By PLS
Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti was blown up in a cave in the arid hills of Baluchistan, from which the veteran politician and ex-chief minister of the state was leading a rebellion against the energy policies of the central Pakistan government in Islamabad. At first it was thought that two of his grandsons had died with him (he was 79), but evidently not. This is not a good sign for the army or for Pakistan’s president Musharraf. The young Bugtis (or other members of a huge and politically important clan) will have to avenge their grandfather’s death. Honor has baseline importance in tribal society.
Pakistan, it seems, has opened war on a third front. There’s the eternal sometimes-cold-sometimes-hot war with India, including the proxy campaign via infiltrated insurgents in Kashmir and, more recently, the (I strongly suspect) terrorist-style bombings in Indian cities. There’s the desultory war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the mountainous areas bordering Afghanistan, sustained mainly to please the US, thus ensuring the flow of US aid to Pakistan, which (are you ready to laugh?) enables Pakistan to keep up the pressure on America’s brand new ally India. (Does George 43 ever project the tragic/ludicrous inter-connections and consequences of his pointy-headed pointillistic policies before he launches them?) Finally, there are the army operations in Baluchistan, which are likely to be less half-hearted than those in the Pashtu areas, since big natural gas money is at stake for Islamabad.
It’s a good thing that Pakistan’s southern border is the Arabian Sea. I can’t see war with the Maldives in the near future.
However, Baluchistan borders on Iran,
Before driving the Bugtis (and the other proud, gun-happy and honor-driven Baluch tribes) into open rebellion over who gets what percentage of the proceeds from the natural gas resources of the vast, underdeveloped province of Baluchistan, General Musharraf and the Pakistani army might have noted these unhidden facts:
(1) The Indonesian province of Aceh has been fairly peaceful since the Indonesian government agreed to some autonomy for the rebellious region (important) and also to a more equitable sharing of the income generated from Aceh’s mineral resources (very very important).
(2) The Niger Delta, however, is still a very dangerous place for foreign and Nigerian oil workers. The hugely corrupt Nigerian government, in cahoots with foreign oil companies, has paid only the most hypocritical lip service to environmental protection and poverty alleviation, while actually gunking up the place and cowing all protest by those whose land is being exploited. Is it any wonder that the locals kidnap oil rig workers and sabotage oil pipe lines?
Meanwhile, back in Baluchistan, there are other grievances. The government of Pakistan is building a modern new port at Gwadar on the Baluch coast not far from the Iranian border. Baluchis complain that cheap, non-Baluch labor has been imported for the job, and Baluchistan itself is not likely to profit from an increase in imports or exports anytime in the near future.
If, as some Pakistanis think, India is meddling in Baluchistan, Islamabad could probably solve the problem by calling the infiltrators out of Indian Kashmir and seeing that the train-bombing in Mumbai is the last bloody caper Pakistan supports or (however circumspectly) applauds.
If some Baluchis mutter about independence from time to time, and they do, most would be placated by a more equitable economic deal and adequate gestures of respect. But there’s a tertiam quid which Pakistan (and the US) must surely have considered. Iran might see opportunity in a restive Baluchistan, and the angry Baluch might welcome the support. Not that kowtowing to Tehran would be more palatable than kowtowing to Islamabad, especially for the Sunni majority, but Baluch origins lie in the West, on the Iranian plateau, not on the Indus-watered agricultural lowlands of Punjab and Sind.
Syed Saleem Shahzad of Asia Times On Line agrees that Bugti’s death is one that “Pakistan can ill afford.” He speculates that the riot-inciting deed was carried out contrary to Musharraf’s wiser orders merely to capture the renegade, a prelude perhaps to a more serious challenge to the current president's authority. Shahzad also thinks the US would be happier with a more pliable Pakistani head of state. That may be so. But I can’t imagine a more amenable coup-maker coming from the increasingly de-westernized officer corps, who would probably still call the shots should government return to civilian hands.