The ‘supreme authority’ in Pakistan appears less enthralled to implement the repeated orders of the Supreme Court regarding the atrocious situation in Balochistan. After 71 hearings and countless interim orders by the Court, the situation in ill-fated Balochistan is at a standstill. Human rights violations are at an all-time high, extrajudicial killings by proxy death squads are on the rise, criminal elements are on the go to abduct civilians for ransom and corruption has surpassed all known records.

Since the high profile hearing on September 27, 2012, where Mr Akhtar Mengal presented his six-point roadmap for peace and stability, 109 innocent civilians and political activists have been killed along with four journalists.

Although the conflict in Balochistan has shattered the lives of ordinary citizens, it is an undeniable fact that ‘organised chaos’ has overwhelmingly empowered paramilitary forces and intelligence agencies. In fact, there is an undeclared emergency in the province, where the Baloch political process has been systematically stagnated and criminals and extremists are allowed to flourish and take control of society.

Despite the Supreme Court’s efforts and intentions, it seems unlikely that Balochistan’s bloodletting will stop in the near future. Since the Constitution is regarded as a mere piece of paper and overlooked by the ‘supreme authority’, i.e., the military establishment, the Court’s order will not discourage perpetrators of human rights violations to get away with their destructions.

Nevertheless, in Balochistan, the majority of the populace is discontented with the state system and its institutions. In such an environment, where distrust between the Baloch and Islamabad is high — the Balochistan National Party’s (BNP) leader, Akhtar Mengal, took a very courageous political decision to briefly end his prolonged self-exile so as to facilitate delivery of speedy justice to the victims of a decade-long conflict.

The BNP chief was overloaded with facts and truths about the endless miseries of the Baloch people by the militarised state and about the gross human rights violations of his people by the non-Baloch security apparatus.

Despite Balochistan’s small population, countless Baloch political leaders have been produced before civil and military courts as ‘traitors’ and offenders, thereby incarcerated because of their political opinion. Nevertheless, this was the first time in the history of Balochistan-Pakistan relations that a political leader from Balochistan, accompanied by 40 senior Baloch-Pashtun leaders, appeared in the Court as a complainant against the state rather than as a culprit.

Along with Akhtar Mengal’s verbal statements, the BNP submitted a comprehensive nine-page declaration and a 70-page dossier in the Supreme Court on September 27. Both statement and dossier encompass historic facts about the troubled relation between Balochistan and Pakistan, including details of systematic political, economic and human rights violations in their homeland. Akhtar Mengal talked passionately and factually before the Supreme Court about Balochistan’s state of affairs, including the epidemic of enforced disappearances of political activists.

The honourable chief justice and judges graciously received Mr Mengal and repeatedly indicated that Baloch leaders have shown respect for the rule of law and reminded the federation (government) to respond likewise. However, despite the Court’s meaningful advice to the federation (civil-military establishment), it has struck back with repeated rhetoric. The federal government injudiciously denied all charges of proxy death squads, military operations, missing persons and displaced Baloch.

Although the BNP’s six-point confidence building measures are not a recipe for permanent peace, if implemented, they could lead to a conflict-resolution process. Peace prospects between the Baloch and Islamabad are swiftly fading. The Supreme Court’s slow motion process is unlikely to dent the establishment’s anti-Baloch policy. The purposeful killing of moderate Baloch political activists will continue unabated until the establishment achieves its objective of a Baloch-less Balochistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 27^th, 2012.

The newly-appointed Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (Retd) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim, during his visit to Quetta, reaffirmed his commitment to holding free and fair elections to the disgruntled segment of Balochistan, urging them to use ballot rather than bullet to seek a solution to their problems.

However, Baloch qualms about engineered political processes are not fictitious. I am not a big fan of Stalin but his quote truly sits well within the Pakistani political context. He said that “Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything”. The ensuing situation in Balochistan has compelled many to look for radical alternatives, including political violence to protect their collective interests and attain their political and economic objectives.

Over the years, due to continued manipulation of political and electoral process, the lack of confidence and trust amongst Baloch nationals in state institutions, including election process and an unproductive parliamentary system has been reinforced. Therefore, the CEC’s plain offer may not encourage the Baloch to opt for the ballot.

In the pending Asghar Khan Case, former DG-ISI General (Retd) Asad Durani has openly admitted the ISI’s role in politics and the election process. Recent revelations about the 2008 elections in Balochistan also confirm how pro-establishment candidates were flooded with “money and support” by the security apparatus.

The whole of Balochistan has been besieged since 2002. Many top Baloch leaders have been systematically killed, resulting in targeted killings, forced disappearances and the kill-and-dump policy of Baloch nationalist have left no room for moderate political activists to participate in the democratic process, including public mobilisation, voter registration, verifications and civic education.

Compelling questions have been raised about the Final Electoral Roll (FER) of 2012, which indicates 22 per cent less voter registration in Balochistan compared with the FER of 2007. The number of female voters on the lists has also decreased by more than 600,000, while millions of Balochistan voters are simply missing from the FER 2012.

After forming a clear understanding about politically-stagnant Balochistan, the CEC and the Election Commission of Pakistan have to come up with a concrete agenda to ensure a transparent process. These include, but are not limited to, demilitarisation, pre-poll accountability of serving the political regime, stopping appalling human rights violations against Baloch people and revitalising the political process.

Pakistan’s election-related dispute resolution mechanism is completely ineffective. They work under immense influence of the ruling government and security apparatus. In contradiction to section 67 (1A) of the Representation of People’s Act of 1976, the election tribunals linger on cases for years. During 2002 to 2007, despite confirmation of fake degrees of half of the MPAs in Balochistan, their cases were delayed until their terms finished. The EC ineffectuality is a big question mark when it comes to the real test. In April 2012, the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission of Pakistan to verify the degrees of some 70 parliamentarians, out of 937, and these degrees were then sent to the Balochistan University for further scrutiny. However, due to severe pressure from the  ‘agencies’, the university declared all of them ‘valid’. Despite this huge deception and fraud, the EC and the apex Court failed to take action against perpetrators of this national crime.

Without addressing fundamental and structural flaws of elections and the subsequent democratic process, the futile exercise of vote casting would miserably fail to bring peace, prosperity and political stability. In fact, ambiguous ballots cannot guarantee Balochistan’s future in Pakistan and nor can a bullet ensure the integrity of the state. In reality, the will and policies of the dominant establishment will define the future course of Baloch and Pakistan relations.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 15^th, 2012.

Balochistan plunged into a frightening crisis after the cold-blooded murder of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti. On August 26, 2006, the Pakistani flag was raised at the Bugti fort with the proclamation of a new dawn for Balochistan. Nonetheless, in 2012, six years later, Balochistan is deeply engulfed in dusk and darkness.

Let’s look at the situation in Dera Bugti, which is no longer a liveable place. The Bugti fort, the Baloch Nawab’s residence, which used to be a place of Baloch hospitality, has been turned into a Gulag where Baloch activists and government opponents are detained and tortured. The government’s proclaimed “Operation Freedom” brought new multilayer enslavement for the Bugtis. Along with a brutal security apparatus, countless criminals have popped up in the area. The resource-rich but terrifically impoverished district has been virtually divided into many sub-states controlled by government-backed criminals and armed groups.

This policy of criminalisation is extended to the entire province. Islamabad has failed to win the sympathy of the courageous Baloch masses against its ruthless policies as government agencies have extended their support to petty criminals and devastated the very social and harmonious fabric of Baloch society. Since the start of the military operation in 2002, around 10,000 people have been killed, a quarter million people have been displaced, 4,000 are missing and 600 have been killed extrajudicially. According to a recent official report of the interior ministry, at least 868 people have been killed, 619 kidnapped and 2,390 have gone missing from the province since 2010. Furthermore, 600 bodies of Baloch activists have been found in different parts of Balochistan.

Prior to full-fledged military offensives, Balochistan’s poverty incidence stood at 48 per cent in 2001-02, which was an exceptional 15 percentage points higher than the national average. By 2005-06 poverty incidence stood at 50.9 per cent, compared with a national average of 2.3 per cent. After Islamabad’s ‘development and civilisation’ mission in Balochistan, the poverty incidence now stands at 63 per cent, three times higher than the national average. After limited economic opportunities, severe floods and restrictions on international relief organisations, the caloric poverty in Balochistan was recorded around 74 per cent in 2011, compared with 49.7 per cent in 2001-02.

Impoverished Balochistan is also famous for establishment-backed filthy corrupt politicians. Given that the government fully relies on criminals, gangsters and religious elements, including morally shattered chieftains, corruption has been institutionalised in the last 10 years as an incentive for the followers of Islamabad’s dirty policies.

During the last six years, abduction has become a big business in the province. Gangsters choose individuals without any fear. Most of these criminals claim to have links with the government. According to the Balochistan government’s official figures, between June 2011 and February 2012, 170 people were abducted, out of which 142 were released after paying heavy ransoms. During the last four years, 50 Hindus were abducted in different parts of Balochistan. Ever since government agencies were preoccupied with abducting and intimidating the moderate political stratum of the Baloch society, criminals are having a luxurious time creating their desired level of chaos and lawlessness. Islamabad’s failure to address the mounting dissatisfaction in Balochistan and deal with political unrest through political means led to the killings of hundreds of innocent Baloch, Punjabis and Hazaras.

Sectarian killings have taken a new toll; many extremist groups are taking advantage of the political vacuum created after the ruthless operation. Over 700 Baloch Hazaras have been killed in cold blood. The last 10 years of defective re-engineering of the social, political and economic fabric of the Baloch society has proved destructive. Unfortunately, the establishment in Islamabad is ignorant of this fact and continues to pursue the unchanged policy of denial and negligence towards Balochistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 26^th, 2012. 

Lyari, the mother of Karachi and the birthplace of Baloch nationalism, is now a scene of hopelessness. Instead of resonating with the prophetic speeches of Baloch literary icon Syed Zahoor Shah Hashmi and the magical voice and lyrics of Ustad Abdul Sattar, today one hears guns, cannons, rockets, shells and snipers. Resembling the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, weapons have seized upon the mystique of the poorly-enriched Baloch society.

Politically ill-represented and exploited, around two million Baloch in Lyari and Malir at the mercy of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), have been treated as loyal, submissive subjects. Young, muscular Baloch youth have been hired as bodyguards for the PPP’s top leaders, including Benazir Bhutto. Elderly Baloch mothers serve as unpaid housekeepers at Bilawal House. The PPP wants to retain this status quo at all costs. Any sign of change in behaviour, positive social transformation, political organisation and awareness among the Baloch in Lyari is considered to be defiant and disloyal by the PPP.

It is not difficult to understand why Lyari transformed from being the Mecca of Baloch nationalism to a haven for gangs and the drug mafia. Once the PPP realised that educated Lyariites were prone to Baloch nationalism and rights-based politics, it began sowing the seeds of crime, drugs and gangs to systematically destroy the social fabric of one of Karachi’s most powerful, energetic and united communities. During the 1980s, some of these prominent gangs and mafias were reinvented by the powerful establishment to counter the Baloch Students Organisation, the only powerful political and social forum for the Baloch of Karachi during General Ziaul Haq’s military rule.

After using drugs and gangs as weapons of mass destruction, the second phase of economic marginalisation of the Baloch started with the rise of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) by discharging thousands of Baloch labourers from the Karachi Port Trust and other Baloch-dominant departments.

Recent political developments and the growing empowerment of the MQM by the Pervez Musharraf regime further exacerbated life for the Baloch in Karachi. Sitting on Karachi’s strategically significant land strip, Baloch social and human rights activists had been long on the hitlist of criminals. Prominent human rights activist Nisar Baloch was shot dead on November 7, 2009 in Karachi for addressing members of the press and publicly saying that certain groups were after him. The Balochistan National Party Karachi president, Zahid Baloch, was also murdered on November 1, 2008, in Karachi and, this was mainly because of his role in mobilising Karachi’s Baloch for demanding their due rights.

The ongoing operation is not aimed at liberating Lyari or at empowering its people. The entire drama is a part of the government’s policy of replacing the gangs with their own chosen ones. By doing this, the ruling clique seeks to ensure that its stranglehold on Lyari is strengthened — after all, precious resources such as land are at stake.

A truly liberated and empowered Lyari is considered very dangerous. Liberated Lyariites will question the ruling coalition’s policy of systematic enslavement and forceful political expansion. Impoverished, marginalised, politically enslaved by the PPP and disowned by the state due to its Baloch identity, Lyari has turned into a hunting ground for notorious police officials like Chaudhry Aslam. The ongoing operation will have long-term consequences. The feeling of alienation has already been elevated. Thousands of marginalised youths will be further radicalised leading to more instability.

Since the state has subcontracted its responsibilities to political mafias in the country, particularly in Karachi, it is hard to envisage a sensible approach with regard to a resolution for the multilayered social, economic, ethnic and political conflicts. Social development and harmonisation of society need unbiased social reengineering. Addressing socioeconomic, political and other challenges faced by the people in Lyari, need more attention rather than costly operations for the replacement of unfavoured groups of people or gangs by another privileged mafia.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 9^th, 2012.

The ongoing dirty war in Balochistan has affected society at all levels. Women — mothers, sisters and daughters — are particularly affected because of the magnitude of the so-called ‘missing persons’ issue. Hundreds of men — fathers, husbands and sons — have gone missing, presumably abducted, killed and dumped on roadsides in the province.

However, some tearless Baloch women are bravely pushing the cultural and traditional barriers and campaigning for justice and truth, taking part in sit-in camps outside the Quetta and Karachi press clubs and sometimes on Islamabad’s “Constitution” avenue.

Politically conscious and culturally well endowed, resource-rich Balochistan is Pakistan’s least-developed province with a high rate of maternal mortality, female illiteracy, unemployment and gender disparity. Inflexible social customs and practices are widely blamed for the plight of Baloch women but the reasons are different and have more to do with state-sponsored discrimination against women in the province.

Islamabad has always tried to blame the Baloch themselves for their appalling state. However, facts and findings on health, education, communication, political empowerment and economic development clearly indicate that human development in Balochistan has been deliberately ignored by successive central governments — so, to blame the Baloch themselves is not entirely correct.

Women are discriminated against in the country at large, but in Balochistan they are discriminated by the state. They have no access to enabling opportunities, required for empowering women in any modern and civilised society. Discriminatory policies are not only resulting in slowdown of gender empowerment but effecting the overall social and economic development process.

The most devastating consequence of underdevelopment in any society is a high fatality rate. As a separate region, Balochistan has among the highest infant and maternal mortality rates of many underdeveloped Asian and African countries. For example, the maternal mortality rate for Karachi is 281 per 100,000 lives birth compared to 750 for rural Balochistan. The increasing rate of preventable maternal mortality is a symptom of larger social injustice.

Let’s move on to education. Access to education is crucial for empowering women so that they can participate in the economic, social and political life of their societies. Education unlocks a woman’s potential, and is accompanied by improvements in well-being of their families. According to a national survey measuring living standards, only 27 per cent of students in Balochistan complete primary or higher education, compared to 64 per cent in Punjab. The province also has a high dropout rate and it is that way not because of any cultural barriers but because there aren’t that many middle and high schools for girls. Again, the figures are telling: only 23 per cent of girls in rural Balochistan are able to enroll in primary schools compared to 47 per cent in rural Punjab.

Interprovincial gender inequality in the employment sector is also significant with the province suffering from high levels of female unemployment, especially when compared to Punjab. The latter also has 11 women’s vocational and training centers which enable them to learn skills needed to gain decent jobs — Balochistan has only one.

No development policy can succeed unless it is based on the needs and participation of people in the process. In Balochistan’s case, what people need is socioeconomic development, political empowerment, clean drinking water, electricity, education, basic health facilities, roads and infrastructure. But Islamabad’s policies achieve quite the opposite.

Under Article 25 of the Constitution, of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), women are entitled to several economic and social rights, such as rights to food, social security, housing, education and healthcare. But policy commitments have hardly been translated in to practice. On this International Women’s Day, we should not forget the hapless and neglected women of Balochistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2012. 

The US Congressional hearing on Balochistan in Washington DC on February 9 should be a wake-up call for the centre to correct its current policies towards the province. In the past, the country’s ethnically dominant civil-military establishment failed to maintain control over East Pakistan through the use of weapons and we all know what happened as a result of that. Now, most regrettably, the same disastrous prescription is being applied to Balochistan.

Of course, the elite of Pakistan — and I include the liberal intellectuals in this — do not seem to take the possibility of the province going its own way too seriously. They always seem to take the argument of geography, saying that East Pakistan was geographically separated from the western wing and since that is not the case with Balochistan, any separation would be a figment of someone’s colourful imagination.

In the relatively short span of six years, due to Islamabad’s hawkish approach, the demand of the Baloch shifted from one of greater autonomy and self-rule, to wholesale withdrawal from the federation. Instead of realising that policies undertaken by Islamabad are to blame for the current impasse, many people outside of the province tend to shift responsibility to actors within it. This is a flawed approach and will make an already bad situation even worse.

The current tension between the people of Balochistan and the rest of Pakistan, especially the centre, are caused by growing socio-economic insecurities, and by the systematic discrimination and oppression of the local people of the province by a centre dominated by the country’s most populous province. The Baloch have, for many years now, been living a marginalised existence and now see no hope for improvement. So, from their viewpoint, they are only doing what anyone in their predicament would do, so that their future generations may have a chance for living a peaceful and prosperous life.

Many modern states swiftly address these grievances through political and institutional restructuring of the system. This is done so that those who live in the region and are aggrieved, feel that they are part of the mainstream, and what they think and believe is important as far as the state’s overall agenda and policies are concerned. However, politically less conscious and ethnically dominant countries, impose violent and suppressive means to further subjugate oppressed ethnic groups and people.

An example of this can be found in Yugoslavia where the dominant Serb elite considered other ethnic groups as inferior and deprived them politically and economically. Serbian policy resulted in one of the world’s bloodiest conflicts and ended up with the dismantling of the former Yugoslavia.

In the case of Balochistan, the despair present here is a result of a) persistent institutional oppression; b) never-ending exploitation; c) denial of politico-economic rights and d) increasing national (Baloch) insecurity in the existing state structure.

All this indicates a classical colonial relationship between Balochistan and the centre. The Baloch feel that they are living life at gunpoint, with their daily existence under threat because of the violence that has been going on in their province.

They feel that the centre’s policies aim to control their land for long-term strategic reasons and that this also has to do with the province’s wealth of natural and mineral resources. They also think that their historically-moderate social and cultural fabric is being attacked by forces supported by the establishment and that their underdevelopment is part of a deliberate policy to keep their region deprived.

Previously, protests in the province were ruthlessly suppressed as well. However, this time around, the establishment has to contend with rapidly changing geo-strategic realities, the presence of a loud and vibrant social media and a sizeable Baloch diaspora which is able to rally support overseas.

The only way forward is for the state to address this issue by taking into account historical, cultural, economic and political factors.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 11^th, 2012.

It used to be said that ‘sorry’ was the hardest word to say, but no longer, at least for politicians in Pakistan. They do apologise, usually without realising the gravity of the miseries, pain and suffering of the victimised people — and without offering proper, practical remedies or measures for healing wounds.

Following Pervez Musharraf and Asif Ali Zardari’s footsteps, the PTI’s Imran Khan has also publicly apologised to the people of Balochistan. However, he did this without mentioning the military’s excessive and inhuman policies, human rights violations, political assassinations and the ‘kill and dump’ policy of moderate Baloch political activists and the systematic subjugation of the Baloch people.

In a carefully-crafted apology, ignoring the ongoing human rights violations, the PTI chairman spoke in the past tense. He said human rights abuses had been “committed” and the people of the province had been “treated” (as if it was in the past) like those of a colony as happened in the case of the people of East Pakistan.

This careful selection of words, together with no mention of the security agencies and their dirty game in Balochistan, raises doubts about the PTI’s confidence and ability to truly ensure that, if it comes to power, it will make law-enforcement agencies follow the rule of law.

The fact is that the people of Balochistan wanted to hear the PTI leadership clearly acknowledge that Balochistan is suffering, that its people’s fundamental rights are being violated, that enforced disappearances and the policy of ‘kill and dump’ are all still going on like before.

The Baloch population wants the PTI to confront the military’s discriminatory policies politically and legally by moving a petition in the Supreme Court and by calling for a nationwide strike in solidarity of Baloch victims.

When the PPP came into power, President Asif Ali Zardari made an apology for Musharraf’s sordid actions. He also announced that the new PPP-led government would call an all-parties conference to address the province’s long-entrenched problems, while also promising to form a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate allegations of human rights abuses.

However, soon the people of the province had to suffer the killing of three more eminent Baloch nationalists and a series of target killing of top Baloch leaders, including former senator Habib Jalib Baloch, Professor Saba Dashtyari, Maula Bux Dashti, Mir Noordin Mengal, Abdul Salam Baloch, Mir Jumma Khan Raisani and Mir Liaquat Mengal, as well as hundreds of political activists.

The PPP may have apologised but it has quite clearly been unable to confront the ‘powerful elements’ who have turned Balochistan into a killing field.

I would, in fact, argue that by separating action from responsibility, political apologies can make it more difficult to take the steps necessary to enforce real change. Saying sorry for committed crimes, killings, exploitation and human rights violations, for instance, does not address the causes of the Balochistan conflict and the problems facing the Baloch people in Pakistan.

It should also be noted that many of the new entrants into the PTI — the so-called ‘electables’ — are the ones who were part of the Musharraf regime and saw nothing wrong in the atrocities that it committed. There is no guarantee that these same elements will not overly influence the PTI’s policies if they rise to power.

The people of Balochistan don’t need apologies, what they need is a clear and unambiguous stand against the ongoing human rights violations in the province. They want a government that will take the security forces to task and make them stop their current policy of targeting moderate Baloch politicians, intellectuals, students and dissidents. There should also be a clear road map for peace and conflict resolution in the province, one that addresses the ethnic composition, security structure, autonomy issues, the issue of ownership of resources and having in place a pro-people socio-economic development plan.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2011.

Many colonially carved nation states around the world have faced, and are still going through, severe challenges of legitimacy. For example, Pakistan’s ill-conceived policies paved the way for Bangladesh in 1971.

Today, the Sudan crisis is a fresh reminder for all those suppressive regimes that oppression not only alienates the suppressed population but also deepens wounds to beyond levels of repair.

The process which will split Africa’s largest Muslim nation state is unfolding before us as this was being written. On January 9, 2011 the Southern Sudanese started to vote for a week-long referendum on possible independence. The referendum is a consequence of a 2005 peace deal that ended a two-decade-long civil war between the government of Sudan in the north and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in the south.

Sudan embraced freedom in 1956, when joint British-Egyptian rule over the country ended. However, the country is still beset by another conflict. The ongoing conflict in the western region of Darfur has driven two million people from their homes and killed more than 200,000. Unlike the north, the Christian south is appallingly poor and known as the world’s hungriest place. Full of jungles and energy resources, particularly oil, the southerners claim they were discriminated against and were angered at attempts to impose Islamic laws in the region by the Arabic-speaking Muslim north.

Though the international community, including the UN, is putting all its available human and technological resources to make it a peaceful process of divorce, there are fears of backlash.

The true test of Sudan will commence after the results of the referendum come out. If Southern Sudan chooses to stay within the country, its army needs to be integrated with that of the central government within 90 days — a daunting task, given that the two armies now confront each other along the length of the border.

If it chooses secession, an independent state will be born as soon as the vote is announced. Assets, including oil revenues, water and national infrastructure will have to be divided. Nationality will need to be defined. Any new currency will need to come into circulation at a price that is sensitive to the interests of many different economic groups. The mounting task before the ill-equipped, impoverished and vulnerable Southern Sudan will be to architect a very balanced regional foreign policy because oil and water resources are contentious issues and there will be many attempts by regional powers to manipulate new Sudan’s policies in their favour, which will ultimately result in a broader regional conflict.

But Sudan’s ongoing conflicts are the result of a failure to perform essential functions of statehood, including the ability to extract legitimacy, provide political accommodation, including security to diverse groups and ensure delivery of equal basic social services and infrastructure. A state unable to perform these functions for longer time periods, over a substantial portion of its territory, is deemed collapsed.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 15^th,  2011.