Europe: ISI and Balochistan. Written by Ryszard Czarnecki, MEP for EP TODAY on May 9, 2014. EP TODAY, A monthly Newspaper for European Parliament.
Baluchistan, land blessed by nature but ravaged by inhumane practices. With its natural resources worth hundreds of billions of dollars it ranks amongst the world’s potentially richest regions, but its inhabitants live in abject poverty and are targeted victims of Pakistan forces. The country has waged veiled war over its own people in the province of Baluchistan. The ‘kill and dump’ policy has claimed hundreds of thousands lives in the province. The implicit war that the forces have stared in the province over years has kept the province distracted from achieving basic goals.
Inter-State-Intelligence (ISI) has been targeting Baluch people. People of Baluchistan have been facing problems ever since forceful alignment with Pakistan. The government has been obsessed with keeping tight control over Baluchistan as abundant natural resources are available. The government has taken least interest in the development of the province. The intelligent population in the province which deciphered the government’s plan for control over resources without letting the local man profit led to agitations against the government in the past. Protestors are targeted and executed or dumped in prisons under no legal penalties.
The government of Pakistan has turned a deaf ear towards the atrocities committed by the authoritarians. The military and the ISI gained immense power under the rule of President Musharraf. In a 2012 briefing, Amnesty International noted, “According to our own research at least 249 Baluch activists, teachers, journalists and lawyers have disappeared or been murdered between 24 October 2010 and 10 September 2011 alone, many in so-called ‘kill and dump’ operations.” The advocacy group, Voice for Missing Baluch, has estimated that 8,000 people have been kidnapped over the past nine years, with 1,500 individual bodies having been recovered. The ‘Kill and Dump’ policy began under the rule of Musharraf, but has continued under the current government. The policy focuses on the detainment of Baluch activists, holding them incommunicado for days or even weeks during which they are subjected to torture, interrogation and execution.
The province has been suffering impede for decades now in achieving common goals like others in the country. There are no facilities for education of children beyond secondary schooling as the government does not focus in making the region self reliant. The killing of intellectual cleansing carried on by the ISI in the province is to keep the people under the tyranny of the organization. The media in the province is under the control of ISI which keeps the reality of killings limited within its boundaries. International news agencies are not allowed, international humanitarian workers cannot enter Baluchistan, international human rights groups cannot enter Baluchistan and even the diplomatic staff from other countries is not allowed to visit Baluchistan. The ISI controlled media does not mention the human rights violation by the forces in Baluchistan.
The Clashes by the ISI and the Pakistan army (a pro baluch group) has claimed many lives in the province. The ISI has not limited its atrocities to kill and dump of innocents from the province but has also started ‘Cyber war’ to spread deceiving information about the conflicts in the region. The Baluch National Liberation Movement was initiated to show the world the true situation in Baluchistan that the local press was devoid of. ISI has led cyber war against the Baloch freedom struggle has tormented the struggle.
Baluchistan not only faces state violence and discrimination, but it also faces deep-seated economic inequality. Baluchistan is Pakistan’s largest province, and given its natural resources and strategic position, arguably most important. Baluchistan wants to be an independent nation but Pakistan government knows the importance of the resources the province has and thus wants to keep it under sovereign power. ISI, Military Intelligence and Frontier Corps have been given the task of keeping the upsurge in the province within control.
The veiled warfare that the ISI is busy carrying on the innocent people of Baluchistan needs to end. Killing men in custody, authorities dump the bodies of their victims, sending a brutal message to the Baluch community. The extrajudicial detainment and execution allows for authorities to escape all forms of oversight, legal standards, or accountability. The role of ISI and Pakistan government is accountable to international authorities in the case of Human Right violations that are carried on in the province.
