Baloch Organisations Step Up Campaign in Europe, Seek Indian Support

Baloch organisations based in Britain and Europe have stepped up their campaign against Pakistani authorities and security forces whom they accuse of human rights violations, as part of their recent efforts to internationalise their struggle for independence.

- ABHIMANYU KUMAR

In the last few months, many protest demonstrations have been held by the two main Baloch organisations representing the struggle abroad in the UK, Netherlands and Germany. Baloch National Movement, which is active in Europe and the Netherlands, held a demonstration on June 21 at Dam Square, Amsterdam, protesting alleged atrocities by Pakistani military and intelligence forces. On June 9, BNM held a protest demonstration in Germany.

Another demonstration was held by the Free Baloch Movement in The Hague on May 28 against the ill-effects of the nuclear tests Pakistan conducted in Balochistan in 1998 in front of the International Court of Justice.

This was preceded by BNM putting up a photo exhibition about the Baloch struggle near the University in the town of Utrecht in Holland.

At Dam Square, on the day Amsterdam celebrated the 750th year of its founding, Baloch activists, around 30-odd or so, raised slogans against Pakistani army, calling it a "terrorist army"; held placards documenting Baloch youth who have been allegedly disappeared; and demanded an end to what they called a "genocide".

Their goal, they say, is freedom.

This has never been music to the ears of Pakistani authorities. The Baloch have demanded freedom from Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan for over 70 years, claiming that they were foreibly merged with the newly formed Pakistani state; some of the land they claim lies in Iran and Afghanistan as well. The province, with naval and air bases, is treated by Pakistan the same way the British did, who ruled it before: as an imperial garrison. The region remains the least developed of all the Pakistani provinces, with low literacy rates and poverty. It is resource-rich: oil, natural gas, gold abound.

Some of it is already being extracted by Pakistan and multinational companies with little coming to the Baloch in terms of benefits.