13 January 2005	Thursday	02 Zilhaj 1425

QUETTA, Jan 12: Baloch nationalist leaders, expressing anger over President Gen Pervez Musharraf's warning to Balochistan tribes to stop attacks on oil fields, have warned the government that brutal force cannot suppress national movements.

Sardar Ataullah Khan Mengal and Nawabzada Balaach Marri said on Wednesday said that Baloch people would not allow usurpers to loot the resources of the province and deny the native people's constitutional and political rights.

Sardar Mengal, chief of Ponam, told Dawn on telephone from Karachi that a man in military uniform always talk of capturing land or killing people through violence but Baloch people would have no other option except to resist oppressors in their bid to protect the resources and political rights of the people of Balochistan.

He said that President Musharraf was right in saying that 2005 was an era of Seventies as the situation had equally changed for the rulers and the Balochs because the international community could be apprised through media about the excesses of the oppressors.

About Gen Musharraf's assertion that arms and money were being sent to Balochistan from abroad, Mr Mengal said that people could not forget the Iraqi weapons drama of the staged by Z. A. Bhutto's government to justify army operation in Balochistan in 1973. Similarly the present military ruler would resort to baseless charges against the Baloch people to level ground for another military operation.

The Ponam chief said that political issues were resolved in a political manner but unfortunately the president who belonged to army establishment lack political maturity to realize the results and complications of the language he used in a TV interview.

Sardar Mengal said that from the very beginning the Baloch leadership was trying to adopt a peaceful way but the rulers, enjoying army's backing were behaving arrogantly

He said the BNP's decision to disassociate from the parliamentary committee was timely because the party had realized that the rulers were not sincere in recognizing the national rights of the Baloch people and the language used by President Musharraf was a proof of it.

MPA Nawabzada Balaach Marri talking to newsmen on satellite phone from an unknown location while commenting on President Musharraf's warning said that the Baloch people were at present more politically conscious and united than they were in the Seventies.

He said that in the Seventies the rulers had imposed a war on Balochs but the army had to withdraw following tough resistance. Mr Marri cautioned the government that if war was imposed again the Baloch people would resist the aggression in a better way than they did in the Seventies. He reminded that the dismemberment of East and West Pakistan was also an outcome of the use of brutal force by the army against the Bengali people.