Govt efforts won’t heal Baloch wounds


Express May 26, 2010

QUETTA: Jamaat-e-Islami’s central secretary- general Liaquat Baloch has said that the people of Balochistan are not satisfied with the package announced by the government to remove the sense of deprivation among the Baloch people.

He was referring to the Aghaze- Haquq-e-Balochistan package the PPP-led government announced recently in a bid to woo disgruntled Baloch nationalists. Addressing an election convention of the Jamaat-e-Islami on Wednesday, Baloch said the central government must ensure equitable and transparent distribution of resources among the provinces to do away with decades of disenchantment among local populations. “This is the only way out of the present mess,” he added.

Baloch stressed the need for change in leadership but added that this could not be possible without rule of law in the country. “Without the supremacy of law, the system cannot be changed,” he said. “Strategically, Balochistan is an important province and it is necessary that normalcy is restored in the province because a volatile situation here will have serious ramifications for the entire country,” said Baloch blaming past governments and military rulers for the current state-of-affairs in the province. He regretted that the situation was going from bad to worse. “The list of missing people is swelling with each passing day.

And their relatives are running from pillar to post. But to no avail,” he said. Baloch said that Saeed Baloch, a Jamaat-e- Islami worker from Gwadar, went missing from Karachi last month. And there is no word about his whereabouts. The JI leader told the PPP-led government that without bringing former military ruler Pervez Musharraf to justice, the people of Balochistan would not believe in its sincerity. Musharraf is accused to ordering a security operation in 2007 in which veteran Baloch chieftain Nawab Akbar Bugti was killed.

Baloch also accused the US of creating disturbance in Pakistan to cover up its failures in neighbouring Afghanistan. He alleged that some Pakistani rulers were also furthering the American agenda by promote ethnic and sectarian violence in their own country.

Published in the Express Tribune, May 27th, 2010.

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