October 2, 2010
photo: Children in a camp set up for flood victims in Balochistan, 2010

"Historically, the function of deranged radicals is to put in motion what only others can finish; to illuminate by excess; to stir the conscience and fade away in exile. To this end, the Nights of December leaves a worthy legacy. Welcome to the Revolution!"

- Carl Hiassen, "Tourist Season"

"As it must be clear by now, Pakistan is essentially an army/intelligence establishment disguised as a country."

- Pepe Escobar, AfPak and the new great game, atimes.com

by Wendy Johnson

In "˜The Anarchic Republic of Pakistan' Ahmed Rashid describes a country so chaotic it could easily serve as the dictionary definition for the pejorative meaning of anarchy. The irony, of course, is that Pakistan is in such a state precisely because its military and government are anything but anarchic. Both have laser-honed missions and neither agenda has anything to do with serving its luckless citizens. And while the military under General Kayani may check the civilian government, make no mistake about the central government's complicity in the suffering of many of its citizens.

In August 2009, Ehsan Arjemandi, a Norwegian citizen of Baloch ethnicity, was plucked from a bus en route to Karachi and disappeared into Pakistan's security Gitmo. For over a year friends and family pursued all channels in an effort to elicit information about Ehsan's whereabouts and wellbeing. Inexplicably, no human rights group, no government"”U.S. or Norwegian"”was able to secure information from Pakistani authorities. Nevertheless, in July 2010, for some reason we have yet to discover, Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik announced to a Norwegian reporter that Ehsan is in the custody of Pakistani authorities. Malik alleged that Ehsan was arrested for traveling with forged identity papers (the Pakistan embassy itself granted Arjemandi his visa in Oslo in July 2009). This being Pakistan, of course, two months later, we still don't know whether Ehsan is actually dead or alive, for the government cruelly refuses to produce him in court or make his whereabouts known.

Ehsan's case is not unusual. Pakistan is at war with many of its own citizens. It sporadically and selectively dukes it out with its own Zia-Musharraf spawn, the Taliban, and these battles are amply covered in the West. The war the mainstream media doesn't cover, however, is the one in Balochistan province ("˜Occupied Balochistan,' if you are talking to its youth). Here a variety of security agencies and the military routinely disappear and murder Baloch citizens, the most recent being Zaman Khan Marriand Ali Sher Kurd, lawyers known personally to my friends. (And as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, by the time I post this, Zaman and Ali Sher will no longer be the "˜most recent,' for the bullet-ridden bodies of the abducted turn up on roadsides almost daily.) While Ehsan, unlike Zaman and Ali Sher, may have been a naturalized citizen of the West, he was treated as one of Pakistan's own: a day in court being as rare as a Pakistani politician being held accountable for theft.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. By this measure one would think both sides insane, for this is the 5th insurgency that the Baloch have fought since losing their independence at the point of a gun in 1948. Like the Baloch who come around time and again to fight for autonomy (and now independence from the center) till they are tricked or beaten ("˜Defeated, but never surrendered!', as my friend Nauroz Ahmadzai, now also dead, characterized it in 2006), the civilian government time and again promises to share with the Baloch the mineral riches it appropriates from Balochistan. Inevitably, the fruits of these serial pacifications never trickle down to those who need it and invariably a new generation picks up their weapons again.

The internet and its limits

This time, however, it was supposed to be different. This time the Baloch had the internet. This time the Baloch would win support by broadcasting to the world the wrongs perpetrated by the Pakistan government, one of the more cynical crimes being a literacy rate in Balochistan of 37% (20% for women). As of this writing, however, the only press generated (aside from that of tireless writers like Selig Harrison and Karlos Zurutuza) was that of the Baloch themselves. And this proved a double-edged sword. In one case it opened my friend, webmaster Faiz Baloch, to British charges of inciting terrorism in Pakistan.

Absent any tangible support from NGOs and human rights organizations (except for the Asian Human Rights Commission), and after holding countless, fruitless rallies and protests on behalf of the missing and murdered, a hitherto unknown militant group (the Baloch Liberation United Front) appeared out of nowhere (shocking even the Baloch) to kidnap John Solecki, the head of UNHCR's Quetta office. Mr. Solecki was held for 61 days in 2009 and then released. Mr. Solecki has yet to discuss his abduction in public, not even to decry the actions of the kidnappers. Radio silence. Why? Perhaps he is writing a book about his ordeal, or perhaps the US government has asked him to remain silent. In any case, it appears next to impossible to draw world attention to the plight of the Baloch. Interestingly, the experience of John Solecki contrasts with, say, gentler time in the 1980s when Alastair Crooke, an agent of MI6, was kidnapped by Baloch who were in dispute with the Pakistan government over water rights. Troops were dispatched to rescue Crooke, but when they reached the area, Crooke was sitting on a rock reading a book. He refused to leave until his Baloch captors had a chance to air their grievances.

Limited support

While a Pakistani journalist may be abducted and tortured and his story will reach the New York Times, the Baloch, who have suffered hundreds of such stories, don't even land on the front pages of Pakistani papers. Why can the Baloch not convince journalists and human rights workers (even in Pakistan) to investigate the abuses they claim to suffer and to speak up on their behalf?

First, in Pakistan, the Baloch are dismissed as "˜tribal' and thus the authors of their own problems, even though journalists like Malik Siraj Akbar have tirelessly pointed out that even where the sardari system was abandoned long ago, development is, for all practical purposes, nonexistent. News that does make it into the popular media about Pakistan's tribal regions is often negative, as it is infinitely more dramatic than coverage of, for example, a demonstration by students trying to secure positions in a university. Nevertheless, every negative story also has its poignant counterpart"”there is always someone involved who exhibits courage and progressive thought"”the sorts of people who, with enough support, can bring about important change. Take the rape of Dr. Shazia, for ex. Her grandfather-in-law was organizing a mob to kill her because she had "˜dishonored' the family's honor, yet Dr. Shazia's husband not only prevented her from committing suicide over the trauma, he fought for justice on her behalf. Did Pakistan's elites (and General Musharraf) stand by this progressive thinker? No. In the end, Dr. Shazia and her husband had to flee Pakistan.

The Pakistan government also discourages journalists and NGO workers from traveling to Balochistan by declaring it unsafe and generally denying permission to travel there. This is understandable. The Pakistan government has much to hide. I have visited Balochistan on three occasions, however, once on my own, once with my husband and once with two female companions, and have experienced nothing but awesome hospitality from my Baloch hosts. The only time we felt threatened was in Quetta, where we were trailed by Pakistan's military intelligence (MI). Unlike Carlotta Gall, we had no physical encounters, but knowing of MI's reputation, we were uneasy.

Second, NGOs and aid organizations often have to parse their words carefully so as to avoid offending their own government or, in some cases, corporate sponsors. The jobs of aid workers often depend on pleasing, or at least working with, the very governments who are guilty for the suffering of those for whom aid groups care. It may be safe to decry what the Sudanese government is up to, but Pakistan is an ally in the "˜War on Terror' and as such seems to enjoy unlimited license to create mayhem. The United States fostered this development through its unquestioning support for both generals/dictators Zia al Haq and Pervez Musharraf.

Added to this pressure to self-censor is our evolving surveillance society in which companies like google and facebook gather one's conversations and chats for third party users (who will, in turn, for ex., endeavor to factor the financial stability of your facebook friends into your credit score rating). NGO workers may labor abroad, but the mortgages they hold are in their home country. How many will risk job and house over inopportune words or politics? Additionally, US laws regarding "˜material support' for terrorism and the stunning Supreme Court ruling that makes it a crime to provide support, including humanitarian aid, literature distribution and political advocacy, to any foreign entity that the government has designated as a "terrorist" group"”can make advocacy a risky business, even when militant resistance is not part of the equation.

A third reason for the lack of coverage is no doubt due to the nature of the struggle. While at heart, the movement in Balochistan is a social one, it also has a militant face. The Baloch want access to education, healthcare, a developed infrastructure and control of their resources. They want to develop. They have access to the internet"”they know what it means to have a good education and that opportunities exist in the wider world that they can't access. But because the Baloch have been thwarted at so many turns, the response on part of the population is militant.

And this is where the rubber meets the road. This is the part that makes advocates of nonviolence wring their hands. This is one reason human rights groups tip-toe around the subject of Balochistan. Balochistan is messy. The Baloch are armed.

The limits of pacifism

While mulling over this logjam in progress, and pondering what to say at a conference in Washington DC on the subject of Balochistan, for the list of abuses and failures on the part of the Pakistani government is very old news"”just keystrokes away for anyone interested, and the stories and pictures of bullet-ridden and tortured Baloch seem unable to move anyone in today's crime-rich world"”Darfur, Tibet, Gaza, Myanmar, Kashmir, Mexico, etc.), I came across a link to a book titled intriguingly "˜How Nonviolence Protects the State'. It had received glowing reviews, as well as a few condescending reviews, but the subject addressed by author Peter Gelderloos fascinated me.

With time and progress, information and technology, one would think violence and poverty would be decreasing. They are not. We will always have psychopaths living amongst us (nature's relationship with nurture is imperfect), but what the Baloch suffer today has nothing to do with psychopaths or particularly violent people, but rather systems.

Wise beyond his years and incredibly cogent, Peter Gelerloos offers some eye-popping observations for those of us who write articles, give talks, sign petitions, attend protests, vote for Obamas, and yet see absolutely no change with regards to the material wellbeing of those whom we are trying to support. In answer to "˜Why?' Peter would posit that some of us are part of the problem, for what is at fault here is not just a system of cynical government with its interlocking military and corporate components and its foreign "˜allies', but rather a system that survives, in part, because of the acquiescence and silence of both elites and activists.

In most developed countries one can be not only smart and unaware, but also dumb as a post and survive well. In good times, it's a comforting phenomenon"”no one said we were put on earth to all become rocket scientists. In times of economic and social stress, however, this silent majority can glide through without nary a scratch, as they have done in Dirty War Argentina, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco Spain, Pinochet's Chile, etc., etc., etc., only to benefit from the battles others on the fringe have fought. (As Mark Twain observed, "In a beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.")

Regarding the frequent inability on the part of political activists to effect change in oppressive societies (and sometimes not-so-oppressive societies), Mr. Gelderloos writes that: "˜Put simply, if a movement is not a threat, it cannot change a system based on centralized coercion and violence . . . In the world today, governments and corporations hold a near-total monopoly on power, a major aspect of which is violence . . . those who currently benefit from the ubiquitous structural violence, who control the militaries, banks, bureaucracies, and corporations, will continue to call the shots. The elite cannot be persuaded by appeals to their conscience. Individuals who do change their minds and find a better morality will be fired, impeached, replaced, recalled, assassinated . . . we are facing a self-perpetuating power structure that is immune to appeals to conscience and strong enough to plow over the disobedient and uncooperative.' (p 22)

Gelderloos continues: "˜Pacifism assumes that white people who grew up in the suburbs with all their basic needs met can counsel oppressed people, many of whom are people of color, to suffer patiently under an inconceivably greater violence, until such time as the Great White Father is swayed by the movement's demands or the pacifists achieve that legendary "critical mass." . . . People in Latin America must suffer patiently, like true martyrs, while white activists in the US "bear witness" and write to Congress . . . Nonviolence refuses to recognize that it can only work for privileged people who have a status protected by violence, as the perpetrators and beneficiaries of a violent hierarchy.' (p 23)

Gelderloos does not advocate that all activists and progressives choose militancy, but he claims that when pacifists refuse to allow the use of a wide variety of tactics in their collective efforts, they essentially cut off radical groups at the knees. "Contrary to fatuous claims of pacifists that they somehow empower themselves by cutting out the greater part of their tactical options, governments everywhere recognize that unconstrained revolutionary activism poses the greater threat of changing the distribution of power in society (p 46).

"When pacifists defend their stand that only peaceful methods work and offer examples of their successes, Gelderloos declares they "˜erase the history that disagrees with them' and outlines a much more complicated history of, for example, how India won its independence"”a history, contrary to popular legend, that included many violent pressures. Gelderloos writes: "˜The British had lost the ability to maintain colonial power after losing millions of troops and a great deal of other resources during two extremely violent world wars, the second of which especially devastated the "mother country." The armed struggles of Arab and Jewish militants in Palestine from 1945 to 1948 further weakened the British empire, and presented a clear threat that the Indians might give up civil disobedience and take up arms en masse if ignored for long enough . . .' (p 9)

In his book, Gelderloos systematically reviews many histories of "˜successful' peace movements with startling conclusions, including the "˜claim that the US peace movement ended the war against Vietnam' and charges that "˜With unforgivable self-righteousness, peace activists ignore that three to five million Indochinese died in the fight against the US military; tens of thousands of US troops were killed and hundreds of thousands wounded; other troops demoralized by all the bloodshed had become highly ineffective and rebellious; and the US was losing political capital (and going fiscally bankrupt) to a point where pro-war politicians began calling for a strategic withdrawal . . . (p 13)

Peter Gelderloos and the Baloch

At first blush, it would seem that the Baloch largely implement what Gelderloos advocates. They are, for example, highly coordinated. Baloch activists, unlike their counterparts in America, can effectively shut down whole cities in Balochistan in reaction to injustices committed by the military or central government, though the effect of such actions is limited because the shutterdowns in Balochistan province don't necessarily widely affect Pakistan itself.

While the Baloch are highly politicized, their alphabet soup of political parties and militant organizations render them, in practice, quite decentralized"”a quality that Gelderloos deems important to the success of a movement: " . . . Power should be located as much as possible in the grassroots"”with individuals and in groups working within a community . . . In terms of struggle, this means we must abandon the idea that there is only one right way, that we must get everyone to sign on to the same platform or join the same organization. On the contrary, the struggle will benefit from a plurality of strategies . . . We need to coordinate and unify as much as possible to increase our collective strength, but we should also reconsider how much uniformity is actually possible. (p 138)"

The Baloch are also militantly active"”five times and counting. Recently, the resistance has blown so many holes in the Sui Gas pipelines that without repairs they would resemble Swiss cheese (Sui Gas ships gas originating in Balochistan everywhere in Pakistan, but Balochistan province). At present, the Pakistani government's favorite whipping boy is the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), an armed nationalist separatist group that, like all the other armed Baloch groups (BRA, BLF, BLUF, Lashkar-e-Balochistan, etc.), would not exist were it not for the central government's failures. When I first learned of the BLA in 2005, all one had to do was study their web presence to find evidence of their motivations. balochvoice.com was replete with photos of its impoverished people living along a pipeline that transmitted Baloch gas to seemingly everyone, but the Baloch, links to relevant history, and interestingly, a link to pages on the theory of guerrilla warfare and ethics (for ex., St. Thomas Aquinas). In keeping with Gelderloos' schema for success, the general Baloch population does not abandon those who take up arms, and resistance groups, in each of their four previous insurgencies, have enjoyed widespread support on the part of Baloch citizens, as well as an open-arms welcome when arms were put down.

The failures of militancy, in Gelderloo's opinion, are not related to violence itself, but rather to hierarchical forms of organization. "The authoritarianism of the USSR or People's Republic of China was not a mystical carryover from the violence they used, but a direct function of the hierarchies to which they were always wed. It is vague, meaningless, and ultimately untrue to say that violence always produces certain psychological patterns and social relationships. Hierarchy, however, is inseparable from psychological patterns and social relationships of domination . . ." (p 136)

Another feature of activism that Gelderloos regards important also characterizes Baloch behavior historically. He notes, "an anti-authoritarian ethos favors fighting uncompromisingly against oppression, but opposes crushing those who have been defeated; it favors reconciliation over punishment. He believes a decentralized structure and a culture of reconciliation have the best chance of succeeding without creating a new authoritarian system (p 139).

What the Baloch lack in spades, however, is the all crucial component of Gelderloos' equation"”support. And don't believe Pakistan government claims that India (its other favorite whipping boy) is supporting the Baloch rebellion"”if it were, the Baloch would be making much bigger waves. Absent the attention of the UN and human rights organizations, and the restraint that such global attention encourages, Pakistan continues to "˜plow over the disobedient,' showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, its Interior Minister Rehman Malik has articulated an increasing determination to crush Baloch aspirations, as well as those who argue for it. Recently he declared the BLA to be "˜super-banned' and announced that the federal government has granted the Frontier Corps (FC) police powers to carry out arrests, search and detain people. The tortured bodies of the Baloch that appear almost daily at roadsides offer proof of the enthusiasm with which the security agencies regard the "˜super-ban'.

The Baloch do enjoy some support within Pakistan, from its Sindhi neighbors, for example, but ideally, support would be forthcoming from the world's activists. This second group actually holds a very important key to the oppression the Baloch suffer in the first place, for it is largely America's citizens, some blissfully unaware and some not-so-unaware, who fund and empower, at taxpayer expense, Pakistan's rapacious regime. If taxpayer money from the West had been invested differently"”not in its vast and unchecked military, Pakistan might look very different today.

While support from the US government could have a profound effect on helping Balochistan develop, and the U.S. has not declared any of the Baloch resistance groups to be terrorist, it is likely that U.S. interests will simply continue to further Pakistan's coercive system. The U.S. is planning to open a consulate in Quetta, the motivation of which is much debated, though in all likelihood it probably has everything to do with Balochistan's rich mineral wealth and its importance to the resolution of the Pipelineistan wars described by Pepe Escobar vs. the wellbeing and development of Balochistan to the benefit of its citizens. So I fear that down the road, should the Baloch Liberation Army decide to bomb a pipeline that is of interest to the U.S., one will quickly see a BLA end up on the U.S.'s list of terrorist organizations"”and fall off the list of those very few human rights organizations that will stick their necks out for the Baloch.

In reality, given the inertia that characterizes outside support from human rights organizations and governments, it may be that in the end, what most helps the Baloch win control over their lives, is another phenomenon described by Gelderloos: exhaustion. It may be that a disaster"”like the recent and catastrophic flooding, or even a fiscal one"”will finally render Pakistan unable to exert control over its provinces, which from its inception, were only intended to be federating units anyway. Until that happens, however, the pressure to reform Pakistan's government and military cannot be abandoned. Literally, too many lives are at stake.

Peter Gelderloos has his detractors (aside from those who've thrown him in prison on two occasions). One of today's most progressive and outspoken journalists, Chris Hedges, recently spoke to Veterans for Peace. In this video clip, while talking of the need to bring about radical change, he noted that violence is a drug. He said that as a war reporter, everywhere he witnessed it, violence was perpetrated not by people with a vision for change and development, but people who were, quite simply, criminals. While Hedges acknowledges that "I am not naïve enough to think I could have avoided these armed movements had I been a landless Salvadoran or Guatemalan peasant, a Palestinian in Gaza or a Muslim in Sarajevo, but this violent response to repression is, and always will be, tragic. It must be avoided, although not at the expense of our own survival . . ."

I quote Hedges below at length (see partial transcription) because he says "˜My analysis comes close to the analysis of many anarchists [Peter Gelderloos is an anarchist], but there is a crucial difference. The anarchists do not understand the nature of violence.'*

Peter Gelderloos has arguments for the issues Chris Hedges raises (and analyzes the flaws in nonpacifist struggles, as well), but I am not going to quote Peter's answers here at length in the hope that people will instead read his book (182 fascinating pages) and the history he narrates. Peter Gelderloos would like to have a debate, but finds few takers. In the end, no matter with whom one ultimately sides, his analysis deserves to be heard, if only to help flesh out pacifist arguments upon which at present, activists and those who suffer, largely rely. Except for the Baloch, of course, who have stubbornly taken matters into their own hands.

If violence is a drug, as Chris Hedges describes, what is the responsible thing to do about it? In the case of the violence associated with the war on drugs, the logical thing to do is legalize drugs. If I were Pablo Escobar, I would've loved the war on drugs. It ensured him mountains of profits.

In relation to militant violence, what does one do to undermine it?

The answer is tremendously simple. Foster innovative secular education. Offer healthcare. Build infrastructure. Provide opportunity. Support governments that represent the best interests of its citizens, vs. repressive regimes who plunder the resources of the land it governs and ships those plundered gains off to foreign bankers to manage.

But in our neoliberal world, that may not happen anytime soon. So, as fiction author Carl Hiassen writes in "˜Tourist Season', probably tongue in cheek"”but who knows?"”"Welcome to the revolution!"

Balochistan Zindabad!

The end

***

From Chris Hedges "˜On Moral Courage.'

*"[Anarchists] grasp the extent of the rot in our cultural and political institutions. They know they must sever the tentacles with consumerism, but they naively believe that it can be countered with physical forms of resistance and acts of violence. There are debates within the anarchist movement, such as those on the destruction purely of property, but once you start using plastic explosives, innocent people get killed and when anarchic violence begins to disrupt the mechanisms of government the power elite will use these acts, however minor, as an excuse to deploy disproportionate and ruthless amounts of force against real and suspected agitators, only fueling the rage of the dispossessed. I am not finally a pacifist. I know there are times, and even concede when this may be one of them, when human beings are forced to respond to mounting repression with violence. I was in Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia. We knew precisely what the Serbian forces ringing the city would do to us if they broke through the defences and trench system around the besieged capital. We had the examples of the Drina Valley or the city of Vukovar or Mostar, where a third of the Muslim inhabitants had been killed and the rest herded into refugee or displacement camps. There are times when the only choice left is to pick up a weapon to defend your family, neighborhood and city, but those who proved most adept at defending Sarajevo invariably came from the criminal class. When they were not shooting at Serbian soldiers, they were looting the apartments of ethnic Serbs in Sarajevo and often executing them, as well as terrorizing their fellow Muslims. When you ingest the poison of violence, even in a just cause, it corrupts, deforms and perverts you. Violence is a drug. Indeed, it is the most potent narcotic known to human kind. And those most addicted to violence are those who have an access to weapons and a penchant for force. These killers rise to the surface of any armed movement and contaminate it with the intoxicating power that comes with the ability to destroy. I have seen it in war, after war. When you go down that road, you end up hitting your monsters against their monsters and the sensitive, the humane, the gentle, those who have a propensity to nurture and protect life are marginalized and often killed. The romantic vision of war and violence is as prevalent among the hard left and anarchists as it is in the mainstream culture. Those who resist with force will not defeat the corporate state or sustain the cultural values that must be sustained if we are to have a future worth living. From my many years as a war correspondent in El Salvador, Guatemala, Gaza, Bosnia, I have seen that armed resistance movements are always mutations of the violence that spawned them. I am not naïve enough to think I could have avoided these armed movements had I been a landless Salvadoran or Guatemalan peasant, a Palestinian in Gaza or a Muslim in Sarajevo, but this violent response to repression is, and always will be, tragic. It must be avoided, although not at the expense of our own survival"¦" (click for full video lecture).

***

P.S. With regards to America's own problems, "Shock Doctrine" author Naomi Klein has said in an interview recently (Sep 14, 2010), that "We have to build that independent left. It has to be so strong and so radical and so militant and so powerful that it becomes irresistible." One American commented with marvelous deadpan humor, "I hope it doesn't turn to violent revolution, but we are a nation of guns and booze, so bad shit will probably happen before good does."