Pakistan's Secret War

 

People disappear every day, corpses lie on the streets: Far removed from the world public, Pakistan is waging a bloody war against independence fighters in Balochistan. It's about nationalism, raw materials, big money. Now a German foundation is caught between the fronts.

Faisal Mengal's killers came by motorcycle. Two men, one masked. They fired inside the car, aiming at Mengal, not his driver. Mengal was injured, he jumped out of the car and tried to flee. The gunmen chased him, shooting until he fell and was fatally wounded. Eleven bullets hit him.

Faisal Mengal, 36, died on December 10 in the Pakistani metropolis of Karachi. He was an employee of the CSU-affiliated Hanns Seidel Foundation, which - like almost all other German political foundations - oversees projects in Pakistan . For years he had dealt with the situation in the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, his homeland, he was an activist and journalist. He had worked for various organizations, for the US consulate in Karachi and since September for the foundation.

People around him suspect that Mengal became a victim of the "establishment," as the powerful military and secret services are called in Pakistan: another casualty in Pakistan's secret war against everyone who demands more freedom for Balochistan. "The perpetrators will therefore never be found," says someone who knew Mengal well. The investigators' interim report says something about an "act in the family area". "He received death threats because he campaigned for the interests of Balochistan."

A bloody battle has been raging in the middle of Pakistan for almost twelve years: the Baluchi are demanding more rights and a share in the wealth of raw materials that the province has to offer. But because the Pakistani state refuses to do so, some nationalists are calling for an independent Balochistan - which provokes harsh blows from the military.

It's not just the world public who hardly hears anything about it, even the Pakistani population outside of Balochistan knows little about what's going on in the province, which makes up 43 percent of the

country's area but is home to only five percent of the Pakistani population. Newspapers hid their reports on the region in the back pages.

According to conservative estimates, more than 6,000 people are currently missing in Balochistan. Every day three or four more disappear. "Most of them turn up after a few years - dead," says Mohammed Hussain Baloch, a human rights activist from Balochistan.

"An independent state should be prevented at all costs"

Every day new bodies lie in the gray dust of the streets. Some are only discovered after several days: limbs broken, bodies beaten, massacred, shot to death - and always with a bullet in the head. More than 5,000 bodies have been found in Balochistan in the past decade. "It's a drama of unimaginable proportions," says Baloch.

No case has ever been solved and a culprit identified. Because, as in the case of Faisal Mengal, the perpetrators are suspected to be in the ranks of the army, the secret service and the soldiers of the frontier corps, the border guard. "In the beginning, only separatists and Baloch nationalists disappeared," says a politician in Balochistan's capital, Quetta. "But more and more people were kidnapped who, although not politically active, nevertheless made up the province's elite: doctors, lawyers, artists. Obviously, the goal was to bleed Balochistan intellectually dry."

Today, people from all walks of life are disappearing: academics, hairdressers, shopkeepers, taxi drivers. At the end of January, the wife, daughter and driver of a provincial parliamentarian were killed. The murdered wife was the sister of Brahmadagh Bugti, a resistance fighter living in exile in Switzerland.

"They want to intimidate us Baloch people," says the politician, who himself is missing two brothers. "No one should demand more rights for the province, let alone independence. An independent Balochistan state should be prevented at all costs."

"Anyone who is only suspected of having contact with separatists has to fear for their life," says an activist who asked not to be named out of fear for his life. He has turned up at a nondescript tea house in Islamabad. Before the conversation, he asks to take the battery out of the mobile phone. "Pakistan is repeating the mistake it made with the Bengalis, namely to oppress them and kill the intellectuals. It didn't help, on the contrary, it strengthened the independence movement. In the end, the state of Bangladesh emerged in 1971. " The army is suffering from this "Bengali trauma" . Armed force should be used to prevent the loss of another part of the country.

struggle for raw materials

It's an unequal struggle, a powerful state versus sparsely equipped freedom fighters. In 2006, after hours of shelling at positions in the mountains, the military killed Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, Brahmadagh Bugti's grandfather. Since then, the violence has increased dramatically. Pakistan's chief judge recently accused the military and the secret service: "They set Balochistan on fire!"

But the insurgents are also reacting more and more brutally: they used to blow up gas lines to interrupt supplies to other provinces. Now they are also kidnapping and killing aid workers, diplomats and journalists. In addition, more and more immigrants from other Pakistani provinces are the target of attacks - civil servants, workers, teachers - allegedly because they are "occupiers". Some of the fourth generation live in Balochistan.

"The perpetrators are racist separatists who are endangering national unity," says a high-ranking army officer in the provincial capital, Quetta. The military believe arch-enemy India is expanding its influence in the region in revenge for Pakistan's support of the Kashmir freedom struggle . Many Baloch leaders live in exile in Afghanistan, where India finances the freedom fighters and even trains them in training camps. The army has not yet presented any evidence for this claim, US secret services consider it plausible, as can be seen from the embassy cables published by WikiLeaks .

Nonetheless, the establishment is pushing its suspicions of "Indian interference" to the extreme. Even before Faisal Mengal was murdered, Martin Axmann, director of the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Pakistan, was accused of being an "Indian spy". "In a television interview, he wore a shirt that only exists in northern India," says a Pakistani intelligence officer.

Axmann, who wrote his doctoral thesis on Baloch nationalism, received death threats last year that he didn't take seriously. Mengal was only five minutes from the hotel where he was due to meet Axmann. Together they wanted to start a new educational project in Balochistan. After Mengal's murder, Axmann fled to safety - he left the country.

From the point of view of the military, the history of the resistance struggle of an oppressed people is "nothing but a conspiracy theory that foreign powers have brought into the world," says the officer. "It's about robbing Pakistan of its riches."

Many locals consider independence to be unrealistic

The secret war in Balochistan is in fact also a war for raw materials and energy. About a third of the gas consumed in Pakistan comes from this province. Commodity corporations from all over the world send teams to explore for oil, iron ore, copper, coal, even gold and platinum deposits.

" Big money" is involved, says one of the Baloch student organization (BSO) in Quetta. He also does not want his name published, no other organization has to mourn as many deaths as the BSO. "We have to fight to get some of the raw materials. We are the province with the most raw materials, but the poorest people in Pakistan," he says angrily. "Is it any wonder that there are people who are demanding independence?" Every third Baluche is unemployed, only a quarter of the population can read and write. "And almost nobody has a gas connection at home. Can you imagine that?"

However, many locals consider an independent Balochistan to be absurd. "We are a society with different tribes spread across Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran ," says the BSO activist. "Independence is unrealistic. We just want more justice for Baluchis inside Pakistan."

From this speaks the insight that the battle cannot be won. After all, according to the Baloch, it is the "fifth war of independence" since Pakistan's founding of the state in 1947. Many Baloch are therefore turning to radical Islam, and religious extremism is a growing problem. Several wanted top terrorists are suspected in the north of the province. After the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban leadership met in the "Quetta Shura" in Quetta. "The mullahs are gaining a lot of support," says the student. "Accordingly, the anti-Western attitude of the people in Balochistan is growing." The United States has already had to evacuate a base from which drones took off .

It was US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher who drew worldwide attention to the crisis region: the Republican passed a resolution for the American Congress to grant the Baluchi the right to self-determination. The actually trivial paper triggered a wave of indignation in Pakistan: the government rejects "interference in internal affairs". The US wanted to "Balkanize" Pakistan, writes the Pakistani press.

The US State Department finally felt compelled to comment. "We are very concerned about the thousands of people who have disappeared in Balochistan," says a paper. "But it is not American policy to support independence for Balochistan."