Pakistan Today – Sindhi separatists announce comeback

BY AAMIR MAJEED

Excerpts;

KARACHI – Taking strength from the Baloch freedom movement, the Sindhi separatists have also started their own struggle for the eventual separation of Sindh province from Pakistan, starting off by planting several bombs along the railway tracks in the province.

Railway tracks at around 14 different locations across Sindh were damaged in a series of bomb blasts in the wee hours of Saturday by presumably politically motivated miscreants.

When a team of Pakistan Railways engineering department arrived at the Bin Qasim Railway Station to repair the tracks damaged by two minor blasts, they found a pamphlet from the site.

The paper printed on both sides, carried the name of “Sindhu Desh Liberation Army (SDLA)” at the top. The pamphlet was later forwarded to the Pakistan Railways Karachi Division SSP Muzzaffar Sheikh.

Talking with Pakistan Today, Sheikh said the pamphlet was issued by SDLA Chief Commander Darya Khan Marri. …..

….. “Marri claims that the Centre was exploiting the natural resources of Sindh against a very low royalty to facilitate Punjab,” the SSP said, adding that the government’s pro-Punjab policies have also been criticised.

“Terming the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) as ‘opportunists’, the SDLA blamed the party for using the Sindh card for attaining power, trying to impress upon the nationalists that Sindh is the country’s most poor province,” Sheikh said. “In the pamphlet, the SDLA has requested the Sindhis to stand up against the government, Pakistan Army and Inter-Services Intelligence.”…..

Read more » Pakistan Today

Is Rohrabacher wrong on Balochistan? By Pervez Hoodbhoy

Excerpts;

…. Dana Rohrabacher’s resolution in the US Congress states that the Baloch people “have the right to self-determination and to their own sovereign country”. Expectedly, this unleashed a torrent of anger in Pakistan’s government and media which overwhelmingly saw this as a conspiracy to break up the country. Pakistan-US relations have descended another notch; attempts by the US State Department, as well as the currently visiting group of Congressmen, to distance themselves from the resolution have not worked. …

…. The official Pakistani response to Rohrabacher is still more flawed. Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar termed the tabling of his bill “a violation of UN charter” and of Pakistan’s sovereignty. But this line of defence could forfeit Pakistan’s moral right to criticise other states, Syria and India included.

Consider the fact that on February 17 Pakistan voted for an Arab League-sponsored resolution in the UN General Assembly which calls upon Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad to step down. This surely constitutes interference in the internal matter of a sovereign country. But Pakistan did well. In a civilised world national sovereignty must come second, and human rights first.

Pakistan has also long criticised India — and justly so — for its human rights abuses. But more people are dying in Balochistan today than in Kashmir. For all their brutality against stone-throwing Kashmiri boys, the Indians have not yet used helicopter gunships and fighter jets against Kashmiris. Pakistan, on the other hand, uses airpower as a matter of course in Balochistan and Fata. ….

To read complete article » The Express Tribune

Bloody Fridays and Sundays – Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur

Excerpts;

Demographic changes sustained ‘with a dagger at their throat’ since 1542 brought about the partition of Ireland. The Pakistani state envisages the same solution for Balochistan by holding the Baloch nation hostage with ‘a dagger at their throat’. However, the Baloch have not acquiesced and continue to resist at a great price of Baloch blood

“Should a robber break into my house, and, with a dagger at my throat, make me seal deeds to convey my estate to him, would this give him any title? Just such a title by his sword has an unjust conqueror who forces me into submission. The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by the wearer of a crown or some petty villain” — John Locke.

The Baloch fears of the lethal impact of demographic changes being overtly and covertly engineered by the state are certainly not unfounded. There has been a consistent effort on part of Pakistan to undo the Baloch majority to undermine the support for those resisting Pakistan’s attempts to exploit Balochistan’s natural resources and its large land mass. The so-called development programmes like the Gwadar port or infrastructures like the Mirani Dam, highways, etc, are just a fig leaf for engineering demographic changes that are now supplemented by slow track genocide; the cantonments and naval bases being the ‘sword to force them into submission’.

Read more » Daily Times

The ‘anti-state’ Sarmachars of Balochistan – Marvi Sirmed

Excerpt;

After US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher’s sudden attention to Balochistan, the Pakistani media went bonkers to protect the proverbial ‘sovereignty’ of our country — a cause championed by the security establishment and most of its mouthpieces in the media as well as political circles and civil society. Emerging from the fathoms of near oblivion to almost a dozen Op-Eds in the mainstream press daily, Balochistan is now the darling of the prime time TV cupola as well.

If the anchors and columnists want to sound more profound, and if they run out of words to express the imperiousness of the US Congress for interfering in Pakistan’s internal matters, they would endlessly repeat almost clichéd references to 1971 with emphasis on giving ‘due importance to the Baloch problem’. The umpteen ‘political analysts’ and ‘Balochistan experts’ religiously recount the current government’s failure to address the issue despite the latter’s trumpeted mantra of ‘democracy, the greatest revenge’. Such talk would be garnished with admonishing the ‘irresponsibility’ of the Baloch nationalists in attacking innocent citizens of ethnicities other than the Baloch.

What goes completely missing from this narrative is the origins of the conflict, the response of the state to the centrifugal nature of Baloch nationalism and the ever deteriorating civil-military relations in Balochistan, which now seem to have reached the point of no return. The way Balochistan was made to accede to Pakistan goes missing from the textbooks alongside any reference to the military operations carried out in 1948, 1958-59, 1962-68, 1973-77 and the current surge starting from 2002 to date. The result is a general apathy towards Balochistan in the rest of the country with almost no understanding of the surges in historically seeded ethno-nationalism in Balochistan, described as ‘Baloch insurgencies’ in the mainstream media. The same media gives prime space to opinion makers who describe Taliban insurgents as ‘freedom fighters’. No wonder one finds so many people in upper Punjab and Islamabad who take Baloch nationalists as ‘traitors’, while the Taliban militants as flag bearers of Muslim nationalism. ….

Read more » Daily Times

Mehmood Khan Achakzai

“Yesterday freedom voice raised from Balochs, today from Sindh, but fear of the day, when Pashtoon said that, no more Pakistan and it will make a history, therefore, I (Mehmood Khan Achakzai) again warns these forces [security establishment of the deep state] that, do not play with Pashtoon nation.” – Pashtoon Leader MAHMOOD KHAN ACHAKZAI.

The language of the interview is urdu (Hindi).

Courtesy: Geo Tv News (Jirga – Mehmood Khan Achakzai’s Exclusive interview with Saleem Saafi – Part 1)

Via – facebook

PTI will end corruption in 19 days, terrorism in 90 days: Imran Khan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), once in power, will end corruption in 19 days and terrorism in 90 days, said PTI Chairman Imran Khan on Sunday.

Speaking at a seminar organised by PTI in Islamabad, Imran said that his party would not be dependent on the bureaucracy nor would it “waste time listening to their suggestions.”

Referring to the many crises faced by Pakistan, Imran said it was not necessary that a political leadership could not achieve what former president Pervez Musharraf had failed to accomplish, in terms of resolving the crises.

“PTI will come to power along with policies to address all problems.”

Courtesy: The Express Tribune

BBC urdu – How the deep state operates & silences all

To know how the security agencies of the deep state operates in Pakistan and silences all. Please read the sad and frightening story [the will] of the reporting journalist on a missing persons of Sindh and the atrocities of Holy ISI, written by Hasan Mujtaba “Mama Don’t Cry If I Die” at BBC urdu website.

Read more » BBC urdu – How the deep state operates & silences all

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/2012/02/120226_missing_reporter_tf.shtml

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To read the above story in Punjabi → WICHAAR.COM

Set a thief to catch a thief?

Imran Khan talks about ending corruption in 90 days but illegal electricity is used in his jalsa. Electricity theft during the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) jalso in Umerkot, Sindh through illegal ‘kundas’. Imran Khan and Shah Mehmood Qureshi keep talking about eradicating corruption and theft from society and government but were using theft electricity during the meeting. The language of the news is urdu (Hindi).

Courtesy: SAMAA Tv » YouTube

Nothing to lose in Balochistan – but Balochistan

By Saroop Ijaz

Suppose one were to break a rule of a lifetime and take Rehman Malik seriously when he announced his intention of granting amnesty to Baloch nationalist leaders and went so far as saying that he will personally receive them on arrival. It is hard to miss the condescension and arrogance of the statement since it evidently fails to recognise the very basics of the conflict and treat this as a petty quarrel which can be muffled with assurances to a few individuals and attempts to rectify it with what comes across as some cheap pillow talk. More significantly, there is a clear implication in the statement which I am not sure Mr Malik completely grasps. To guarantee the end of violence and hostilities in future, has embedded in it the assumption that the guarantor would perhaps have a semblance of control over them. So, Rehman Malik has with one statement, used as a desperate measure, has attempted to take the blood and the guilt of decades of murder upon his hands. Hence, Rehman Malik cannot be taken seriously in this case, even if one does not mention Nauroz Khan Zehri.

‘Security establishment’ is becoming too hazy a term to ascribe direct culpability. It has become an oblique way of saying that the Pakistan armed forces and their subordinate agencies are using intense, non-stop and lethal violence upon the Baloch. Remaining on imprecise terms, ‘missing person’ is a case in point. It is a seemingly innocuous term summoning to mind the image of somebody absent from dinner or someone forgetting to pick someone up. Quite to the contrary, somebody did pick them up with the intention of torture and probably murder; it is abduction or kidnapping at the very least.

The apology and the assurance will have to come from the Army Chief, the DG ISI and the IG FC. And for it to mean anything, those kidnapped have to return ……

Read more » The Express Tribune

Introduction of Black Law for Internet Censorship by Alleged Democratic Government of PPP

The filtering and blocking system will function as a firewall for the entire country and will have the potential to block the access of any specific URL throughout the country.

In yet another move that appears to be aimed towards internet censorship in Pakistan, a government department has called for proposals for the development, deployment and operation of a national level URL Filtering and Blocking System.

The ad had been placed in local papers by National ICT R&D Fund, a division of the Ministry of Information Technology, on February 22, 2012. The proposal request states that each box of the system “should be able to handle a block list of up to 50 million URLs with a processing delay of not more than 1 millisecond.”

The filtering and blocking system will function as a firewall for the entire country and will have the potential to block the access of any specific URL throughout the country.

According to the Request for Proposal available on the ICT R&D Fund website, the system should be capable of filtering and blocking URLs from the domain level to sub-folder, file levels and also specific file types. Additionally, the system should have the ability to block a single IP or a range of IPs.

The proposal states that the solution should be able to handle 85Gbps of bandwidth and should have growth scalability of around 40% to 50% every year. ….

Read more » The Express Tribune