Balochistan Enemy Is No Longer the Pakistan Army, But China
By
Tarek Fatah
July 1,
2020
On March
29, 2011, the celebrated Irish journalist Declan Walsh wrote about a
70-year-old conflict that few in the West had heard off. It was about
Balochistan, which has been under Pakistani occupation since March 1948.
Flags
of Pakistan and China painted on cracked wall.Illustration / Getty Images
-----
Headlined
as ‘Pakistan’s Secret Dirty War,’ Walsh lifted the lid on atrocities being
committed by the Pakistan Army and its jihadi death squads inside Balochistan.
He wrote:
“In Balochistan, mutilated corpses bearing the signs of torture keep turning
up, among them lawyers, students and farm workers … The bodies surface quietly,
like corks bobbing up in the dark. They come in twos and threes, a few times a
week, dumped on desolate mountains or empty city roads, bearing the scars of
great cruelty. Arms and legs are snapped; faces are bruised and swollen. Flesh
is sliced with knives or punctured with drills; genitals are singed with
electric prods. In some cases, the bodies are unrecognizable, sprinkled with
lime or chewed by wild animals. All have a gunshot wound in the head.”
Almost a
decade later, the killing fields of Balochistan are as bloody in 2020 as they
were during the previous wars of independence fought by the Baloch in 1948,
1956, 1963, 1972 and 2005. Except this time the Baloch face a more powerful
enemy – ‘Communist’ China.
Under the
so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, not only are the traditional tools
of occupation being employed, but also the organized plunder of Balochistan’s
natural resources. A territory as large as France, Balochistan is rich in oil,
gas, copper, gold, coal and fisheries along its 750km coastline with the port
of Gwadar strategically sitting at the mouth of the Straits of Hormuz.
Predictably,
the battle involving Baloch guerrilla groups fighting what they consider
Pakistan’s ‘occupation’ army now involves China and its economic interests.
Among the myriad of Baloch political parties and armed groups involved, the
Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) has taken their fight to attack Chinese interests
in Pakistan’s urban cities.
In November
2018, BLA fighters attacked the Chinese consulate in Karachi and last week they
attacked the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) where all four Baloch guerillas were
killed.
The
Pakistan Stock Exchange was attacked because the majority investment in the PSX
was made by Beijing as the place where most Chinese state-run Corporations
working on CPEC traded their shares.
The
reaction from Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Imran Khan, was predictable. Khan
denounced what he called “terrorism” and laid the blame on next-door India,
which denied any role in the attack.
That was
quite rich of Khan. In 2009 while appearing as a witness in a UK court trying
two Baloch men on charges of terrorism, Khan said if he had been in the same
position as the two men in the dock, he would have been prepared to take up
arms.
Imran Khan
told the court had he been from Balochistan, he would be willing to use
violence against the Pakistan government who had killed and kidnapped citizens,
made 75,000 homeless, rigged elections and controlled the courts.
The one
fact Imran Khan may not know is that Balochistan was an independent country
until it was invaded and occupied by the Pakistan military in March 1948.
That’s a fact of history, not an opinion.
It is time
for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to intervene and stop the slaughter
and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people of Balochistan. However, this
would require the over a dozen Baloch political parties and guerrilla groups to
join hands to issue a ‘Balochistan Declaration about their future where the
enemy is no longer the Pakistan Army, but China.
India too
bears responsibility for the pain and suffering of the Baloch in how New Delhi
betrayed her allies, abandoned them “to the wolves,” in the words of one
freedom fighter known as the ‘Frontier Gandhi’.
Original
Headline: FATAH: China pillages Balochistan
Source: The Toronto Sun
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-sectarianism/balochistan-enemy-no-longer-pakistan/d/122305
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism