Balochistan situation: Opposition to devolution putting federation in peril, says Rabbani

Senator links peace in province with missing persons’ issue.

QUETTA:

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senator Raza Rabbani has linked restoration of peace in Balochistan with the resolution of the issue of missing persons.

“Retaining peace and carrying out development in Balochistan is impossible unless the government addresses the issue of missing persons,” he said.

Rabbani was addressing a seminar organised by the United Nations Development Programme and Inter Provincial Coordination Ministry on Tuesday to discuss the outcome of the 18th Amendment.

Senator Rabbani said Balochistan had been deprived for the last 65 years. However, he claimed that the PPP government had made attempts like the 18th Amendment and Aghaz-e-Huqooq Balochistan package to mitigate the sense of deprivation.

“PPP had ended the impression that people are traitors or patriots in Balochistan. Those nationalists who had been labelled as traitors had supported the 18th Amendment and it was unanimously adopted in the National Assembly,” he said.

“No one is a traitor but certain circumstances forced people to take extreme steps,” he added.

He said those who were creating obstacles in devolution of powers to provinces were actually endangering the federation. “In Islamabad some people do not want powers to be transferred to the provinces and want to get back health, education and social welfare sectors.”

“Civil and military bureaucracies have been of the view that political forces that are empowering the provinces are actually weakening the federation, but we have observed that without provincial autonomy, Pakistan will become a weaker federation,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 18^th, 2013.