June 18, 2010


Noordin Mengal


FA Baloch representative to United Nations and grandson of Sardar Attaullah Mengal and Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, Noordin Mengal spoke to the press in Geneva, Switzerland alongside Baloch representative to the United Nations Mehran Baloch.

Balochistan which was once a unified and independent country is today divided between three countries, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The oppressed people of Pakistani occupied Balochistan have been victims of five intense military operations by the Pakistan army, since it invaded Balochistan on the 27th of March 1948 and forcibly incorporated it into Pakistan.

The rogue states of Pakistan and Iran have repeatedly attempted to subdue the Baloch movement for their rights and independence and have been usurping the wealth and natural resources of the Baloch soil. Pakistan would be unable to sustain its artificial existence without the resources of Balochistan. The Punjabi-Pakistanis and the Iranians have been systematically carrying out what can be called the social, political, economic, cultural, and physical genocide of the Baloch people.
Heinous crimes against humanity are still happening in Balochistan despite Pakistan's ostensible transition to civilian rule.

The fifth and ongoing military operation in Balochistan has resulted in the brutal massacre of thousands of Baloch people including defenseless women and children, resulting in the mass displacements of the people of the districts of Kohlu and Dera Bugti, mainly women and children, due to unabated aerial bombing and ground offensives by the Pakistan army. Thousands of Baloch including politicians, students, teachers, journalists, doctors, writers, intellectuals and human rights defenders have been subjected to enforced and involuntary disappearances whereas many have been victims of targeted killings by the military and the intelligence agencies. Mutilated corpses of Baloch patriots struggling for the salvation of their motherland have been found after being thrown off helicopters, hanging off trees, burnt alive in barrels of hot coal tar, or dumped in the desert to rot after inexplicable brutal torture. Peaceful protestors have been suppressed, political representatives arbitrarily detained and the freedom of expression and assembly totally restricted.

The recent killings of members of the Baloch Students Organization and the unprovoked attacks on cultural events, demonstrations and processions of political parties is another example of the Pakistani state terrorism and justifies the Baloch struggle against the oppressor. A senior Pakistani police official in Balochistan also recently said that they would resort to targeted killings in Balochistan. Pakistan has also exploited the recent cyclone that has hit Balochistan as an opportunity to deploy additional troops in the coastal areas, not to provide relief, but to further suppress the Baloch at a critical time.

Pakistan's eagerness to establish Gwadar port in collaboration with the Chinese along the coast of Balochistan and unjustifiably construct military garrisons all over occupied Balochistan is part of a conspiracy against the Baloch nation in which Pakistan plans to penetrate into and weaken the Baloch political, social and cultural system, loot and plunder the Baloch nation's natural resources, further marginalize the Baloch by encouraging the immigration and settlement of Punjabi and Muhajir populations from the excessively populated Punjab and Karachi and consequently convert the Baloch people into a minority in their own homeland. Military garrisons will give Pakistan and its despotic army the potential to further promote and facilitate the growth of fundamentalism and ensure the construction of madrassahs or religious schools in sensitive and secular Baloch areas, providing a harbor and breeding ground to radical religious elements through the state's notorious and malicious intelligence agencies, with the intention to undermine the secular Baloch movement and reap the rewards of the instability in Afghanistan and the region from foreign concerned parties as it has been, therefore endangering regional and global peace and stability.

The Pakistan army's increasing presence all over occupied Balochistan and its atrocities including repeated full-fledged military operations is also a sign of its weakness and fear of the Baloch becoming the masters of their own destiny and proof that the unflinching Baloch movement for independence is strengthening. Pakistan is desperately struggling to suppress the voice of the Baloch people at all costs and has resorted to cowardly acts such as enforced disappearances and assassinations of Baloch patriots in hope of impeding political consciousness among the Baloch and to repress the irreversible united struggle for an independent Balochistan.

Pakistan is a threat to the Baloch national identity and a strong impediment to peace, security, stability and genuine development in the region.

Pakistan's intense violence against the Baloch people and the martyrdom of Baloch national leaders and patriots at the hands of the cowardly and tyrannical Pakistani army has taken the situation to a point of no- return and has only strengthened the Baloch nation's resolve to win its rights and independence from the illegal occupiers of Balochistan. The Baloch have never accepted the illegal occupation of their land from day one and will resist it till the liberation of the Baloch nation.

We have repeatedly attempted to draw the attention of the international community towards the inhumane atrocities and barbaric terrorism of the Pakistani army in occupied Balochistan and their sinister agendas, but all our efforts have gone in vain. The situation in Balochistan will have dire implications on regional and global peace and stability and for the international community to further ignore will be no less than a crime in itself.

The occupying Punjabi-Pakistan army must leave Baloch soil and Balochistan's independence must be restored again as it the only just and viable solution.