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Geneva Conference: AFAD and Laurie Deamer statements

Shattered Lives in Balochistan: The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD)

The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), a regional federation of organizations of families of the disappeared and human rights advocates directly working on the issue of enforced disappearance in Asia, expresses deep concern over the alarming human rights situation in the occupied Balochistan area in south western part of Pakistan where a huge number of disappearance cases has been recently reported.

The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), a regional federation of organizations of families of the disappeared and human rights advocates directly working on the issue of enforced disappearance in Asia, expresses deep concern over the alarming human rights situation in the occupied Balochistan area in south western part of Pakistan where a huge number of disappearance cases has been recently reported.

The AFAD received information from its international friends from Balochistan areas that more than 8,000 activists were forcibly made to disappear by Pakistani intelligence agencies and their fates and whereabouts are still unknown.

In the recent report of the Asian Human Rights Commission, it has been estimated that the number of Baloch men, women and children abducted by Pakistani intelligence agencies has reached 8,000. Activists, politicians and student leaders are among those who have been targeted in enforced disappearances, abductions, arbitrary arrests and cases of torture and other ill-treatment. The violence takes place against a backdrop of increasing political unrest and ongoing military operations in the Balochistan areas.

We are quite aware that Balochistan has a long history of insurgency with nationalist groups advocating greater autonomy. The Balochistan people have been demanding for economic emancipation, concretely through a bigger share of the revenue generated by the province's natural resources, principally natural gas. Despite being rich in natural resources, the Baloch people remain economically marginalized and receive little or no benefit from the Balochistan economy.

In its efforts to counter the Baloch struggle, the Pakistani government has attempted to suppress this opposition by increasing the military presence in the region. Thousands of people are believed to have been killed from the hands of the Pakistani security forces. Many people are reported to have been subjected to enforced disappearance, torture, summary executions and deaths in custody with each passing day. Although, the human rights violations are equally attributable to both the Pakistani army and the Baloch nationalist rebels, it is the Pakistani state which is largely responsible for the continuing violence and attack against the Balochistan civilian population. It has been reported that the Pakistani intelligence agencies have started to employ the method of "kill and dump tactics," in which the victim is first abducted, tortured and killed in cold-blood and then dumped in open fields. The recent discovery of the two dead bodies is part of this growing trend. Bullet-ridden bodies of those abducted, many showing signs of torture, are increasingly being found across Balochistan.

Another case is that of a renowned Baloch lawyer, columnist and poet, Mr Ali Sher Kurd who was abducted on 21 September from Quetta and his mutilated body was found on 24 September 2010 in Khuzdar town in Balochistan.

It is really a shame on the Pakistani government to take advantage of the existing political unrest as a justification for its obvious act to terrorize the Balochistan people and to exterminate them through ethnic cleansing. It is very clear that the suppression of fundamental freedoms and civil liberties are not meant to crush the rebellions alone but to suppress the democratic demands of Balochistan people for self-determination and social emancipation. In November 2009, the Pakistani government announced a package of proposed policy and legislation reforms for Balochistan and promised to resolve the cases of enforced disappearances as soon as possible. It has, so far, failed to do so.

The continuing military offensives and the report of the clandestine conduct of nuclear tests in the Balochistan area by the Pakistani army which started in 1998 is no less an act of genocide, one that can be condemned as a crime against humanity.

This grim situation does not only demand condemnation but also for an urgent action. Thus, AFAD calls on the government of Pakistan to:

1. Stop the growing commission of human rights violations and other atrocities in the Balochistan areas. The rise in enforced disappearances and "kill and dump" incidents have only aggravated the already existing political tensions in the region and have already led to the spare of reprisal killings by Baloch armed groups.

2. End the ongoing militarization and find peaceful ways to resolve the five decades of political rebellion.

3. Fulfill its human rights obligations as enshrined in its Constitution and embodied in the number of international covenants and other instruments which Pakistan is a party to and to investigate the human rights violations particularly the commission of enforced disappearance, punish the perpetrators and provide justice and reparations to victims and their families.

4. Show its sincerity and commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights by signing and ratifying the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

The AFAD believes that any efforts towards peace will be meaningless and empty unless a peaceful resolution of existing conflict be based on truth and justice.

Justice to all the victims of enforced disappearances in Balochistan!

Justice for all victims of human rights violations!

Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances Rms. 310-311 Philippine Social Science Center Building Commonwealth Avenue, Diliman, 1103 Quezon City Philippines Telefax: 00-632-4546759 Telephone Number 00-632-9274594 Mobile 00-63-9177924058 Email afad@surfshop.net.ph website www.afad-online.org

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Laurie Deamer, presiding council member, American Friends of Balochistan


As I was preparing to welcome the victims' family members here today, I reflected upon the excruciating circumstances of their daily lives as those who have losted a loved one to enforced disappearance. My reflection was significantly guided by the commentaries of Aziz Baloch, Malik Akbar, Faiz Baloch and others, and this is what I saw: I saw that their worst fear had materialized because there is hardly a household among them that has not lost a husband or wife, father or mother, a son or a daughter to enforced disappearance, mental and physical trauma, displacement, imprisonment or death, and they know that others can be taken away at any time, day or night, without a warrant, without reason and with impunity. They have anxiously gone from one police station or army camp to the next, desperately hoping to find them, and at each one they have faced the denial of the officials who arrested them, claiming to have no information regarding their whereabouts or fate. They are denied the right to hire a legal consultant, so that their loved one (who may be accused of spreading anti-Islamic sentiment, fighting for Baloch human rights or of nothing at all), can face the courts of the land, and their loved one is denied a fair trial. They face the relative powerlessness of those same courts, however they do not wait passively for justice.

They and their children peacefully protest in front of Press Clubs in Quetta, Karachi and Islamabad. They take to the streets and set up hunger strikes, waiting for the international community to put pressure on the occupying State to either inform them of their loved ones whereabouts or release them. Their children may stop playing with other children in the neighborhood, afraid that they may be taken from their parents. They can see that their children are anxious and depressed. They are already beside themselves with worry, and on top of that they face overwhelming financial hardship. They make additional sacrifices in order to pull together under the umbrella of Voice for Baloch Missing Persons.

They endlessly speculate regarding the whereabouts of their loved one and the possible circumstances under which they may be languishing. They know that their relative may be undergoing torture, and face the awful uncertainty of their demise, and whether their loved one will be returned to them or found in the horrifying indignity of mutilation. They wonder if they should begin grieving their death or hold out hope of their return. Many of them are now almost certain that their relative has been killed in custody, and ask only that their bodies be entrusted to them so as to bury their loved one with dignity and honor.

Their anxiety and despair deepens on occasions such as Eid, when families gather to celebrate. As other people around the world mark the end of Ramadan, the families of victims are experiencing disappointment and agony. They have been given false hope that their loved ones would be released in time to be present for these cherished occasions, as was the case in November 2009. Not only were the majority of Baloch sons and daughters not released, some of them were tortured and then shot to death.

These families have gone to the Civil Secretariat to provide full details about their missing relatives and yet, with few exceptions, not a single man, woman or child has returned home. By doing so and approaching these entities to register the victims, family members are traumatized further by being threatened, blackmailed or pressured to give up their struggle to recover the victims. They fear being the next victims. Many of them cannot trust organizations such as Voice for Baloch Missing Persons because they do not want to cause additional trouble for their loved one. Those who advocate for them are harrassed, barred from protesting or temporarily silenced, as in the case of the finance secretary of VBMP, who was arrested, interrogated, tortured and registered as seditious.

They have experienced the bittersweet sacrifice that loyalty to the cause of independence asks of the families of its martyrs, who cry out for freedom. They feel both the pain of losing their wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, daughters and sons, and the losses of the entire Baloch nation. They live with their sacrifice while knowing that their enemy tempts their leaders to improve their own lot in exchange for compromising Baloch rights.

These families plead for justice now, asking that the State, which has devalued human life and violated international law and the Geneva conventions, be held accountable. The International Voice for Baloch Missing Persons will do our very best to see that their cries are heard and that justice is done. We want to help put their hearts at rest. We are here to advocate for them. We stand in solidarity with them and persevere alongside this Working Group in an effort to recover their loved ones. We extend to them our prayers. We strive to be as fearless in the face of personal and political risk as they have been. We ultimately seek to bring all the resources that earth can afford, and all the forces of heaven to bear on their inalienable right to be safe and to be free.

Thank you.

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