Written
by Sajjad Shaukat
It
is in response to the article “2018: Not Yet Balochistan’s Year”, written by
Adnan Aamir, published in “The Friday Times” on December 28, 2018, which
clearly seems part of the foreign propaganda campaign to create sense of
deprivation among the Baloch People. Salient of the article are as under:-
The
political drama was not yet to end in Balochistan. The rebel members of PML-N
formed Balochistan Awami Party (BAP). The primary manifesto point of BAP was
that decisions of Balochistan will be made in Balochistan, as opposed to
Raiwand or Larkana. Detractors, however, alleged that BAP was created by the
establishment to take full control of the affairs of Balochistan. BAP leaders
in Balochistan’s government openly blamed the PML-N for preventing Balochistan
from reaping the benefits of CPEC [China-Pakistan Economic Corridor].
Balochistan government made a strong case for the province in 8th Joint
Coordination Committee (JCC) of CPEC. The provincial government demanded $500
million in socio-economic uplift projects and 10,000 scholarships for
Balochistan, along-with several other infrastructure projects.
The
year 2018 also witnessed the rise of Balochistan Liberation Army [BLA]–Aslam
group. This Baloch insurgent group carried out a suicide blast targeting Chinese
engineers in Dalbandin in August. Under the sub-title, Same Old Balochistan,
Adnan wrote, nothing changed in Balochistan—Most problems of the province, such
as security situation, power shortages, share in mineral resources and the
CPEC, are under the ambit of the federal government. In fact, the main aim of
the above article is to spread disinformation regarding the CPEC in a
controversial and hidden style and to misguide the Baloch people against the
federal government of Pakistan, while some foreign anti-Pakistan entities are
already misguiding the general masses of the province. In this regard, by
ignoring facts and ground realities, in one way or the other, Adnan Aami has
became part of these external forces.
However,
from the very beginning, terrorism-related terror attacks in Pakistan’s largest
province of Balochistan have coincided with a continuous propaganda campaign
against Pakistan’s federation and its security forces as part of the
conspiracy—whose aim is also to incite the feelings of the Baloch people
against the key institutes of the country. When during the Musharraf regime,
with the Chinese assistance, Pakistan initiated the construction of Gwadar
deep-seaport in the Balochistan province in March 2002; sirens went off in the
capitals of foreign countries, especially of the US, India and Israel who took
it as a threat to their global and regional plans. After the shift of the Great
Game from Central Asia to Pakistan’s Balochistan, in the past, intelligence
agencies of these countries, including British MI6 supported target killings,
suicide attacks, hostage-takings, sectarian and ethnic violence, particularly
kidnappings of the Chinese and Iranian nationals through the Baloch separatist
elements.
Taking
cognizance of the deteriorating situation of the Balochistan province,
Pakistan’s political and military leaders started focusing their attention on
the rapid development of Balochistan to redress the grievances of the people in
order to castigate the conspiracy of the external enemies. In this regard, the
then Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had declared 2012 the ‘Year of
Balochistan.’ While in his address to a rally, leader of Pakistan
Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan (Now Prime Minister) had apologized to the
Baloch people for the national misgivings which were being manipulated by the
foreign enemies of Pakistan. In the recent years, Pakistan’s civil and military
leadership has made strenuous efforts to develop the infrastructure in
Balochistan, providing the people employment opportunities to bring the
Balochis in the mainstream of the country. In this regard, Pak Army has not
only established schools and colleges in Balochistan, but also set up technical
and industrial institutes in the province, besides giving military training to
the youth.
Notably,
the armed forces of Pakistan have successfully broken the backbone of the
foreign-backed terrorists by the successful military operations Zarb-e-Azb and
Radd-ul-Fasaad which have also been extended to other parts of the country,
including Balochistan. And Pakistan’s primarily intelligence agency, ISI has
broken the network of these terrorist groups by capturing several militants,
while thwarting a number of terror attempts. But, in the recent past and during
the election-campaign of 2019, blasts in Balochistan and other regions of the
country showed that the US-led India, Afghanistan and Israel have again started
acts of sabotage especially to weaken Pakistan and to damage the China-Pakistan
Economic Corridor (CPEC) which is part of China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR)
initiative or BRI. Washington and New Delhi has already opposed this project.
In a terror-related incident, at least 35 people were killed and 50 wounded in
Kalaya area of Orakzai district in Hangu Pakistan.
Pakistan’s
Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) on November 24, 2018 learned that attack was
funded by India’s notorious RAW and Afghanistan’s intelligence agency National
Directorate of Security (NDS). Earlier, LEAs arrested three alleged
facilitators in connection with assault on Chinese Consulate in Karachi.
Sources privy to LEAs disclosed that local facilitators had assisted the BLA’s
terrorists in carrying out the appalling attack. The attack was “planned by
banned BLA commander Aslam alias Achhu who was under treatment at Max Hospital
in New Delhi, after being injured in an operation by Pakistani security forces
near Sibi…Achhu had several times travelled to India from Afghanistan on fake
passport”. Recently, he died in India.
Markedly,
with tactical support of CIA and Mossad, India is also using Afghan soil to
destabilize Balochistan to slow down the growth of the CPEC and pulling
Afghanistan away from joining the CPEC. In this respect, propaganda of external
entities, followed by meetings and arranging protests in the US and some
European countries such as UK and Geneva by the Baloch Sub-Nationalists against
the integrity of Pakistan is also part of the same campaign to destabilize the
country, especially Balochistan by criticizing Beijing and Islamabad in
connection with the CPEC project.
On
the eve of Chinese National Day on 30 Sep 2017, Free Balochistan Movement (FBM)
headed by Harbyar, organized a protest rally in Gottingen, Germany. This has
been done on the Indian sponsored false propaganda about China’s new
colonialism and human rights violations in Balochistan. It was said in their
statements that China and Pakistan nexus is aimed to turn Baloch demography
into a minority.
In
this regard, with the help of Baloch nationalist leaders who have taken refuge
in western countries; these hostile elements have launched a false propaganda
campaign by spreading disinformation about natural resources, progressive works
and the CPEC. Thus, they are misguiding the Baloch people. The agents of CIA,
RAW and Mossad are well-penetrated in various NGOs and human rights
organizations which are being used for a malicious propaganda against
Pakistan’s security forces. In this respect, on July 31, 2011, with the help of
external elements, a rally was organised by Baloch Human Rights Council in UK,
in front of the US Embassy in London, which raised false accusations such as
inhuman torture and extrajudicial murder of the Baloch intellectuals by the
inhuman actions of the Pakistani army.
On
August 3, 2011, the then ISPR spokesman, Maj-Gen Athar Abbas, while rejecting
human rights groups’ reports about Balochistan as a conspiracy against
Pakistan, called for probing the funding of these organizations, as “this could
be traced back to those forces which want to destabilize Pakistan.”
Baloch
persons know that the Sardars who have been fighting for their own so-called
status, prestige and influence, do not want to give up the old system of
feudalism. Therefore, with the assistance of the US-led India and Israel, these
anti-Pakistan entities are inciting them against Pak Army, Punjabis and the
federation. Loyalist Baloch people are well-aware of the reality that they
would be the real beneficiary of the CPEC. Completion of the CPEC-deep Gwadar
seaport of Balochistan with an international airport at Gwadar and the roads
infrastructure in Gwadar would link the communication networks of rest of the
country to facilitate transportation of goods. When Gwadar seaport becomes
fully operational, it would connect the landlocked Central Asian states with
rest of the world. Gwadar project which is backbone of the CPEC will uplift the
impoverished people of Balochistan by providing thousands of employment
opportunities, especially to the less developed areas by redressing their
grievances. The resulting prosperity in Balochistan would damp the separatist
sentiments of the people, which the hostile elements, supported by Washington,
New Delhi and Tel Aviv do not want.
It
is worth-mentioning that since the government of the Balochistan province
announced general pardon and protection to the Baloch militants as part of
reconciliation process, many insurgents and their leaders have surrendered
their arms and decided to work for the development of Pakistan and the province
by including themselves in the mainstream of the country, and peace has been
restored in the province. But, it is misfortune that some internal entities
like Adnan Aamir are still misleading the Baloch people in accordance with the
hidden agenda of some foreign powers who have been trying to destabilize Balochistan.
The
people residing in Balochistan must remain loyal to Pakistan so as to thwart
nefarious designs against the integrity of the country. Nonetheless, facts and
ground realities endorse that ‘2018 was the year of Balochistan’.
