Pakistan’s uneven distribution of development funding from CPEC in Balochistan and heavy-handed response to extremists is fueling the very ethnonationalist conflict it seeks to avert.
On 29 June 2020, a separatist group called the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) attacked the Karachi Stock Exchange (PSX). While the four attackers were killed before they could enter the PSX, this planned attack symbolizes the persistence of militaristic methods used by both state and non-state actors in the ethnonationalist conflict in Balochistan. While Pakistan was quick to point fingers at foreign involvement (most notably India’s intelligence agency RAW), the BLA denied taking help from any foreign actors, instead claiming that the attack was an attempt to deliver a dual blow to Pakistani and Chinese economic interests. The choice of target — the stock exchange where a Chinese consortium bought a 40 percent stake in 2016 for $85 million — symbolizes what most Baloch ethnonationalist groups see as exploitative collaboration between Pakistan and China.
What is evident from the discourse surrounding the attack is the lack of representation of common Baloch citizens. Caught in a geopolitical cross-fire, the people of Balochistan have become collateral damage, with no major stakeholder willing to drive policymaking or speak on their behalf. The absence of Baloch voices in the official dialogue over development and identity in the region renders the approach adopted by the federal government in Pakistan — and tacitly supported by Beijing — fundamentally flawed. Islamabad’s preoccupation with the military suppression of the Baloch ethnonationalist movement, rather than addressing the underlying socioeconomic factors driving it, is unlikely to successfully bring lasting peace to Balochistan.
CPEC: Developing More than Just Infrastructure
The state response to the attack on the Karachi Stock Exchange typifies Islamabad’s response. After every such attack, the blame game between the state, provincial representatives and militant groups takes centre-stage, detracting from core issues of underdevelopment and repeated human rights violations. The informal yet strict regime of censorship instituted by both militant groups and state forces, exercised by threatening journalists, means that the situation in Balochistan goes largely unreported both within and beyond Pakistan. The" “mysterious” death of Baloch activist and journalist Sajid Hussain — who lived in exile in Sweden from 2017 until his death — shows that the threat to the lives of journalists who refuse to toe the line is grave. When figures that reflect the extent of underdevelopment and human rights abuses in Balochistan are available, they are generally misrepresentations intended to cover up state-sponsored violence and underplay the extent of the threat posed by the Baloch movement to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Hailed as the flagship venture of Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), CPEC begins in Balochistan’s port city of Gwadar and traverses the province northward to Kashgar (Figure 1). The mineral-rich Balochistan has a track-record of providing natural gas and other resources that have continuously benefited Pakistan. Naturally, this has made Balochistan hopeful about the impact of CPEC on its province. However, this mega-project has overlooked the voices of the Baloch people and failed to fulfill the promise of extensive benefits to populated Baloch areas. The continued unavailability of previously promised provisions (education, health, employment, communication and industrial growth) on the western route of the CPEC is a testament to the project’s disappointing implementation. For all the lip-service that CPEC would guarantee Balochistan the greatest profit, allowing it to evolve into a prosperous region, Balochistan remains a hot spot of exploitation in Pakistan.
Despite its role as the centerpiece of this multibillion dollar puzzle, Balochistan’s share of profit from the arrangement stands at a negligible 2-3 percent, and the region as a whole remains under-developed. Today, the Baloch see it as a colonial venture dressed in the garb of prosperity and economic development. It is against this background that the recent attack on the Karachi Stock Exchange must be contextualized. The Baloch outrage against Chinese involvement in the province stems from justified concerns over the safety and prosperity of the Baloch people. The violent response on the part of ethnonationalist extremists is only one thread of the fabric of discontent felt throughout the region. Only by foregrounding the voices of common citizens can these concerns be addressed, further violence averted, and the influx of development funding benefit all. Without them, extremists will continue to represent the Baloch narrative.
The attack on the Karachi Stock Exchange was exactly that — an extreme representation of Baloch discontent with China and Pakistan. The BLA’s elite “suicide squad,” called the Majeed Brigade, claimed responsibility for the attack on the 29th of June, 2020. Responsible for a handful of attacks on high-visibility symbolic targets, including an attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi in 2018 and the Pearl Continental Hotel overlooking the Gwadar Port on Balochistan’s Makran coast in 2019, The Majeed Brigade is principally tasked with assaulting targets linked to the CPEC, which symbolizes China’s presence in Pakistan. Statements issued by BLA spokespersons Aslam Baloch and Jeehand Baloch explicitly oppose CPEC-related activities in Balochistan and Chinese support for Pakistan’s efforts against Baloch ethnonationalist groups.
The Pakistani State and the Baloch Ethnonationalist Movement
As is banal tradition among state leaders in the region, following the Karachi Stock Exchange attack, Pakistan pinned the blame on foreign support for the BLA by countries (mainly India) which Rawalpindi believes stand to benefit from increased insurgent activity in Pakistan. Ascribing tensions in Balochistan to India’s interference has been a common practice since Parvez Musharraf’s reign that has been echoed by successive leaders, including current Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. The BLA chose to respond to Imran Khan’s statement by claiming that Pakistan and China do not want the world to know about the real state of affairs in Balochistan, and therefore, continue to present a more easily-believed narrative of an age-old adversary.
Blaming foreign actors is a wag-the-dog strategy designed to draw attention away from the dire domestic issues in Balochistan itself. According to the Economic Survey of Pakistan, Balochistan’s literacy rate in 2017-18 was 55.5 percent, while other NGOs in Balochistan put the figure closer to 41 percent. Similarly, malnutrition amongst children in Balochistan stands at 40 percent, while vaccination coverage rests around 50 percentage points lower than the national average. Further complicating the challenges to overcome, the human rights record of Pakistani security forces remains poor. “Enforced disappearances” and custodial torture of political activists are commonplace, as are extra-judicial killings. A report by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan stated that around 47,000 people had “disappeared” in Balochistan as of 2019. Pakistan’s Federal Ministry of Human Rights found nearly 1000 unidentified bodies in Balochistan between 2011 and 2016. Mass graves are discovered with unsettling regularity.
This violence however, is not new. The present violent turn in the Baloch movement is considered part of the “Fifth Wave” of the ethnonationalist insurgency in the region, which began in the early 2000s. The violence is but a symptom of successive Pakistani administrations’ mishandling of the movement. Islamabad’s efforts to control the insurgency have been characterized by the use of overwhelming force against a largely civilian population, including instances when the military deployed helicopter gunships against Baloch militias and reports of collective punishment meted out against the villages and families of Baloch leaders.
This trend continues unabated, and is informed by a logic that understands military suppression of the insurgency as a precondition to initiating development measures, rather than one that views the insurgency as a symptom of underdevelopment and political exclusion. Pakistan has used a variety of methods to this end. The increasing number of military cantonments being built in Balochistan, the deployment of paramilitary forces like the Frontier Corps and the Balochistan Levies, and the presence of extra-judicial “flying squads” that are tasked with targeted assassinations are some such methods. Military operations like Radd-ul Fasaad and, most recently, Operation Ground Zero Clearance in June of 2020 targeting areas bordering Iran are also a frequently employed tactic intended to suppress the uptick in violence.
A “softer” approach to suppressing the insurgency is seen in the systematic suppression of news sources that implicate the state and its allies. In addition, many argue that Islamabad’s propagation of hardline Sunni (Deobandi) Islam intends to undermine the essentially secular nature of the Baloch movement and divide the largely tribal-dominated structure of Baloch society. The proliferation of Deobandi madrasas, the intermittent ban on the use of Balochi and Brahui as languages for education, and the emergence of Sunni extremist groups like Sipah-e-Sahba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and the Taliban in Balochistan provide credence to this argument.
The China Factor
With the announcement of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, Beijing quickly became a significant player in what was already a longstanding conflict in Balochistan. As part of CPEC, the Chinese government has committed $62 billion to infrastructure development in Pakistan, principally through the construction of roads, rail corridors, and advancement of energy-related projects.
For Beijing, investment in CPEC presents an alternate route for the transport of critical raw materials and crude oil, providing the potential to unload goods in Gwadar and ship them over land through Pakistan into China, overcoming the infamous Malacca dilemma. The Gwadar port, ideally located near the Persian Gulf — a major oil transport route — and near India’s western coast, is a critical geoeconomic asset for Beijing. Fears that China may develop Gwadar into a military base — as it has in Djibouti — are prevalent amongst Baloch nationalists and foreign governments. Aslam Baloch asserted that China is building a military base in Gwadar, though the claim remains unsubstantiated by other sources and both Beijing and Islamabad deny it.
It is clear that both countries stand to gain from the success of CPEC — China would gain access to the Indian Ocean by land route to the landlocked western province of Xinjiang, Pakistan benefits from Chinese technical expertise and funding, and both countries benefit from a closer relationship. However, the welfare of the residents of Balochistan has been sidelined during this process. While Pakistan and China have promised that CPEC would bring development to Balochistan, the planning and placement of projects show Balochistan to be a mere transit route, while the benefits of the projects are directed to more prominent urban centers in Punjab and Sindh. Of all CPEC investments in the Pakistani energy sector, only 39 percent have gone to energy projects within Balochistan. Balochistan is the largest province in Pakistan but the disproportionate distribution of investments in Pakistan are leading to unequal socio-economic progress — conveniently keeping the status quo in place.
Gwadar has also been a hotbed of controversy since the 2002 Gwadar Port deal between Islamabad and Beijing, which allots 50 percent of commercial benefits to China and 48 percent to Pakistan, leaving a negligible 2 percent for Balochistan, which hosts the port. The highways, power plants, and most importantly, the multi-billion-dollar warm water port of Gwadar threaten to displace thousands due to land acquisition and the formation of secure zones around sensitive infrastructure. The fishing communities along the Makran coast are among the worst affected, as they have been forced to relocate entirely. Those who continue to live on the coast face restrictions and frequent encounters with security forces while seeking access to the sea. Even prior to CPEC, Chinese state-owned entities, like the China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC), were present in Balochistan. MCC has held the lease for the Saindak Gold-Copper Mining Project since 1995, and according to many Baloch leaders, is linked to the exploitation of Balochistan’s natural resources without giving the province its due share.
For the Baloch, Beijing has come to symbolize the exploitative practices that have led to the economic and socio-political marginalization of the Baloch people. Since it is in China’s interest to see the Baloch movement resolved, the BLA and other groups have come to see China as a powerful country that enables and at least tacitly endorses Pakistan’s militaristic methods of dealing with Baloch groups while leaving their grievances unaddressed. In the face of rising Baloch resistance, Beijing is urging Pakistan to ban organizations such as the BLA. Averse to the obstacles that have cropped up for Beijing because of this, it wants to ensure that the BLA is termed as a global terrorist organization. China even sponsored the UN statement put out by Pakistan condemning the Karachi Stock Exchange attack. To make matters worse, CPEC’s progress is slowing down on account of the Covid-19 pandemic and IMF’s bail-out programme restrictions on fresh borrowing. Beijing’s concern over Islamabad’s bureaucratic inertia and security risks is increasing at an alarming rate with BLA’s proactiveness and the prospect of the Sindh Revolution Army’s revival.
Baloch groups have opposed the employment of Chinese laborers that replace local labor for construction of CPEC projects in Pakistan. Extraction of natural resources, particularly natural gas from the Sui gas fields and metallic ore from mines in Saindak, Chaghi, and Khuzdar, without a fair revenue sharing mechanism is another area of contention between Baloch groups and the federal government. They also allege that Beijing provides Pakistan’s security establishment with surveillance equipment, weapons, and intelligence for use against Baloch people. Another fear is that the non-democratic regime in China is pushing Pakistan to increase censorship and surveillance over its Baloch citizens. China’s strong reactions against any criticism from Pakistan’s civil society regarding opacity, corruption, or high-handedness regarding CPEC projects and the subsequent pressure on Pakistan’s government to crack down on such negative comments, indicates that this fear is warranted.
But the most significant opposition comes from the fear that CPEC would allow Pakistan’s government to gradually change the demographic composition of Balochistan. The massive influx of ethnic Pashtuns, Punjabis and Sindhis into Balochistan to work as laborers for CPEC-related construction projects (and to a lesser extent, Pashtun refugees from Afghanistan) faced opposition from Baloch groups. Fearing that the increased migration would displace them, making them an ethnic minority in their own province, they have come to see the effort as part of a long-term strategy to weaken the separatist claims of the Baloch over the region.
Disenfranchised Baloch Voices
Islamabad has made efforts to address Baloch concerns, but they have been half-hearted and ill-planned. Two key policy projects — the Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan Package and the National Finance Commission Award — were put forward to politically and economically integrate the Baloch population with the more urbanized regions of Pakistan, and provide institutional frameworks to address matters of administrative, political and constitutional importance. The NFC Award, signed in 2009, was meant to support equitable financial distribution by accounting for the disparity in financial burden on provinces and by removing unfair advantages that prosperous provinces held. Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan was a reform package adopted in 2011 to grant political, constitutional and economic rights through a grievance redressal mechanism. It also re-worked the distribution of royalties and gas development surcharge to the benefit of Balochistan.
Neither of these projects had the intended impact, and so were unsuccessful. That Islamabad continues to make decisions of major importance to Balochistan without consultation or consent of Baloch representatives has increased the fervor of Baloch nationalism. The fact that the federal government ignored the voices of the Baloch nationalists while preparing a package aimed at addressing issues within their region is one of the reasons for its failure.
The ill-fated attempts to bring peace to Balochistan show that the lack of willingness on part of the security establishment and the federal government is supplemented by another significant problem — the appalling state of public infrastructure in Balochistan. Lack of access to basic necessities like food, water, housing, education and information creates a space where the legitimate representation of Baloch voices becomes arduous in the extreme. Past negotiations have primarily relied upon holding talks with representatives (sardars) of tribal groups or leaders of militant/civil rights groups. However, a poor quality of life where basic needs are not met means that a large section of the Baloch population is unable to participate in representative political processes and their needs are disregarded. Who is listening to the people affected on the ground (away from provincial and federal leadership) is a question that merits serious thought.
While both state and non-state actors remain predominantly concerned with military and political maneuvering, issues that adversely impact the average citizen’s quality of life continue go overlooked by an approach that seeks to first eliminate threats through military means and then address developmental concerns. The chronic preference for military rather than civil methods is the result of a vicious cycle of the unabated militarization in the province, the diversion of funds away from people-centric development initiatives, and excessive use of force against civilians by both the security forces and militant Baloch groups. The disillusionment with constitutional remedies then prompts more people to turn to violent means in an untenable atmosphere of insecurity.
To address the root causes of Baloch resentment towards Pakistan would mean making political participation more inclusive and empowering the civil society to represent its own needs along with voices of militant groups and tribal chieftains. It would also require a shift away from a top-down infrastructure-led understanding of development and towards a more holistic view that prioritizes individual needs and security in daily life.
Is national economic prosperity that exploits and excludes the one province that it gains the most from, taking away the resources and rights that should aid its development, truly “national”? The Pakistani state must act with urgency to assume an active role in carrying out structural reforms that set systemic changes in motion. Continued disregard for the systemic challenges of the Baloch issue from Islamabad is the main ingredient in a recipe for disaster that would bring about more chaos than progress. If it chooses to remain ignorant, it will not only hamper the development of CPEC, but also further alienate an already dissatisfied Balochistan — breaking away its own people from the national fabric of Pakistan. For Pakistan to preserve national unity, the decisions it takes from this point forward must focus on equitable development that benefits all parties.
All views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not represent the views of The International Scholar or any other organization.
Photo Credits:
By Madihasalam - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, (Remixed: cropped)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58480485By Javedpk05 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
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