May 24, 2010

Excerpt from an Interview with a European Journalist about Smoldering Balochistan
by Hafeez Hasanabadi

Translated By Archen Baloch
Courtesy: DailyTawar.com

"I was so well protected by my Baloch friends that I never felt at risk. In fact, I was, and still am, more worried about the personal security of those who helped me as they may be victims of reprisals. Baloch hospitality was overwhelming everywhere I was in Balochistan." These are the words of the famous European journalists Karlos Zurutuza whose interview was published in San Sebastian, by Sara Etxart, under the Headline of "Balochistan a land of limits."

He is one those sensitive and concerned European journalists, who are not only writing about Baloch and Balochistan for a long time, but also trying hard to depict the true picture of Baloch nation in real spirit in their writings to spread awareness among their own(Europeans, Americas, Canadians, Australians) people. So that, as tax payers, they ask their respective governments forcefully, why they are supporting such terrorist and tyrant regimes with their money, who bombard villages and kill people, put on fire their crops and acidize the faces of the innocent children? And that, in these despotic countries, their public money is being used to buy bullets, instead of poverty eradication.

Bibi Wendy Jonson and Waja Peter Tatchel are among those who are constantly putting a lot of efforts into high lighting the Baloch national issue.
Waja karlus's constant writing about Baloch nation, affirms his compassion for humanity. Last year he and Peter Tatchel were accorded Nawab Akber Bugti Award in recognition of their hard works for highlighting Baloch national issue by Baloch national leader khair Beyar Marri.

Now coming to Karlus Zuruturza's interview, which has been published in many international sites, including theBaluch.com, Balochwarna.org, According to him, the main reason of the Baloch polarization and the failure of their national struggle, is the occupation and the unjust politics of world powers in the region where they have compromised Baloch Unity by interring into morbid deals with dominant nations, i.e. Persians, Punjabis and Pakhtoons. In order to not antagonize the dominant nations over Baloch, they have deprived them of the right to unite or to gain power to rise above.

In his point of view, the big powers and the developed world are still unaware of the importance of Baloch nation and Balochistan. The people of the developed world do not have the sufficient awareness about the fact that when we talk about Balochistan, it means we are talking about the most important geostrategic land on the earth. This country possesses a vast costal belt, which forms the choke of Persian Gulf, where the gas and oil pipelines of Central Asia would pass. In terms of energy, Nature has bestowed upon the Baloch the richest land, where coal, oil, gas, uranium, silver, gold, aluminum and countless other natural wealth have been discovered. Where the Chinese, Chileans, Canadians and Australians companies are engaged in looting the precious wealth and the locals are deprived of its income.
In concise, we could say the biggest natural resources of the Asia are hidden in the womb of Baloch motherland.

Keeping in view these facts, Karlus emphasizes upon the international community, that when they talk about the geopolitics of the region, they should abandon their apathy towards Baloch and Balochistan and start thinking about the new dimensions, and then they will have to admit the fact that Balochistan holds the key position in the region. And we believe that in the near future, the big powers will come around this thinking.

As we had earlier said that Karlus has a clear vision about Baloch and Balochistan. According to him, Baloch is a distinguished nation, with a distinguished homeland, language, culture and with a common history. But, under the imperialistic politics of 91th century the British Empire divided it into different pieces.
In fact it is the basic of his philosophy, under which, Baloch national struggle establishes itself to be a liberation movement, rather than a secessionist one. And it also bears out the fact that Baloch war is a defensive one.

He expresses his views about the current situation of Balochistan, which are exactly true to the point. He says that 80% per cent of Baloch people, in Pakistani controlled province are deprived of education. This province not only constitutes the status of poorest, but also bearing the brunt of worst state sponsored terrorism, where villages after villages have been subjected to aerial bombardment. People are displaced under the open sky for years. Thousands innocent people have been forced into disappearance without any court and trail. No one knows about their well being and whereabouts.

These atrocities are not confined only to Eastern Balochistan; Western Balochistan is also subject to worst type of barbarism and savagery under the Iranian theocratic regime, where people are shot to death and hanged in public. And political workers are picked up and hurled down from the flying helicopters.

According to his accounts, the survival of the Baloch nation is the issue of the current situation in Balochistan; Because Pakistan and Iran have put in place all their paraphernalia to liquidate Baloch from its existence. On the question of a journalist that if Balochistan has been ignored! Then narrate us a story which corroborates your claim? Karlus sums' up the entire situation into a nut shell, by sighting his last year's journey to the region, according to him; his findings could be a comprehensive book consisting of several volumes. And I completely agree with him. He says, last year, when he visited the area, where natural gas was discovered in 1950, with which entire Pakistani household is enjoying cooking, but I found that Baloch are cooking their food with animals dry excretions and firewood, they bought from their neighborhood. Now imagine the extent of the deprivation and the suppression of the Baloch people on their homeland?

On the occasion of receiving the Nawab Akber Bugty award, he said that he was very proud of the fact that his efforts had been recognized. But at the same time he also said that he had high regard for the works of those Baloch journalists who had taken the responsibility of reporting the truth under the dangerous circumstances, Regardless of the fact that they would face imprisonment and death. He said that he praised the bravery Baloch journalists deep down from his heart.
Actually, the basic point of his interview was to raise awareness about the Baloch issue in the "first world community" so he succeeded, otherwise, had it been the case of inferring, he must have repeated the words of his friend, Peter Tatchel, "If tiny East Timor can be an independent nation, why not Baluchistan"?