May 26, 2006	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 27, 1427

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WASHINGTON, May 25: The federal government was dealing with the Baloch problem as a fight against the enemy rather than redressing genuine grievances of the people of Balochistan, Senator Sanaullah Baloch told a seminar in Washington on Thursday.

In a live video presentation from London, the senator from Balochistan accused Islamabad of turning the province into ‘a colony’ and appealed to the international community to help stop ‘mass disappearance of Baloch activists.”

Senator Baloch was scheduled to attend the seminar last month but failed to do so after the US Embassy in Islamabad cancelled his visa. The move surprised many in Washington as the seminar was arranged by the US Institute of Peace which is funded by the US government.

After failing to bring Senator Baloch, the institute arranged a video presentation from London while US experts and audience were invited to the USIP headquarters in Washington.

With the help of statistics, Mr Baloch claimed that ‘Islamabad and Punjab’ were exploiting Balochistan’s natural resources while the people of Balochistan were kept out. “This is evident in the fact that only a few areas in Balochistan receive natural gas. Even Quetta received gas only after a cantonment was built there,” he said.

Mr Baloch claimed that the government’s development programmes also have failed to involve the people of Balochistan and outsiders, including Chinese, were brought to do the jobs that should have gone to the locals.

“The Chinese receive all the facilities as if they are the real citizens while the Baloch get no facilities,” he said. China, he said, had geo-political interests in Balochistan and because of its rapid growth China was also interested in Balochistan’s natural resources, particularly copper.

The people of Balochistan, he said, had nothing against the Chinese but they were against all those who ‘attempt to colonize’ the province.

Senator Baloch claimed that most of the cantonments were being built in Baloch areas while no new cantonment was built in the Pashtoon area.

Claiming that the Baloch were stuck between two nuclear states, Iran and Pakistan, the senator said that Islamabad had totally ignored the ‘aspirations and desires’ of the Baloch people. “While Islamabad talks about self-determination in and the demilitarisation of Kashmir, it does not want to apply those principles to Balochistan,” said Senator Baloch.

Mr Baloch said that parliamentary committees were given 90 days to help resolve the Balochistan crisis “but 600 days have already passed and nothing has been done so far.”

The senator claimed that out of 60 senior posts in the bureaucracy in Balochistan, 42 were occupied by non-locals. These include the posts of IG police and IG Frontier Corps.

Pakistan, he said, was also refusing to sign major international human rights conventions and was arresting Baloch activists and throwing them into jails without trial. He said that former Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao had acknowledged arresting 400 political activists. Many of them have since been accounted for but 50 were still missing, he added.

Selig Harrison, of the Washington Centre for International Policy, claimed that Pakistan was using the equipment the United States gave it to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda against the Baloch. Such weapons include US helicopters and F-16 fighter jets, he added.

Frederic Grare of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said that most Balochs want a fair share in the political future of Pakistan. “They want to be in, not out,” he said. “It is meaningless to say who is training the Baloch nationalists and how. Balochs have genuine grievances and Pakistan government has made no attempts to address them,” he said.