SIBI: Historians concur that British imperial ambitions in pre-partition Balochistan were thwarted, albeit temporarily, by the warlike Maris who regarded restrictions on pillage and plunder as curtailment of their civil liberties. It is not a coincidence, then, that most books by British officers on the strife-wrecked province employ choice epithets for the unruly tribesmen.
“But when it comes to state-sponsored persecution, it is the government of Pakistan that takes the cake,” says Ali Shadab Mari, who calls the faithful to prayer at a mosque near one of the many smoke-spewing brick kilns that line the approach to the city known for its furnace-like summer temperatures.
A 60-plus retired government employee, with the white beard and shaved upper lip of a pious Muslim, Mr Mari is known to be an outspoken critic of the sabotage tactics frequently employed by the elusive Baloch Liberation Army.
“Our surname has become a problem for us. Why is it that every time the main electricity supply is blown up in the vicinity of Sibi by the BLA, suspicion invariably falls on a Mari? Granted, most of us are on first-name terms with Balaach Mari, the presumed BLA leader, but does that make all of us BLA sympathisers?” he wonders.
Mr Mari says he is not alone in feeling that his tribesmen are being needlessly discriminated against. He says that as the gulf between Balochistan and the rest of Pakistan widens, the Maris, not exactly diehard supporters of Pakistan, suffer from a growing sense of alienation.
Not willing to be identified, a Mari nazim says security forces have made it known to him quite clearly that all Maris are under a cloud.
“The SHO of the Mach police station, Mari by caste, was picked up by intelligence sleuths some time back. He was produced by law-enforcement agencies in a court a couple of days later and charged with conspiring with the terrorists who carried out blasts in a Quetta police training centre,” he says with a grimace.
“For all we know, he may have been involved in the terrorist act. But what about his illegal detention? Members of other Baloch tribes cannot be picked up like this by law-enforcement agencies without fear of swift retributive attacks,” he says.
And swift revenge attacks are strongly advocated by some seasoned Baloch politicians who feel certain that stealth terror strikes by armed dissidents, who have taken refuge in the relative safety of their mountain redoubts following the outbreak of the insurgency, will give government security forces a bloody nose. They maintain that in their ultimate struggle for their rights, they would accept arms and ammunition even from outsiders without the slightest compunction.
“Read my lips: we will accept arms and ammunition for our liberation struggle even from the devil. We won’t say ‘no’ even to India,” says senior sardar-cum-politician Attaullah Mengal.
“But I don’t think the BLA currently receives such assistance from any foreign country. Their stockpiles of arms and ammunition, brought into the country by the Maris upon their return from Afghanistan, will keep them in good stead for some time,” he says.
Detractors of the Balochistan insurgency argue, with reason, that a ragtag band of guerrilla fighters, howsoever popular, are no match for the military might of a professional army that also has an array of propaganda tools at its disposal.
“I know very well that we cannot bring the Pakistan army to heel. We have no such illusions. We are just counting on a foreign country to intervene. Don’t forget that the Mukti Bahini would not have been successful had they not been aided and abetted by a foreign power,” he argues like an icy analyst.
The BLA’s armed struggle also finds an academic supporter in the opposition leader in the Balochistan Assembly, Kachkol Ali, who pulls out a fat tome from a glass-fronted bookcase in his parliamentary lodge to quote what South African statesman Nelson Mandela said in favour of the use of violence in the war of liberation.
“BLA guerrillas are like mosquitoes. They cannot cause an elephant to grow weak at the knees, but they can irritate him a hell of a lot,” he says.
“I don’t think this argument about popular guerrilla warfare stands up to scrutiny,” argues Balochistan Governor Owais Ghani whose gubernatorial career coincided with a sharp spike in hostilities in the troubled province.
“Balaach Mari may command the respect of about 16,000 tribesmen, but his militias consist of about 2,000 armed fighters. Similarly, out of 180,000 people in Dera Bugti, only 80,000 consider Nawab Akbar Bugti their sardar. This insurgency, which is being armed and reinforced by foreign countries, has been thrust upon us. But we are exercising extreme restraint. We know the exact location – precise geographical coordinates – of Balaach Mari and Akbar Bugti. And yet they have not been attacked,” he says.
Displaying little contrition about his oft-repeated demand for immediate surrender of arms by warring tribesmen as a pre-requisite for the commencement of negotiations, he says: “Yes, they will have to lay down their arms first. It’s a pre-requisite for negotiations.”
But the governor’s demand has earned him the opprobrium of otherwise like-minded parliamentarians who have criticised him for being utterly out of touch with tribal customs under which those who surrender themselves – rather than lay down their lives – are viewed with scorn and disdain.
According to the deputy speaker of the Balochistan Assembly, Muhammad Aslam Bhootani, such ill-judged statements don’t help matters. “There have been defections from the militias of Nawab Akbar Bugti and others. But to say that self-respecting tribesmen should lay down their arms first is to alienate them for a long time,” he says.
