03 May 2004	Monday	12 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

QUETTA, May 2: There is a need to re-demarcate provinces on the basis of linguistic, ethnic and cultural divisions besides holding referendum on ascertaining the people's will on disputed territories among the provinces , suggests chief of Jamhoori Watan Party Nawab Mohammad Akbar Bugti.

He was talking to newsmen in Dera Bugti on Sunday. Nawab Bugti said that he opposed the existing administrative outlines of provinces, adding they had been created by the British colonial rulers to protect their own interests.

"British rulers did the same everywhere they went - in the undivided India and in the Arab world," he said, adding that they followed a single rule: 'Divide and rule.'

Referring to the demands of certain political parties regarding the merger of Jacobabad and Dera Ghazi Khan (according to old administrative division), Nawab Bugti said he was also opposed to the imposition of such decisions, adding the people should be permitted to exercise their free democratic will to decide whether they wanted to join Balochistan or not.

"The (people's) verdict should be final," he said, adding that there should be no coercion on way or the other in this regard," Nawab Bugti said. "There was no dispute between the Baloch and Pukhtun peoples as both nations have lived amicably within their historically and distinctly demarcated territories for centuries," the nationalist leader said, adding there were some areas around Quetta city whose status still needed to be resolved.

The JWP chief dispelled the impression that the Greater Baloch Alliance was a tribal alliance, saying some people wanted to give such an impression, adding that it was a political alliance among the Jamhoori Wattan Party, National Party, Balochistan National Party (Mengal group) and a nationalist leader, Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri.

He said that had it been a tribal alliance, then Dr Hayee would not have joined it as he (Dr Hayee) considered the tribal system to be outdated, obscure and anti-people, adding that Dr Hayee's joining the alliance had given credence to the political alliance's stand.

Alluding to ongoing conspiracies against the people of Balochistan, he said that attempts were being made to tear away a 700-miles segment of coastline of the province, adding: "It is unacceptable. It means death and total annihilation of a nation."

He said that the "people in uniform" often brought forward politicians or bureaucrats as their "front men" to run the country's affairs, adding that politicians were prone to commit minor mistake while the "people in uniform" had committed what he termed blundered resulting in dismemberment of the country.

He stressed the need for the exiled political leaders living in Saudi Arabia and London to return. " They must leave their fate in the hands of the masses," he said.