Adviser to Balochistan CM says insurgency can be contained by talks instead of warfare

KARACHI:

The phrase 'wars might be fought with weapons but they are won by men' was the idea behind economist Dr Kaiser Bengali's speech at the Development Vision and Strategy for Regional Development: Case of Balochistan' seminar at the Applied Economics Research Centre (AERC) on Wednesday.

"The recent insurgency generated in Balochistan after the killing of Akbar Bugti. 'I'm going to hit him so hard, he won't know where he got hit from' were the exact words said by Musharraf," the adviser to the Balochistan CM claimed. "External and internal migration has always been part of Balochistan's history."

Bengali was of the view that the matter of insurgency can easily be resolved through talks. "Insurgency can only be eliminated by politicians, not by the military," he said. "But on the positive side, Quetta is a much safer city than Karachi. There are no such security issues, as witnessed on Karachi's streets," he said.

Shedding light on the developmental hurdles in Balcohistan, Bengali said there are 1.5 million families living in the province, out of which half-a-million are already employed. "As long as alternative job opportunities are not provided to the people, tribal affiliations will not end," he claimed. Bengali also said that contrary to the popular belief that tribal chiefs are a hurdle in development, it is the absence of unique central planning that is at fault. "Only one-third of the province falls under the tribal system. It is just a myth that tribal rule is the main reason," he said.

Dr Bengali briefed the participants about the planning of 14 growth centres extending from Quetta to Gwadar. He pointed out how the areas of Sibi, Gwadar and Dera Allahyar could possibly have several adjoining districts as suburbs within a distance of 150 kilometres. For this, he gave the example of Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas functioning as twin cities as the distance could be covered within 40 minutes once a proper road was constructed a few years ago.

Bengali identified Hyderabad, Sukkur and Central Sindh as integral growth centres that can bridge many suburbs together. "There are in all eight cities that can become suburbs of Sukkur with travelling distances cut down to as short as 30 minutes," he claimed. "In Sindh, there is an absence of east and west highways. Seven such highways of motorway standards can be constructed," he said.

Development work

Dr Bengali said that as opposed to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, Balochistan and Sindh do not function on delivery politics. "The political leadership operates on demand and supply, where the supply is dependent on the voting pattern favouring feudals and tribes," he said. "The Balochistan government has always been a coalition and that is how it will always be, as the tribal chiefs take it as an insult to sit with a chief minister from a middle-class background," he explained.

He shared stories of his time in the Sindh government. "In the Sindh cabinet meeting, we used to get instructions to not deal with the budgets of Hyderabad and Karachi. Approve them without scrutiny, we were told," he claimed.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 29^th, 2015.