Balochistan:
Restored”
UN
Told
“Independence
Must
Be
The following is a statement made to the Geneva Press Press club on June 16th by the
Baloch Representative to United Nations and Grandson of Sardar Attaullah Mengal and
Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, Mr. Noordin Mengal, who spoke alongside his colleague,
also a Baloch Representative to the United Nation, Mr. Mehran Baloch .
Below is an article published by PressClub.ch
''Balochistan which was once a unified and independent country is today divided between
three countries, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The oppressed people of Pakistani occupied Balochistan have been victims of five
intense military operations by the Pakistan army, since it invaded Balochistan on the 27th
of March 1948 and forcibly incorporated it into Pakistan.
The rogue states of Pakistan and Iran have repeatedly attempted to subdue the Baloch
movement for their rights and independence and have been usurping the wealth and
natural resources of the Baloch soil. Pakistan would be unable to sustain its artificial
existence without the resources of Balochistan. The Punjabi-Pakistanis and the Iranians
have been systematically carrying out what can be called the social, political, economic,
cultural, and physical genocide of the Baloch people.
Heinous crimes against humanity are still happening in Balochistan despite Pakistan's
ostensible transition to civilian rule.
The fifth and ongoing military operation in Balochistan has resulted in the brutal
massacre of thousands of Baloch people including defenseless women and children,
resulting in the mass displacements of the people of the districts of Kohlu and Dera
Bugti, mainly women and children, due to unabated aerial bombing and ground
offensives by the Pakistan army. Thousands of Baloch including politicians, students,
teachers, journalists, doctors, writers, intellectuals and human rights defenders have been
subjected to enforced and involuntary disappearances whereas many have been victims of
targeted killings by the military and the intelligence agencies. Mutilated corpses of
Baloch patriots struggling for the salvation of their motherland have been found after
being thrown off helicopters, hanging off trees, burnt alive in barrels of hot coal tar, or
dumped in the desert to rot after inexplicable brutal torture. Peaceful protestors have been
suppressed, political representatives arbitrarily detained and the freedom of expression
and assembly totally restricted.
The recent killings of members of the Baloch Students Organization and the unprovoked
attacks on cultural events, demonstrations and processions of political parties is another
example of the Pakistani state terrorism and justifies the Baloch struggle against the
oppressor. A senior Pakistani police official in Balochistan also recently said that they
would resort to targeted killings in Balochistan. Pakistan has also exploited the recent
cyclone that has hit Balochistan as an opportunity to deploy additional troops in the
coastal areas, not to provide relief, but to further suppress the Baloch at a critical time.
Pakistan's eagerness to establish Gwadar port in collaboration with the Chinese along the
coast of Balochistan and unjustifiably construct military garrisons all over occupied
Balochistan is part of a conspiracy against the Baloch nation in which Pakistan plans to
penetrate into and weaken the Baloch political, social and cultural system, loot and
plunder the Baloch nation's natural resources, further marginalize the Baloch by
encouraging the immigration and settlement of Punjabi and Muhajir populations from the
excessively populated Punjab and Karachi and consequently convert the Baloch people
into a minority in their own homeland. Military garrisons will give Pakistan and its
despotic army the potential to further promote and facilitate the growth of
fundamentalism and ensure the construction of madrassahs or religious schools in
sensitive and secular Baloch areas, providing a harbor and breeding ground to radical
religious elements through the state's notorious and malicious intelligence agencies, with
the intention to undermine the secular Baloch movement and reap the rewards of the
instability in Afghanistan and the region from foreign concerned parties as it has been,
therefore endangering regional and global peace and stability.
The Pakistan army's increasing presence all over occupied Balochistan and its atrocities
including repeated full-fledged military operations is also a sign of its weakness and fear
of the Baloch becoming the masters of their own destiny and proof that the unflinching
Baloch movement for independence is strengthening. Pakistan is desperately struggling
to suppress the voice of the Baloch people at all costs and has resorted to cowardly acts
such as enforced disappearances and assassinations of Baloch patriots in hope of
impeding political consciousness among the Baloch and to repress the irreversible united
struggle for an independent Balochistan.
Pakistan is a threat to the Baloch national identity and a strong impediment to peace,
security, stability and genuine development in the region.
Pakistan's intense violence against the Baloch people and the martyrdom of Baloch
national leaders and patriots at the hands of the cowardly and tyrannical Pakistani army
has taken the situation to a point of no- return and has only strengthened the Baloch
nation's resolve to win its rights and independence from the illegal occupiers of
Balochistan. The Baloch have never accepted the illegal occupation of their land from
day one and will resist it till the liberation of the Baloch nation.
We have repeatedly attempted to draw the attention of the international community
towards the inhumane atrocities and barbaric terrorism of the Pakistani army in occupied
Balochistan and their sinister agendas, but all our efforts have gone in vain. The situation
in Balochistan will have dire implications on regional and global peace and stability and
for the international community to further ignore will be no less than a crime in itself.
The occupying Punjabi-Pakistan army must leave Baloch soil and Balochistan's
independence must be restored again as it the only just and viable solution. '