Baloch grievances

Govt pushing Baloch towards liberation

In an exclusive interview with Daily Times at his Khayaban-i-Sahar residence on Wednesday evening, 75-years-old Sardar Ataullah said the military government of late General Yahya Khan pushed the people of former East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) towards secession by carrying out a genocide in that impoverished province in 1971 and the present government of President General Pervez Musharraf was bent upon adopting a similar policy of the use of force in Balochistan.

Potential of Balochistan: He said Balochistan had huge deposits of natural resources like oil, gas, copper, gold, uranium and non-metallic resources and a vast coastline besides a strategic position that puts Pakistan on the world map. Without Balochistan and Sindh, Pakistan is merely a liability, he added.

He said Gwadar was located on the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz and it had great strategic value. He said the gas pipeline from Central Asia would pass from Gwadar and there was competition from many countries including Iran which was also offering facilities to Central Asian States from Chah Bahar. However, the United States was interested that the pipeline should pass from Gwadar, he said.

Sardar Ataullah Mengal, who is also a former Balochistan chief minister, said the federal government was encroaching the land and resources of Balochistan very aggressively since nationalists had demanded provincial autonomy.

He said after the Sui incident, the increasing numbers of the armed forces were being deployed in Balochistan despite the demand of all the political parties that the army should be withdrawn from the province. He said as many as 25,000 people had been forced to migrate from Sui to other places after the incident and only a small proportion of people had returned despite the army’s call that they should return.

Baloch nationalists and Gwadar: The nationalist leader said it was wrong to say that Baloch leaders were against development but if a city like Karachi cropped up in Gwadar due to internal migration, the Baloch nation would become a minority in its own land. The land in Gwadar, which was essentially state land, was being sold to outsiders at the rate of Rs 15 million per acre, he said. He added that outsiders would invest in Gwadar and all its earnings would be siphoned off by the federal government.

“There will be another Karachi. If Gwadar becomes a city of 15 million people, the Baloch will become a minority. The provincial government will not get a single penny,” he said. “In Hub, the provincial government had the right to only collect the toll tax and but this power was also withdrawn,” he said.

He said Gwadar had been sold and now land was being sold in Pasni and Ormara. He added that land in these areas was being sold through the connivance of smugglers, land mafia and intelligence agencies. The land in Gwadar has even been sold at Rs 10 million per acre, he added.