A Province with Problems

Baluchistan has angry nomads who cross a "silent border"

The Pakistani province of Baluchistan, roughly the size of Montana or Finland, has long been considered a target of opportunity for the Soviet Union. Nestled next to Iran and Afghanistan, both of which have large Baluchi populations, the province has a 471-mile-long coast on the Arabian Sea. Gwadar, its principal port, sits at the entrance to the Persian Gulf and the oil lanes to the West. Moscow's intervention in Afghanistan has renewed fears of Soviet subversion in the province, where disaffected separatists have long been agitating for regional autonomy. TIME New Delhi Bureau Chief Marcia Ganger last week visited Baluchistan. Her report:

One sign of spring in Baluchistan's provincial capital of Quetta, as sure as the white blossoms bursting in the groves of almond trees, is the procession of caravans making its way up from the south. Through the 60-mile Bolan Pass in the Brahui mountains they come, nomadic families with their camels, sheep, donkeys, the beasts of burden laden with all their possessions. They march by day and camp at sundown while the animals graze on the stony, barren soil. Many will settle around Quetta for the summer: raising sheep, taking day jobs weeding the cultivated fields in the area.

The nomadic Brahuis are among 60 tribes in Baluchistan. The Baluchi tribes constitute about half of the province's 2.5 million people. Roughly 40% of the rest are Pathans; the remainder are "settlers," as residents from Pakistan's other provinces are called. For more than a century, the policy of ruling governments has been to divide and disperse the tribespeople. In the late 19th century, when London ruled all of the area that is today India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the British pursued what was described as a "forward policy" in order to expand Britain's frontiers and sphere of influence against tsarist Russia's pressure from the north. The British drew the lines that still form the 1,900-mile border of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.

As a result, there are now 1 million Baluchis in Iran and 300,000 in Afghanistan, kin to the 1.25 million Baluchis in Pakistan. They are allowed to move back and forth across the border at will, with no passports, visas, checkpoints or customs to impede them. The Pakistan government has made no attempt to close what has come to be called the "silent border" with Afghanistan and Iran. To do so would invite an insurrection as bloody as the one that engulfed Baluchistan between 1973 and 1977, when the late Prime Minister Zulfikar Ah" Bhutto sought to impose the central government's authority on the province. That conflict cost the lives of 3,300 Pakistani soldiers and at least 5,300 Baluchi guerrillas. When General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq overthrew Bhutto in 1977, he declared an amnesty and released political prisoners.

Those conciliatory gestures have not satisfied the tribal chiefs, who have virtually total control over their people, including their political affiliation. "Just because it is quiet does not mean all is well," says Akbar Khan Bugti, whose imposing tribal title is Nawab of the Bugti. "We have been beaten into being quiet for a time, but wait. There is no love lost between the Baluchis and their masters." The Baluchis feel that they have never had a fair deal and are still not getting one. Punjabis control 90% of Pakistan's bureaucracy and hold all key government posts in the province. The Baluchis also believe that they do not get a fair return for their economic resources. All of the province's natural gas is piped to Pakistan's major cities; Baluchistan nets $25.9 million annually in revenues from the sales, but then it has to repurchase its own gas from Karachi.

The province's problems have been compounded by a flow of refugees from Afghanistan. Some 90,000 are already settled in 30 camps. The leader of one such camp, Nazar Hussain, says that food and shelter are not enough. He insists that the international community "must realize its responsibility" and provide weapons to the rebels. Says Nazar: "If the [nations supporting the rebels] want anything done, they should hurry up. We are ready to sacrifice our lives for liberty." But others fear that the weapons would be sold to young Baluchi tribesmen who openly support the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. They could become a kind of fifth column inside Pakistan.

Baluchi elders, strict Muslims who abhor atheistic Marxism, are opposed to American military aid for Pakistan, which they believe could be used by the central government against them. Says the Nawab of Bugti: "For us, Russia and America are equally bad. U.S. aid would go to bolster a very unpopular regime. The Zia government is the most unpopular regime since the beginning of Pakistan." Yahya Bakhtiar is a former Pakistani attorney general who was defense counsel at Bhutto's murder conspiracy trial. Bakhtiar, who is a native of Baluchistan, insists that to many Pakistanis the banishment of Soviet Dissident Andrei Sakharov does not seem as harsh as Zia's treatment of Bhutto's widow and daughter, who have been held in detention off and on for two years without being allowed to see anyone. "People are disappointed with the Western powers for supporting dictators," says Bakhtiar. "I used to be against the Communists, but I have nothing to say to people now. We see no hope."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.