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5 killed in Balochistan blasts, clashShahzada ZulfiqarQUETTA - One person was killed and two others injured when a high-intensity bomb exploded on Friday in northwest town of Nashki, some 150 KM away from here.
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Balochwarna.org congratulate the Albanian Kosovo Nation for declaring the freedom of Kosovo from Serbia. It is the basic right of Kosovo People to live freely and have control over their resources.
Quetta: Baloch Liberation army claimed to have killed several Pakistani soldiers in attacks in Koshistan Marri.
I don't want to vote for anybody. In Pakistan, election is a euphemism for selection. The results are foregone. The establishment has already selected all the contesters and the winners.
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Boycotters trying their best to convince voters |
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Fafen says JI polls boycott campaign continues in 39 districts, PTI’s in 13 districts and PkMAP’s in four districts |
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Mohsin Babbar |
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ISLAMABAD: The political parties boycotting the forthcoming general elections are doing their maximum to influence the people not to cast vote as they are using all means to intimidate voters not to come out on the Election Day. |
Foolproof security directed in Balochistan |
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Friday, February 15, 2008
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Ambassador Durrani says Pasni will be developed as
next major port
* Training to be given to generate income for self-help groups of rural areas
By Malik Siraj Akbar
QUETTA: A two-day long exhibition of Balochistan’s traditional embroidery and handy crafts prepared by women of rural areas kicked off here in a local hotel on Tuesday.
The exhibition was jointly held by Aik Hunar Aik Nager (Aahn) and Catholic Relief Services (CRS). Aiming to highlight the embroidery works by the women of rural areas of Balochistan to urban audiences, the exhibition attracted a considerable number of people, especially women.
The main attraction for the visitors were the crafts of Khamak, Chorma and Killiam of Balochistan. Small And Medium Enterprise Development Authority (SMEDA) General Manger Chaudhry Ifthakar inaugurated the exhibition and was attended by Provincial Social Welfare and Population Welfare Minister Roshan Khursheed Bharucha.
Training to be imparted: Speaking at the inaugural session of the exhibition, Muhammad Tahir Malik, regional coordinator of One Village and One product project, said the purpose of the partnership between CRS and Ahan was to provide technical, marketing and management training for the income generation of self help groups of the rural areas under a project.
So far, ten self-help groups of females have been profiting from the project. The rural areas that are being covered in the first phase of the project are Tajakabad, Ferozabad and Arbab Gali. Under this project, Ahan will work on modernisation, up-gradation and marketing of the handicrafts, which will subsequently lead to economic empowerment of rural women
The health of the federation
CAN election results tell us something about the health of the federation? Two distinct questions need answering.
First, are there parties that win support across the federating units? It would be a sign of good health if there were many parties that contested and won elections in all or most provinces. Second, how fragmented are federating units in terms of their political preferences? If some federating units consistently and overwhelmingly voted for parties that did not have wider support bases in other provinces, there would be the danger of political fragmentation.
The period from 1947 till 1971 was manifestly one when the federation’s health failed until it collapsed with the separation of East Pakistan. The 1970 elections only confirmed something that had been widely suspected for many years — that the two wings of the country were of different political minds. There were no parties that won significant numbers of seats across the provinces, and there were provinces whose politics were entirely self-contained. How are we doing now?
Election results’ data from the past five general elections tell us a story (Table 1). In all, 1,100 National Assembly seats were contested in these elections: 608 in the Punjab, 245 in Sindh, 139 in the NWFP, 58 in Balochistan, 44 in Fata, and 6 in the federal capital.
The Muslim League in all of its various guises (including C, J, N, and Q) won 472 out of the 1,100, or 43 per cent of all seats contested in this period. Pir Pagara’s faction historically, and Farooq Leghari’s group in 2002, acted as independents and are treated as such for present purposes. In fact, it might be argued that the Muslim League actually operated like a unified party – rather than an ad hoc election-driven gathering of independents – only in 1993 and 1997.
One reason for analysing the Muslim League as a single entity, despite the intense rivalry between ‘N’ and ‘Q’ is that it would be impossible to track the progress of any particular faction over time, given the high turnover of candidates between factions. Another reason for regarding the Muslim League as a ‘party’ is the reasonable assumption that – political differences notwithstanding – the various Muslim League factions have represented similar regional and socio-economic constituencies.
The PPP was the next largest party with 309 NA wins, followed after a long margin by the JUI-F/MMA, the MQM and the ANP respectively. There were clear provincial patterns in party positions. Some of the smaller parties were exclusively provincial. The ANP won all of its 21 NA victories between 1988 and 2002 in the NWFP, and the MQM only won seats in Sindh. The same was true of the various nationalist parties in Balochistan.
The PPP was the only party with a relatively diverse provincial profile of NA seats across provinces. Less than half of all its NA seats over the years came from the Punjab, and another 42 per cent were from Sindh. Surprisingly, the only party that matched the PPP in terms of cross-provincial support base was the JUI-F/MMA which won 55 and 25 per cent of its seats respectively from the NWFP and Balochistan. By contrast, a massive 82 per cent of the Muslim League victories were in the Punjab alone. It was also the most successful party in the NWFP with the largest number of seats won by any party over the 1988-2002 period. But the large weight of support in the Punjab meant that the party could succeed at the national level without necessarily needing support in the smaller provinces.
Quite apart from questions about the unified nature of the Muslim League – as opposed to the view that it was an umbrella over disparate local interests – its large electoral endowment in the Punjab meant that it had weaker incentives to engage in inter-provincial accommodation.
The PPP, on the other hand, was constrained by its reliance on the Punjab as well as Sindh to tow a more federalist line. The different approaches of the parties to sensitive inter-provincial issues such as the Kalabagh dam, could be understood with reference to electoral arithmetic. On the surface, JUI-F/MMA appeared to be in a similar position vis-a-vis NWFP and Balochistan. A more precise view is available, however, if we examine party positions not just with reference to provincial boundaries but also in relation to ethnicity.
Ethnic segments
Inter-provincial politics are sometimes seen as a proxy for inter-ethnic relations in Pakistan. But all four provinces are actually multi-ethnic entities, and there are important intra and cross-provincial ethnic political patterns that influence political outcomes. Using data on language from the 1998 Population Census, it was possible to assign NA seats to particular “ethnic segments”. A segment roughly corresponds to a district, and a segment with 60 per cent or more of the population reporting a particular language, say Pushto, is classified as being a predominantly Pushto-speaking segment. Any segment where no single language accounts for 60 per cent of the population is classified as “heterogeneous”.
As Table 2 shows, there can be different ethnic segments within a province – for example there are Balochi, Pushto and heterogeneous segments in Balochistan – and ethnic segments can cut across provincial boundaries – for example there are Seraiki segments in Punjab as well as NWFP. The Hindko segment of NWFP (former Hazara division) is often seen to be an intermediate cultural region between northern Punjab and the Pushto-speaking heartland.
The entries in Table 2 correspond with the number of NA 2008 seats within a particular ethnic segment of any given province. For example, there were 36 NA seats in Sindhi-speaking segments in Sindh, compared with 5 seats in predominantly Urdu-speaking segments and 20 seats in heterogeneous segments where no one language accounted for 60 per cent of the population. Nationally, around 18 per cent of the NA seats were in heterogeneous segments.
What was the state of the health of inter-ethnic politics in Pakistan? Namely, are there many parties that straddle ethnic boundaries, and is there persistence of parochial electoral outcomes within particular ethnic segments? The former would denote a high level of political integration across ethnic boundaries, while the latter would signal inter-ethnic fragmentation.
Shifting the focus from provinces to ethnic segments throws up a number of interesting observations (Table 3). The Muslim League’s position is even more dominant in the Punjabi-speaking segments than in Punjab as a whole. In the Seraiki and heterogeneous segments, the gap between the Muslim League and the PPP is less glaring.
Similarly, the PPP’s position was far more dominant in the Sindhi-speaking segments than in Sindh as a whole. In fact, there was a virtual MQM monopoly of the Urdu-speaking segments in Sindh — the only seats conceded were in 1993 when the party boycotted the national assembly vote. The MQM also won seats in heterogeneous segments of Sindh, but in these segments it contended with other parties that also had successes.
Interestingly, the only ethnic segments to match the level of party consolidation of the Urdu-speaking segments are the Hindko segments of the NWFP, where the Muslim League has won nearly three-fourths of NA seats since 1988. The Hindko segments appear to be closer to the Punjabi-speaking segments than their Pushto-speaking neighbours in the NWFP. It is possible that the greater within-segment consolidation in the ‘minority’ ethnic segments in Sindh and NWFP respectively was a reaction to the ‘majority’ politics in the province.
Bridging the divides
Another somewhat surprising result is the extent of fragmentation within Pushto (across NWFP, Balochistan and Fata) and Balochi-speaking segments (Balochistan). Unlike the Punjabi, Seraiki and Sindhi-speaking segments – where it is possible to discern stable two-party competition – the Pushto and Balochi segments had multiple contenders. Despite their strong presence and ideological influence, nationalist parties have not been very successful in consolidating their electoral positions.
In the Pushto-speaking segments independents are an important factor due to the peculiar conditions that prevail in Fata. Even after discounting the independents, however, the main nationalist party (ANP) was well behind the JUI-F/MMA in terms of NA seats won — although the JUI-F/MMA predominance was entirely due to its unprecedented performance in the 2002 elections. The focus on ethnicity in place of province reveals that the predominant position of the Muslim League in the NWFP was largely due to its solid base in the Hindko-speaking segment. Among the Pashtuns the ANP, the Muslim League and the PPP are roughly equal contenders.
In Balochistan, the dissipation of the nationalist vote between several parties during 1988-2002 may be a contributor to the rise of more militant expressions of nationalist sentiment. If state agencies played a role in disrupting the consolidation of Baloch parties, as some have argued, their interventions might have been counter-productive. Ethnic analysis reveals that the JUI-F/MMA’s position as a cross-provincial party of the NWFP and Balochistan was mostly due to its pre-eminence amongst the Pushto-speaking segments of Balochistan. In the Balochi-speaking segments the JUI-F/MMA was a relatively unimportant player.
Judging by election outcomes between 1988 and 2002, the four most populous ethnic segments in Pakistan (Punjabi, Pushto, Sindhi and Seraiki) pass the two health checks posed at the beginning. There are parties – namely the PPP and the Muslim League – that have maintained a presence across these segments, and these segments have not decisively settled into monopolistic parochial politics.
Table 4 shows respective party positions of the PPP and the Muslim League in elections with a PPP ‘wave’ (1988 and 1993) and those with a Muslim League ‘wave’ (1990, 1997, 2002).
PPP election wins have been historically premised on a far more diversified ethnic base as compared to Muslim League victories. Even when it has won the general elections, the PPP has had to place greater reliance on constituencies across these ethnic segments than a victorious Muslim League. Conversely, a PPP ‘wave’ appears to reduce the Muslim League to a Punjabi party, and a Muslim League ‘wave’ restricts the PPP mostly to Sindhi-speaking segments. It is instructive, however, that a restricted PPP still retains a presence in Punjabi and Seraiki segments, whereas a restricted Muslim League virtually disappears from Sindhi-speaking segments.To the extent that some of the Muslim League ‘waves’ in Pakistani elections have been connected with the activities of ‘wave-makers’ – as evidenced by post-retirement admissions – it ought to be a matter of concern that the health of the federation might be put at risk in the pursuit of short-term goals. Delivering Muslim League victories through an overwhelming reliance on Punjab or Punjab-speaking segments, and restricting other parties to correspondingly narrow ethnic segments is a prescription for future disasters
Balochistan'
http://dawn.
By Sanaullah Baloch
NELSON Mandela who was arrested in 1964 was convicted of sabotage and treason and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Apartheid regime of South Africa. But the world's most respected and admired statesman ― who later won the Nobel Peace Prize ― was fortunate that his trial was not held inside the prison. No anti-terrorism court tried him nor was he thrown into an iron cage.
Mandela and his companions were tried in a proper court room. His wife, mother, friends, journalists and supporters were allowed to witness the court proceedings.
Though the Apartheid regime employed the worst form of racial discrimination against native South Africans, no political activist of the ANC went missing or 'disappeared' during the struggle against the racist regime. But Akhtar Mengal, a well-known and respected Baloch nationalist, has not been so lucky. For some people in Balochistan he has the status that Mandela had in South Africa.
He has been kept in solitary confinement in Karachi since December 2006. Akhtar Mengal has not been tried in an open court. His trial is conducted inside the prison. No one except one person from his family is allowed to witness the court proceedings. Mr Iqbal Haider, secretary-general of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, witnessed the first hearing of his trial in Karachi prison on special request, and this is what he saw: "Mr Mengal was brought into the courtroom and shoved into an iron cage with bars all around that stood in a corner away from his counsel."
Akhtar Mengal is not the only political prisoner from a smaller province who has been humiliated or treated as a second class citizen. A number of Baloch, Sindhi and Pashtun leaders have been detained and humiliated repeatedly in the last 60 years.
Veteran Baloch nationalist Sardar Attaullah Mengal, Nawab Khair Bux Khan Marri, Khan Abdul Wali Khan, Mir Ghous Bux Bizenjo, Sher Mohammed Marri and Mir Gul Khan Naseer have spent years in prison for being insubordinate to the establishment.
Mengal's prolonged detention, mortification and the delay in the dispensation of justice has exposed the inequality that characterises our system. They also point to the inability of our courts to act independently without being influenced by the powers that be.
The Constitution guarantees that "All citizens are equal before law and are entitled to equal protection of law." The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination also emphasises "the right to equal treatment before the tribunals and all other organs administering justice". However, the Baloch have not been treated according to national and international laws. Constitutional guarantees and the courts have failed to protect their fundamental rights.
Akhtar Mengal along with 500 BNP activists was arrested in Nov 2006, a day before President Musharraf's visit to Balochistan. The mass arrests were aimed at stopping the BNP from protesting peacefully against the military operation, widespread arrests of activists and their enforced 'disappearance'
According to Mr Mengal, his family had been receiving threatening phone calls since the beginning of the military operation in the province. Due to the gravity of the threats he would personally drop his children to school. On April 5, 2006, some unknown persons followed his car presumably to kidnap his school-going children. He stopped his car and asked them who they were. They refused to give any satisfactory answer. Considering this a security issue, Akhtar Mengal's security guards picked up the two riders of the motorcycle and took them back to the Mengal residence intending to hand them over to the police. At this stage, the two admitted to being army personnel.
Almost immediately, a large party of law-enforcement agency men arrived on the spot and took away their two colleagues who had been picked up, and laid siege to the house and its occupants.
On the intervention of the Sindh chief minister, it was agreed that no case would be filed if Mr Mengal's guards who were involved in the case were handed over to the police for questioning. At a later stage, it was discovered that a havaldar of the Pakistan army had filed an FIR against Akhtar Mengal and his four guards, who were voluntarily handed over to the police. Yet Akhtar Mengal remained free till Nov 28, 2006, when the Balochistan police arrested him, along with senior members of his party.
Since then, all proceedings are being conducted in camera. Repeated humiliation of the Baloch and their political representatives will intensify the animosity felt by the troubled Baloch population. The judiciary's tilted role and the unproductive hearings of the ATC have already shattered the credibility of the bench.
Akhtar Mengal, as a senior leader of a political party, is entitled to all basic rights and facilities. But he has been denied basic legal and human rights because of his political affiliations. The large number of political activists in Balochistan, who have been detained and denied legal and prison rights, are entitled to just treatment in accordance with UN conventions. The government of Pakistan must abide by the laws of the country and international law and respect the rights of the Baloch. There should be an end to the injustice, intimidation and harassment being meted out to them.
US civil rights leader Martin Luther King had stated in a letter from Birmingham jail to his friends, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Iran: Young Beluchi journalist condemned to death
Tehran, 12 Feb. (AKI) - Yaghoub Mehrnahad, a student and journalist from the Beluchi ethnic group, is the latest person to be condemned to death in Iran.
The trial against Mehrnahad took place behind closed doors on Monday without legal representation or his family.
According to the student site of the Amir Kabir University of Technology in Tehran, the young journalist was arrested last April at the end of a debate organised in Zahewdan, capital of Iranian Beluchistan.
His family last saw him in Zahefan prison last December saying his body showed obvious signs of torture.
Quoted on the Amir Kabiri site, Yaghoub's younger brother said it was being said that his brother had died in prison after being tortured and his trial and death sentence was only a way to hide the truth.
Mehrnahad is accused of having had contact with the armed group of Jondollah, that operates in Iranian Beluchistan.
Mehrnahad is not the first journalist condemned to death in recent years. Two other Kurdish journalists, Hiwa Boutimar and Adnan Hassanpour were condemned to death last July and are awaiting execution
American Aid gunships, Jets and Arms being used on Baloch in Kohistan Marri. AIM
CAN election results tell us something about the health of the federation? Two distinct questions need answering.
First, are there parties that win support across the federating units? It would be a sign of good health if there were many parties that contested and won elections in all or most provinces. Second, how fragmented are federating units in terms of their political preferences? If some federating units consistently and overwhelmingly voted for parties that did not have wider support bases in other provinces, there would be the danger of political fragmentation.
The period from 1947 till 1971 was manifestly one when the federation’s health failed until it collapsed with the separation of East Pakistan. The 1970 elections only confirmed something that had been widely suspected for many years — that the two wings of the country were of different political minds. There were no parties that won significant numbers of seats across the provinces, and there were provinces whose politics were entirely self-contained. How are we doing now?
Election results’ data from the past five general elections tell us a story (Table 1). In all, 1,100 National Assembly seats were contested in these elections: 608 in the Punjab, 245 in Sindh, 139 in the NWFP, 58 in Balochistan, 44 in Fata, and 6 in the federal capital.
The Muslim League in all of its various guises (including C, J, N, and Q) won 472 out of the 1,100, or 43 per cent of all seats contested in this period. Pir Pagara’s faction historically, and Farooq Leghari’s group in 2002, acted as independents and are treated as such for present purposes. In fact, it might be argued that the Muslim League actually operated like a unified party – rather than an ad hoc election-driven gathering of independents – only in 1993 and 1997.
One reason for analysing the Muslim League as a single entity, despite the intense rivalry between ‘N’ and ‘Q’ is that it would be impossible to track the progress of any particular faction over time, given the high turnover of candidates between factions. Another reason for regarding the Muslim League as a ‘party’ is the reasonable assumption that – political differences notwithstanding – the various Muslim League factions have represented similar regional and socio-economic constituencies.
The PPP was the next largest party with 309 NA wins, followed after a long margin by the JUI-F/MMA, the MQM and the ANP respectively. There were clear provincial patterns in party positions. Some of the smaller parties were exclusively provincial. The ANP won all of its 21 NA victories between 1988 and 2002 in the NWFP, and the MQM only won seats in Sindh. The same was true of the various nationalist parties in Balochistan.
The PPP was the only party with a relatively diverse provincial profile of NA seats across provinces. Less than half of all its NA seats over the years came from the Punjab, and another 42 per cent were from Sindh. Surprisingly, the only party that matched the PPP in terms of cross-provincial support base was the JUI-F/MMA which won 55 and 25 per cent of its seats respectively from the NWFP and Balochistan. By contrast, a massive 82 per cent of the Muslim League victories were in the Punjab alone. It was also the most successful party in the NWFP with the largest number of seats won by any party over the 1988-2002 period. But the large weight of support in the Punjab meant that the party could succeed at the national level without necessarily needing support in the smaller provinces.
Quite apart from questions about the unified nature of the Muslim League – as opposed to the view that it was an umbrella over disparate local interests – its large electoral endowment in the Punjab meant that it had weaker incentives to engage in inter-provincial accommodation.
The PPP, on the other hand, was constrained by its reliance on the Punjab as well as Sindh to tow a more federalist line. The different approaches of the parties to sensitive inter-provincial issues such as the Kalabagh dam, could be understood with reference to electoral arithmetic. On the surface, JUI-F/MMA appeared to be in a similar position vis-a-vis NWFP and Balochistan. A more precise view is available, however, if we examine party positions not just with reference to provincial boundaries but also in relation to ethnicity.
Ethnic segments
Inter-provincial politics are sometimes seen as a proxy for inter-ethnic relations in Pakistan. But all four provinces are actually multi-ethnic entities, and there are important intra and cross-provincial ethnic political patterns that influence political outcomes. Using data on language from the 1998 Population Census, it was possible to assign NA seats to particular “ethnic segments”. A segment roughly corresponds to a district, and a segment with 60 per cent or more of the population reporting a particular language, say Pushto, is classified as being a predominantly Pushto-speaking segment. Any segment where no single language accounts for 60 per cent of the population is classified as “heterogeneous”.
As Table 2 shows, there can be different ethnic segments within a province – for example there are Balochi, Pushto and heterogeneous segments in Balochistan – and ethnic segments can cut across provincial boundaries – for example there are Seraiki segments in Punjab as well as NWFP. The Hindko segment of NWFP (former Hazara division) is often seen to be an intermediate cultural region between northern Punjab and the Pushto-speaking heartland.
The entries in Table 2 correspond with the number of NA 2008 seats within a particular ethnic segment of any given province. For example, there were 36 NA seats in Sindhi-speaking segments in Sindh, compared with 5 seats in predominantly Urdu-speaking segments and 20 seats in heterogeneous segments where no one language accounted for 60 per cent of the population. Nationally, around 18 per cent of the NA seats were in heterogeneous segments.
What was the state of the health of inter-ethnic politics in Pakistan? Namely, are there many parties that straddle ethnic boundaries, and is there persistence of parochial electoral outcomes within particular ethnic segments? The former would denote a high level of political integration across ethnic boundaries, while the latter would signal inter-ethnic fragmentation.
Shifting the focus from provinces to ethnic segments throws up a number of interesting observations (Table 3). The Muslim League’s position is even more dominant in the Punjabi-speaking segments than in Punjab as a whole. In the Seraiki and heterogeneous segments, the gap between the Muslim League and the PPP is less glaring.
Similarly, the PPP’s position was far more dominant in the Sindhi-speaking segments than in Sindh as a whole. In fact, there was a virtual MQM monopoly of the Urdu-speaking segments in Sindh — the only seats conceded were in 1993 when the party boycotted the national assembly vote. The MQM also won seats in heterogeneous segments of Sindh, but in these segments it contended with other parties that also had successes.
Interestingly, the only ethnic segments to match the level of party consolidation of the Urdu-speaking segments are the Hindko segments of the NWFP, where the Muslim League has won nearly three-fourths of NA seats since 1988. The Hindko segments appear to be closer to the Punjabi-speaking segments than their Pushto-speaking neighbours in the NWFP. It is possible that the greater within-segment consolidation in the ‘minority’ ethnic segments in Sindh and NWFP respectively was a reaction to the ‘majority’ politics in the province.
Bridging the divides
Another somewhat surprising result is the extent of fragmentation within Pushto (across NWFP, Balochistan and Fata) and Balochi-speaking segments (Balochistan). Unlike the Punjabi, Seraiki and Sindhi-speaking segments – where it is possible to discern stable two-party competition – the Pushto and Balochi segments had multiple contenders. Despite their strong presence and ideological influence, nationalist parties have not been very successful in consolidating their electoral positions.
In the Pushto-speaking segments independents are an important factor due to the peculiar conditions that prevail in Fata. Even after discounting the independents, however, the main nationalist party (ANP) was well behind the JUI-F/MMA in terms of NA seats won — although the JUI-F/MMA predominance was entirely due to its unprecedented performance in the 2002 elections. The focus on ethnicity in place of province reveals that the predominant position of the Muslim League in the NWFP was largely due to its solid base in the Hindko-speaking segment. Among the Pashtuns the ANP, the Muslim League and the PPP are roughly equal contenders.
In Balochistan, the dissipation of the nationalist vote between several parties during 1988-2002 may be a contributor to the rise of more militant expressions of nationalist sentiment. If state agencies played a role in disrupting the consolidation of Baloch parties, as some have argued, their interventions might have been counter-productive. Ethnic analysis reveals that the JUI-F/MMA’s position as a cross-provincial party of the NWFP and Balochistan was mostly due to its pre-eminence amongst the Pushto-speaking segments of Balochistan. In the Balochi-speaking segments the JUI-F/MMA was a relatively unimportant player.
Judging by election outcomes between 1988 and 2002, the four most populous ethnic segments in Pakistan (Punjabi, Pushto, Sindhi and Seraiki) pass the two health checks posed at the beginning. There are parties – namely the PPP and the Muslim League – that have maintained a presence across these segments, and these segments have not decisively settled into monopolistic parochial politics.
Table 4 shows respective party positions of the PPP and the Muslim League in elections with a PPP ‘wave’ (1988 and 1993) and those with a Muslim League ‘wave’ (1990, 1997, 2002).
PPP election wins have been historically premised on a far more diversified ethnic base as compared to Muslim League victories. Even when it has won the general elections, the PPP has had to place greater reliance on constituencies across these ethnic segments than a victorious Muslim League. Conversely, a PPP ‘wave’ appears to reduce the Muslim League to a Punjabi party, and a Muslim League ‘wave’ restricts the PPP mostly to Sindhi-speaking segments. It is instructive, however, that a restricted PPP still retains a presence in Punjabi and Seraiki segments, whereas a restricted Muslim League virtually disappears from Sindhi-speaking segments.To the extent that some of the Muslim League ‘waves’ in Pakistani elections have been connected with the activities of ‘wave-makers’ – as evidenced by post-retirement admissions – it ought to be a matter of concern that the health of the federation might be put at risk in the pursuit of short-term goals. Delivering Muslim League victories through an overwhelming reliance on Punjab or Punjab-speaking segments, and restricting other parties to correspondingly narrow ethnic segments is a prescription for future disasters
http://dawn.
NELSON Mandela who was arrested in 1964 was convicted of sabotage and treason and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Apartheid regime of South Africa. But the world's most respected and admired statesman ― who later won the Nobel Peace Prize ― was fortunate that his trial was not held inside the prison. No anti-terrorism court tried him nor was he thrown into an iron cage.
Mandela and his companions were tried in a proper court room. His wife, mother, friends, journalists and supporters were allowed to witness the court proceedings.
Though the Apartheid regime employed the worst form of racial discrimination against native South Africans, no political activist of the ANC went missing or 'disappeared' during the struggle against the racist regime. But Akhtar Mengal, a well-known and respected Baloch nationalist, has not been so lucky. For some people in Balochistan he has the status that Mandela had in South Africa.
He has been kept in solitary confinement in Karachi since December 2006. Akhtar Mengal has not been tried in an open court. His trial is conducted inside the prison. No one except one person from his family is allowed to witness the court proceedings. Mr Iqbal Haider, secretary-general of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, witnessed the first hearing of his trial in Karachi prison on special request, and this is what he saw: "Mr Mengal was brought into the courtroom and shoved into an iron cage with bars all around that stood in a corner away from his counsel."
Akhtar Mengal is not the only political prisoner from a smaller province who has been humiliated or treated as a second class citizen. A number of Baloch, Sindhi and Pashtun leaders have been detained and humiliated repeatedly in the last 60 years.
Veteran Baloch nationalist Sardar Attaullah Mengal, Nawab Khair Bux Khan Marri, Khan Abdul Wali Khan, Mir Ghous Bux Bizenjo, Sher Mohammed Marri and Mir Gul Khan Naseer have spent years in prison for being insubordinate to the establishment.
Mengal's prolonged detention, mortification and the delay in the dispensation of justice has exposed the inequality that characterises our system. They also point to the inability of our courts to act independently without being influenced by the powers that be.
The Constitution guarantees that "All citizens are equal before law and are entitled to equal protection of law." The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination also emphasises "the right to equal treatment before the tribunals and all other organs administering justice". However, the Baloch have not been treated according to national and international laws. Constitutional guarantees and the courts have failed to protect their fundamental rights.
Akhtar Mengal along with 500 BNP activists was arrested in Nov 2006, a day before President Musharraf's visit to Balochistan. The mass arrests were aimed at stopping the BNP from protesting peacefully against the military operation, widespread arrests of activists and their enforced 'disappearance'
According to Mr Mengal, his family had been receiving threatening phone calls since the beginning of the military operation in the province. Due to the gravity of the threats he would personally drop his children to school. On April 5, 2006, some unknown persons followed his car presumably to kidnap his school-going children. He stopped his car and asked them who they were. They refused to give any satisfactory answer. Considering this a security issue, Akhtar Mengal's security guards picked up the two riders of the motorcycle and took them back to the Mengal residence intending to hand them over to the police. At this stage, the two admitted to being army personnel.
Almost immediately, a large party of law-enforcement agency men arrived on the spot and took away their two colleagues who had been picked up, and laid siege to the house and its occupants.
On the intervention of the Sindh chief minister, it was agreed that no case would be filed if Mr Mengal's guards who were involved in the case were handed over to the police for questioning. At a later stage, it was discovered that a havaldar of the Pakistan army had filed an FIR against Akhtar Mengal and his four guards, who were voluntarily handed over to the police. Yet Akhtar Mengal remained free till Nov 28, 2006, when the Balochistan police arrested him, along with senior members of his party.
Since then, all proceedings are being conducted in camera. Repeated humiliation of the Baloch and their political representatives will intensify the animosity felt by the troubled Baloch population. The judiciary's tilted role and the unproductive hearings of the ATC have already shattered the credibility of the bench.
Akhtar Mengal, as a senior leader of a political party, is entitled to all basic rights and facilities. But he has been denied basic legal and human rights because of his political affiliations. The large number of political activists in Balochistan, who have been detained and denied legal and prison rights, are entitled to just treatment in accordance with UN conventions. The government of Pakistan must abide by the laws of the country and international law and respect the rights of the Baloch. There should be an end to the injustice, intimidation and harassment being meted out to them.
US civil rights leader Martin Luther King had stated in a letter from Birmingham jail to his friends, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Iran: Young Beluchi journalist condemned to death
The trial against Mehrnahad took place behind closed doors on Monday without legal representation or his family.
According to the student site of the Amir Kabir University of Technology in Tehran, the young journalist was arrested last April at the end of a debate organised in Zahewdan, capital of Iranian Beluchistan.
His family last saw him in Zahefan prison last December saying his body showed obvious signs of torture.
Quoted on the Amir Kabiri site, Yaghoub's younger brother said it was being said that his brother had died in prison after being tortured and his trial and death sentence was only a way to hide the truth.
Mehrnahad is accused of having had contact with the armed group of Jondollah, that operates in Iranian Beluchistan.
Mehrnahad is not the first journalist condemned to death in recent years. Two other Kurdish journalists, Hiwa Boutimar and Adnan Hassanpour were condemned to death last July and are awaiting execution
American Aid gunships, Jets and Arms being used on Baloch in Kohistan Marri. AIM
By Haris Gazdar
APDM blamed for lacklustre Balochistan campaigns
By Saleem Shahid
BALOCHISTAN has only 14 general National Assembly seats out of a total of 272. And if we add three reserved seats for women, the tally rises to 17 against a total of 342 in the lower house of the parliament.
All political parties, except the ones forming the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM), are taking part in the Feb 18 general election. There are 141 candidates contesting the elections — 94 of them belonging to various parties and 47 being independent candidates.
Despite the presence in the field of mainstream parties, including the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q), Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F), Awami National Party (ANP) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), electioneering has generally failed to pick up pace in the province. Analysts attribute the lacklustre campaigns to the anti-election drive of the APDM. They say that the parties boycotting the elections have held rallies in various cities and towns of Balochistan and appear to have successfully persuaded people to abstain from the elections.
The absence of the Baloch and Pakhtun nationalist parties has been offset by tough competitions between close relatives in the run for national and provincial assembly constituencies.
Brothers of Quetta district nazim and naib nazim are contesting polls on PML-Q tickets from the provincial capital. Opposition groups have accused them of campaigning for their brothers, adding that the Election Commission has yet to take note of the violations of the code of conduct.
NA-259 (Quetta): This constituency, which comprises Quetta city, has always had interesting contests. In 2002, Maulvi Noor Mohammad was elected from this constituency, defeating Mehmood Khan Achakzai, chief of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP).
Some 16 people are in the run, including 10 independent candidates. Interestingly, the PML-Q has fielded Anwarul Haq, a very young candidate who is contesting his first election.
The PPP has fielded Syed Nasir Ali alias Syed Abbas, a political newcomer, while the MMA has awarded its ticket to Abdul Aziz Khan, a lawyer. The PML-N has chosen Khuda-i-Noor, an experienced politician who worked for Air Marshal (retd) Asghar Khan’s Tehrik Istaqlal and also late Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti’s party. He was elected as a senator on the ticket of the Jamhoori Watan Party but is yet to win in any of the direct elections. He contested from this seat as a JWP candidate in the 2002 elections.
The ANP, which entered into an alliance with the PkMAP, has fielded Commander Khuda-i-Dad. An MQM-backed candidate —Arbab Abdul Ghani Kasi — is also in the run.
The dissident faction of the JUI-F, headed by Maulana Asmatullah, a former provincial finance minister, and Maulvi Noor Mohammad, a hardliner and a former MNA, rejected the nomination of Abdul Aziz Khan. Earlier, the ticket had been awarded to Hafiz Fazal Mohammad, a former senator. The dissident group is supporting Hafiz Fazal, who is now contesting the election as an independent candidate.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman had constituted a committee to resolve differences between former MNA Maulana Mohammad Khan Sheerani and members of the dissident group, but to no avail. The dissident group even refused to accept the orders of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who had asked them to withdraw their nomination papers or face dismissal from his party.
While the dissident group is not in a position to divide the JUI-F’s vote bank, it can certainly create problems for Abdul Aziz Khan.
PML-Q’s candidate Anwarul Haq is said to have no political experience as he joined the party only last year. But he may give a tough time to his opponents because people think of him as a ‘positional candidate’.
Political observers predict that the main contest would feature Anwarul Haq of the PML-Q, Syed Nasir Ali Shah of the PPP, Abdul Aziz Khan of the MMA and Commander Khuda-i-Dad of the ANP, in the absence of PkMAP, BNM-Mengal, National Party and JWP. Syed Fazal Agha, a former governor, is also in the run. He didn’t complete his term even though he won the 2002 elections as a PML-Q candidate. He is now contesting as an independent candidate.
Two women — Rubina Babar and Shahida Parveen — are also contesting the elections from this constituency as independent candidates.
Nasir Ali Shah is also contesting for the first time. His father, Syed Ali Shah, was in the National Awami Party and was elected senator to the first Senate of Pakistan in 1972. He belongs to the Hazara tribe among whom the PPP has a vote bank.
Haji Noor Mohammad Saraf of the same tribe was elected twice to the provincial assembly as a PPP candidate. The PPP has considerable support in some parts of the city. Mr Saraf could also benefit from the ‘sympathy wave’ after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
In the last elections, Mian Saifullah Khan Paracha was the PPP candidate for NA-259 (Quetta).
Abdul Khaliq Hazara is contesting as an independent candidate and if he withdraws from the contest Syed Ali Shah will be the only candidate from the Hazara community. Candidates capable of mustering public support and mobilising the voters are expected to be victorious in the elections.
Maulvi Noor Mohammad had been elected from the constituency with the support of the same ‘silent majority’ which played an important role in Mehmood Khan Achakzai’s win in 1993 as the joint candidate of the Nawaz League and the PkMAP
Blasts rock Mastung, Kharan
By Saleem Shahid
QUETTA, Feb 13: Two powerful explosions rocked Mastung and Kharan towns early on Wednesday morning.
According to sources, an explosive device planted near the District Coordination Officer’s office in Kharan went off triggering panic in the area.
Windowpanes of the DCO office and other nearby government buildings were damaged by the blast.
Police said the second explosive device had been planted in an open area in Mastung.
Also on Wednesday, a landmine reportedly hit a tractor trolley at Feeder area
Exhibition showcasing rural women’s handiwork begins
BALOCHISTAN has only 14 general National Assembly seats out of a total of 272. And if we add three reserved seats for women, the tally rises to 17 against a total of 342 in the lower house of the parliament.
All political parties, except the ones forming the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM), are taking part in the Feb 18 general election. There are 141 candidates contesting the elections — 94 of them belonging to various parties and 47 being independent candidates.
Despite the presence in the field of mainstream parties, including the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q), Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F), Awami National Party (ANP) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), electioneering has generally failed to pick up pace in the province. Analysts attribute the lacklustre campaigns to the anti-election drive of the APDM. They say that the parties boycotting the elections have held rallies in various cities and towns of Balochistan and appear to have successfully persuaded people to abstain from the elections.
The absence of the Baloch and Pakhtun nationalist parties has been offset by tough competitions between close relatives in the run for national and provincial assembly constituencies.
Brothers of Quetta district nazim and naib nazim are contesting polls on PML-Q tickets from the provincial capital. Opposition groups have accused them of campaigning for their brothers, adding that the Election Commission has yet to take note of the violations of the code of conduct.
NA-259 (Quetta): This constituency, which comprises Quetta city, has always had interesting contests. In 2002, Maulvi Noor Mohammad was elected from this constituency, defeating Mehmood Khan Achakzai, chief of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP).
Some 16 people are in the run, including 10 independent candidates. Interestingly, the PML-Q has fielded Anwarul Haq, a very young candidate who is contesting his first election.
The PPP has fielded Syed Nasir Ali alias Syed Abbas, a political newcomer, while the MMA has awarded its ticket to Abdul Aziz Khan, a lawyer. The PML-N has chosen Khuda-i-Noor, an experienced politician who worked for Air Marshal (retd) Asghar Khan’s Tehrik Istaqlal and also late Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti’s party. He was elected as a senator on the ticket of the Jamhoori Watan Party but is yet to win in any of the direct elections. He contested from this seat as a JWP candidate in the 2002 elections.
The ANP, which entered into an alliance with the PkMAP, has fielded Commander Khuda-i-Dad. An MQM-backed candidate —Arbab Abdul Ghani Kasi — is also in the run.
The dissident faction of the JUI-F, headed by Maulana Asmatullah, a former provincial finance minister, and Maulvi Noor Mohammad, a hardliner and a former MNA, rejected the nomination of Abdul Aziz Khan. Earlier, the ticket had been awarded to Hafiz Fazal Mohammad, a former senator. The dissident group is supporting Hafiz Fazal, who is now contesting the election as an independent candidate.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman had constituted a committee to resolve differences between former MNA Maulana Mohammad Khan Sheerani and members of the dissident group, but to no avail. The dissident group even refused to accept the orders of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who had asked them to withdraw their nomination papers or face dismissal from his party.
While the dissident group is not in a position to divide the JUI-F’s vote bank, it can certainly create problems for Abdul Aziz Khan.
PML-Q’s candidate Anwarul Haq is said to have no political experience as he joined the party only last year. But he may give a tough time to his opponents because people think of him as a ‘positional candidate’.
Political observers predict that the main contest would feature Anwarul Haq of the PML-Q, Syed Nasir Ali Shah of the PPP, Abdul Aziz Khan of the MMA and Commander Khuda-i-Dad of the ANP, in the absence of PkMAP, BNM-Mengal, National Party and JWP. Syed Fazal Agha, a former governor, is also in the run. He didn’t complete his term even though he won the 2002 elections as a PML-Q candidate. He is now contesting as an independent candidate.
Two women — Rubina Babar and Shahida Parveen — are also contesting the elections from this constituency as independent candidates.
Nasir Ali Shah is also contesting for the first time. His father, Syed Ali Shah, was in the National Awami Party and was elected senator to the first Senate of Pakistan in 1972. He belongs to the Hazara tribe among whom the PPP has a vote bank.
Haji Noor Mohammad Saraf of the same tribe was elected twice to the provincial assembly as a PPP candidate. The PPP has considerable support in some parts of the city. Mr Saraf could also benefit from the ‘sympathy wave’ after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
In the last elections, Mian Saifullah Khan Paracha was the PPP candidate for NA-259 (Quetta).
Abdul Khaliq Hazara is contesting as an independent candidate and if he withdraws from the contest Syed Ali Shah will be the only candidate from the Hazara community. Candidates capable of mustering public support and mobilising the voters are expected to be victorious in the elections.
Maulvi Noor Mohammad had been elected from the constituency with the support of the same ‘silent majority’ which played an important role in Mehmood Khan Achakzai’s win in 1993 as the joint candidate of the Nawaz League and the PkMAP
Blasts rock Mastung, Kharan
QUETTA, Feb 13: Two powerful explosions rocked Mastung and Kharan towns early on Wednesday morning.
According to sources, an explosive device planted near the District Coordination Officer’s office in Kharan went off triggering panic in the area.
Windowpanes of the DCO office and other nearby government buildings were damaged by the blast.
Police said the second explosive device had been planted in an open area in Mastung.
Also on Wednesday, a landmine reportedly hit a tractor trolley at Feeder area
Exhibition showcasing rural women’s handiwork begins
Journalist’s murder adds new dimensions to violence
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) said on Monday that the murder of journalist Chishti Mujahid in Quetta on Saturday, allegedly by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), had given new dimensions to the rising trend of violence against journalists in Pakistan. Demanding an investigation, the organisation said this was the first incident in which any group had claimed responsibility of killing a journalist for his writing, irrespective of what he has written. “Its a dangerous trend, particularly in such a volatile situation and must be discouraged and condemned,” the PFUJ said. Information collected by the PFUJ revealed that Mujahid, who has been writing for the Akhbar-e-Jahan for the last 30 years, was killed for writing an article on the killing of Baloch nationalist leader Balaach Marri. “If the BLA’s claim is authentic, then killing a journalist may not help its cause. Such violence can prove counter-productive,” it said. The organisation said it was Mujahid’s out-of-context headline, and not his article itself, which had resulted in his death. It also appealed to the Akhbar-e-Jahan to pay proper compensation to the grieved family, and take safety measures for their staff. pr
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008215story_15-2-2008_pg7_34http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008213story_13-2-2008_pg7_40
WASHINGTON: The Gwadar deep sea port will only reach its full potential if there is peace and stability in the region, Ambassador Mahmud Ali Durrani told a meeting here on Wednesday evening.
Addressing the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Durrani said with the network of modern highways being built interlinking the region, Pakistan will become a trade and energy corridor bringing development and prosperity to not only the central Asia republics, but also to Iran, Afghanistan and India
He could foresee a future where Indian goods will go Afghanistan and all the way beyond through Pakistan and Iranian gas could flow to India through Pakistan. The potential of the project could be
gleaned from the fact that the Singapore Port Authority had signed on to manage Gwadar for the next 40 years.
Pasni: The next port to be developed by Pakistan, he added, would be Pasni, which would bring the number of the country’s outlets to sea to four. He said Gwadar would be solely put to trade and energy, not military, uses. During the question-answer period, a former US ambassador and author, Dennis Kux, recalled that as long ago as the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, the United States had shown an interest in the development of the Gwadar port but matters had not gone beyond that. In 1973 when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to Washington, he offered Gwadar as a naval facility to President Nixon, who after consideration, said no because he did not believe it was a viable project and, secondly, he was afraid that it would worsen Washington’s already bad relations with India.
The ambassador said Gwadar should be viewed as a gateway for commerce and transportation link in South Asia, the energy-rich but landlocked Central Asia, China and the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf.
Quetta: American Aid Gunships and Arms given for Taliban and Al Qaida to Pakistani Army are being used on innocent Balochs in Kohistan Marri and Dera Bugti. Said Anjuman Ithead Marri in a press release.Army operation in Kohistan Marri, Dera Bugti and surrounding areas are continue from last two weeks. Pakistani Armed forces are targeting innocent Balochs with gunship helicopters, fighter jets and heavy artillery. Both the Pakistani Ground forces and air forces are using Chemical weapons and Carpets bombs to eliminate local population of innocent Balochs in the area. There are evidence of Fatal diseases spreading in area due to usage of chemical and bacterial weapons on Baloch Populations in Kohistan Marri and Dera bugti. Lack of medicines and being a rural area without any help from international communities hundreds of children dieying due to Fatal deseases. Said AIM.
Pakistani brutal forces have killed and captured 100s of innocent Baloch men, women and children in the recent Air attacks in kohistan Marri and Dera Bugti But Pakistani state paid spokesmen are denying any operation in the area from the very first day. As they did in Bangladesh in 1971.
Pakistani army has sealed the Marri Bugti Area from all sides. Army and fc backed with Helicopters and heavy artillery deployed everywhere in Kohistan Marri and Dera Bugti to kill the innocent Baloch and loot their livestock and valueables to weaken the Baloch population economically. Pakistani army is looting livestock of local populations and supplying them to Punjab's Markets. He further said.
Pakistani Army and general Niazi's bravery stories are live examples which can be seen in indian museums. General Musharf choosed the same path which General Niazi experienced in 1971. But we would like to bring in the notice of Pakistani Army and Generals. That you can kill and capture as many balochs you may but you cannot eliminate the rights of Separation and independent Balochistan from Balochs minds. We will not request Pakistani army for ending the Operation in Balochistan. But we request Baloch Nation to Join the Baloch Sarmachars for achieving the Goal. Independent Balochistan. He concluded
Quetta: BLA warned Baloch Nation once again in a Handbill which distributed in Quetta and all over Balochistan to stay away from Pakistani Polling stations in Balochistan. Because BLA, BRA and BLF sarmachars will target them anytime. He warned Baloch candidates not to take our mothers and sisters to the Pakistani polling stations for voting purposes. All the candidates who participating in Pakistnai elections and asking our mothers and sisters for votes are in our sights. They will not be able to escape from BLA, BRA and BLF Attacks.
We request our mothers and sisters to stay at home during elections. Because Pakistani elections are to lengthen the nights of slavery of Baloch Nation for another 60 years. We dont want our any mother and sister come under our attacks. Because we fighting for Baloch nation and our next generations to live freely in a independent homeland. IF anyone take our this request and warning lightly and still head to polling stations for casting votes. then they will be responsible for their lives thierslef
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