The Roots of the Insurgent Movement in Balochistan

Insurgency in Balochistan | Photo Source: The Balochistan Point

Disclaimer: Please note that the views expressed below represent the opinions of the article’s author. The following work does not necessarily represent the views of the Synergy: Journal of Contemporary Asian Studies. 

Introduction

Balochistan is an arid and mountainous region in Southwestern Asia known for its oil and natural gas reserves. The Balochistan region spans three countries – Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. It is comprised of the Pakistani province of Balochistan, Iranian province of Sistan e Baluchestan, and the southern Afghan provinces of the Nimruz, Helmand and Kandahar. The largest portion of Balochistan by area and population is in Pakistan, and an estimated 6.9 million of Pakistan’s population is ethnically Baloch. Balochistan is an important source of revenue for Pakistan, given its abundant natural resources and petroleum reserves.

Since Balochistan was incorporated into the Pakistani Union, conflict and intermittent flare-ups of hostility have persisted between the Pakistani State and insurgents. Ethnic Baloch are culturally distinct from other Pakistanis, and often feel that they have been discriminated against. The Baloch have the poorest human indicators of all peoples of Pakistan, spanning measurements of health, education, mortality rates and more. The latest insurgency in Balochistan, pitting Baloch nationalists against the governments of Iran and Pakistan in a guerrilla war, is generally understood to have begun in 2004.[i] This conflict has resulted in near interminable violence and many human rights violations, such as abductions and ‘disappearances’, extra-judicial killings, bomb blasts and even suicide attacks. As such, the conflict has become a subject of international concern.

 

Chronology of Reported Incidents

In the latest period of unrest in the region, Baloch nationalists have been engaged in hostilities with the Pakistani government since 2005, when the port of Gwadar was bombed. Also in 2005, the Baloch leaders Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti and Mir Balach Marri presented a fifteen-point agenda to the Pakistani government, stating their demands for greater control over the region’s resources and a moratorium on the construction of military bases.[ii] However, these demands were not granted, and Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti was killed in combat with the Pakistani Army in 2006. The death of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti incited violent rioting.[iii]

In 2009, Ghulam Mohammed Baloch, the leader of the Baloch National Movement, and two other nationalist leaders, Lala Munir and Sher Mohammed, were abducted by gunmen in broad daylight. They were murdered, and their bodies were found five days later. The death of these leaders and the discovery of their bodies led to rioting, strikes, demonstrations and civil resistance in cities and towns across Balochistan.

In August 2009, Mir Suleiman Dawood declared himself the ruler of Balochistan, and formally announced the formation of a Council for Independent Balochistan. The council claimed dominion over Pakistani Balochistan and the Sistan and Baluchestan Provinces, but did not lay claims to the Afghan Baloch regions. The council further claimed the allegiance of all separatist leaders.[iv]

Parties of combatants to the conflict – the Pakistani Army and Baloch separatists – stand accused of reprehensible practices such as torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. The role of the Pakistan government in this conflict has been criticized by Human Rights Watch and the European Union.[v] However, the conflict is not a subject of serious debate within Pakistan, and events concerning Balochistan tend to only receive cursory mention in the media.

 

Background to the Insurgency

Balochistan has historically been a socially and economically underdeveloped region of the subcontinent, even under British rule. During the British Raj, the southernmost part of the Iranian plateau, known today as Balochistan (or land of the Baloch), was divided into four princely states – the Khanates of Makran, Kharan, Las Bela and Kalat. Except Kalat under the rule of Ahmed Yar Khan, the other three princely states ceded their authority to the newly formed state of State of Pakistan in 1947.

Although the Khanate of Kalat provided support to the Pakistani movement before the partition of British India, it declined to join the Pakistani Union in 1947. As per the terms of devolving British paramountcy in the subcontinent, formerly independent princely states had to join either India or Pakistan, depending on their geographical and demographic particularities. Both India and Pakistan staked a claim on Kalat. The Khanate of Kalat cited a treaty dating back to 1876, whereby it was recognized as an independent and sovereign state to which the regions of Quetta, Nushki, Nasirabad and Bolan had been leased.

The Khanate of Kalat further claimed that the treaty of 1876 was an agreement between itself and the British Indian government. Thus, the claims and obligations of said treaty were not inheritable by Pakistan. In light of their irreconcilable claims, the two opposing parties signed a standstill agreement at the behest of Lord Mountbatten, the British Viceroy. The standstill agreement stipulated that Pakistan be the legal, constitutional and political successor of British India, in respect of all treaties signed by the Khanate of Kalat and British India between 1839 and 1947. 

The Khan of Kalat declared its independence and declined to accept the terms of this standstill agreement. Meanwhile, Kalat’s feudatory states, Las Bela and Kharan, as well as the district of Makran, separately acceded to joining Pakistan on March 17th, 1948. The accession of Las Bela, Kharan and Makran rendered Kalat geographically landlocked with no access to the sea. In response, the Khanate of Kalat reneged on its military obligation to provide the Makran Levy Corps with food supplies.

In response, Pakistani military units were deployed to Kalat in April 1948, and the Khan was forced to accede to Pakistan. By June 1948, Balochistan as a whole had become a region of Pakistan. Refusing to accept the integration of Balochistan into Pakistan, the Khan’s brother Prince Kareem Khan declared independence and fled to Afghanistan. He sought aid in Afghanistan and started an armed struggle.[vi] Although this armed struggle failed to materialize, there have since been three further insurgencies in the region.

In 1955, the Pakistani government instituted the One Unit plan, which entailed merging the four provinces of West Pakistan into a single province and decreasing government representation for their tribal leaders. In opposition to the plan, Nauroz Khan and his followers waged a guerrilla war against the Pakistani army in 1958-59. However, the movement was suppressed by deployed military units, after martial law was declared. Nauroz Khan was arrested and died in prison, while his family members were executed for treason.

The centralizing tendency of the Pakistani state apparatus manifested itself in the 1956 constitution, which limited provincial autonomy and enacted the One Unit plan. In opposition to centralization, a separatist movement developed in Balochistan in the 1960s. Over the course of this conflict, the Pakistani army and the militant guerrillas built military bases in several strategic areas of Balochistan. A key objective of this insurgency was to force the government to share considerable revenues generated from natural gas fields in the region. This conflict ended in 1969 in the form of a ceasefire.

Although the vexatious One Unit plan was abandoned in 1970, unrest continued into the 1970s. In 1973, President Bhutto dismissed the provincial governments of Balochistan and NWFP on charges of treason, and imposed martial law in these regions. Under the leadership of the Balochistan People’s Liberation Front, large numbers of tribesmen engaged in guerilla warfare against the government. The conflict led to significant loss of life among the local population, but the insurgency movement itself fell into decline after a return to the four–province administrative structure.

A new and long-lasting resistance movement began in the province of Balochistan in the early 21st century. Although this movement is reported to be stronger than previous ones in the region, with wide support among the ethnic Baloch, the scope of the nationalist insurgency is limited by several factors. Namely, Balochistan province is of mixed ethnicity. Apart from ethnic Baloch, who account for about 54% of the population, the residential population of the province also contains large Pashtun and Sindhi minorities.[vii] This demographic divide weakened the support base of the ethno-nationalist Baloch movement, and it has also been exploited by sectarian, militant groups. Traditional Baloch society is tribal in nature, which means that the Baloch people are internally divided into tribal groupings that are often at war with one another.

 

Socio-Economic Causes of the Insurgency

Balochistan is a valuable region for the Pakistani state, because the oil and gas revenues extracted from the region are a significant source of income. However, the state’s investment in the human well-being of the region, such as basic infrastructure for the provision of healthcare and education, is in no way commensurate to the resources generated. This is especially true for the ethnic Baloch communities. This state of affairs persisted for a number of years, such that many Baloch became disillusioned with the Pakistani government for being interested only in its own enrichment. 

 

Poverty and Inequality

The insurgent movement affecting the Sistan e Balochistan province of Iran was fueled by economic and social discontent. Although various important natural resources can be found in the region (such as gas, gold, copper, oil and uranium), the province has the lowest income per capita in Iran. Sistan e Balochistan also has the worst rates of life expectancy, adult literacy, primary school enrolment, access to adequate water and sanitation, and infant mortality of any province in Iran. Furthermore, the majority of Baloch people in Iran live under the poverty line.

The situation in Pakistani Balochistan is no different. The province has the highest poverty rate, lowest literacy rate, and highest infant and maternal mortality rate among all provinces in Pakistan. The province has also seen a dramatic reduction in its share of the country’s GDP – from 4.9% in the 1970s to 3.7% in the early 21st century. There is also stark inequality among the inhabitants of Balochistan. The upper classes, including provincial ministers and government officials, own large estates, luxury vehicles, properties, investments and businesses; while many others suffer from poverty.[viii]

Another commonly raised issue in this regard is the unequal distribution of revenues generated from the extraction and exploitation of natural resources found in Balochistan. Natural gas extracted from the region is considerably cheaper than that from Punjab and Sindh provinces. The Pakistani government has failed to return most of its gas revenue owed to the provincial government, citing high operational costs. The revenues generated from the sale of natural gas also do not trickle down to the common inhabitants of the region, partly as a result of the entrenched inequality.

 

Systemic Discrimination

Baloch nationalists claim that they face persistent and systemic discrimination in terms of access to education and employment opportunities. The federal government has initiated token measures towards improving educational standard, but they have not proven to be very effective. Rather, the Pakistani government has reacted to Baloch resentment of and resistance to economic marginalization with militarization and repression.[ix]

The case of Gwadar is often cited as an example. The mega-port of Gwadar in Balochistan was built in 2002, and is completely run by the federal government. Much of the land around Gwadar was illegally sold by federal government officials for construction projects, which earned them significant profits. The port employs significant numbers of Chinese engineers, and few ethnic Baloch have found jobs in the project, despite the available pool of Baloch engineers and technicians.[x]

 

Ethnic Conflict and Multiculturalism

The demographic makeup of Balochistan has witnessed significant upheavals due to the long-standing war in neighboring Afghanistan. In the 1980s, millions of Afghan refugees arrived and settled in Balochistan as a result of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Subsequently, an unknown number of refugees also fled to Balochistan due to the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan. Simultaneous to this influex, the economic condition of the majority of Baloch people has scarcely improved. As such, the presence of enclaves of Pashtuns and Punjabis in the province has given rise to xenophobic and nationalist demagogues, who rally political support by stirring resentment against foreigners.[xi]

 

Military Response to the Insurgency

The Pakistani Army has had a heavy military presence in Balochistan since the province was incorporated into the Pakistani state. In addition to the large number of military bases, the Pakistani state has responded militarily to previous resistance movements in the region, leading to widespread violence, human rights abuses, mass internal displacement, and the deaths of hundreds of civilians and armed personnel. The kidnappings, incarceration and killing of dissidents has served to further alienate the local population.[xii] 

By estimate, a total of 8000 persons were abducted by Pakistani forces in Balochistan between 2003 and 2012. A large but unknown number of persons have ‘disappeared’, and torture has also been reported.[xiii] In a report in 2013, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan identified the ISI and the Frontier Corps as the perpetrator of many disappearances.[xiv] However, to date, no one has been prosecuted or held responsible for the aforementioned crimes.

 

Conclusion

Officials and functionaries of the Pakistani government and politicians have blamed a range of nations for supporting Baloch rebels, including Israel, Iraq, the former Soviet Union, the US, India and Afghanistan. However, the root cause of separatist movements in Balochistan lies in the incorporation of the province into Pakistan. After Britain withdrew from the Indian subcontinent, former princely states and kingdoms with relative autonomy were forcibly integrated into the two newly formed states of India or Pakistan. Balochistan and Kashmir are two notable examples of such forced integration, where the coercive incorporation of these regions has been highly contested. The conflict in Balochistan serves to illustrate the original fault line and colonial legacies in Pakistan’s sovereign composition since the time of its independence.


Deepak Jain is currently serving as a contributor for Synergy.

[i]

Akhilesh Pillalamarri, T. (2018). A Brief History of Balochistan. [online] The Diplomat. Available at: https://thediplomat.com/2016/02/a-brief-history-of-balochistan/ [Accessed 23 Jul. 2018]

[ii]

 Gall, C. (2006, April 02). In Remote Pakistan Province, a Civil War Festers. Retrieved July 22, 2018, from https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/world/asia/02pakistan.html

[iii]

 Gall, C. (2006, August 28). Tribal Leader’s Killing Incites Riots in Pakistan. Retrieved July 22, 2018, from https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/world/asia/28pakistan.html

[iv]

 Baloch, B. (2009, August 11). ‘Council of Independent Balochistan’ announced. Retrieved July 22, 2018, from https://nation.com.pk/12-Aug-2009/council-of-independent-balochistan-announced

[v]

 PDF] World Report 2012 Events Of 2011 Human Rights Watch World Report Paperback Download eBook for Free. (n.d.). Retrieved July 22, 2018, from http://ebook4scaricare.com/gratis/world-report-2012-events-of-2011-human-rights-watch-world-report-paperback/

[vi]

 Chawla, Iqbal. “Prelude to the Accession of the Kalat State to Pakistan in 1948: An Appraisal”. Journal of the Research Society of Pakistan49: 81–106

[vii]

 Bank, W. (2008, May 01). Pakistan – Balochistan Economic Report : From Periphery to Core, Volume 2. Full Report. Retrieved July 22, 2018, from https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/8094

[viii]

 Baloch ruling elite’s lifestyle outshines that of Arab royals. (2012, March 21). Dawn. Retrieved July 22, 2018, from https://www.dawn.com/news/704521/balochistan-ruling-elites-lifestyle-outshines-that-of-arab-royals

[ix]

 Cheema, G. S. (2013). Intrastate Conflicts and Development Strategies: The Baloch Insurgency in Pakistan. Development Strategies, Identities, and Conflict in Asia, 125-151. doi:10.1057/9781137331762_4

[x]

 Jamal, U. (2016, February 11). Pakistan’s Balochs Fear Minority Status in Their Own Province. The Diplomat. Retrieved July 22, 2018, from https://thediplomat.com/2016/02/pakistans-balochs-fear-minority-status-in-their-own-province/

[xi]

 Maqbool, A. (2010, January 7). Balochistan reaches boiling point. BBC News. Retrieved July 22, 2018, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8444354.stm

[xii]

 Kupecz, M. (spring 2012). PAKISTAN’S BALOCH INSURGENCY: History, Conflict Drivers, and Regional Implications. INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS REVIEW, XX(3). Retrieved July 22, 2018, from http://www.iar-gwu.org/sites/default/files/articlepdfs/Pakistan’s Baloch Insurgency.pdf

[xiii]

 Khan, A. (2003). Baloch Ethnic Nationalism in Pakistan: From Guerrilla War to Nowhere? Asian Ethnicity, 4(2), 281-293. doi:10.1080/14631360301655

[xiv]

 Akbar, M. S. (2016, May 17). Betrayal in Balochistan. Retrieved July 22, 2018, from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/malik-siraj-akbar/betrayal-in-balochistan_b_7302984.html

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