Leaders and activist of Baloch Community in London strong condemned the pro Taliban Pakistan’s intelligence and their agents for attacking Baloch girls with acids second time in the gap of a week. They said splashing acids on innocent children was against human values and no decent human being can even think of committing such unimaginable crimes. Baloch Community in London was shocked and petrified by such inhuman acts of the state intelligence agencies. They said it was a failed attempt by the state intelligence agencies and their agents to defame the secular movement of Baloch people; it is an attempt to mislead the world about Baloch struggle that the Baloch are committing Taliban style crime.
Baloch Community in London want to inform the world communities and all freeborn people that Pakistan has used all inhuman, brutal and extreme methods to crush Baloch freedom struggle but it failed. Our leaders have been killed, our children have been brutally murdered though aerial bombardment, our activists have been arrested and tortured for crime they did not commit but all such attempts have failed to stop the way of Baloch independence movement for a free, democratic and united Balochistan. Now the defeated and humiliated Pakistani intelligence are resorting to extreme violence against Baloch children as their last but failed endeavour to deter Baloch struggle.
The Baloch Community in London also strongly condemned the Balochistan provincial government for its failure to stop such heinous crime from happening. They said it was obvious that the provincial government of Balochistan is not able to stop the police, FC and Intelligence mafia from committing atrocities in Balochistan. Pakistan’s so called departments to stop crimes and justice institutions are also unable to direct the arrest of such savage criminals and punish them according to law, they alleged.
They said that “we demand from all concerned parties to arrest and punish these elements as they have committed atrocious and inconceivable crimes”. They also stressed on Baloch political parties, students’ Organisations and the Baloch nation as whole to unite and galvanise the Balochistan freedom movement and prepare for the challenges ahead. They said free, democratic, and united Balochistan was the only solution and revenge from the fundamental and extremist establishment of Pakistan for continuous abductions, rape, torture and murder of Baloch men, women and children from past 62 years. The sooner we get rid of these fundamentalist states the safer our secular and democratic society will become. Free Balochistan was the only solution to prevent these crimes from happening, the Baloch Community in London reiterated.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Winning the Battle of Algiers —Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
Winning the Battle of Algiers —Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
If brutal crackdowns and search operations of suspected areas had any success in deterring people from struggling for their national, political, social and economic rights, Algeria would still have been a French colony
Jeehamd Shahija Marri was a notorious cattle rustler in the Pat Feeder area in the 1950s and 60s; he used to narrate his exploits about the risks they had to take and the distances they had to walk. He would recount that after reaching a relatively safe place after a continuous quick walk of 10 to 12 hours, they would rest but be unable to sit as their knees refused to bend and they had to drop themselves on the ground and massage their muscles back to life.
It was in 1963 that a bulldozer constructing a road from Talli to Kahan was attacked and he was picked up as a suspect and severely tortured. He was hung from his hair — as the Marris sport long hair — but he resisted the torture and refused to wrongly admit to the alleged crime. On release he joined the Farrars (Rebels). He was above 70 years of age when the army action began in the Marri area in May 1973 and led guerrilla units surpassing the younger lot in endurance and tenacity. He was a role model for his bravery and toughness.
On February 27, 2005, when Musharraf ruled the roost, the New Kahan camp — where the Marris after their return from Afghanistan in 1992 had been settled — was raided by 1,500 policemen under the supervision of the Quetta DIG Pervez Rafi Bhatti. Many innocent people were arrested and claims of weapons recovery made, but to top it all off the Pakistani flag was hoisted on what the police termed as the ‘fort’ of Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, an easy alternative to Delhi’s ‘Lal Qilla’, which they have always yearned for. I do not know the exact numbers but after the raid many decided to throw in their lot with the Farrars. It was raided again in March 2006, then once more in November, each time adding recruits to the Farrars.
The meek and ineffective provincial governments by implication connive with the brutalities perpetrated against the Baloch population and the present incumbents have often openly admitted that the FC runs a ‘parallel government’. The law and order situation is bad in Karachi but one does not see the crackdowns, except in Lyari, that Balochistan suffers.
When in mid-June 2007 seven army men were killed in an ambush in Quetta, a search operation was carried out in which a lot of people were arrested from Qilli Qambarani, Qilli Ismail and other places. Hundreds of search operations have been carried out in Quetta and its environs and numerous other places in Balochistan but they have not improved the law and order situation by an iota.
These searches should not be thought of as ones where the rights of the suspects are read out and they are given the benefit of being ‘innocent until proven guilty’. These search operations are violent, brutish and rough in the extreme, aimed at intimidating and humiliating the people in order to deter them from supporting the struggle for rights, but this aim is never achieved.
The residents are presumed guilty and the ferocity and brutality of the execution of searches is inversely proportional to the resistance and resentment displayed by the people. Those, mostly the young, on whom the axe invariably falls, are manhandled if they resist and bundled into waiting vehicles and driven away to camps and prisons; needless to say without due process of law and without recourse to justice.
On April 20, a massive crackdown was carried out by the LEAs in Quetta and environs, Qilli Ismail, Kechi Baig, Qilli Qambarani, Sariab, Qilli Sarday and Wali Jat. All day long the homes belonging to the Baloch were searched, people taken into custody blindfolded and whisked away. Naturally the people resisted and there were scuffles and fights during which a lady, Shahnaz Bibi, mother of BNP activist Sanaullah Mengal, was killed. Women too are fair game for harsh treatment. Eyewitnesses say that around 300 people were taken into custody though the mainstream media reported only 100 arrests.
They were suspected of bomb blasts, kidnappings, target killings and other violent crimes that occur frequently in Quetta in spite of hundreds of search operations that have taken place in the past. Incidentally, the same Qilli Qambarani, Qilli Ismail and other places were searched after the killings of seven army men in June 2007 but apparently that crackdown failed to eliminate the suspected ‘troublemakers’. Each subsequent crackdown is more brutal than the last one.
If brutal crackdowns and search operations of suspected areas had any success in deterring people from struggling for their national, political, social and economic rights, then dear readers, Algeria would still have been a French colony because the French forces there were brutal, ruthless and unforgiving. They picked up people, kept them in custody and tortured them as long as they wanted but in the end they had to pack up and leave because neither the resistance nor the will of the people could be broken.
It is said that the French with ruthless disregard for Algerian lives won the Battle of Algiers by destroying the FLN there in 1957, but lost the War for Algeria when the people rose up as a whole in 1960, proving the futility of repression. During the February 29, 1980 people’s opposition to the Soviet forces in Kabul, I was stranded outside the city during the night but entered the city next morning, which is also an example. Eventually, repression makes the people fearless and compels them to utterly disregard their own safety.
Such crackdowns are counter-productive and carrying them out adds fuel to the fire. A suspect or two may be nabbed but when hundreds are antagonised in the process, the likes of Jeehamd Shahija, Dr Allah Nazar and others willingly join the Farrars. The term ‘Farrar’ may be seen with distaste by others but for a Baloch it conjures glorifying images and is the ultimate dream of many a Baloch youth.
I spent 20 years with the Marri tribe and have contacts with a cross-section of Baloch people from different tribes and areas and can say with authority that this senseless brutality cannot and will not be able to break the will and resilience of the Baloch people. The Battle for Algiers may have been won but more and more Baloch, both old and young, as a result of repression will join up with the Farrars or work clandestinely to help them succeed.
Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur has an association with the Baloch rights movement going back to the early 1970s. He can be contacted at mmatalpur@gmail.com
BHRC (Canada) Strongly Condemns the Pakistani Paramilitary Attack on Baloch Families in Quetta, Balochistan.
URGENT PRESS RELEASE
BHRC (Canada) Strongly Condemns the Pakistani Paramilitary Attack on Baloch Families in Quetta, Balochistan.
Toronto, April 20, 2010 – Baloch Human Rights Council (Canada) condemns in the strongest words the brutal and cowardly pre-dawn paramilitary attack on Baloch families in Quetta, Balochistan. In an urgent press statement released today, BHRC expressed deepest sorrow over the loss of life of a brave Baloch woman, Ms. Mehnaz Mengal and arbitrary arrests of more than 250 men in a raid by the Pakistani security forces.
According to sources in Balochistan and the Baloch media, this unprovoked paramilitary operation began between 4:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. on April 20, 2010.
Sources stated that the whole area, comprising of hundreds of houses was completely surrounded by the heavily armed Frontier Constabulary (paramilitary organization) and cordoned off from the rest of the city. None of the media personnel of local TV networks, photographers, and reporters were allowed to enter the area where a house to house search was underway for Baloch political activists.
Baloch media states that during the search operation women and children were harassed, manhandled, and humiliated at gunpoint by the security forces. Any kind of resistance by the families to the unlawful invasion of their privacy was dealt with excessive use of brutal force that resulted in the death of Ms. Mehnaz Mengal when she intervened to save her son from the soldiers. According to sources, more than 250 men and youth of the families were beaten, handcuffed, and whisked away to a military camp for interrogation.
BHRC (Canada) questioned the legitimacy of this barbaric act of the security forces and strongly criticized the Pakistani lawmakers in the Senate, National Assembly, and Balochistan Assembly in relation to the recently approved Balochistan Package and the 18th Amendment Bill of Pakistan Constitution that was supposedly meant to provide guarantees to the safety of life and welfare of the people of Balochistan. This is yet another proof that Pakistan’s powerful military establishment sees Balochistan as an occupied territory where the only response to the political and economic demands is a military solution.
BHRC (Canada) believes that this recent operation is part of a larger plan to ethnically cleanse Quetta of the Baloch people. Sources in Balochistan indicate that this was a test case for the original plan of attack in future on New Kahan, a Marri tribal settlement in Quetta. New Kahan is a new urban settlement where the families of displaced Marri Baloch tribesmen have sought refuge in the aftermath of Pakistan Air Force’s aerial bombings and the complete destruction of their ancestral villages.
BHRC (Canada) appeals to the international humanitarian organizations and leaders of the western democracies to take urgent action and save innocent Baloch men, women and children from the atrocities committed by the Pakistani state and its security forces.
Thank you
Signature
Dr. Zaffar Baloch
President
Three little girls injured in Kalat fanatic acid attack
Three little girls have become victims of acidifying by apparently ISI supported fanatic group in the city of Kalat on Thursday afternoon, in Quetta Balochistan.
According BBC Urdu News Service Eight year old Saima, 14 year old Shakila and 20 year old Fatima were on their way to Killi Pandunari from Kalat down when they become prey of acid attack by unknown motorcyclists. The predators fled the scene after throwing acid on the girls. It must be noted that two weeks ago acid were spilled on two girls in the town of Noshki in Balochistan. Baloch political and resistance Organisations had strongly condemned the attack and termed it a conspiracy against Baloch freedom struggle.
According BBC Urdu News Service Eight year old Saima, 14 year old Shakila and 20 year old Fatima were on their way to Killi Pandunari from Kalat down when they become prey of acid attack by unknown motorcyclists. The predators fled the scene after throwing acid on the girls. It must be noted that two weeks ago acid were spilled on two girls in the town of Noshki in Balochistan. Baloch political and resistance Organisations had strongly condemned the attack and termed it a conspiracy against Baloch freedom struggle.
Baloch child may be without socks, but when he grows up every step he takes will be on gold
Baloch Human Rights Council of Canada is grateful for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the people of Balochistan and to express our solidarity with the oppressed people and nations of the world in their struggle for justice and freedom.
There is a saying in Balochistan that a Baloch child may be without socks, but when he grows up every step he takes will be on gold.
Balochistan, the southwestern province of Pakistan, is rich in mineral deposits and is the energy hub that supplies 30% of the country’s need for natural gas. It is also 44% of the total landmass of Pakistan. And yet the Baloch nation for the last six decades, since their forceful occupation by the Pakistani military in 1948, is systematically being marginalized from society and from their ancestral lands. At present, as we speak, there is a brutal military operation being conducted by the Pakistani army to crush the indigenous movement for sovereignty over their lands and natural resources.
More than 8000 Baloch political activists including 141 women and 168 children have been forcefully disappeared by the Pakistani military secret services. Hundreds of youth have been tortured to death and their bodies dumped in the wilderness dropped from military helicopters. This is a land where secret military death squads are involved in targeted killing of Baloch political leaders including the former Governor and Chief Minister of Balochistan, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, also the chief of the Bugti tribe who was assassinated on August 26, 2006. Balochistan is a land where gross human rights violations and slow motion genocide is an everyday reality.
Such are the circumstances of political turmoil and civil strife in Balochistan today where Barrick Gold is investing in gold. Let me tell you, the gold from Balochistan is not yellow anymore; it is the colour of the blood of our martyrs and national heroes. This is simply unethical, illegal, and against international law to invest in business ventures in a zone of conflict.
Reko Dik is an ancient volcano in the Chaghi district of Balochistan, which literally means sandy peak or sand dune in the Balochi tongue. This is the place where we have world’s fifth largest copper and gold deposit and where Barrick Gold is involved in digging and polluting the earth for riches that do not benefit the local inhabitants.
Ironically, the district of Chaghi in Balochistan is also the site to Pakistan’s 1998 nuclear test that ended all livelihoods for the inhabitants and their livestock. Local tribesmen and their families were hauled in military trucks on short notice and displaced into the remote desert without any compensation. Pollution and illnesses from the radiation have never been investigated because it has been declared as a sensitive military zone.
Barrick Gold is not only guilty of investing in a zone of conflict; they have also officially appointed military personnel of the Pakistani army, Colonel Sher Khan as the security director of the company’s site in the area. This man has personally commanded military operations in Balochistan and has openly threatened in media and news blogs that resistance to the state control of Balochistan’s resources shall be crushed at all cost.
The other shadowy person involved in the Barrick Gold racket is a Pakistani businessman living in the U.S., Mr. Muslim Lakhani who made millions by arranging and facilitating deals at the highest level for the Canadian company that includes not only the top brass in the army but the President of Pakistan, Mr. Asif Zardari. Muslim Lakhani contributed generously to the Obama campaign in the recent U.S. elections. He is also on the Council of the prestigious Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington D.C., where he is mentioned on the Center’s website as the man who was able to bring to the market a discovery of one of the world’s largest reserves of copper in remote Balochistan. Mr. Lakhani is also a very close buddy of Pakistan’s former military dictator, retired General Pervez Musharaf who has been nicknamed by the Baloch people as the butcher of Balochistan.
Well, so much for the track record of violations of human rights and international law by Barrick Gold and its partners in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world. In a recent unanimous decision by the Chief Minister of Balochistan, Nawab Aslam Raisani and his cabinet ministers on December 24, 2009 cancelled the agreement with Barrick Gold for exploration of gold and copper in Reko Dik despite the pressure from Islamabad and warnings from the U.S. Ambassador and the Canadian Government. Chief Minister Balochistan stated that this is according to the wishes of the people of Balochistan and that any agreement, which undermined the rights of the indigenous people, would be cancelled.
Reko Dik, the sandy peak is indeed a symbol of our national pride and resilience of a people who know the price of freedom. Below this sandy peak lie 12.3 million tons of copper and 20.9 million ounces of gold and along the dusty paths of this remote land you will always witness a shepherd boy walking without socks on his feet.
In the end, the message for Barrick Gold from Balochistan is that each ounce of gold that you steal from us is drenched in blood and tears of our people.
Dr Zaffar Baloch
Baloch Human Rights Council Canada
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