01/10/2013

The forgotten conflict of Balochistan: Escalation of violence claims more and more victims

Pakistan: Eleven dead and more than 50 injured in bomb attack

After at least eleven people were killed by an exploding car bomb in Pakistan's troubled province of Baluchistan today, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) demands more efforts towards a political solution to the Balochistan conflict. "Pakistan should stop relying on military and paramilitary forces, on the police and on the secret agency," said STP's expert on questions regarding Asia, Ulrich Delius, in Göttingen on Thursday. "There must finally be negotiations with the Baloch people who are fighting for greater autonomy. More repression only helps to stir up the violence. At least 6,000 people have fallen victim to clashes during the past decade."

The STP accuses Pakistan's government of playing down the seriousness of the violence in Balochistan. An the beginning of January 2013 for example, the Pakistani Interior Ministry announced that only 370 of the 2186 people who got killed in riots during the past five years belonged to the Baloch population, whereas the Hazara counted 338 deaths and the Shiite minority 720 victims. At the same time, about 720 members of the police forces, the army or other security forces got killed. More than 3,230 bombs attacks were registered in the same time.

"But what the Ministry does not point out in these controversial statistics is the fact that more than 5,000 Baloch have been abducted by security forces since," criticized Delius. "Their fate must be revealed urgently if a peaceful solution of the Balochistan conflict is to be achieved. There will be no trust between the Baloch and the Pakistani government if there is no punishment for those who are responsible." The whereabouts of most of the deported people is still unknown. Observers assume that most of the missing persons were tortured or executed.

The approximately 15 million Muslim Baluchis have been demanding more autonomy for decades. Their settlements stretch across more than 40 percent of Pakistan's surface area and are known to be rich in natural resources such as oil, gold, copper, platinum, iron ore and coal.