BALUCHISTAN: TALES OF DEPRIVATION IN MINERAL-RICH PROVINCE, Islam and Human Rights, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Human Rights

BALUCHISTAN: TALES OF DEPRIVATION IN MINERAL-RICH PROVINCE

By Md Hashim Noshki

(Translated from Urdu by Sohail Arshad)

Baluchistan was once a haven of peace. Today the situation here is extremely bad. The operation is going on in Dera Bugti, Koblo, Awaran and Jhalawan and the inhabitants of Baluchistan demanding their rights are being put into jails. The world has an eye on the natural resources of Baluchistan. There are projects like Sendak Rekodik where the gold and copper mines have been outsourced to the companies of China and Australia. The manpower in these two companies belongs to the rest of the states. Only a handful of sentries and peons have been employed from Baluchistan though hundreds of the engineers in Baluchistan are unemployed. Punjab sells its Malye and Keno at Rs 30 per kilogram in Baluchistan whereas the high quality Gypsum from here is sold at Rs 6 per kilo in Lahore. Good quality green marble is extracted from Wadh and Naal while the world's largest oil reservoir is located in Koblu which has been given in contract to the international companies despite opposition. Muri tribes who are the original inhabitants of this region are not happy with the present method of extracting oil and are being subjected to oppression. Innocent women and children have been starving and are at the mercy of God. It’s the policy of the government to turn the Baluch community into a minority, make the mineral-rich vast area of Baluchistan a colony by rehabilitating one crore people here in the name of mega projects and development. As a result, the 65 lakh strong Baluch population will automatically become a minority and the land will go out of their hand. This land will meet the same fate as Palestine is doing at the hands of Israel. God has bestowed this infertile and arid land with wealth. Truckloads of marble, chromites, gypsum, gold and copper pass before our eyes. The Baluch community has now woken up to the reality that this land belongs to them and they are its real owners. They have all the rights on the minerals which come out here. They do not beg for alms but assert their rights.

http://newageislam.com/baluchistan--tales-of-deprivation-in-mineral-rich-province/islam-and-human-rights/d/2563

Baluch leader Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo’s Reflections: In Search of Solutions for ills of Pakistan, Books and Documents, NewAgeIslam.com

Books and Documents

Baluch leader Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo’s Reflections: In Search of Solutions for ills of Pakistan

Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo’s role in the politics of Pakistan had many noticeable and unique characteristics. He will always be remembered for his principled stands and pragmatic approach in politics. Coming from a remote village of Baluchistan, he rose to the respectable position of an elderly statesman of Pakistan’s politics. Mir Sahab, that is how he was addressed by both his fellow politicians and the political rank and file of the parties he led or remained associated with in his long political career, had been a member of National Assembly, and, for about nine or ten months, the Governor of Baluchistan. He had also been an important leader of the National Awami Party (NAP), National Democratic Party (NDP), and later, the founder-president of Pakistan National party (PNP). But, the offices held were not as important as the perception and vision for which he was known and which he tried to inculcate in Pakistan's otherwise directionless politics. Mir Sahab was a man of conviction who could see beyond the confines of his times and immediate surroundings. He can very rightly be described as one of the very few political leaders of the twentieth century Indian subcontinent, who firmly adhered to the principle of human equality, social justice and peace throughout their political career. While being a firm believer in the right of self-determination of all nations subjugated by colonialist and imperialist forces, he never succumbed to the negativity of racism or national chauvinism. He was equally critical of all forms of exploitation and discrimination perpetrated upon the working class and weaker section of the society by the elites of the nation struggling for emancipation from the colonial domination. Despite the fact that he hailed from a very backward and tribal society, Mir Sahab had developed an astonishingly progressive outlook on all social, economic and cultural issues. He was, undoubtedly, a Humanist par excellence.

http://newageislam.com/baluch-leader-mir-ghaus-bakhsh-bizenjo%E2%80%99s-reflections--in-search-of-solutions-for-ills-of-pakistan/books-and-documents/d/2333

The Mess Over The Missing In Baluchistan, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

The Mess Over The Missing In Baluchistan

By Nirupama Subramanian

The issue of enforced disappearances is now seen as one of the biggest hurdles to Islamabad’s efforts to make peace with the Baloch people.

Since December 30 last, a group of two dozen boys and girls, accompanied by a few adult women, has been squatting outside the Quetta Press Club, braving the biting cold that sweeps through Pakistan’s Baluchistan province at this time of the year. The group is on a daily hunger-strike, protesting the disappearance of a father or a brother, allegedly after he was taken away by state intelligence agencies.

Holding photographs of their missing family members, these children say they will sit there indefinitely — until they get some news of their family members.

In the group are the young sons and daughters of Ali Asghar Bungalzai, a 38-year-old Quetta tailor. For months after he was picked up in October 2001, military and intelligence officials reportedly kept assuring his family that he would be released soon. Between 2006 and 2007, the children — all of them then under 20 — stood outside the press club for a full 371 days, demanding that their father be restored to them. They were persuaded to leave only after the Governor assured them that he would take a personal interest in tracking down their father. But Bunglazai remains missing to this day.

http://newageislam.com/the-mess-over-the-missing-in-baluchistan/current-affairs/d/2348