Baloch scholars SOS to the world; warn of imminent doom

In the wake of the killing of three well-known political activists in Pakistan's secular but renegade province of Balochistan, leading intellectuals of the insurgency-torn province have appealed to world bodies to come to their rescue before they were overtaken by the Taliba'an. "Baloch people do not want to be a part of the terrorist producing factory called the state of Pakistan," Quetta-based Baloch Intellectual Forum said in a missive sent to world bodies, including US strategists.

Three prominent activists, Ghulam Mohammed Baloch, 45, president of the Balochistan National Movement; Sher Mohammed baloch, 35, depouty general secretary general of of the Balochistan Republican Party; and Lala Munir Baloch, 50, a senior leader of the BNM, were abducted by the Pakistan's secret services from their lawyers office and executed Nazi-style.

The mutilated bodies of the three were recovered from the foothills of Pidarak on the outskirts of Turbat in the politically conscious Mekran region of Balochistan.

Now the life of their lawyer, Kachkol Ali Advocate, a former opposition leader in Balochistan and an outspoken critic of Pakistan, is in danger, the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission has warned. The AHRC has done key work in the field of human rights in Balochistan noticed even by reinstated Chief Justice Chaudhry Iftikhar Ahmed, but Islamabad suspects the organization is a front office of India's Research and Analysis Wing, popularly known as RAW.

The Baloch scholars have called Pakistan a Baloch-devouring dragon and have appealed to the De Jure Ruler of Balochistan, Khan of Kalat Suleman Daud Ahmedzai, to convene a jirga or tribal assembly of the Baloch with the single aim of seeking UN intervention for a referendum in Balochistan.

The Khan of Kalat is nowin self-exile in the UK after convening one such jirga in the wake of the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti in August 2006. He is resolved to appeal to the International Court of Justice, but veterans in the nationalist movement say they will trust hisintentions once he files his case with the ICJ at the Hague.

In their missive, the Baloch Intellectuals Forum said:

Pakistan , a religious state, was created out of India after the departure of Great Britain from the Indian Subcontinent. Pakistan Muslim League, which was initially an unpopular Muslim organization among other parties existed at that time in India . Indian National Congress was most popular even among the Muslims due to its secular and religious tolerant attitude.

Initially the Muslim League was established by Muslim feudals and the salariat class of Muslim servicemen in Muslim minority provinces of united India . Due to its unpopularity it adopted a narrow chauvinistic approach through two nations theory (based on Muslim and Hindu nations) to attract the Muslims of India. These Chauvinistic slogans were actually the base for future Islamic fundamentalist ideas which then became the raison d’etre of the state of Pakistan . 

In 1948, 8 months after the state of Pakistan was created, it incorporated Balochistan by force and from that very day Balochistan and Baloch People have been treated as a colony and resources of Baloch people were exploited by Punjab and the Federal Government of Pakistan without even a tiny share to the people of Balochistan.

As a result of the forceful merger of Balochistan into the state of Pakistan,  followed by continuous repression on part of the successive governments of Pakistan , Baloch people have gone through different phases of armed conflicts with the state of Pakistan sas they struggled  to regain the control of their country.

The first armed conflict began soon after the forceful merger in 1948 followed by others in 1958-60, 1963-69, 1973-77 and the current one which began in 2004.

It is to remind the peace-loving and democratic world that the Baloch are liberal-minded who believe in the universal philosophy of “to live and let live”. They are firm believers of democracy and democratic values for themselves and for others.

They disapprove Pakistan ’s state policy for generating terrorists to destabilize the world in order to export their brand of Wahabi Islam and clad women in burqas and men in beards and turbans. The Baloch intelligentsia believe that Pakistan is a great danger for global peace and God forbid, if Pakistani state policy of exporting its brand of Islam succeeds, it will take the world hundreds of years back in the Stone Age.

Baloch people are fed up with the Pakistani terrorists who travel from northern areas of Balochistan (actually the Pashtun areas) to Afghanistan to disturb Afghanistan and other neighboring nations (Pakistan has also established terrorist camps in the Chagai and Panjpai areas of Baloch majority where terrorists from Punjab and Kashmir are trained and sent to fight their holy war in Afghanistan and the Indian Kashmir).

It is from these northern areas of Balochistan from where Pakistan Army’s trained Taliban fighters and suicide bombers penetrate into Afghanistan and attack the Allied Forces and the Afghan army.

Baloch people have been fighting Pakistan Army and its terrorists producing agencies, ISI  [Inter Services Intelligence] and MI [Military Intelligence], time and again since Balochistan’s forced merger into Pakistan.

Thousands of Baloch people have been killed, thousands missing in the hands of military agencies and hundreds of thousands displaced who migrated from their hometowns to Sind and other interior regions due to the ongoing military operation in the Dera Bugti, the Marri areas, Kalat, Nushki, Mekran and other parts of Balochistan.

Being liberal, secular-minded and peace-loving, the Baloch youth and intelligentsia side with the US government and the free world in their fight against the Al-Qaeda and Talibans, who are a threat to the peace-loving world and would like them to use the country of Balochistan in their fight against the menace of these evil forces.

As retaliation to Baloch people’s opposition to these state policies of Pakistan and the demand for the pre-Pakistan status of their country Pakistan state has waged a calculated war against the people of Balochistan in general and against their popular leaders in particular. As a result several of prominent Baloch leaders have been brutally murdered by the Army of Pakistan – Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti [a former National Assembly member, a former Governor, former Chief Minister, former MPA, and above all, chief of the largest Baloch tribe, the Bugtis) Nawabzada Mir Balach Marri [a former provincial minister and a sitting MPA] and many many others.

Lately, on April 3rd, 2009, the Agencies of Pakistani intelligence forces, picked up three prominent Baloch leaders, Ghulam Muhammad Baloch, Lala Munir Ahmad , and Sher Muhammad Baloch who played a key role in the recovery of John Solecki, UNHCR Chief in Balochistan and who were instrumental in for the recovery of thousands of missing Baloch people feared to be in custody of different agencies of Pakistan.

These leaders had already spent several months in the custody of Pakistani secret services and had gone through severe tortures and were already suffering from severe mental and physical disorders. They were earlier discovered and released through orders of the High Court. On that fateful day, they had just returned back from the court where they were acquitted from all charges framed against them by the agencies.

They, along with their lawyer, who himself was the leader of the Opposition in Balochistan Assembly during the last government, had gone to the chamber for a cup of tea. They were picked up from the chamber by Pakistani forces in tens of vehicles and whisked away. Their dead bodies were found later dumped in a deserted area.

Doctors, who carried out the post-mortem, issued statement saying that all three were first severely tortured, their faces and bodies mutilated, then fired at a close range and their bodies thrown out of helicopters. After five days, their decomposed bodies were found by chance by some passers-by.

This incident has infuriated the whole Baloch population everywhere in the world and several meetings of Baloch men of letters and intellectuals along with tribal chiefs, leaders of different political parties and activists have taken place since then.

The outcome of all these meetings is a strong demand that a popular jirga --the traditional assembly of the Baloch -- be organized by the Khan of Kalat, Suleman Daud Ahmedzai, through his representatives in Balochistan on a single agenda – i.e., to ask the United Nations to hold a referendum in Balochistan and ask the Baloch people whether they want to remain a part of the islamo-fascist state of Pakistan or opt for a course of their own in an independent Balochistan.

It is the time that the Baloch are given such an option before it is too long and before they mourn many more Baloch leaders and commoners and before their country is turned into a din of Islamic fundamentalists feeding the unholy war of the Al-Qaeda and the Talibans and their patron state of Pakistan .

 We plead the Khan of Kalat through this petition to convene a jirga of tribal elders, political parties, prominent figures and Baloch students representatives to put forward such a demand.

We hope that we are not disappointed as our shoulders are tired of holding so many coffins of our loved ones, be they our leaders or commoners. As long as the occupation of Pakistan continues on our country we will forced to give sacrifices of lives to quench the thirst of Pakistan’s Baloch-devouring dragon."

Members of the forum, who did not want their names printed amid fears of Pakistani reprisals, said they command the support of key political figures in Balochistan, including former governors Lt. Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch and Naseerul Mulk Mengal.

Protests against genocide

Various Baloch and Sindhi organization representatives will hold a protest rally in front of the Pakistan Embassy at 3517 International Court, Northwest Washington DC on Friday, April 17 at 10.30 a.m. The closest Metro station is Vanness on the red line. 
In Canada, the Baloch Human rights Council of Canada [BHRC] Toronto chapter will hold a peaceful procession against the brutal and barbaric killings of Baloch Leaders in Turbat  Balochistan on Friday April 17, 2009 at 4 p.m. at 200 Front Street West in front of CBC Building.
All peace loving people, political activist, human rights defender are invited to attend the demonstrations in Washington DC and Toronto.
 For more info please call Imtiaz Baloch 416-841-7866 [Toronto] and Maqbool Aliani 703-677-1267 [Washington DC].