"America wants independent Balochistan"

[Bengal_Tiger]

1. Yes Balochis are a sister-nation of the Kurds and I have seen Balochi nationalists express sympathy for the Kurdish struggle in Turkey.

2. Punjabis use religion cynically in both personal life and politics. However the incidents of the Punjabi army using the holy Quran to falsely lure the Balochi fighters to their deaths shocks even me (na'udhu billah).

The Punjabi army potrays itself as a representative of Islam and anyone opposed to it as an enemy of Islam.

They did this in 1971 against Mukti Bahini (Bengali resistance). To this day Pakistanis are surprised to learn that Mukti Bahini even read Quran and made du'a during their fights. One Mukti Bahini fighter now wears a beard and reads Tahajjud, [MENTION=3580]asad71[/MENTION] knows him.

The Punjabis also told the Arabs that they were fighting Hindus, they told some of their soldiers too.

When Bangladesh gained its freedom the Pakistani-backed Jamat i Islami (pro-Pakistan fascist party), whose members control the defence.pk "Bangladesh" sub-forum, told Arabs that Bangladesh was run by Hindus and mosques were being attacked. Outrageous lies.

The good thing about Afghans is the Islam-card doesn't work on them as they consider Punjabis inferior anyway, crypto-Hindu and Afghans/Pashtuns having brought Islam to Punjabis anyway.

3. Bangladesh is free. Alhamdulilah. We have less poverty than India, more money in our foreign exchange reserve than Pakistan (I think 3 times more, I will check but I think we're on $16 billion, Pakistan is on £5 billion) but as a Muslim I will be happy when my Muslim brothers and sisters in Balochistan, Sindh and Pakhtunkhwa are free from the traitior Punjabi army which is now helping the Myanmar military, the Myanmar military being a great enemy of Muslims.

4. Balochis have been fighting for freedom for decades.

They are bleeding the Pakistani state and military, who cannot end their struggle.

The whole world knows about the Balochistan crisis, who talks about the Moro struggle in the Philippines?

I make du'a insha'Allah that Balochistan becomes free and that Pakistan is destroyed.

Ameen.

[M17ArnoBaloch]

1. Yes Balochis are a sister-nation of the Kurds and I have seen Balochi nationalists express sympathy for the Kurdish struggle in Turkey.

2. Punjabis use religion cynically in both personal life and politics. However the incidents of the Punjabi army using the holy Quran to falsely lure the Balochi fighters to their deaths shocks even me (na'udhu billah).

The Punjabi army potrays itself as a representative of Islam and anyone opposed to it as an enemy of Islam.

They did this in 1971 against Mukti Bahini (Bengali resistance). To this day Pakistanis are surprised to learn that Mukti Bahini even read Quran and made du'a during their fights. One Mukti Bahini fighter now wears a beard and reads Tahajjud, [MENTION=3580]asad71[/MENTION] knows him.

The Punjabis also told the Arabs that they were fighting Hindus, they told some of their soldiers too.

When Bangladesh gained its freedom the Pakistani-backed Jamat i Islami (pro-Pakistan fascist party), whose members control the defence.pk "Bangladesh" sub-forum, told Arabs that Bangladesh was run by Hindus and mosques were being attacked. Outrageous lies.

The good thing about Afghans is the Islam-card doesn't work on them as they consider Punjabis inferior anyway, crypto-Hindu and Afghans/Pashtuns having brought Islam to Punjabis anyway.

3. Bangladesh is free. Alhamdulilah. We have less poverty than India, more money in our foreign exchange reserve than Pakistan (I think 3 times more, I will check but I think we're on $16 billion, Pakistan is on £5 billion) but as a Muslim I will be happy when my Muslim brothers and sisters in Balochistan, Sindh and Pakhtunkhwa are free from the traitior Punjabi army which is now helping the Myanmar military, the Myanmar military being a great enemy of Muslims.

4. Balochis have been fighting for freedom for decades.

They are bleeding the Pakistani state and military, who cannot end their struggle.

The whole world knows about the Balochistan crisis, who talks about the Moro struggle in the Philippines?

I make du'a insha'Allah that Balochistan becomes free and that Pakistan is destroyed.

Ameen.

You should write a book.

Srsly.

Do it.

You'll earn money and open up a few thousand minds.

[asad71]

1. There will be a paradigm shift in power / domination in the region once Afghanistan becomes strong with an unified Afghan nation. The sight will then shift to the plains of Hindustan where the Muslims await arrival of another Ahmed Shah Baba.

2. Meanwhile the Muslims must remain alert against the conspiracies hatched by the Hindu-Zionist-WCC (Western Christian Civilization) plotters to annihilate us through deceit, disinfo and all foul means.

[asif86]

Balochs have over 50 different tribes, each led by a separate sardar or nawab.Only 3 tribes bugtis,marris and mengals have revolted against islamabad.

[Bengal_Tiger]

Pakistan's 'disappearing' Balochs: “I live in constant fear”




Activists claim thousands of ethnic Balochs have been abducted by Pakistan’s intelligence agency amidst a bloody separatist battle in the country’s south-western Balochistan province. Our Observer, a Baloch, says he is terrified of being mistaken for a militant and getting kidnapped.

The Voice of Baloch Missing Persons group says many of the abducted have been tortured and killed, their bodies turning up on roadsides or slung into trees. Baloch activists regularly stage missing persons rallies in protest and a daytime hunger strike is well into its third year. Armed Baloch separatists retaliate to the abductions with suicide bombs and rocket attacks.

In its report ‘We Can Torture, Kill, or Keep You for Years’, Human Rights Watch states “enforced disappearances by state security forces have become a distinctive feature of the conflict in Balochistan”. It joined in the United Nations’ call for the Pakistani state to “tackle the serious challenge of enforced disappearances”. The ISI admits hundreds of Balochs are in detention, but claims it only detains individuals it is “100% sure” are violent separatists.


Photo showing ongoing hunger strike in Balochistan, August 11, 2013. The strike’s leader, Mama Qadeer, sits in the middle. He is the father of a student activist, Jalil Reki Baloch, who was abducted and killed. Mama Qadeer stays in his tent all day, everyday, only eating at night. He attracts followers, who come and go.

Baloch separatists are fighting an ongoing separatist battle of the region they claim the Pakistani army invaded in 1948, a year after the end of the British Raj when Pakistan was granted sovereignty. The Pakistani government contests this, arguing Balochistan was never made an independent state. Balochistan is strategically important: not only is it the largest province in Pakistan, it is also resource-rich and shares a border with its turbulent neighbour, Afghanistan.

Baloch militants regularly carry out deadly attacks in Balochistan: on August 8 of this year the BLA shot dead 13 bus passengers travelling south-east of the provincial capital, Quetta. Days later, the BLA was suspected of being behind a suicide blast that killed almost forty people during a police chief’s funeral in Quetta.


Photo taken in London, 24th August 2013, showing Baloch Human Rights Council delivering petition against “judicial killings and systematic genocide” to Number 10 Downing Street, official residence of the British Prime Minister. Photo published on Council's Facebook page.

Contributors

Baloch


"I could be picked up anytime"

Baloch (not his real name) lives in Quetta. He is an ethnic Baloch, but is not a member of a political party or activist group.

Almost every Baloch family has a member who has gone ‘missing’. It’s routine here. My cousin was taken by unnamed security personnel and two months later his dead body was found by a roadside. He was taken to hospital for an autopsy and the doctors found he had been shot, and there were signs his ribcage had been drilled into, presumably as a method of torture. They accused him of being a militant, but he wasn’t.

People are taken all the time, and then their bodies are dumped. The killings aren’t an illusion. Even today, a former senator, Sana Baloch, tweeted that a body of an abducted man had been found.


Photo showing Missing Persons rally, Quetta August 2013

I support the missing person rallies and the hunger strike, but I’ve never joined in. I have five children and I don’t want them growing up without their father. I’m too afraid of attending such rallies.

I’m against violent acts, because violence creates violence. Innocent people are killed by the security forces – women, children, poets, teachers. I live in a constant state of fear: I could be picked up anytime. That makes Balochs turn to fighting.


Photo showing Missing Persons rally, Quetta August 2013

When a Baloch is abducted, the Baloch militants get their revenge. Those who can go into the hills join the fight, the rest of us live in fear. We’re into our sixth war since 1948. What have we got from these six wars? More hatred and violence [Editor’s note: Unrest and abductions have risen sharply since the 2006 death of the Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Bugti. Baloch activists claim the army lured him into a trap then bombed the cave he had set up camp in. The government says the cave simply collapsed on its own].

If the Baloch separatists fail to attack the army, because it’s so well protected, then they attack civilians, often the Pashtuns [Editor’s note: 55% of Balochistan’s residents speak Balochi as their first language, 30% speak Pashto, while the remaining 15% speak Sindhi, Seraki , Punjabi and Urdu. Mother tongues are an important marker of ethnic distinction in Pakistan].

I don’t understand how violence can lead to peace and prosperity. I want independence. Any group of people want the freedom to live without fear, without repression.


Photo showing Missing Persons rally, Quetta August 2013

http://observers.france24.com/conten...-fear%E2%80%9D

[Shamlawar Khurasani]

The problem of Baloch people is the same as the problem of Palestinian people. It is a secular nationalist struggle.

The only solution is to struggle for the sake of Allah not for the sake of ethnicity.

[M17ArnoBaloch]

Balochs have over 50 different tribes, each led by a separate sardar or nawab.Only 3 tribes bugtis,marris and mengals have revolted against islamabad.

false. Baloch have over 310 different tribes.

[Bengal_Tiger]

Education apartheid

A colony-like status assigned to Balochistan is reflected in the HEC’s allocations



Farooq Sulehria
Friday, September 06, 2013
From Print Edition


362 193 140 5



In Punjab and the Punjab-dominated mainstream media, Baloch grievances are often dismissed on familiar pretexts. One clichéd excuse is that the Baloch sardars impede development in the province.

However, every time one looks into the structured discrimination Balochistan has been subjected to, one finds that it is not anti-development Baloch sardars but the ‘federation’ that has impeded progress in Pakistan’s biggest province. A case in point is the education apartheid imposed by the Higher Education Commission on Balochistan.

Since its inception to date (FY 2002-03 to 2012-13), the HEC has allocated 737 projects worth Rs157,102 million. Out of these 737 projects, merely 48 projects worth Rs2,135 million were assigned to Balochistan’s seven universities.

The costs and number of projects awarded to these seven universities are: University of Balochistan, Quetta: Rs2,135m (16 projects), Balochistan University of Information Technology and Management Sciences: Rs1,008m (11 projects), Balochistan University of Engineering and Technology, Khuzdar: Rs284m (eight projects), Sardar Bahadur Khan Women University, Quetta: Rs965m (six projects), Lasbela University of Agriculture, Water and Marine Sciences (LUAWMS), Uthal: Rs1,943m (five projects), University of Turbat: Rs1,580m (one project), University of Loralai: Rs1,518m (one project).

An immediate chauvinistic argument to dismiss these figures would be the population size of Balochistan. Since Punjab is huge in terms of its population, our critics would say it needs more allocations.

I will, therefore, not cite the number of projects the HEC has assigned to Punjab. Instead, let us compare sector-wise allocations. For instance, Balochistan University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Khuzdar has received Rs284m (eight projects) in ten years but Lahore’s University of Engineering and Technology was granted Rs8,361m (23 projects). Again, one may cite the size of UET, Lahore. However, even UET, Taxila was given preference over BUET, Khuzdar. The former was granted Rs110m (20 projects).

Similarly, while LUAWMS was given peanuts, the University of Arid Agriculture, Rawalpindi and the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad were granted Rs1,815m (21 projects) and Rs2,647m (25 projects) respectively.

Likewise, while Balochistan’s only women university received Rs965m, FJ Women University, Rawalpindi, the Lahore College for Women University, Lahore, and the Women University, Multan were generously allotted Rs879m (10 projects), Rs847m (13 projects), and Rs1,144m (one project) respectively. Even Kinnaird College was awarded two projects worth Rs72m.

The education apartheid Balochistan is subjected to becomes even more evident when one compares the allocations for Islamabad. This comparison also makes the population argument null and void.

For instance, two top beneficiaries of the HEC largesse are Nust and Comsat Institute of Information Technology. Both have been granted Rs1,5205m (22 projects) and Rs7,373m (28 projects) respectively.

One may count other cases too cases where the HEC does not take into account the size of a certain institution. Let us, therefore, not even buy this argument to discriminate Balochistan. If anything, the province should be positively discriminated owing to the economic contribution it makes and the political situation there. No such luck, unfortunately. A colony-like status assigned to Balochistan is reflected in the HEC’s allocations.

This discrimination is obvious even when scholars are sent overseas on HEC scholarships. To its credit, the previous PPP government introduced a quota system to tilt the balance in favour of smaller provinces.

However, the HEC bureaucracy knows many tricks to twist the procedures in favour of Punjab. Consequently, over 60 percent Punjabis against 50 percent quota went abroad while Baloch representation remains below its six percent quota.


http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-New...tion-apartheid