If I compromise on Baloch movement, my followers will kill, replace and forget me, says Bramdagh Bugti

By Malik Siraj Akbar

About the writer – Malik Siraj Akbar is a journalist based in Quetta Pakistan. He is working as the Balochistan Bureau Chief of Pakistan’s leading English language newspaper, Daily Times. He can be reached at stunningmalik@gmail.com  More about him click here

Courtesy: GMCMissing

A confident Baloch guerrilla commander Nawabzada Bramdagh Bugti, 28, believes it is now “impossible” for Islamabad to get him extradited even if he is hiding somewhere in Afghanistan, as claimed by Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik, or elsewhere in the wake of increasing “international moral support” the “ Baloch national liberation movement” is attracting because of its “legitimacy”.

Balochistan- Separate Ways

Separate Ways

The separatist movement in Balochistan dates back to the beginning of Pakistan itself.

By Yasir Babbar, Islamabad

Courtesy: Newsline

The separatist movement in Balochistan has gained momentum, and relations between the province and the centre are at an all-time low. Just two months back, three Baloch nationalist leaders, Ghulam Muhammad Baloch, president of the Baloch National Movement (BNM), Lala Munir Baloch, member of the BNM’s central committee, and Sher Muhammad Baloch, joint secretary of the Balochistan Republican Party (BRP), were killed. Their killings prompted another bout of violence in Balochistan and have further strengthened support for separatists. The Baloch believe that state agencies are responsible for the killings, while the government has claimed that non-state elements who want to destabilise the country are responsible. There are also reports that separatists are threatening schools and colleges that hoist the Pakistani flag and sing the national anthem.

Opinion- Let’s not forget that Sindhis are friends of Balouchs

Balouch Mindset..
by Zulfiqar Halepoto, Hyderabad, Sindh
The writer can be reached at zhalepoto@yahoo.com
.. I would like to draw an attention to some facts, which are important to understand at the time when we claim that both Sindhi and Balouchs are coming closer to each other but the mindset of Balouch intellectuals are still hostile towards Sindhis… In post Benazir Bhutto Pakistan, the political complications to run the state as a viable polity, are increasing day by day. The internal contradictions of the state are reached at a point where no adhoc remedy or daily wages approach to run the affairs, are further widening the contradictions.
In this situation any kind of rift between any suppressed nation and especially between Sindhis and Balouchs will harm the cause of the right of political and fiscal sovereignty of the oppressed nations within Pakistani territories… and Sindhi politician, nationalist, writer, intellectual and pressman always support the cause of Balouch. The Quetta based Sindhi media friends of Kawish, KTN, daily Ibrat, Sindh TV and other media houses used to support the just cause of downtrodden people of Balochistan. Many of us know that during Musharraf’s naked fascist regime there were curbs on media and ISPR used to directly monitor media coverage especially during Akbar Bugti Shaheed’s fight with the establishment. Lot of pressure came on the shoulders of those brave Sindhi journalists who were working in Balochistan at that time. But they refused to carry out the dictation of agencies. They were on good terms with Shaheed Bugti, Mir Balach and others.

Balochistan breaking point?

By: Yasir Babbar, Islamabad
Please note: Yasir Babbar is an Islamabad-based journalist working at The Frontier Post and the Pakistan Press International.
Courtesy: Himal Mag
After national elections in February 2008, optimism in Pakistan was brimming over. Perhaps nowhere did the elections have a more immediate impact than in Balochistan, the province that has been attempting to break away from Islamabad’s control for decades. The first positive signs from the national capital came after Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman (and now President) Asif Ali Zardari formally apologised to the people of Balochistan for the excesses committed against them in the past. He also announced that the new PPP-led government would call an all-parties conference to address the province’s long-entrenched problems, while also promising to form a truth commission to investigate the abuses. Such pledges, rarely if ever heard before, created a sudden blossoming of hope in the province. The three leading armed militant groups – the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the Baloch Republican Army (BRA) and the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) – even announced a joint unilateral ceasefire.