For Immediate Release: January 20, 2006
Contact: Jennifer Linker, 202/939-2372, jlinker@CarnegieEndowment.org
A new conflict is emerging in Baluchistan, a vast yet sparsely populated Pakistani province, straddling three countries: Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. This instability has potential implications for the United States, as it is a launching pad for U.S. military operations against Islamic terrorism.
In a new Carnegie Paper, Pakistan: The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalism, Visiting Scholar Frédéric Grare provides insight to the numerous factors that have led to the complex struggle between the Pakistani government and the Baluch population’s fight for independence. This conflict in the energy rich province could affect many countries in the region and the international community. The paper is available at: http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/CP65.Grare.FINAL.pdf
Grare first argues that today’s crisis in Baluchistan was provoked by three fundamental issues: expropriation of land, demographic marginalization, and dispossession of resources.
A significant aspect of this struggle, according to Grare, pertains to the exploitation of Islam. The Pakistan Army has launched a disinformation campaign linking Baluch nationalist militancy to Islamic terrorism to conceal the real nature of the Baluch problem.
Pakistan has charged that Iran and India finance the Baluch rebels. No evidence supports any of these charges. Baluch nationalism is a reality and the present crisis is the result of the incomplete integration and lack of democracy in Pakistan.
Grare concludes that were Baluchistan to become independent, Pakistan would lose a major part of its natural resources and Baluchistan would become a new zone of instability in the region.
Frédéric Grare is a visiting scholar with the Carnegie Endowment. A leading expert and writer on South Asia, Grare served most recently in the French Embassy in Pakistan and, from 1999 to 2003, in New Delhi as director of the Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities. Grare edited the volume India, China, Russia: Intricacies of an Asian Triangle.
###