15 May 2009

Help IDPs From Swat, But Why Ignored the IDPs from Kohlu and Dera Bugti

By a patriot Baloch brotherSince the Start of Fresh Military operation in Swat more than 1.3 Million Civilians from Swat fled to save their lives and are forced to take refuge in other parts of NWFP. The condition of the Refugees is really bad, no water, no food, no shelter and no medicine.
The civil Societies, NGO’s Government and Common people are try to contribute in relief work for the IDP’s of Swat. I too Appealed for the help, but Question is that Why all these organization, govt officials and Civil Societies never raised the issue of IDP’s From Dear Bugti and Kohlu, even Pakistani media showed the Height of Hypocrisy regarding the IDPs of Balochistan and never showed a single news related to them, except OXFAM and UNICEF none of the NGO;s Donors or Civil Society ever tried to mobilise any help for these victims. Instead the Pakistani forces refused to Allow OXFAM and UNICEF to provide any sort of help to the Baloch IDP’s.
Even today when i asked my Pakistani friends about the issue, instead of answering my concern they tried to call me a traitor and a racist.
I had a simple question, and no one replied me. Every one shouting to help the IDP’s of Swat, but no one ever tried to focus the IDP’s of Kohlu andDera Bugti.
Should i Call it hypocrisy, Should i call the calls for help for Swat victims a business tactic, as the world focus is on Taliban and huge amount of Funds can come on the name of war on terror, Or should i call it the biased policy of Pakistanis towards Balochs, as NWFP or swat is a Part of Pakistan and Balochistan is a occupied colony of Pakistan, and Pakistanis are more concerned about the land owned by Balochs than the lives of Baloch Civilians.
This attitude shows that not only the military establishment of Pakistan but the Pakistani civil societies and general public too are against the Baloch Nation and want to get rid of the Baloch Nation and occupy their lands for ever.
Its the Time for the Baloch Nation to rethink about her status under Pakistani occupation and get united against the occupiers.
Shame to the UN(HCR)
While I woke up this fine morning, I learnt I had begun to hate the UN(HCR). The UN(HCR) has, by its deeds, proved that it is racially discriminating the Baloch internally displaced persons (IDPs). It has been almost two years that we have been continuously appealing to the international community to approach the two hundred thousand Baloch Marri and Bugti tribesmen who were driven out of their homes following a devastating military operation unleashed by the Pakistan army.
Shamelessly, the UN(HCR) deliberately ignored this serious humanitarian disaster in the Baloch areas. Worst still, we have been aggressively campaigning that the UN(HCR) should stop assisting the Afghan refugees in Quetta but repatriate them back to their country because they are criminals who have imported drugs, weapons, extremism and suicide bombing to the Baloch province. Only for the sake of pursuing its own interests, the UN(HCR) extended the stay of the Afghan refugees in Balochistan under one pretext to the other. They did not move an inch forward to help the Baloch IDPs.
Now, we see the UN(HCR) actively operating in the NWFP to assist the IDPs of the fresh conflict. If this is not racial discrimination then what else can we describe it?
Last week, I approached a few Baloch IDP settlements (not camps, because the government of Pakistan and the UN(HCR) have not recognized them as IDPs yet) somewhere in Jaffarabad. I was startled to learn that three kids, below the age of ten, had sold their kidneys because of poverty. [See pictures].
To the world community, I must say they are once again making a huge blunder by blindly approaching the IDPs of NWFP and ignoring the Baloch IDPs. This mass exodus that is moving towards Islamabad and Rawalpindi will only assist the Islamic militants from the NWFP to reach the nuclear-armed country’s capital

14 May 2009

Foreign Mining Venture Seeks Investment Guarantees

ISLAMABAD: A joint venture of western mining giants has sought sovereign guarantees from Pakistan for protection of its estimated investment of over $5 billion in the resource-rich field of Reko Diq, having known deposits of around 4 billion tons of copper, it is learnt.
Tethyan Copper Company, a joint venture between Antofagasta of Chile and Barrick Gold Corporation of Canada, holds a 75 per cent interest in the exploration licence concerning Reko Diq field in the Chaghi hills of Balochistan while the remaining 25 per cent share is held by the Balochistan government.
Balochistan would earn billions of dollars in profits and royalty over the life of the mine, sources said, adding there was a need to set a good precedent so that the country could become an attractive place for investors in future.
"Negotiations are in progress among three parties including the federal government, the provincial government of Balochistan and Tethyan Company for reaching a mineral agreement to establish a framework for future investment," said a high-level official of the Ministry of Petroleum when asked for comments.
In case an agreement is finalised, Tethyan is expected to invest around $5 billion till 2013. The agreement is proposed to be for 13 years and each year an investment of around $1 billion will be made, taking total investment to $13 billion.
When Director General Mineral, Ministry of Petroleum, was contacted for comments, he confirmed to The News that negotiations were under way to finalise a framework for future investment, which was expected to be finalised in a few months.
Under the Mining Act 1948, provinces give concession grants to the parties concerned. Reko Diq field holds large copper and gold reserves on the Tethyan belt in the remote and sparsely populated province of Balochistan.
At the end of 2008, combined deposits of resources at Reko Diq were estimated at over four billion tonnes. A feasibility study for the project was initiated in December 2007 and is expected to be completed in the second half of 2009. An additional 146,000 meters were drilled in 2008, which mainly related to infill drilling to upgrade the existing resources.
Costs incurred by Tethyan in 2008 amounted to $100 million, including expenditures on feasibility study and acquisition of additional surface rights. When Tethyan was contacted at its office in the federal capital for comments, a written reply was sent which states: "In our negotiations with the government, the sovereign guarantees that we are seeking are already being provided to foreign investors in Pakistan, particularly in the oil and gas sector.
"According to the terms of the agreement for the exploration licence of which the government of Balochistan is 25pc partner, TCC has made 100pc investment for exploration and feasibility of Reko Diq project.
"At present, negotiations are in progress with the government of Balochistan and the federal government for a mineral exploration agreement to establish a framework for future investment. We hope to conclude this agreement soon and are keen to make this a win-win deal for all the parties involved."

12 May 2009

Magsi for action against those burning pakistan's flag

QUETTA: Balochistan Governor Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi said on Monday it was the responsibility of the provincial government to take action against elements who removed national flag from educational institutions and stopped recitation of national anthem by their students.‘Nobody should be allowed to challenge the writ of the government,’ the governor said, adding that removing national flag and not allowing recitation of national anthem did not mean that the government had no control over the province.The governor, who was talking to reporters during a visit to the Frontier Corps Headquarters here, said the provincial government should take notice of the issue.The federal government would intervene if the situation went out of control of the provincial government, Mr Magsi added.He said the government would restore its writ and institutions responsible for maintaining law and order were working effectively.He said that people raising the slogan of independence of Balochistan were not living in the province. ‘Only a few people are raising this slogan and they are living abroad and we don’t accept this slogan.’He expressed the hope that the situation in the province would soon improve and nationalists would be ready for talks and said the federal government should hold talks with nationalist leaders to resolve the Balochistan issue.‘The federal government can resolve the issue by accepting the genuine demands of the people of Balochistan, including provincial autonomy, control over provincial resources and increase in province’s quota in federal services and other institutions,’ he added.The governor held the Musharraf government responsible for the law and order situation in the province.Earlier, the governor was briefed on responsibilities and performance of the Frontier Corps in Balochistan. A senior FC officer said that the FC was deployed to secure borders, prevent smuggling of arms and narcotics, protect national installations and maintain law and order if asked by the provincial government

Balochistan Is The Ultimate Prize

Balochistan is totally under the radar of Western corporate media. But not the Pentagon's. An immense desert comprising almost 48% of Pakistan's area, rich in uranium and copper, potentially very rich in oil, and producing more than one-third of Pakistan's natural gas

PART 1: Obama does his Bush impression
It's a classic case of calm before the storm. The AfPak chapter of Obama's brand new OCO ("Overseas Contingency Operations"), formerly GWOT ("global war on terror") does not imply only a surge in the Pashtun Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). A surge in Balochistan as well may be virtually inevitable. Balochistan is totally under the radar of Western corporate media. But not the Pentagon's. An immense desert comprising almost 48% of Pakistan's area, rich in uranium and copper, potentially very rich in oil, and producing more than one-third of Pakistan's natural gas, it accounts for less than 4% of Pakistan's 173 million citizens. Balochs are the majority, followed by Pashtuns. Quetta, the provincial capital, is considered Taliban Central by the Pentagon, which for all its high-tech wizardry mysteriously has not been able to locate Quetta resident "The Shadow", historic Taliban emir Mullah Omar himself. Strategically, Balochistan is mouth-watering: east of Iran, south of Afghanistan, and boasting three Arabian sea ports, including Gwadar, practically at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. Gwadar - a port built by China - is the absolute key. It is the essential node in the crucial, ongoing, and still virtual Pipelineistan war between IPI and TAPI. IPI is the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, also known as the "peace pipeline", which is planned to cross from Iranian to Pakistani Balochistan - an anathema to Washington. TAPI is the perennially troubled, US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, which is planned to cross western Afghanistan via Herat and branch out to Kandahar and Gwadar. Washington's dream scenario is Gwadar as the new Dubai - while China would need Gwadar as a port and also as a base for pumping gas via a long pipeline to China. One way or another, it will all depend on local grievances being taken very seriously. Islamabad pays a pittance in royalties for the Balochis, and development aid is negligible; Balochistan is treated as a backwater. Gwadar as the new Dubai would not necessarily mean local Balochis benefiting from the boom; in many cases they could even be stripped of their local land. To top it all, there's the New Great Game in Eurasia fact that Pakistan is a key pivot to both NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which Pakistan is an observer. So whoever "wins" Balochistan incorporates Pakistan as a key transit corridor to either Iranian gas from the monster South Pars field or a great deal of the Caspian wealth of "gas republic" Turkmenistan. The cavalry to the rescueNow imagine thousands of mobile US troops - backed by supreme air power and hardcore artillery - pouring into this desert across the immense, 800-kilometer-long, empty southern Afghanistan-Balochistan border. These are Obama's surge troops who will be in theory destroying opium crops in Helmand province in Afghanistan. They will also try to establish a meaningful presence in the ultra-remote, southwest Afghanistan, Baloch-majority province of Nimruz. It would take nothing for them to hit Pakistani Balochistan in hot pursuit of Taliban bands. And this would certainly be a prelude for a de facto US invasion of Balochistan. What would the Balochis do? That's a very complex question. Balochistan is of course tribal - just as the FATA. Local tribal chiefs can be as backward as Islamabad is neglectful (and they are not exactly paragons of human rights either). A parallel could be made with the Swat valley. Most Baloch tribes bow to Islamabad's authority - except, first and foremost, the Bugti. And then there's the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) - which both Washington and London brand as a terrorist group. Its leader is Brahamdagh Bugti, operating out of Kandahar (only two hours away from Quetta). In a recent Pakistani TV interview he could not be more sectarian, stressing the BLA is getting ready to attack non-Balochis. The Balochis are inclined to consider the BLA as a resistance group. But Islamabad denies it, saying their support is not beyond 10% of the provincial population. It does not help that Islamabad tends to be not only neglectful but heavy-handed; in August 2006, Musharraf's troops killed ultra-respected local leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, a former provincial governor. There's ample controversy on whether the BLA is being hijacked by foreign intelligence agencies - everyone from the CIA and the British MI6 to the Israeli Mossad. In a 2006 visit to Iran, I was prevented from going to Sistan-Balochistan in southeast Iran because, according to Tehran's version, infiltrated CIA from Pakistani Balochistan were involved in covert, cross-border attacks. And it's no secret to anyone in the region that since 9/11 the US virtually controls the Baloch air bases in Dalbandin and Panjgur. In October 2001, while I was waiting for an opening to cross to Kandahar from Quetta, and apart from tracking the whereabouts of President Hamid Karzai and his brother, I spent quite some time with a number of BLA associates and sympathizers. They described themselves as "progressive, nationalist, anti-imperialist" (and that makes them difficult to be co-opted by the US). They were heavily critical of "Punjabi chauvinism", and always insisted the region's resources belong to Balochis first; that was the rationale for attacks on gas pipelines. Stressing an atrocious, provincial literacy rate of only 16% ("It's government policy to keep Balochistan backward"), they resented the fact that most people still lacked drinking water. They claimed support from at least 70% of the Baloch population ("Whenever the BLA fires a rocket, it's the talk of the bazaars"). They also claimed to be united, and in coordination with Iranian Balochis. And they insisted that "Pakistan had turned Balochistan into a US cantonment, which affected a lot the relationship between the Afghan and Baloch peoples". As a whole, not only BLA sympathizers but the Balochis in general are adamant: although prepared to remain within a Pakistani confederation, they want infinitely more autonomy. Game onHow crucial Balochistan is to Washington can be assessed by the study "Baloch Nationalism and the Politics of Energy Resources: the Changing Context of Separatism in Pakistan" by Robert Wirsing of the US Army think-tank Strategic Studies Institute. Predictably, it all revolves around Pipelineistan. China - which built Gwadar and needs gas from Iran - must be sidelined by all means necessary. The added paranoid Pentagon component is that China could turn Gwadar into a naval base and thus "threaten" the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. The only acceptable scenario for the Pentagon would be for the US to take over Gwadar. Once again, that would be a prime confluence of Pipelineistan and the US empire of bases. Not only in terms of blocking the IPI pipeline and using Gwadar for TAPI, control of Gwadar would open the mouth-watering opportunity of a long land route across Balochistan into Helmand, Nimruz, Kandahar or, better yet, all of these three provinces in southwest Afghanistan. From a Pentagon/NATO perspective, after the "loss" of the Khyber Pass, that would be the ideal supply route for Western troops in the perennial, now rebranded, GWOT ("global war on terror"). During the Asif Ali Zardari administration in Islamabad the BLA, though still a fringe group with a political wing and a military wing, has been regrouping and rearming, while the current chief minister of Balochistan, Nawab Raisani, is suspected of being a CIA asset (there's no conclusive proof). There's fear in Islamabad that the government has taken its eye off the Balochistan ball - and that the BLA may be effectively used by the US for balkanization purposes. But Islamabad still seems not to have listened to the key Baloch grievance: we want to profit from our natural wealth, and we want autonomy. So what's gonna be the future of "Dubai" Gwadar? IPI or TAPI? The die is cast. Under the radar of the Obama/Karzai/Zardari photo-op in Washington, all's still to play in this crucial front in the New Great Game in Eurasia.

We are victims of war on terror: Faiz, Hyarbyar

LONDON: Faiz Baloch and Hyarbyar Marri, the two Baloch youths who had recently been found not guilty after having undergone the harrowing experience of a long-drawn prosecution on terror charges, went public late on Tuesday evening at the House of Lords declaring that they were in one way ‘the invisible victims of the war on terror’. Organised by their lawyer Baroness Helena Kennedy and attended by human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce and human rights campaigner Peter Tetchell, the ‘public meeting’ indicted both the former Pakistani military dictator General (retd) Pervez Musharraf and the British government for using the excuse of war on terror to victimise ‘freedom fighters’.
Faiz Baloch who had done nothing more than run a website dedicated to what he said the struggle of Baloch people for their rights ridiculed the prosecution’s unsubstantiated charge that they were al Qaeda men.
‘The prosecution was deceived into charging us as al Qaeda members. We are everything that al Qaeda hates. We are not extremists, we are secular and we are Muslims but that has got nothing to do with our struggle for our freedom,’ he said.
According to Faiz, the media has so far failed to report on the continuing tragedy of Balochistan because of the blanket censor imposed by the Pakistani security forces. ‘They had recently expelled two ‘nosey’ foreign journalists.’
He said development projects in Balochistan launched by the Musharraf regime were a curse instead of a blessing because he thought these projects were pretence to change the demography of the province and turn the native Baloch into Red Indians.
He was also very bitter about the nuclear tests carried out on May 28, 1998 in Chaghai and said so far the government had not allowed the WHO representatives to visit the area to find out the impact of the test on the environment and the health of the people.
Hyarbyar in his presentation said he, his brothers and their father was implicated in the murder of a judge, ‘at the time of the murder of the judge my brothers and I were in the UK. My father was arrested and his case was sent to a terrorist court but even after ten years they had not been able to unearth any evidence to get a guilty verdict’.
He traced the current intensification in what he said the security establishment’s repression in Balochistan to the alleged rape of Dr Shazia Khalid by army Captain Hammad in 2005 which he said triggered a massive public protest to quell which the army ‘went berserk’.
‘A Hindu temple in the Bugti area was attacked during this campaign in which 32 Hindus were killed,’ he alleged.
Ms Kennedy, Ms Gareth Peirce and Peter Tetchell took the UK government to task for collaborating with a military dictator and what Mr Tetchell called caving in to the blackmail of Gen Musharraf.
‘Musharraf told the UK, if you don’t cooperate with me I will not cooperate with you on terror war. So if you want Rashid Rauf then you hand me over the two Baloch youths,’ Mr Tetchell said.