Balochistan: Tomorrow may be too late

The urgency to resolve the Balochistan imbroglio cannot be denied, but given ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif's latest take on this critical issue, some delay in presenting the Balochistan Package before the parliament would be acceptable. The government was ready to table the said package during the current session but Prime Minister Gilani, decided, rightly, to be pre-advised by the chief of the PML (N), the second largest party in the house.
That meeting took place on Thursday, after which Nawaz Sharif addressed the media giving his point of view which, he said, embraces nearly full endorsement of the prime minister. How that endorsement will figure in the final draft of the package it cannot be guessed, but its unanimous passage by the parliament - that is essential to keep it non-controversial - would be certainly ensured if it incorporates the revised thinking.
What is that revised thinking? Even when the Senator Raza Rabbani-headed parliamentary committee had extensively drawn on the political parties' inputs, it remained quite thin on what the nationalist groups and parties had to say. Naturally, an ambience welcoming the proposed Balochistan Package did not obtain.
One would hear, not too infrequently, the complaint from various nationalist leaders that they were not taken into confidence by the parliamentary committee. Rightly then, Nawaz Sharif has asked the government to take on board all the stakeholders including the 'annoyed Baloch leadership sitting inside and outside the country', and the military.
He is convinced "all these leaders are patriotic" and they are the "same who voted for the repeal of 8th Amendment in 1997". Before coming to the Prime Minister's House, Nawaz Sharif had consulted Sardar Akhtar Mengal and Mir Hasil Bizenjo, thereby lending a ring of seriousness and pragmatism to his call. And the military has to be part of the consultations, he said, because 'if there is any operation in progress, it should be stopped'.
No doubt, reports of Indian involvement in fomenting trouble in Balochistan have been in the air for quite some time and the issue had also coloured, albeit marginally, the Gilani-Singh meeting at Sharm el-Shaikh, but now it was formally broached at the highest political level in Pakistan. Briefed on this development Nawaz Sharif advised the government to raise the issue in the United Nations and at other international forums 'along with the evidence'.
There is a growing impression that Baloch nationalists' anger against the federal government has been hijacked by outside powers that sometimes appears in the form of Jundullah and sometimes it earns the Pakistan government, the blame of hosting the so-called Quetta Shura. The enemy's most effective weapon is ethnic and sectarian target-killings and once in a while the kidnapping of foreigners, and it is using that with rare abandon.
How to go about on the crucial issue of opening the doors on those who had been declared sworn enemies of the state? How to, quickly and without any further loss of time, remove the constitutional impediments, raised over time, by military rulers, who Nawaz Sharif observed, 'played havoc with the peace in Balochistan'. Given the political will, the way forward is wide open.
As the first step, President Zardari - in line with his open apology for the wounds inflicted on the people of Balochistan - may announce a general amnesty for politicians and political workers under Article 45, regardless of their political affiliations and nature of crimes.
After that is done, the parliament should forthwith repeal the 17th Amendment and Article 58-2(b), which tends to throw out Bonapartism and some other clauses, including the Concurrent List provision. The stepped-up insurgency in Balochistan brooks no further delay in coming to grips with the reality on the ground. If these challenges remain unencountered today, tomorrow it may be too late.