BALOCHISTAN - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

after 2014, conferring additional latitude to the groups whose reemergence the
U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was supposed to prevent.
The Balochistan issue cannot be resolved, or at least mitigated, by addressing
the socioeconomic grievances of its people—that time is long gone. Those
grievances remain, but the political forces willing to negotiate them within
the framework of the Pakistani federation have been marginalized and forced
to harden their positions. The Pakistani security establishment seems to have
decided to eliminate the very idea of Baloch nationalism, even in its most
innocuous forms. Moreover, the Baloch leaders who have neither been bought
off by the Pakistani security establishment nor joined the militancy are rejected
by both sides. This does not augur well for finding common ground and forging
a political agreement that would end the hostilities.
Though the population of Balochistan has lost whatever confidence
remained in Islamabad, only a minority (although a sizable one) seems to favor
independence. This is an indication that the political space for negotiations,
however small it may be, still exists—but it does not guarantee that negotiations
will ever start.
That a majority of the population supports Balochistan’s future within the
Pakistani federation also indicates, at a deeper level, that Pakistan’s unity is less
factitious than commonly thought. This and the failure of the security forces
to end the Balochistan conflict by the sword should suggest to Islamabad that
Pakistan’s diversity will have to be managed politically, not repressed or suppressed
by military means. The choice is ultimately between some form of
popular participation or complete fragmentation. If a solution is to be found,
it will have to be political.
In Balochistan, the military wanted to eliminate the traditional and local
structures to reinforce state power. It has unquestionably managed to destroy
traditional social structures, but in the process, it has further weakened the
Pakistani state and advanced the hardliners’ position. In many ways, then,
Balochistan is thus reflective of the fate of Pakistan as a whole.
Frederic Grare | 23