| Submit your comments on this article |
| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| New lines of control emerge in Baluchistan |
| 2005-04-18 |
| EVEN as President Musharraf was preparing to embark on his Cricket diplomacy in New Delhi to get rid of the military line of control in Kashmir and Asif Zardari was packing his bags in Dubai to leave for Lahore to test Chief Minister Parvaiz Elahi's limits of political control in his province, the federal government was formalising new lines of control on the road between Dera Bugti and Sui in Balochistan. The clashes between the government forces and the Bugti tribesmen had ensued after Musharraf and Nawab Akber Khan Bugti had publicly traded threats following rocket attacks on Sui gas plant, presumably by the Bugti tribe to blackmail the gas company into increasing the rent of its land on which the plant is located. In fact Musharraf had all but carried out his threat (they would not know what hit them) when a couple of bombs landed in the house of Akber Khan. He escaped narrowly. Two others were not that lucky. Indeed, there never was any doubt in anybody's mind about the brute capability of the government forces to wipe out the opposition in no time. But what perhaps had stopped the government from taking the plunge was the determined display of an equally brute resolve by Akber Khan to fight to his last man. Not that it was not known to Musharraf how Akber Khan would react to the threat of use of force or its actual use. Still, he had perhaps thought that the shock and awe that he seemingly believes his Army exudes in Pakistan would terrorise Akber into blinking. But instead we saw Musharraf blinking and sending his political arm into the fray to broker a ceasefire. But even Shujaat, a family friend could not persuade Akber Khan to vacate the forward positions his tribesmen held without the government forces doing the same simultaneously from across the road. This was a question of saving your face. But perhaps to his foreign friends who have been providing Musharraf with a helping hand to do what he pleased in his country as long as he kept capturing Al Qaeda terrorists, it was not a very reassuring sight to see their hero getting entangled in a war of his own which could divert his attention from the "real war". That the US has an interest in Balochistan has already been established in a recent story in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh. The story had recounted how Washington had been using the province to mount commando operations inside Iran. So, the ceasefire on Akber Khan's terms. But if one knew the nature of the two contesting sides, one would be too reluctant to bet on the ceasefire holding for too long. In essence, the contest is between two status quo powers — the establishment in Islamabad and the Sardari system in Balochistan. And, therefore, there is no guarantee that the bloody events of March 27 in which about 70 innocent people died would not be repeated in future. But how does one stop this vicious cycle that has taken a heavy toll of the province and the federation itself? The answer to this question lies in Islamabad. It is Islamabad which has been willingly living with a highly primitive tribal Sardari system in Balochistan. Under this system, it is the writ of the Sardars that runs through most of Balochistan. And this very system more than anything else, has kept the province from being lifted out of its Stone-Age existence. But this system has been allowed to perpetuate itself by the establishment in Islamabad deliberately because of two factors. One, the lack of adequate financial and administrative capacities to bring such a huge landmass under the direct federal and provincial writ. Two, external-internal security. During the Cold war, it was assumed that the Soviet Union could access the warm waters only through Balochistan and that if the province remained stuck in the Stone Age, Moscow's tanks would find it almost impossible to cross the barren desert to the sea. Both these pleas have been rendered outdated by the march of the time. The Soviet Union has disappeared in history and today Pakistan is flush with huge amounts of donor dollars. The economy is also doing well. So, the needed financial and to an extent even administrative space is there to tackle politically the menace of Sardari system without further delay and without unnecessarily alienating the general population of the province. A tall order, indeed, for the non-political establishment in Islamabad. But the good news is, the Sardari system does not enjoy any mandate from the people of the province. In the present provincial assembly the strength of the 70 odd Sardars is no more than 33 per cent in a house of 65 and in the National Assembly they make up only 35 per cent of all the MNAs belonging to Balochistan. Nonetheless, Islamabad does not feel all that comfortable with the idea of running the affairs of Balochistan without the Sardars. Indeed, Musharraf himself has been praising all the Sardars while singling out Akber Khan and two others for his wrath. This love-hate relationship between Islamabad and the Sardars needs to be broken quickly by dismantling the artificial infrastructure that the establishment has provided to the Sardars. And in order to save the poor in the province from slipping into perpetual poverty the Pakistani government needs also to make it mandatory for the public and private sponsors to acquire land for their development projects on annual rental basis. No outright sales should be allowed for the time being. And at the same time no one should be allowed to register himself/herself as a voter in the province unless they have lived there for ten years at a stretch. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |