Bugti a merciless extortionist

I am glad someone has taken a lead on calling the slave master extortionist Bugti for who he really is. Yesterday Ikram Sehgal exposed the shameless extortionist's ugly face in an outstanding opinion in Jang.

Mr. Sehgal publishs his own magazine www.defencejournal.com Its Pakistan's one of the oldest and most respectable magazine that covers Pakistan's geo-strategic and military issues.

Neither Bugti nor anyone should be allowed to hold the nation hostage to his/her endless greed.

Adnan Gill

The Bugtis and Balochistan

On the evening of Feb 15, 1973, my unit 44 Punjab (now 4 Sindh) pulled out from Nabisar where we were concentrated for training close to our Forward Defended Localities (FDLs) in the southern desert; we entrained pell-mell the next morning at Mirpurkhas for Sibi en route to Quetta. We were told that we had to cope with a sudden "internal security" situation arising in Balochistan. At Ebad railway station, a few kilometers short of Jacobabad, our troops special ran full speed into a stationary goods train parked on the parallel line. Sabotage? With four dead and over a dozen or so badly injured, we limped into Sibi late on Feb 17.

If Capt (now Maj Gen about to retire) Fahim Akhtar Khan had not led volunteers to climb to the topmost railway wagon perched perilously on top of two other wagons laden with ammunition and explosives to rescue those trapped under their weight, at least seven more would have died. Fahim's bravery in battle during 1971 in the desert and in 1973 in Balochistan notwithstanding, that particular memory of outstanding selflessness at great personal risk "above and beyond the call of duty" remains forever etched in my mind. Barring exceptions like Fahim rising to two-star rank, brave and combat experienced officers seldom make it past the rank of major. Such attributes are great obstacles to advancement in most armies of the world. Pakistan is no exception in merit often being a disqualifier.

From Sibi my rifle company was heli-lifted into Quetta to secure the Governor's House, the rest of the battalion led by Lt Col (later Brig) Muhammad Taj, SJ and Bar (one of the most decorated soldiers in the Pakistan Army) racing in by road. At about this time we were told that the Federal Government had dismissed both the Balochistan Governor Ghaus Bux Bizenjo and the Chief Minister Ataullah Khan Mengal; we were to escort the new Governor into his official residence.

A month or so later Governor Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti honoured 45 Punjab (our sister battalion in 60 Brigade) and ourselves with a "Barakhana" (an Armed Forces lunch or dinner for jawans for a special occasion) to congratulate us "for saving Pakistan" or words to that effect. Some non-violent protest about the then "renegade" Akbar Khan Bugti apart, the Baloch leaders shown the door by him "to save Pakistan" circa 1973 did not take to the streets to militate against what was clearly an extra-constitutional exercise not in democratic good taste.

The real problem started when military operations against Marri tribals kicked off from Sibi on May 21, 1973, the hottest day of the year in one of the hottest places on earth. By late afternoon, helicopters were lifting the dead and incapacitated (due to heat stroke and heat exhaustion) of the leading battalion 46 Baloch. We reached our first objective Talli Tangi, the defile on the route to Maiwand without any opposition by late afternoon.

With experience of desert conditions behind us we had applied wet handkerchiefs on the back of our necks and (despite our brilliantly theoretical Brigade Commander's repeated admonitions) our helmets (the cause of 46 Baloch's woes) were lodged in our accompanying transport. Military operations began in earnest a few days later with all three battalions of the Brigade taking casualties. At defiles like Talli Tangi which my rifle company was tasked to securing, Marri tribals came at us night after night, we inflicted many casualties and suffered some, despite having no great expertise in "frontier warfare". Our luck ran out a few months later when 44 Punjab lost 16 in one go near Kohlu when one of our pickets was surrounded, cut off from the rest of the battalion and overwhelmed once out of ammunition.

At the outset of 1973 one was skeptical about military operations being needed, but by the time I left in January 1974 hardened guerillas trained by the Soviets in Afghanistan made me into a believer, reluctantly perhaps but a believer nevertheless. My unit suffered more casualties in Balochistan than any other unit, and dare one say, inflicted far more casualties than any other unit during battle; after all the guerillas coming at us were not throwing flowers. There is a time for political dialogue and a time for military solution, sometimes both are necessary in tandem.

Events in Bugti area must be separated from the rest of Balochistan. Even though there have been a number of incidents of sabotage in different areas of the province, the work of saboteur squads from the main Bugti tribal force in Dera Bugti, and mercenaries thereof, cannot be taken to be a concerted rebellion. The Sui rape incident was used to try and sabotage the gas installation there. But for the ultimate sacrifice of several dedicated soldiers of the Defence Security Group (DSG), this country would have faced an economic disaster of the greatest magnitude for an extended period. As it is, during a very cold winter, more than 40 million people all over Pakistan went without heating for days. One can be forgiven for being sceptical about the altruistic aims and objectives of those using the rape case as an excuse to send raiders to destroy the Sui Purification Plant. For the good of Pakistan? For the good of Balochistan?
Terrorism is a mechanism whereby small means are used to achieve major objectives; in this case the whole country was being held hostage! The subsequent ambush on the FC "Bambhore Rifles" convoy on March 17 was not unexpected. Besides sabotaging the Parliamentary Committee (on Balochistan) deliberations, the grave provocation was a deliberate act meant to incite military reaction and with a fait accompli confront the Baloch populace about the affront to Baloch honour. Don't the lives of our soldiers count? Give our military hierarchy credit for keeping their cool.

Balochistan definitively needs major political and economic initiatives. The province is in a state of utter backwardness, poverty is endemic and the masses live in the Dark Ages, mostly under cruel and callous sardars. It is a situation ready-made for exploitation and that is what the "Last of the Mohicans" is gambling on, in a desperate attempt to make Bugti-motivated interests in Sui synonymous with greater Baloch deprivation. One must be prepared for collateral civilian damage when the Bugtis are disarmed; to allow them otherwise would invite endless trouble.

The Bugtis can be quite callous about using non-combatants who do not fall in line with their diktat, as pawns. Case in point is their own tribesmen of Bekar UC. Sheikh Rashid normally does go overboard but when he called Akbar Bugti a "warlord" and not a politician (he never was), he was right on the mark. Few leaders are more autocratic or ruthless than the head of the Bugti clan. Anybody associating democracy with Nawab Sahib needs to have his head examined. When we started operations in Kahan and Kohlu in August 1973 we had to pass through Dera Bugti, where his private jail held one of his sons as an inmate.

Bugti's disarming should not be seen as a military operation, but as a police action by the law enforcement agencies necessary to put down crimes instigated by a warlord who considers himself outside the pale of any law except that which suits him. Problems in the rest of the province have to be addressed politically. They are far removed from the contrived grievances of the Bugtis as enunciated by the fulminations of their hereditary chief.

The writer is a defence and
political analyst
Email: isehgal@pathfinder9.com

Courtsy: Jang.com.pk