KARACHI, Feb 7: The prince of the defunct Kalat state in Balochistan has urged rulers to desist from carrying out any armed action in the province, as he feared that external forces might interfere in the matter.
Expressing concern over the deteriorating conditions in Sui Town and Dera Bugti, Prince Mohyuddin Baloch, a communication minister in the Zia-Junejo regime, said there was more chance of danger of conflict than reconciliation in the province.
Talking to journalists at his residence on Monday, the former minister warned that if reconciliation was not reached on the Balochistan issue, and if an armed conflict took place, then outside forces would get a chance to interfere in the affair, who he claimed were waiting to capture the natural resources including the seacoast.
When pressed to specify external forces, the prince pointed that it could be any country having economic interest in the province, because, Balochistan, he said, would play a key role in the regional economic development in future.
Historically, the Mekran seacoast had remained the economic gateway for central Asian states and Middle Eastern countries, he informed.
He was of the view that in case efforts for a negotiated settlement could not be reached, the conflict would not remain a domestic issue, and would be internationalised.
In a situation of armed conflict, the prince observed that the United Nations would directly intervene or make arbitration through a neutral Muslim country, or hold a referendum to seek people's views as was done in other countries.
However, the prince who is also chief of the Baloch Rabita-Ittefaq Tehrik (BRIT) made it clear that any attempts to carry attacks on Dera Bugti would be considered as an attack on the people of Balochistan as a whole.
Commenting on parliamentary committee reports and the government's proposed Balochistan package, he termed them as nonsense, saying that not a single Baloch was appointed, not even as a peon, in Islamabad in the past 60 years. He questioned why there was no important civil post for the Baloch people.
Not only that, he said the provincial governor was also not from the province, and was imposed on the Baloch people from the NWFP.
Mr Baloch pointed out that whatever was happening in Sui and other parts of Balochistan was due to the feeling of deprivation among the people of Balochistan.
He urged the government to keep national interest supreme, as ground realities had changed, and to take the Baloch leadership into confidence on the Balochistan issue.
According to him, foreign interests were keeping their eyes on Gawadar and the province's natural resources. He said the province had been deliberately kept backward in the past because of which the Baloch people had lost faith in Islamabad rulers.
He recalled the events that led to what he called annexation of the Kalat state into Pakistan by the armed forces, which ultimately resulted in a revolt.
The prince said Kalat state (previously called Balochistan) enjoyed free status like Nepal and Afghanistan till April 1948. As a result of the revolt, the prince said his father, the Khan of Kalat, Mir Ahmed Yar Khan, was arrested on alleged charges of conspiring against Pakistan. However, he was released in 1962 and all his privileges were restored, he said. Thereafter, the crisis in Balochistan continued and no serious attempt was made to resolve it, he maintained.