17 January 2009

Gwadar Port property of Balochistan: Raisani

QUETTA: Gwadar Port is property of the people of Balochistan. By making it functional we are trying to help Balochistan stand on its feet and our intensions should not be doubted. Stating this in an interview, Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Muhammad Aslam Raisani said our stand on new NFC Award is very clear. “The time has come to redress the past excesses made with Balochistan. “The time has come to redress the past excesses made with Balochistan. We expect that the other three units and Centre would show open heart towards Balochistan and support it in view of its vast area, poverty and backwardness. Punjab has assured us of every possible co-operation to show good will gesture and going away with excesses made in the past,” he said.
Nawab Raisani said that he has been of the view since day one that besides strengthening Federation, four federating units should be given more powers and by implementing 1940 resolution, the vacuum created among all the units can be overcome

Young Women Forced Into Sexual Slavery

Pakistan: Young Women Held In Military Torture Cells And Forced Into Sexual Slavery
Ms. Zarina Marri, a 23-year-old schoolteacher from Balochistan province, was arrested in late 2005, and has been held incommunicado in an army torture cell at Karachi, the capital of Sindh province. She has been repeatedly raped by the military officers and is being used as a sex slave, to induce arrested nationalist activists to sign state-concocted confessions


One man, who was arrested by a state agency and kept in military torture cell almost for nine months, narrated the story of this young woman to Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières, RSF); nowpublic.com; the International Red Cross; and at Woolwich Court in London. The current whereabouts of the young woman are not known. It has been asserted that women who are fighting for the greater autonomy of Balochistan are being arrested by the state agencies and being forced into sex slavery in their custody.
Mr. Munir Mengal, the managing director of a Balochi-language television channel, was arrested on April 4, 2006 from Karachi International airport by the state intelligence agencies and transferred to a military torture cell in Karachi for nine months (http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2006/1666/). He narrated the story of the forced sex slavery of the young teacher Zarina Marri whom he encountered in a military cell. According to the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Mr. Munir Mengal witnessed many human rights violations in this military prison. Mengal says that, "a young Balochi woman, Ms. Zarina Marri, was used as a sexual slave by the officers. They even once threw her naked into my cell. I did not know what had happened to this mother of a family who was arrested by the army in our province."
Another Balochi nationalist (name omitted by request), who was arrested by the military intelligence agency twice and kept in military cells in different cities, has confirmed to the AHRC that there were young Balochi females seen at those two torture cells, naked and in distress. The prominent Balochi nationalist leaders say that they know fact that young Balochi women are being arrested, either during or after protest demonstrations on the disappearances and are missing. They also know about the women are sexually abused in the military custody but they cannot say so publically because of their sanctity and harassment of their families.
Mr. Munir Mengal was also tortured and his penis was severely injured when he refused to have sex with Zarina Marri. He told RSF, "on 27th January, 2007 at 6 pm Major Iqrar Gul Niazi (Military Intelligence) called me in his office and showed me some nude pictures, and laughingly told me that you have been a director of a TV channel so certainly you have good relations with actresses."
When he returned to his cell he found porn pictures strewn all over it. Around 12 pm a low-ranking military officer called Subedar brought a female there. She was trembling and weeping. "He threw her on my body and told me, 'You know what to do with her. You are not a child we have to tell what to do with her.'" Mr. Mengal says after half an hour the officer returned, and seeing them sitting apart, abused them and forcibly took off their clothes. Mengal said he was stunned when the woman began praying in the Balochi language. She told Mengal her name was Zarina Marri and that she belongs to the Kohlu area, headquarters of the rebel Marri tribe, a scene of a bloody insurgency that begun in 2005. She said she was a schoolteacher and that the army personnel had abducted her along with her one-year-old.
"They accuse us for spying for the Baluchistan Liberation Army," Zarina Marri said. She begged Mengal to kill her. “I have been undressed several times for them."
Mengal said on the refusal to have sex, the intelligence officials inflicted cuts on his private parts. "I thought I would lose my manhood," he said. Ms. Zarina told to Mengal that she has seen some females in the torture cell but was not allowed to talk with them.
At the time of this incident Colonel Raza of the Pakistani Army was in charge of that cell. After a few days he was transferred to Rawalpindi, Punjab province and Colonel Abdul Malik Kashmiri came as head of the military torture cell.
Mr. Munir Mengal was released from the military torture cell on 4th August 2007 and was held in a civilian jail on August 5th. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) representatives met him in Khuzadar jail, where he provided them with a detailed briefing which they wrote down. The next day their doctor also checked the injured portion of his penis. Mr. Andrew Barterlays, the officer of ICRC who visited Mr. Mengal several times in jail, told Mr. Mengal that until he was out of custody the ICRC could not take up the issue of Zarina Marri, because both their lives would be threatened.
The Asian Human Rights Commission has already reported that 52 torture cells are run by the Pakistan army, please see following link (http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2008statements/1574/), Karachi was stated to have three military torture cells. The testimony by Mr. Munir Mengal has revealed the most heinous methods of army torture, using young women as sex slaves to induce political opponents to sign the government-concocted confessions of terrorist and anti-state activity.
The AHRC severely condemns the use of women as sex slaves by the Pakistan army and for keeping these women incommunicado. Pakistan is the signatory to Convention on the Elimination of All Forms Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) but women are being used as sex slaves in a gross violation of the Convention by army officers.
The AHRC urges the government of Pakistan to immediately hold a judicial investigation into the women detainees being used as sex slaves by the army officers in their detention centers, and to arrest all the army officers posted in the torture cells; both in Karachi and in the rest of Pakistan. The perpetrators of these heinous crimes must be brought before the law. The government should ascertain the whereabouts of the women arrested from Balochistan province who have disappeared after their arrest, including Zarina Marri. It is the duty of the government to search for the missing persons taken by State intelligence agencies, who have held them in torture cells for many years.
Pakistan proudly calls itself the Islamic Democratic State but its rulers appear to lack the courage to bring its own military into check. It is a military that engages in torture and some of the most heinous methods of breaking the spirit of those that it considers the enemy, it is a military that pays no heed to the norms of civilised behaviour and is one that, if not brought to book will convert Pakistan into a barbaric state.

16 January 2009

Refugee 'acted in self-defence'

A refugee accused of calling from his London base for attacks in Pakistan was acting in "self-defence", a court has heard. Faiz Baluch, 27, from Wembley, was calling for self-defence on behalf of his native Balochistan, a province seeking independence from Pakistan. His lawyer, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, said he was not a terrorist but a "victim of geopolitics".
Mr Baluch and his co-defendant Hyrbyair Marri, 40, of Ealing, deny the charges.
Both men are alleged members of the Balochistan Liberation Army. They are accused of using websites and telephone links to call on others to kill in the name of the banned organisation.
Woolwich Crown Court had previously heard the organisation was behind a series of bomb attacks on Pakistani government targets.
'Problematic concept'
Baroness Kennedy described Mr Baluch as a victim of an alliance between Britain and the Pakistani government under its former president, General Pervez Musharraf, following the 9/11 attacks in the US.
She said: "Musharraf, an undoubted dictator, called the Baloch terrorists.
"And it is Faiz Baluch's case that the British government were drawn into that distortion purely for political reasons because Britain, like America, at the time, wanted Pakistan on side in the war on terror.
His case to you is that the Baloch people are entitled to defend themselves against brute violence, death and destruction
Baroness Helena Kennedy QC
"He will tell you that he believes he is a casualty of geopolitics. He is a casualty of that allegiance."
Baroness Kennedy said that after US President George Bush declared a war on terror, the problem of who was deemed to be a terrorist was highlighted.
Describing terrorism as a "problematic concept", she told the jury people seeking democracy are called terrorists by tyrants and cited the example of Nelson Mandela, who was labelled a terrorist by South Africa's apartheid government.
Baroness Kennedy said although Mr Baluch was a Muslim, his religion had nothing to do with his political beliefs about Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan.
Insurgents have been fighting for independence in the gas-rich Balochistan. It is the poorest of Pakistan's provinces and Baloch nationalists accuse the central government of exploiting their resources and treating the province like a colony.
'Entitled to resist'
Baroness Kennedy said Mr Baloch believed his people were suffering horrifying abuses of human rights.
"His case to you is that the Baloch people are entitled to defend themselves against brute violence, death and destruction... what he is saying to you is that if your survival is at stake you are entitled to defend yourself," she told the jury.
"If the Germans had marched into Britain we would have been entitled to resist."
The court heard Mr Baluch's life story before he fled to the UK in 2002.
A series of events, including the arrest of his father, led to him fearing for his life and he sought asylum in the UK. He was refused asylum and appealed the decision, but that application was also dismissed in 2003.
It was while in London attending demonstrations attempting to highlight the plight of people in Balochistan that he met his co-defendant, the jury heard.
The trial continues.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7812219.stm

Why the Fight in Balochistan Matters


BALOCHISTAN Pakistan -- The scarred Pakistani province of Balochistan has been suffering from conflict with the central government since the country's inception in 1947. Steeped in violence and deprivation, bitterness, hunger and frustration are everyday realities.
Apart from the humanitarian aspect of this conflict, why is Balochistan a concern for the rest of the world? Balochistan is a strategically important region bordering Iran and Afghanistan. Left unchecked, this conflict between the Baloch people and the Pakistani government over the province's resources – combined with the increasing Talibanisation of the northern parts of Pakistan – could wreak havoc on the country by propelling it into a state of instability.
A protracted conflict could also destabilize the surrounding region, politically and economically. Balochistan is rich with gas, natural resources and some of the rarest mineral reserves. Large portions of two proposed gas pipelines – one between Iran, Pakistan and India and another between Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India – would pass through Balochistan.
International powers like the United States, China, Iran and India are already looking to this region for increased access to gas and use of Balochistan's Gwadar port, at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, for international trade.
But Balochs have long argued that they do not see their fair share of the revenue – in the form of development and employment – from these resources. The Pakistani government has been fighting various Baloch insurgencies for decades, claiming that they want unwarranted autonomy and even independence.
Recently, however, there have been encouraging developments. No terrorist attacks or acts of sabotage have been carried out in Balochistan since three Baloch militant organizations, namely the Baloch Liberation Army, the Baloch Republican Army and the Baloch Liberation Front, announced a surprising ceasefire in early September.
Can we expect peace to return to Balochistan under these circumstances?

Landmine Kills Two Soldiers In Pakistan

A spokesman for the Baluch Republican Army, Sarbaz Khan, later claimed responsibility for the attack QUETTA, Pakistan (AFP) — Two paramilitary soldiers were killed and four wounded in a landmine explosion in insurgency-hit southwest Pakistan on Saturday, an official said. The soldiers were patrolling a gas field in the town of Dera Bugti in gas-rich Baluchistan province on the border with Afghanistan and Iran when a landmine planted on a roadside exploded under their vehicle.
"Two soldiers were killed and four others wounded in the incident," a spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) told AFP.
A spokesman for the Baluch Republican Army, Sarbaz Khan, later claimed responsibility for the attack.
Hundreds of people have died in violence in the province since the insurgency flared in late 2004, with rebels demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region's natural resources.
The province has also been hit by attacks blamed on Taliban militants and sectarian extremists.
Separately, an Afghan national was killed and 12 people wounded in a grenade attack targeting paramilitary soldiers in the town of Mastung, just south of the provincial capital of Quetta, police said.
"Unidentified men hurled a hand grenade in Mastung's main market at an FC vehicle passing by but it missed the target, killing an Afghan national and injuring 12 others," senior police official Malik Arshad told AFP.

12 January 2009

Sarawan: Iranian Security firing one man killed, two injured

REPORTED BY Jawed BALOCH



Panjgur : (DailyTawar) Iranian security forces killed one and injured twoResidents of Panjgoor Balochistan, in bordering city of Sarawan (Iranianoccupied Balochistan). According details Mohammad Asif son of Abdul Karim aresident of Panjgoor (Pakistan Balochistan) was shot dead and two of his friendswere critically injured by the Iranian security forces.Both the Injured men were taken away to an undisclosed location by Iranianforces. However the body of Mr Asif has been handed over to his relatives andwill be buried later today in his native city Panjgoor Baluchistan.
WWW.BALOCHONLINE.COM

11 January 2009

Landmine Kills Two Soldiers In Balochistan

A spokesman for the Baluch Republican Army, Sarbaz Khan, later claimed responsibility for the attack QUETTA, Pakistan (AFP) — Two paramilitary soldiers were killed and four wounded in a landmine explosion in insurgency-hit southwest Pakistan on Saturday, an official said. The soldiers were patrolling a gas field in the town of Dera Bugti in gas-rich Baluchistan province on the border with Afghanistan and Iran when a landmine planted on a roadside exploded under their vehicle.
"Two soldiers were killed and four others wounded in the incident," a spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) told AFP.
A spokesman for the Baluch Republican Army, Sarbaz Khan, later claimed responsibility for the attack.
Hundreds of people have died in violence in the province since the insurgency flared in late 2004, with rebels demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region's natural resources.
The province has also been hit by attacks blamed on Taliban militants and sectarian extremists.
Separately, an Afghan national was killed and 12 people wounded in a grenade attack targeting paramilitary soldiers in the town of Mastung, just south of the provincial capital of Quetta, police said.
"Unidentified men hurled a hand grenade in Mastung's main market at an FC vehicle passing by but it missed the target, killing an Afghan national and injuring 12 others," senior police official Malik Arshad told AFP.
He said four of the wounded were in critical condition, and had been taken to Quetta for treatment.