December 23, 2005

Since Saturday 17th of December 2005 the Pakistan Army has launched a massive military operation against Baloch people in Marri and Bugti areas of Balochistan. The Pakistani Army using helicopter gun ships and air strikes to bomb civilian areas, at a time the same Army has been complaining to the UN and the international community about the shortage of helicopters for quake relief in the Pakistani control Kashmir and the NWFP (North West Frontier Province).

According to the news media reports, more than 100 people have died and 200 have been injured, majority of them women and children. The operation is still going on. Besides these innocent Baloch killings, the Pakistani secret agencies have also either kidnapped or detained hundreds of Baloch people.

The current army operation is triggered by firing of rockets by unidentified elements at a public meeting addressed by President Pervez Musharraf at Kohlu during his visit to Balochistan last week. Musharraf exploiting this incident and taking revenge on the oppressed Baloch people the same way as did Saddam Hussein in the village of Dujail in Iraq in 1982.

The International Community did not stop Saddam Hussein there and then for the killing of 148 Shiats, but after 23 years the world realizes the crime that Saddam committed by taking revenge on its own people and now we are witnessing his internationally TV broad cast trail.

While another dictator is facing trial for similar crimes that he committed decades ago, now it is the World Community's responsibility in order to save its resources for future action on other important humanitarian issues, and to improve its international credible image of supporting democracy and human rights all over the world, to take proper reaction now to stop Musharraf’s military atrocities on Baloch people’s mass killings before it is too late.

Balochistan is rich in natural resources such as various minerals including gold, oil and gas, but the exploitation of Balochistan resources is an ongoing course by the Pakistani military establishment to pursue their chauvinistic policies and not for the benefit of local Baloch people, hence Balochistan is one of the most back warded kept area in the region.
The examples of chauvinistic policies fulfillment and resources exploitations is a long list but take the construction of the Gwadar international sea port by the Army establishment with the assistance of the Chinese authorities.

This mega project is being constructed without the involvement of the Baloch people in the decision-making process, the deliberate award of all its major contracts to none Baloch contractors, re-settlement of a large number of ex-servicemen from Punjab and other parts of Pakistan in Gwadar and the surrounding areas on the Mekkuran coast through providing financial assistance and the best land to change the demographic ratio of Balochistan in order to make Baloch a minority in their own ancestral land.

Balochistan People’s Party believes that the killing, extrajudicial detention, torture and kidnapping of Baloch people in Pakistan, are grave human rights violations and ask the world community to pressure Mr. Pervez Musharraf and his military regime to stop the current army operation against the people of Balochistan.

Nasser Boladai
Spokesperson for Balochistan People's Party
P.O.Box 13022
103 01 Stockholm Sweden
[email protected]
www.ostomaan .org
Tel. + 46 739343724
Fax: +46 8 43 75 97 37