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THE long trek by troubled Baloch families from Quetta to Karachi and then from Karachi to Islamabad to highlight the missing persons issue, reflects the general agony, impatience and anxiety of the Baloch public. But who cares?
In fact, what is also missing is sensitivity, responsibility and seriousness on the part of the state. Before coming to power Nawaz Sharif vociferously raised this issue and blamed the previous PPP government for being apathetic to it. Now in government, he has done little to bring solace to the aggrieved families of the missing. This is how politics works.
The march by the Voice of Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) was a democratic protest against extra-judicial detention and killings in Balochistan. The missing persons issue is the outcome of the military handling of the Balochistan problem. Enforced disappearances are fuelling the fires of an insurgency and pushing more and more frustrated youth into the separatist camp.
But it is not only the Baloch insurgents who are frustrated, so is the security establishment that is seeking to quell the insurgency. The ‘kill and dump’ policy is the reflection of this frustration.
The Supreme Court, too, is frustrated over the failure to recover the missing, while the chief minister is disappointed at his inability to stop bullet-riddled bodies surfacing ever so often in the province.
The two-sided game of death continues unabated. On one hand, the separatists are targeting people indiscriminately. By not even sparing women, as in the case of a professor who was killed by an insurgent group, some years ago, the separatists are redefining Baloch culture.
On the other hand, suspected activists are picked up, tortured, killed and dumped by security agencies. Who will decide whether those slaughtered were insurgents or innocent? A court of law can pass a verdict, only if the matter reaches the court and is not decided outside it.
Official data compiled by the home and tribal affairs department of Balochistan estimated some 600 mutilated bodies were found between 2010 and 2013 from different parts of the province. A majority of the bodies are believed to be of Baloch political workers who hailed mostly from the districts of Khuzdar, Kalat, Mastung, Panjgur and Turbat.
Several cases are before the Supreme Court. The official data is, however challenged by the VBMP, which claims that thousands of Baloch have been picked up by the security forces from different parts of the province.
It is the state’s duty to protect its citizens against enforced disappearances. The government’s failure to find the missing or kidnapped is eroding public confidence in state institutions. If the government led by Baloch nationalists does not initiate the dialogue process with the separatists, it will be tantamount to a failure of electoral politics in the province. There will be no end to the conflict while people continue to receive mutilated bodies and mourn the tragic deaths and kidnappings of their dear ones.
But how much authority and power can the civilian chief minister wield over the affairs of the province? What can he do? Though he is backed by the federal government in his efforts to hold talks with the insurgents, the kill and dump policy will continue to destroy every chance of peace.
Balochistan’s anger over the missing persons issue is the anger and frustration of a province that has itself been missing in any national agenda for development, economic progress and social welfare. Despite the fact that it makes up 44pc of the country’s total land mass, it has
been ignored and is still being ignored by those who run this country. The province will soon enter the 10th year of its latest insurgency.
The least developed province has paid heavily in terms of economic slowdown and social chaos thanks to the military operation that was launched in 2005 under the government of Pervez Musharraf. The law and order problem has also aggravated general poverty in the province. It is the poorest of all provinces with 52pc of its population living below the poverty line, according to some estimates.
If Fata is set aside, Balochistan would constitute half the country, which means that a very large swathe of national territory is reeling under poverty, underdevelopment and a blood-drenched separatist insurgency.
It is an endless wait for those whose loved ones go missing and of whom they have no news. The real issue is the dispensation of justice, which is being denied to the province.
The dispensation of justice itself provides a shield against a simmering insurgency. Recovery and production of missing persons in court and discontinuation of the ‘kill and dump’ policy can help restore Baloch confidence in the state’s institutions.
The writer is the author of Economic Development of Balochistan.
