[Assam] Assam, Indian servicemen will shove barrel down the throats/windpipes of their victims and kill even with rubber bullets. Can you forget the drone of the Helicopter gunships over Soraipoong during operation Bajrang by India?

Wed Aug 30 00:09:33 PDT 2006

Is Balochistan another Bangladesh?

http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/aug/29guest1.htm?q=sp&file=.htm

August 29, 2006

The killing of Baloch Nationalist leader Sardar Akbar Khan Bugti along with
two dozen of his followers on August 26 by the Pakistani army has raised a
storm in Balochistan.

Many see a close parallel between the happenings there and in erstwhile East
Pakistan in 1971,  when it seceded and became Bangladesh. There was the
infamous massacre of the intellectuals/leadership at Dacca University.

Ironically, Akbar Khan and his Bugti tribe were considered closer to the
ruling establishment of Pakistan as opposed to the Mengal or Marri tribe
that was allied with the National Awami Party founded by 'Frontier Gandhi'
Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan.

Turmoil in Balochistan has a long history. It is the largest province of
Pakistan, but is very sparsely populated. In addition, it has almost all of
Pakistan's mineral and natural gas resources. Yet is also undoubtedly the
least developed part of Pakistan.

While Balochistan supplies the natural resources, the Balochis themselves
remained poor. This had bred a sense of grievance.

In 1971, at the height of the Bangladesh war, processions were taken out in
Quetta in favour of independence for Balochistan. Slogans were raised
praising Indira Gandhi and surprisingly, General Jagjit Singh
Arora<http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/may/03hero.htm>,
who was perceived as the liberator of Bangladesh. The first revolt in the
1970s was ruthlessly put down by the Pakistani army led by General Tikka
Khan, who earned the nickname of 'Butcher of Balochistan'.

Like the initial Six Point programme of the late Sheikh Mujibur Rehman of
Bangladesh, most Balochis agitated for regional autonomy and not
independence or secession. That this struggle was violent has more to do
with the tribal ethos and general lawlessness of Pakistan, rather than any
real evil intent.

Yet like Bangladesh, Pakistan, under military rule, has used purely military
means to solve a political problem. In the case of Bangladesh, according to
the report of the Hamidur Rehman Commission (appointed by the Pakistan
government), more than 300,000 Bangladeshis were killed in a span of six
months. Yet rather than end the revolt and solve the problem, Pakistan lost
its eastern wing.

Pakistan has also been freely using helicopter gunships and airpower against
its own people. It is interesting to compare Indian operations in Jammu and
Kashmir with this. We have never used airpower in Kashmir. The reason is
simply that it is a blunt instrument and the danger of collateral damage is
great.

Despite all the motivated anti-India propaganda, the total casualties do not
exceed 40,000 over 10 years in Kashmir (of which 2,000 are Indian soldiers
and many thousands are victims of terror strikes). Does it mean that the
Indian army uses rubber bullets?

The truth is that it is well understood in India that quelling an internal
unrest is a long haul, and massive force cannot be used indiscriminately. Do
the Pakistanis (and their sympathisers in India) realise that in this
brutality there is very little to choose between Israel's attacks on Lebanon
or Palestine and Pakistan?

The Indian approach towards the leaders of insurrection has also been very
different, be it the late Angami Zapu Phizo of Nagaland, Laldenga of the
Mizo National Front or even Ahmed Shah Geelani of Kashmir's pro-Pak
Jamaat-e-Islami.

As a matter of record, Geelani got a lease of life when he was treated for
cancer in Mumbai's Tata Memorial Centre (at the Indian taxpayers expense) a
few years ago. That he continues to spew venom at India and Indians speaks
volumes of his character.

Indians never went in after individuals. Maybe it has something to do with
the fact that Indians would rather follow the British model of Malaya (under
Sir Gerald Templer <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Templer> who
successfully dealt with the Malayan communist insurgency).

The Pakistani army, under the heavy influence of the Americans, is more
prone to follow the Vietnam model of body count and search and destroy
missions.

Obviously the Pakistani army does not want to learn from its own mistakes in
Bangladesh or its neighbour's success. When Musharraf calls it a 'great
victory' he betrays a 'company commander' mentality (using deductive
military logic of tactics for complex strategic and politico-military
issues). With this one event it seems Musharraf has used up his nine lives
and his physical or political continuity is in grave doubt.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should be well advised to avoid meeting him in
Cuba or the US since he is a likely to remain a 'lame duck' dictator
(despite his high sounding title of President). India's indirect endorsement
of him will alienate Baloch opinion as well as his likely democratic or
military successor.

Essentially Balochistan and Pakistan's tragedy is its inability to evolve a
federal structure. Autonomy of provinces is wrongly viewed as a threat to
national security. Our southern neighbour Sri Lanka suffers from similar
disease.

The creation of a set-up similar to India's provincial structure is
something the Tamils would be quite satisfied with notwithstanding their
demand for an independent Eelam. But the movement towards federalism in
Pakistan is stalled in the absence of true democracy, the only ultimate
solution (as advocated in Great Danger, Grand
Opportunity<http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/aug/22spec1.htm>by Inpad
members on
*rediff.com*).

India's success in dealing with centrifugal forces owes a lot to our federal
structure where the states have a great degree of political and economic
freedom. The creation of linguistic provinces keeping in with the wishes of
people was the best thing that happened to India.

This was partly an accident as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was opposed to it. It
was after Potti Sriramulu fasted to death for the creation of Andhra Pradesh
that the floodgates to reorganisation of states were opened. The reality of
the Indian subcontinent or for that matter South Asia is that many regional
identities like Tamil, Marathi and Sikh have a long historical and cultural
context.

Baloch identity similarly goes back to pre-historic days and predates the
birth of Islam (the Brohi language is one of the oldest in the world). To
think that the killing of one man or wiping out the leadership would end the
problem is foolish.

However, Pakistan is unlikely to be ousted from Balochistan in a hurry. The
differences with the Bangladesh situation are quite obvious. Pakistan
suffered from a grave handicap of distance as well as the cutting off of
lines of communication in case of war in erstwhile East Pakistan.

Balochistan is a geographically contiguous part of Pakistan. External help
for the Balochis can at the most come from landlocked Afghanistan, and with
the heavy US and NATO presence there, even this is problematic. Thus there
are severe limitations on the the kind of external help the Balochis can
depend on. .

Both the Vietnam war in its final stages and the Afghan conflict clearly
proved that a conventional armed force cannot be defeated by guerrilla
fighters alone. In the case of Vietnam there was wholesale defection from
the South Vietnamese army that paved the way, a situation most unlikely in
Pakistan.

The Najibullah regime survived the Afghan guerrillas' onslaught for nearly a
year, and in the end it was the major defections by his forces and direct
Pakistani intervention that ultimately sealed his fate. In the Bangladesh
war as well, while the Mukti Bahini indeed was a great help, the ultimate
knockout blow was delivered by the regular Indian army. Unless there is a
radical change in the US/NATO approach to Pakistan, this is unlikely to
happen.

The most likely scenario is that guerrilla war will continue in Balochistan
and Balochis in other parts of Pakistan will carry out a campaign of
sabotage. The Pakistani state will continue to limp along. Balochistan
is not Bangladesh.

*The author, a former Joint Director, War Studies Division at the Ministry
of Defence, has studied insurgencies in Mizoram, Kashmir, Sri Lanka and
Northern Ireland.*

* *

*Assam, Indian servicemen will shove barrel down the throats of their
victims and kill even with rubber bullets. Can you forget the drone of the
Helicopter gun ships over Soraipoong during operation Bajrang by India?  *

* ***
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