EDITORIAL: If the police record of law and order in the country imparts any revelation then the inescapable conclusion would be that out of all foreigners in Pakistan the Chinese are the prime target of foreign-funded terrorism.
On Tuesday, three Chinese teachers were ambushed and killed at the gate of Karachi University. Back in 2018, there was an attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi. Then the Karachi Stock Exchange complex came under terrorist attack and in 2021 nine Chinese engineers were killed as their bus veered to a deep mountain gorge under the impact of bombing as it was on its way to the Dasu hydel power project.
The banned Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for all these attacks. But one thing vastly different now is the identity of the BLA’s suicide member — she was a teacher, a mother of two and wife of Karachi-based dentist, who owned the attack by his wife, asserting he was “proud of what she did” — a confession that tends to place the BLA-triggered terrorism in the category of nationalist movement.
Area-wise Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province but the smallest in terms of population. It is blessed with rich natural resources, but those remain almost unexploited. If that frustration caused by successive governments was overlooked and dismissed as foreign-funded and people were bombed in order to secure their submission, the enemy is also busy exploiting this imbroglio.
And of these New Delhi is most active — as its agents based in Kandahar and Jalalabad have been tasked to foment local animosity against the Chinese who are engaged in various development projects in Balochistan, particularly the strategically and economically important seaport of Gwadar. In the 1960s and the 70s it was the Moscow who wanted excess to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean through Balochistan and kept it unstable using the Iraqi embassy as a conduit for supply of weapons to the rebel outfits.
And now it is India — to utter delight of anti-China powers — that’s the principal promoter of unrest and agitation in that province. There are authentic reports that when wounded in clashes with law-enforcing personnel the BLA insurgents sought medical treatment in Indian hospitals.
In fact, that is not a new information: In 2009, on the sidelines of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) conference at Sharm al-Shaikh, Egypt, the then Pakistani Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, point-blank told his Indian counterpart Dr Manmohan Singh of New Delhi’s clandestine help to insurgent groups in Balochistan.
However, the fact remains that internal disharmony in a state tends to play into foreign hands. So is the case in Balochistan. This is Pakistan’s own problem and its solution too lies with it. Let there be, as Chairman Mao said, ‘talk talk fight fight’.
While there is a consistent demand for more active role of the National Action Plan the door for talks with the insurgent groups too should be kept wide open. Yes, as envisaged by the coalition government headed by Shehbaz Sharif, there is the opportunity to resume talks with disgruntled Baloch groups. And this should not be the selective groups the government would like to engage.
The situation calls for a holistic approach and enunciation of give-and-take dialogue with the diehard Baloch rebel groups. And for this time is the essence.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022