Jalaluddin

many people dismiss the Baluchistan liberation issue as a 'yet another ethnic group' wanting a separate state. Facts are much different as analyzed in this long article in Time.

------------------------------
Pakistan's Other Problem Area: Baluchistan


excerpts


Baluchistan, situated along Pakistan's west and northwest borders with Iran and Afghanistan, comprises more than 40% of Pakistan's landmass but less than 5% of its people.


Beneath their homeland's soil lies a treasure trove of natural gas and oil reserves, which, while largely untapped, yield revenues from which the Baluch feel excluded.

According to analysts, continued abuses at the hands of security forces and Pakistan's shadowy intelligence agency, the ISI, have intensified separatist feeling to an unprecedented scale.

During Pakistan's most brutal crackdown on Baluch separatists in the 1970s — when civilians reportedly died in the thousands — Iran lent Pakistan logistical support, including helicopters. At the time, the two countries were allied together under the U.S.-led CENTO Cold War pact, but following Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979 relations changed, with Tehran's Shia establishment increasingly wary of their Sunni counterparts in the Pakistani military leadership.


China has already set about securing access to Baluchistan's other rich veins of resources: it owns a controlling interest in the massive gold and copper mine at Saindak and has steered the building of a $1 billion blue water port at Gwadar, mostly using Chinese labor.

Baluch attacks are frequently followed by Pakistani accusations of Indian involvement, though Islamabad, which has a noted record of being a breeding ground for terrorists who make their way to India, has yet to show any evidence of Indian collusion.

A 2008 Amnesty International report, "Denying the Undeniable: Enforced Disappearances in Pakistan," charted at least 600 unresolved disappearances in Baluchistan alone.

"[Pakistani President Asif ]Zardari and his entourage understand what needs to be done," says Harrison. "But they have no ability to get the armed forces and the ISI to cooperate."