May 25, 2012

On May 24, 2012, the Oxford University Pakistan Society (OUPaksoc) hosted Ali Dayan Hassan, Noordin Mengal and Mehran Baluch for a discussion and Q&A session on the Baloch nationalist movement in Pakistan. Below are the transcripts of presentations delivered by Noordin Mengal and Mehran Baluch.

Oxford University Pakistan Society
Venue: Vernon Harcourt Room, St. Hilda's College, Oxford OX4 1DY

Address to Oxford University Pakistan Society by Noordin Mengal

Noordin Mengal is a Baloch representative at the UN Human Rights Council and an activist. He is a grandson of both Baloch icon Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri and nationalist leader and former chief minister Sardar Ataullah Mengal.

The situation in Balochistan continues to worsen while many of you living abroad and in Pakistan remain unaware. The oppressed people of Balochistan have been oppressed at the hands of the Pakistan army since Balochistan was forcibly incorporated into Pakistan on 27th March 1948.

States which are intolerant towards diversity are by necessity autocratic and bigoted because they not only reject political or religious diversity but also reject the natural ethnic diversity among people and demand that all submit to their political thought, their religious practices and their ethnic culture. Such states label diversity as dissent and set about to impose conformity and uniformity according to their set of beliefs and anyone who resists them is labeled as a traitor and hounded or even done away with.

Pakistan is the worst example of the states that crush diversity in name of religion and the supposedly superior political thought and culture that their elite and establishment represents. The absolute rejection of all forms of diversity didn't come as an afterthought to the establishment it was their primary aim and motive behind the creation of this country.

Before I proceed I think the word "˜establishment' needs to be defined and it was well defined by the UN commission on Benazir Bhutto's assassination. In its report it had said, "The Establishment is generally used in Pakistan to refer to those who exercise de facto power; it includes the military high command and the intelligence agencies, together with the top leadership of certain political parties, high- level members of the bureaucracy and business persons that work in alliance with them. The military high command and intelligence agencies form the core of the Establishment and are its most permanent and influential components."

As Kalat declared its independence on August 11th 1947 and its independent status accepted by all the machinations to deprive Baloch of their independence began immediately and all sorts of stratagems were employed which included weaning away feudatory states of Kharan, Makran etc and sowing dissension among Baloch Sardars. This was limited to Balochistan but as countrywide measure to impose uniformity Jinnah declared that Urdu would be the national language. When Bengalis protested they were fired upon and that date 21st February is the International Mother Language Day, Bengalis were told to adopt Urdu as Bengali was language of Hindus. One wonders what made Urdu Islamic.

The "˜establishment' used Islam as the stick to beat the nationalities into submission; it made it abundantly clear that all will have to submit to their version of Islam and nationalism. Mir Ghous Bakhsh Bizenjo said in his Darul Umra speech of 14th December 1947, exposing the hollowness of the "˜establishment's' argument and is still a valid argument and a fine enunciation of Baloch demands and aspirations. It is worth mentioning that Kalat remained independent for 227 days.

He said, "We have a distinct civilization and a separate culture like that of Iran and Afghanistan. We are Muslims but it is not necessary that by virtue of being Muslims we should lose our freedom and merge with others. If the mere fact that we are Muslims requires us to join Pakistan, then Afghanistan and Iran, both Muslim countries, should also amalgamate with Pakistan. "We were never a part of India before the British rule. Pakistan's unpleasant and loathsome desire that our national homeland, Balochistan should merge with it is impossible to consider. We are ready to have friendship with that country on the basis of sovereign equality but by no means ready to merge with Pakistan. We can survive without Pakistan. But the question is, what would Pakistan be without us?

He said, "I do not propose to create hurdles for the newly created Pakistan in the matters of defense and external communication. But we want an honorable relationship, not a humiliating one. If Pakistan wants to treat us as a sovereign people, we are ready to extend the hand of friendship and cooperation. If Pakistan does not agree to do so, flying in the face of democratic principles, such an attitude will be totally unacceptable to us, and if we are forced to accept this fate then every Baloch son will sacrifice his life in defense of his national freedom."

Ladies and Gentlemen, Pakistan is not only a threat to lives and rights of Baloch and Sindhi people living within its boundaries it is a clear and present danger to peace, stability and security in the region, nay, to world peace. I think a quote from Clive Staples Lewis will define its role quite clearly, he says, ?"Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

The tragedy for the oppressed nationalities and the menace for the region is the Pakistani "˜establishment' which is not only a "˜robber baron' but is also an "˜omnipotent moral busybody'. It is this lethal combination that endangers not only them but also the world peace. There is rarely if ever a terrorist incident which isn't linked to Pakistan. Their "˜strategic assets' have now become a menace for peace and stability everywhere; they now have plans to enter Balochistan as charity to foment and foster hate and sectarianism of the worst kind and use Baloch soil as a launching pad against Afghanistan. The Baloch have suffered immeasurably from this twin-headed monster as did the Bengalis. Fortunately the Bengalis got the opportunity to go their way but Baloch continue to bear the brunt of repression and atrocities. They have been the target of five military operations and in the recent wave of systematic violence more than 350 abducted persons were killed and dumped; thousands more are missing and their fate may be no different.

Today, the Baloch youth are no longer concerned or bothered about giving a historical, political, cultural or economic justification for its independence from Pakistan. The Baloch consider this genocide as enough justification for its liberation from the artificial state of Pakistan.

Though Pakistan considers itself to be the torch-bearer and guardian of Islam, during the holy festival of Eid it practices it by dumping bullet-ridden corpses in Balochistan, with notes in the victims' pockets calling them an Eid gift for the Baloch people.

The Pakistan army's increasing presence all over Balochistan and its atrocities including repeated military operations is a sign of its weakness and fear of the Baloch becoming the masters of their homeland and their own destiny. In the words of Aung San Suu Kyi, It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.

The Baloch have reached a point of no return. The Baloch fully understand that they have no future in Pakistan. There is no other solution. We have come to this conclusion after 65 years of false promises, deception, atrocities and bloodshed. The fact is that in reality the Baloch have never even been a part of the artificial state of Pakistan as the very foundation of our relation with Pakistan was based on injustice. How can anyone even imagine the Baloch getting their rights or any sort of justice in Pakistan when this is the case?

The hostilities were initiated by the Pakistani state with forcible annexation of Kalat and Baloch have always in self-defense. Ironically it is the Baloch who are made out to be the aggressors though they are simply trying to regain their right to be part of comity of nations which they were denied under duress. The Baloch fully understand that they face overwhelming odds but they also believe that the forces of history and dialectics are in their favour and Pakistan is slowly unraveling by its own doings and that the world has come to realize that the threat to world peace and rights of Baloch and Sindhi people do not arise from rogue elements within the "˜establishment' but that the entire "˜establishment' and the state is the rogue. The Baloch have been struggling to defend themselves as they fully realize that if they tarry any longer they will be swamped by the colonists.

I think James Russel Lowell's poem puts it across correctly.

Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah,
Off'ring each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever
Twixt that darkness and that light.
Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet 'tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong:
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above his own.

JAMES RUSSEL LOWELL (1819-1891)

Balochistan would have long been swamped by the colonists from the Pakistani state who eye its resources and care not a whit for the people if the Baloch had not resisted the aggressor. I salute all those brave Baloch who have been resisting the domination by the occupying Pakistan army with their indomitable spirit. They have not sacrificed in vain and I see a prosperous, secular and democratic Balochistan emerging from their sacrifices and unceasing efforts.

As tribute to all those who have sacrificed, are sacrificing and will sacrifice in future I dedicate the poem "˜Invictus'.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley (1849-1903)

Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen.

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Presentation before the Oxford University Pakistan Society by Mehran Baluch

Mehran is Balochistan's unofficial representative at the United Nations Human Rights Council

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak. Oxford University is the intellectual capital of the world. Nothing, neither King nor Country, have been sacred cows here at this most prestigious university on earth.

What is the issue of Balochistan and what is the problem of Pakistan? These are the two questions I like to address today.

You guys might be aware a French team discovered the fossil remains of the largest mammal that ever walked on the face of earth in Dera Bugti in Balochistan. The mammal is called Baluchitherium. That mammal weighed 20,000 kilos was, six meters tall and had existed 30 million years ago.

Today, under Pakistan military excesses, the Baloch are engaged in a David-and-Goliath struggle for survival so that the story of Baluchitherium is not repeated.

Balochistan's grievance with Pakistan began on day one. That day one was not August 14, the birth date of Pakistan. Some of you know that Balochistan was granted independence on August 11, 1947, separately from Pakistan and India. Balochistan's day one with Pakistan was March 27, 1948.

Things that get etched in the collective memory of a people are hard to erase. March 27, 1948 is one such date for the Baloch people. I regret to note even open-minded Pakistani intellectuals, writers and authors are in a state of denial on this dark chapter of Balochistan's history.

The first uprising against the 1948 forcible merger was launched by Prince Aga Abdul Karim. There have been four uprisings since then that shows Baloch have not forgotten March 27 1948. "A rape committed 60 years back does not turn into marriage," according to former governor and chief minister of Balochistan, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti.

After such a painful merger one would have expected extreme care and caution in dealings with Balochistan, not the dumping of bodies. One would have expected at least the velvet glove, but what we faced and are still facing is the iron fist. The fact is the Pakistani rulers of Balochistan sitting at the military general headquarters in Rawalpindi have treated the Baloch much more brutally than England ever did. In nearly 110 years of indirect the British rulers did not kill as many Baloch as Pakistan as Pakistan has killed since March 1948.

Balochistan is in the grips of a tsunami of human rights violations by Pakistan. Balochistan has the highest number of enforced disappearances in the world today. Balochistan is where Pakistan has been conducting a ruthless secret dirty war, which the Amnesty International calls kill-and-dump policy.

Balochistan is where the highly respected civilian leaders like Nawab Akbar Bugti are called pygmies by a military coup leader of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, who could not even pronounce the word Baloch correctly.

Too much blood has flowed down the Bolan River since then, so to speak. A sea of blood of the best Baloch sons from Nawab Nauroz Khan and his seven sons, Lawang Khan, Safar Khan, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, Balach Marri, Ghulam Mohammed Baloch, Lala Munir and thousands of unknown soldiers now divides the Baloch people and the Pakistani rulers in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Entire families are being wiped out as I speak before you. There are scores of families in Balochistan who lost two or more male members to barbaric operations of the Frontier Corps, Military Intelligence, Inter-Services Intelligence and Pakistani death squads. The Langov brothers, the Dagarani brothers, the Karim brothers all paid a price simply for being Baloch. There are many cases where father and sons have all been target killed.

Many teenagers are among the victims.

Even women are not spared. My sister-in-law Zamur Dombki and her 11-yeard-old daughter Janan Domki were ruthlessly killed on the streets of Karachi by the Pakistan intelligence services to break the will of her brother Brahumdagh Bugti.

I must assure you we shall never forget.

Peaceful professors who hold books in hands are being targeted by Pakistani death squads. Professor Saba Dashtiyari widely respected and loved was killed on June 1 last year. He was known as the Noam Chomsky of Balochistan.

More than 400 writers, intellectuals, journalists, lawyers, doctors and students have been killed since July 2010 when the military changed gear and began targeting the towns and villages of Balochistan. Such brutality is unprecedented. The irony is when the Pakistan military was conducting a brutal operation to kill Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, 79, at the very same time top Pakistan generals were making arrangements for the safe stay of Osama bin Laden next door to the Pakistan Military Academy.

Musharraf was inaugurating supply of gas from Sui when he was told about Bugti's killing. He was infamously quoted on saying "Well done boys."

I am sure Pakistan generals will pay for their actions, eventually. I do not think they can hoodwink the international community. The life imprisonment to Shakeel Afridi, who helped trace bin Laden, will most certainly carry a price tag. The problem is Pakistan military generals still don't get it.

They don't get it that Balochistan means land of the Baloch. Pakistan is not willing to accept the very meaning and definition of the word Balochistan as the land of the Baloch.

In quite a few Middle and Near Eastern languages "stan" means land of. There are six countries that are named after their people. These countries are Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. Like Balochistan and Kurdistan, the two stateless countries, these countries have hundreds and even thousands of years of history. But what does Pakistan mean? It means the land of the pure in Urdu and Persian. And where did this word come from? It was coined by Chaudhry Rehmat Ali on January 28, 1933 about 85 miles northeast of here at 3 Humberstone Road in Cambridge. The letter "i" was added later for ease of pronunciation.

The name Pakistan was meant to portray Muslims as pure and the overwhelming majority, the non-Muslims of India, as impure. One of the greatest thinkers of the time, all India Congress president Maulana Abul Azad in an interview with Shorish Kashmiri forewarned, "We must remember that an entity conceived in hatred will last only as long as that hatred lasts." We Baloch highly respect Maulana Azad. I think every Pakistani should read his prophetic book India Wins Freedom.

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Transcript of presentation by Ali Dayan Hasan not yet available.

Ali Dayan Hasan is Pakistan director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) and has specialsed expertise in the country. Before joining Human Rights Watch, Hasan was a senior editor at Pakistan's premier, political news monthly magazine, Herald. During 2006 and 2007, Hasan was also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Leverhulme Changing Character of War Programme at the University of Oxford. He has a B.A. from the London School of Economics and a master's degree from St. Antony's College, Oxford.