|
February 18, 2012
Redrawing the map of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan:
Independence for the Balochi people
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Ten days after he chaired a Congressional committee’s hearing on Balochistan, Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher Friday (2/17) introduced a concurrent resolution in the congress, calling for an independent state for the Balochi people living in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.
The resolution said “the people of Balochistan that are “currently divided between Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, have the right to self-determination and to their own sovereign country and they should be afforded the opportunity to choose their own status among the community of nations, living in peace and harmony, without external coercion.”
In a statement from his office, Rohrabacher, who is also the Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, said, “The Balochi, like other nations of people, have an innate right to self-determination. The political and ethnic discrimination they suffer is tragic and made more so because America is financing and selling arms to their oppressors in Islamabad.”
The press release further added that Balochistan is “rich in natural resources but has been subjugated and exploited by Punjabi and Pashtun elites in Islamabad, leaving Balochistan the country’s poorest province.”
About the Iranian Balochistan, the resolution said “a popular insurgency is also under way in Sistan-Balochistan and being met by brutal repression by the dictatorship in Iran which has added religious bigotry to tyranny.”
The resolution also pointed out that historically Balochistan was an independently governed entity known as the Baloch Khanate of Kalat which came to an end after invasions from both British and Persian armies. An attempt to regain independence in 1947 was crushed by an invasion by Pakistan.
Congressman Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, and Steve King, an Iowa Republican, have also signed on as original co-sponsors of the resolution. Not surprisingly, Congressman Gohmert last month called for carving out Balochistan from Pakistan to fight Taliban.
February 8th hearing
Friday’s resolution was a follow up of the February 8 hearing by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher on the situation in Balochistan. While many witnesses in their testimonies focused on the human rights violations, retired Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters, the architect of the 2006 New Middle East map that showed a truncated Pakistan, called for the balkanization of Pakistan. It may be recalled that in his article accompanying the map – Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look - published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, he argued that Pakistan is an unnatural state and a natural Pakistan should lie entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi. “Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan brethren. Pakistan, another unnatural state, would also lose its Baluch territory to Free Balochistan.
Peters’ testimony was buildup on his New Middle East map with truncated Pakistan as he said “Pakistan’s borders make no sense and don’t work.” He went on to say:
“The Durand Line, delineating the state’s border with Afghanistan, was just a convenient inheritance from British India: Originally, it established how far the British believed they needed to push out a buffer zone west of the Indus River to protect “the Jewel in the Crown,” British India, from tribal warfare and imperial Russian machinations. The Durand Line marked a military frontier, but the “real” frontier of British India and its rich civilization was the Indus.”
Supporting the creation of Pashtunistan by separating the northern Pashtun tribal belt along the border with Pakistan, Peter argued that why not forty million Pashtuns in Pakistan and Afghanistan have their own state? “Of course, determining the final boundaries of such a state would be problematic, but why shouldn’t the Pashtuns have their own country?” He went on to say that our allegiance to today’s boundaries exacerbates the conflict. He argued:
“The Durand Line arbitrarily divided tribal territories for British (and now Pakistani) convenience. It would be hard to devise a more dysfunctional international border. Along with the rupture of minor ethnic groups, it split the substantial Pashtun and Baluchi populations between the artificial constructs that emerged as Pakistan and Afghanistan. Also for convenience, the rest of the world agreed to pretend that these are viable states. Yet, Afghanistan is little more than a rough territorial concept: Its historical rulers controlled, at best, major cities and the caravan (now highway) routes between them. At its birth sixty-five years ago, Pakistan was a Frankenstein’s monster of a state, cobbled together from ill-fitting body parts to award the subcontinent’s Muslim activists a state of their own.”
Repeating his argument of the New Middle East, Peters said at present, the Baluchis are divided between southwestern Pakistan, southern Afghanistan and southeastern Iran—all because of those artificial borders that were convenient for someone else. “At least ten million and perhaps twice that number suffer intolerable levels of discrimination, dispossession and state violence,” he said adding:
We need to ask honestly why Baluchis are not entitled to a Free Balochistan, why the Pashtuns—despite their abhorrent customs—are not entitled to a Pakhtunkhwa for all Pashtuns, why forty-million Kurds aren’t entitled to a Free Kurdistan, or why its eastern provinces must remain part of the geopolitical monstrosity we call “Congo.”
Not surprisingly, “Pakistan as a failing empire” was the title of Peters’ testimony in which he argued that Pakistan is not an integrated state, but a miniature empire that inherited its dysfunctional and unjust boundaries from Britain’s greater, now-defunct empire. “We must set aside our lazy Cold-War-era assumption that Pakistan is a necessary ally, he said and concluded by saying: it’s time to abandon Pakistan and switch our support wholeheartedly to India.
The resolution a boon to separatists
Friday’s resolution will give a boost to Baloch nationalists. Balochistan National Party, a leading Baloch political party, in a tweeter message, welcomed the resolution. A BNP delegation also attended the February 8 hearing in Washington and handed over a letter of thanks on behalf of the people of Balochistan.
Addressing the chair and members of the committee, BNP chief Sardar Mengal wrote: “On behalf of my party and the people of Balochistan, let me sincerely thank you and members of the committee for the timely attention and understanding of human rights situation in Balochistan. Taking notice of the plight of the Baloch people by civilized world is need of the hour as situation for them is grave and serious.”
While the Baloch nationalists hailed the resolution and Congressional hearing, many in Pakistan were claiming that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has embarked on a Southern Sudan-style split of Balochistan from Pakistan.
Retired Brigadier Farooq Hameed Khan wrote under the title “Our traitors their heroes,”the Americans have finally shown their Balochistan card. “They definitely crossed the red line in relations with Pakistan. By openly talking about an independent Balochistan on pretext of so called human rights violations, the US Congress Sub Committee under Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher has violated international norms and principles of non interference and respect for sovereignty and integrity of other independent states.”
“US Ambassador Cameron Munter’s declaration last year that ‘Balochistan was very significant for the United States’ exposed the failing superpower’s grand designs in the context of their ‘Great Game’ in Pakistan’s biggest but sparsely populated and perhaps most mineral rich province,” Brigadier Farooq said adding:
While the US State Department may deny any Administration’s support for the Congressional hearing, yet this event held at Capitol Hill was undoubtedly held in coordination with anti-Pakistan lobbies including few Baloch dissidents, their India’s RAW/CIA sponsors and certain their newly converted US loyalists in Pakistan. Well aware of the pattern and sequence of US psychological operations that precede their grand designs, this hearing was aimed to exploit their own created Balochistan insurgency and internationalize the issue.
Brigadier Farooq asked? Does Congressman Dana Rohrabacher have the moral courage to hold similar hearings on grave human rights violations and atrocities by the 500,000 strong Indian Occupation forces in Indian Occupied Kashmir? Do U.S. Congressmen have the guts to expose Israeli brutalities against Palestinians? Why has no hearing been conducted to condemn the killings of unarmed and innocent Pakistani tribal victims of US drone attacks?
Tellingly, the Balochistan independence resolution came as the President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and President Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari were holding a summit meeting in Islamabad. The three presidents agreed “not to allow any threat emanating from their respective territories against each other and commence trilateral consultations on an agreement in this regard.” Amid a growing likelihood of an Israeli or US attack on Iran, President Zardari assured President Ahmadinejad that Pakistan will not provide Americans airbases to launch attack on its neighbor.
Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America
|
