Every area of trouble gives out a ray of hope

Though lingering insurgency in Balochistan has been a subject of public debate for a long time to hear about it from Sardar Ataullah Mengal at first hand is an eye-opener and indeed a wake-up call. After a meeting with Nawaz Sharif in Karachi on Tuesday, he claimed, thanks to the atrocities committed what he called the Punjabi Army, the situation in Balochistan has arrived "at a point of no return". "This is not the Pakistan Army, rather it is the Punjabi army that is indulging in such inhuman acts against the Baloch people," he told reporters, expressing his own inability to be of any help in reversing the situation. The baton of leadership, he said, has passed on to the Baloch youths that have taken to the hills and 'it is for them to decide their future because they are being systematically eliminated'. However he still held the hope, in that should someone make "one last effort with sincerity" the angry Baloch youth may respond positively. As to why this tinge of hope had remained undetectable so far, and has readily came out in Sardar Sahib's meeting with a leader from Punjab - because, such an engagement had not happened for a long time. The truth is that Islamabad has remained passive to the reality on ground in Balochistan and has been making only empty promises. That the federal government feels unconcerned about rampant lawlessness and growing insurgency is sheer callousness. How come insurgency is a provincial subject that Prime Minister Gilani tells media in Quetta: "I will ask the provincial government to take steps in this regard". And how sincere Nawaz Sharif is in his commitment to fight for the Baloch case, we will ask after the hype created by the ongoing political uncertainty is dissipated, as his meeting with Sardar Ataullah Mengal was apparently part of his election campaign. No doubt, his remarks do convey - unambiguously - that Baloch nationalist leadership is amenable to persuasion to come down from the hills and join for a meaningful dialogue. Given that in the past the province of Balochistan was successively subjected to military operations, both by civilian and uniformed leaderships in the federal capital; it is just natural that the nationalists' perspective is profoundly coloured by anti-army feelings - which obviously culminated in the wake of brutal murder of Nawab Akbar Bugti. But that is not the case any longer; the Pakistan army is no more engaged in anti-insurgency operations, particularly since April this year when General Kayani closed down the under-expansion Sui cantonment. He had then also clarified that the Pak Army and the Frontier Corps (FC), which has earned lot of flak for its perceived anti-Baloch actions, are two different organisations. Since law and order is a provincial subject and the FC is under the control of the provincial administration, on behalf of the Interior Ministry, it is the government of Nawab Aslam Raisani that should accept its failure in bringing the insurgents back to their homes. At the same time, it should be understood that the ongoing violence in Balochistan has many facets, of which the insurgency fuelled by nationalists is one, but definitely most active. There is the deep ethnic divide, murderous sectarian tension, active anti-feudal lobby and foreign interference - all going apace at full speed. That the continuing failure of the federal government to translate its Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan package - rightly described by Sardar Mengal as "empty" - into a reality is a factor that has contributed to the enormity of the challenge that stems from that province. Then, some one has to answer the question asked by him: why in equally disturbed Karachi or other places in Pakistan the armed forces are not called in, and why so only in Balochistan. What ails Balochistan is essentially a political issue, and should that be tackled with sincerity and resolved to the satisfaction of Baloch youth the rest of the pieces in this puzzling jigsaw will automatically fall in their places. The critique of former Balochistan chief minister Sardar Ataullah Mengal needs to be taken quite seriously by all sectors, particularly the country's political leadership. But for the Nawaz Sharif meeting with the tribal chief we would not have realised the criticality of the ongoing insurgency in Balochistan. But one swallow doesn't make a summer; such contacts have to increase by many notches. Copyright Business Recorder, 2011