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Activists deplore Amnesty International killed Baloch victims vote

Ahmar Mustikhan

by Ahmar Mustikhan

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania: Activists related to defending human rights in Balochistan have deplored that the Amnesty International in USA killed a very basic resolution Saturday afternoon that had called for more actions to help the victims of enforced disappearances in the Texas-sized stateless region.

Two senior AIUSA leaders spoke out vigorously against the resolution that basically called for more actions such as action alerts and letters in support of victims of enforced disappearances in Balochistan.

Amnesty International has so far done precious little to help victims of Pakistani and Iranian state terrorism in Balochistan, Baloch human rights defenders complain.

The resolution to help Baloch victims of enforced disappearances was tabled at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference of the Amnesty International at the William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh.

Pakistan country specialist Govind Acharya was conspicuous by his absence. But Mandana Afshar, Egypt country specialist who is an American of Persian descent, played a key role in defeating the resolution, even though the resolution had minimal financial implications.

Kathleen Lucas, AI refugee steering committee member from York, Pa.,, also openly canvassed against the resolution to help Baloch victims, though she was overseeing the election process the following day, calling into question the fairness and impartiality of the entire exercise.

Afshar of Persian descent --Persians have always laid claim to owning Balochistan -- insisted that working on Balochistan would require more resources, but was mum to the question that to stop extra judicial killings, enforced disappearances and torture, Amnesty International was bound to help victims regardless of constraints.

Privately, she also contraposed the disappearances of Shia political dissidents in Bahrain with those taking place in Balochistan, even though the Baloch have no issue if the AI may also take a pro-active stand on disappearances in Bahrain.

"Balochistan is my home. My people are dying. Why can't I urge an international organization to take up this issue," said Mohammed Ali Baloch, a Baloch activist from Mekran who is now based in Philadelphia. "We also support focussed work on Shia disappearances in Bahrain and fail to understand why they should be mutually exclusive," he said.

Even the sequence in which the resolutions were to be taken were changed at the last moment conveying among the participants an impression that the resolution on Balochistan was less important than the one pertaining to environmental migrants. Particpants heard that some people were in a second plenary meeting and would like to vote on the resolution pertaining to environmental migrants and so the sequence of the resolutions be changed -- barely seven people were in the second plenary meeting.

An Amnesty International activist from Italy, Annalisa Foglia, who now lives in Morgantown, West Virginia, was stunned by the way in which the sequence of the resolution was changed and made her dissent public.

There are more than 1,100 victims of enforced disappearances in Balochistan and even the Amnesty International on October 26 acknowledged that 40 such victims were eliminated as part of Islamabad's new kill-and-dump policy. Pakistan urged to investigate murder and torture of Baloch activists

The kill-and-dump policy in Balochistan has worsened in recent days.

Database of Baloch missing

"I am surprised and very disappointed," Roy Brown, who is immediate past president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, said from London when he learned that the AI regional conference had killed the Balochistan-support resolution.

Imtiaz Baloch, an activist of the Baloch Human Rights Council of Canada said he believes Amnesty International works very closely with high officials in the two Islamic republics of Pakistan and Iran and tries hard not to annoy them. "This does not surprise me at all," Imtiaz Baloch said from Toronto.

Andrew Eiva, former executive director of the Federation for American Afghan Action, said the Amnesty International is not as independent as many people think.

"Amnesty International attracts very hardworking and idealist activists, but they learn belatedly that the AI hierarchy is closely tied to the State Department and has a policy of acquiescence when it comes to countries such as Pakistan and Iran," Eiva said.

Larry Cox, executive director, and other senior officials of the AI attended the Pittsburgh conference.

Extremely "sexy" in strategic terms as it forms the northern lip of the Straits of Hormuz, Balochistan is huge. Balochistan means the land of the Baloch, but the country was left divided into three parts by the British in the last century. The area under Pakistani army occupation is slightly bigger than New Mexico, while the area under Iranian mullahs is the size of Nevada, and that under Afghan control is the size of West Virginia.

Like Annalisa Folger, Edwin Everhart felt "What happened wasn't cool."

"It is true that I disagree with the protocols of the resolution process, and I would have liked the opportunity to vote on the resolution regarding Baloch disappearances," Everhart commented.

However, Everhart said his disagreements are with technical matters of the process. "I would not necessarily have voted for the resolution in question; the arguments in favor and in opposition are more complex than presented here," he said.

The killings have sent shock waves in Baloch civil society and the media:

Baloch Hal editorial: Dead BodyISTAN

Ahmar Mustikhan is a journalist from Balochistan, a Texas-sized stateless region divided among Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, and now resides in the greater Washington DC metropolitan area.

Read More:

Pakistani activist abducted, risks torture: Shams-ul-din Baloch (Urgent Action, 13 August 2010)

Pakistan: 'As if Hell fell on me': The human rights crisis in northwest Pakistan (Report, 10 June 2010)


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