way. The issue of the missing persons in the province is clearly a blame game where the Frontier Corps (FC) is being dragged into. FC cannot operate independently without prior orders from the provincial government. Pakistan military has identified a lot of these missing persons to be in the Ferari Camps (separatist camps) and involved in criminal activities, because of which they are facing jail in Afghanistan.

Thus far, the only reasonable party to be dealing with the situation in Balochistan seems to be Pakistan’s military as the politicians are turning their heads away just on the mention of the province and its situation. The five military operations that have occurred in these 65 years have been all under the orders of the ruling governments of the day. However, if one considers what General Pervez Musharraf did to Balochistan can be taken to be a “military side of the affairs” too, then one does not understand how politics works in this country. Thus, the burden of guilt of the present situation in the province lies with the political elite who have ignored the province since Pakistan’s inception.

Coming out with such “solution packages” as Aghaz-e-Huqooq-e-Balochistan, of which the former Prime Minister Gilani claimed 80% has been implemented, makes for only news publicity, with no real effects on the ground. Thus, giving statements in the media means zilch.
The “special committees” that have been formed to evaluate Balochistan’s crisis have not put forward any resolution since March 2008, the time when they came into being! The Baloch leaders are to be answerable to it all too as they quietly take “development grants”, which according to a news report amounted to Rs.1 billion, and stay aloof.

The problem for a genuine concerned Pakistani who cares about his fellow Baloch brothers is on whom to believe and whom to listen to as no one confronts the truth and no one speaks the truth.The media again fails at its job terribly in the case of Balochistan. Thus, for a common Pakistani, there is no source of genuine and reliable information as to what is going on behind these political statements which come out. We are still part of the nation called Pakistan and Balochs are entitled for its equal ownership. Balochistan’s issue should be solved under Pakistan’s constitution and its parliament rather than be discussed in the U.S. Congress who only see this region for its strategic importance to them.