Third Balochi Resistance: The 1970s

 

The nationalist Balochis took to rudimentary politics during Ayubs practice of Basic Democracy in Pakistan. They struck a chord of unity with the Pakhtuns in NWFP and formed a National Awami Party (NAP) upon the dissolution of the One Unit scheme in 1970. In the elections of 1971, while Bhuttos PPP swept the polls in West Pakistan, the NAP won in Balochistan and NWFP. The attacks on Punjabi settlers in Quetta and Mastung in early 1973, the perceived defiance of the Ataullah Mengal-led government in Balochistan and the discovery of a large consignment of weapons in the Iraqi embassy were woven together to be served as conclusive evidence of the Balochis militant intentions and General Tikka Khan was sent to Balochistan to lead the second military attack on Baloch nationalists. Pakistan, smarting under the shock of vivisection in 1971, certainly over-reacted to the Balochi nationalist assertion. The immediate provocation for the Baloch resistance was Bhuttos dismissal of the Baloch provincial government in February 1973 in which Ghaus Bux Bizenjo was Governor and Attaullah Mengal Chief Minister. Bhutto alleged that the government had repeatedly exceeded its constitutional authority and alleged that this had been done in collusion with Iraq and the Soviet Union as part of a plot to dismember both Pakistan and Iran. The dismissal was timed with the disclosure of a cache of 300 Soviet sub-machine guns and 48,000 rounds of ammunition allegedly consigned to Baloch leaders that were found in the house of the Iraqi Defence Attaché in Islamabad. It was, however, subsequently revealed that the arms had actually been found in Karachi and were meant for Iranian Baloch in retaliation against Irans support to Iraqi Kurds and that the Iraqi Defence Attaché had collaborated with Iranian and Pakistani intelligence agents in staging the arms exposure to put pressure on the Iranians.

Following the dismissal of their government, Baloch guerrillas began to ambush army convoys from April 1973. Bhutto retaliated by sending in the army to Balochistan and by putting three veteran nationalist leaders of Balochistan Ghous Bux Bizenjo, Ataullah Khan Mengal and Khair Bux Marri, behind the bars. The armed struggle continued over the next four years with varying degrees of severity. At the height of the war there were over 80,000 Pakistani troops in the province. The fighting was more wide-spread than it had been in 1950s and 1960s. The guerrillas succeeded by July 1974 to cut off most of the main roads linking Balochistan with surrounding provinces and to periodically disrupt the Sibi-Harnai rail link thereby blocking coal shipments from the Baloch areas to the Punjab. Additionally, attacks on drilling and survey operations stymied oil exploration activities.

The then Shah of Iran, apprehending trouble in Iranian Balochistan, supported the Pakistan forces in decimating the Baloch resistance. The Shah sent in 30 US Cobra Helicopters manned by Iranian pilots who pounded the Baloch pockets of resistance. The turning point came during the 6-day battle at Chamalang in the Marri area in September 1974. In line with the Pakistan armys scorched earth policy, an army ground and air offensive in the winter of 1974 on the Baloch tribes, largely Marris, along with their families, who had gathered in an annual pilgrimage to the Chamalang plains to graze their flocks, inflicted heavy human and livestock casualties. While casualties on both sides were heavy, the Baloch were unable to regain the military initiative in the ensuing years.

Most of the Balochi leaders left Pakistan and went into exile in Afghanistan, the UK and other places outside Pakistan. Several Baloch groups migrated to Afghanistan where they were permitted to set up camps by Mohd Daud. Even if Bhutto claimed to have wiped out Baloch resistance, he played a big role in the transformation of dispersed Pararis into the Balochistan Peoples Liberation Front (BPLF) in 1976, led by Mir Hazar Khan Marri, who broke away from Baloch Students Organisation (BSO) led by Sher Muhammad Marri.

The anti-Bhutto sentiments of the Baloch nationalists were well manipulated by Zia ul Haq after he seized power in 1977 and his show of clemency was received well by many Baloch leaders including the Baloch triumvirate: Ghaus Bux Bizenzo, Ataullah Mengal and Akbar Khan Bugti. However, a rebel faction of the Marris continued defying the Pakistani administration. And, as a proof of the irreconcilability of Balochi nationalism with the Pakistani state-nationalism, the most aggressive and fiercely independent of all Baloch factions, the Baloch Students Union (BSO), reorganised and reasserted itself in the early 1990s.

Reference Book:

Selig S. Harrison in his book cited below analyses the insurgencies between 197 and 1977 ina splendid manner. His book is:

In Afghanistans Shadow Baluchistan: Baluch Nationalism and Soviet

Temptations, 1981, New York / Washington: Carnegie Endowment

for International Peace.