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Now
The Khan of Kalat, Mir Suleiman Daud,
is speeding. He's a fast driver, but so expert a wheelman there's
no fear in the wide black Hummer. "Who drives American cars?"
he says, mocking himself. "But when I saw this one, I knew
it was my toy." Handsome and charismatic, Khan Suleiman
enjoys hiding his eyes behind Gucci shades, and prefers a ball
cap to a turban.
Add in the traditional long baggy shirts and baggy pants of the
region, what sounds like Pakistani hip-hop blasting, the carload
of his men packing pistols and Kalashnikovs that rides behind
us, and it feels like quite the posse. But considering Khan Suleiman
once took four AK47 bullets in the gut and chest in the tribal
equivalent of a drive-by and lived, the bullet-resistant Hummer
makes practical sense. Khan Suleiman's survival of that shooting
was considered so miraculous that there is a university doctor
who teaches a class in the incident. As for all the guns and
ammunition, Baluchistan is one of the tribal provinces of Pakistan,
and in tribal regions, one needs protection. Especially the Khan
of Kalat, which literally means King of the Fort, the chief of
chiefs. But it's not his own people he needs protection from.
Khan of Kalat Suleiman's country
is rich in resources that everyone wants to take and he doesn't
have the power to stop them. "We sit on a mountain of gold,"
he says, "and the devil sits on us." His people, the
Baluch Nation, are being indiscriminately bombed, arrested, and
kidnapped, and he's powerless to stop it. Journalist Selig S.
Harrison has called it a slow-motion genocide and Human Rights
groups have called it an ethnic cleansing. "We have 700
miles of coast and oil and gas and gold," says Khan Suleiman.
"We try to do something to have rights to it, we get spanked.
We resist every ten years and get spanked every ten years."
For the past few years, he has been in the middle of an unseen
war that few beyond the regional press are reporting.
But then something horrible
happened and it radicalized his people. In August 2006 the chief
of the Bugti tribe, 79-year-old Newab Akbar Bugti, was murdered
by the Pakistan Army. "Bugti was buried with three locks
on the coffin," says Khan Suleiman. "They thought his
soul might come back and make trouble. So the army put locks
on it. None of his tribe was around to see his body. Still they've
got a guard on his body." The Baluch people were outraged
by the murder, and Khan Suleiman had found his moment, the catalyst
he needed. He called a national jirga, a meeting of the
tribes, the first in 130 years. He wanted to find out if his
sardars, his chiefs, the heads of tribes that have been,
on and off, at war with each other for hundreds of years, could
lay down personal disputes and unify for a common cause: an autonomous
Baluchistan. Khan Suleiman's allies would be his former enemies.
In the way of tribes, his enemies are also his friends.
He put out his call.
My first thought was: this
man is a modern Sitting Bull. Which makes him a sitting duck.
Which is why he travels in a Hummer and why his travel plans
are never announced. What Khan Suleiman has just done is akin
to Sitting Bull asking the Apache, the Cherokee, the Mohawks,
all the major Native American warring tribes to smoke the peace
pipe and unify against the migrating settlers that were stealing
their land out from under them.
Khan Suleiman's historic jirga
was attended by 1,500, including 85 sardars and 300 tribal elders.
The Baluch people have always protested the Punjabi-dominated
military regime of Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf
that has been made rich off the Baluch province but gives so
little back in terms of resources and tax revenues that the entire
region still lacks the basic services that most consider human
rights. The province is rich in natural gas yet only 6% of the
Baluch have gas connections, less than half the children get
an education, and only 2% of the population have clean water.
The answer to Khan Suleiman's
call for unification and resistance against this state of affairs
was a resounding yes. "When you make a call you get an answer,"
says Khan Suleiman. "The answer means that Baluch is a nation.
They have problems, but they have roots. I know them 700 years
and they know me 700 years. I gave a call in the 21st century
and 95% answered. Students and prime ministers agree. There are
the rocket guys and the pen and paper guys, but we come together
directly or indirectly." The jirga was so inspirational
that the Pashtuns, the Sindhi and the Afghans have all decided
to hold their own jirgas to unify their tribes. Even General
Musharraf called a jirga of his own, "But nobody went,"
laughs Khan Suleiman.
Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, is sparsely
populated by people and overwhelmingly a land of rocks. Flatbed
trucks pass carrying enormous marble hunks as big as cars. An
old man sits by the side of the road, a mountain of rocks to
his left, a pile of smaller rocks to his right, he in the middle
with a hammer. A task for Sisyphus. But the more one looks at
these majestic, dusty gray-brown mountains, the more one sees
they are not at all dull, but coyly streaked in color. "Rubies,
diamonds, lapis lazuli, gold, emeralds," says Khan Suleiman.
"We have it all. Oil and natural gas and minerals."
It is, of course, the enormous reserves of natural gas that have
perked up the eyes and ears of those with a nose for such things.
"All the 'guys' are around," says Khan Suleiman with
amusement, meaning the big powers. He lists the US, Iran, India,
China, Russia.
We pass walls scrawled with
graffiti, written in delicate Urdu script: "Azad Baluchistan,
Baluchistan Zindebad"; Free Baluchistan, Long Live Baluchistan.
We pull into a gas station, and the Khan is met by a group of
men that somehow knew he'd be stopping here. They pay respect,
ask him advice on property disputes. A day in the life of a Khan.
One man asks Khan Suleiman if he thinks the Baluch people are
unified. The Khan answers in Baluch, then translates for me.
"I asked them, will they come out and protest on a certain
day? Will they join the protest march this month? If they do,
then that is my answer and that is their answer."
Back out on the highway, my
tinted window slides up automatically, and I look ahead to see
an open black jeep coming the other way loaded with armed men
staring at the Hummer. I wonder, has Khan Suleiman just closed
my window to keep the dust out, or did he see that car coming
and decide it best to not let them glance in and see the obviously
foreign woman with the large video camera whose protective veil
of her dupata (the headscarf worn by women in this mostly
Muslim country), is constantly slipping off her head. As it is
with many things a foreigner sees and hears when stepping fresh
into a new culture, it's hard to know.
Drive sixty miles out of Karachi,
Pakistan, and into Baluchistan, and you drive 600 years back
in time. As the roadside mosques lit up at night like discos
fade, there are more goats and donkeys; fewer buildings, more
huts. Women spend all day walking deserts for one bucket of water.
Our convoy of SUVs often pass caravans of camels loaded with
sticks of firewood, men riding mule carts loaded with hay. "The
poor shepherd's barefoot son herds his sheep over mountains full
of riches," says Suleiman. Or as Suleiman's uncle, Yahya
Baloch, Prince of Kalat, said to me the day before, "The
shepherd has his goats and makes his cheese and his butter. He
sits in the mountains and is his own boss but belongs to a tribe.
But every ordinary person has a small radio. And they may be
listening to Air America, not the lies of Pakistan radio."
Prince Yahya, like most of the older men we've met, has survived
many wars in Baluchistan. He shows me the bullet holes in his
home to prove it, from the times his brother, the previous Khan
of Kalat, was attacked. He then shows off his astounding collection
of antique guns; from muskets to guns hidden in canes like something
out of James Bond. He speaks in moderate tones but it is easy
to feel how much he loves his country. "Asia is the belt,"
he smiles, "Pakistan the buckle, but the pin is Baluch.
The pin opens, your pants will fall."
Meanwhile, General Musharraf
has brought in Chinese engineers to develop a strategic port
in Gwadar and build a road to the border, and gave a ten-year
lease to China which has been over-mining the copper and gold
in the Chaghi district. The Baluch resistance, angry at the lack
of economic return to the Baluch for these developments, periodically
responds by blowing up power lines, pipelines and other infrastructures.
And there is widespread fear among locals that a major pipeline
will be built that drains their main resource, natural gas, without
any return. As one Baluchi Nationalist said to me, "The
road is coming. The pipeline is coming. It's not here yet, but
it's coming. The Americans are coming. One day they will just
walk in. Under every mountain you'll see a G.I. Write it down
in your heart. You'll see."
Agha Aziz, one of Khan Suleiman's
men. All photos by Annie Nocenti.
Or, as the eternally unruffled Khan Suleiman puts it, with one
of his sly smiles, "Where there is chaos, there is investment."
While Islamabad fattens its
coffers and others dream of wealth to come, the people of this
resource-rich province are so impoverished and economically discriminated
against that I've heard Baluchistan referred to as "the
whore of everyone." Pakistan has long controlled the area
by playing the feuding tribes off one another in order to keep
the Baluch resistance from unifying, which is why Khan Suleiman's
jirga is so important. Islamabad spins the actions of the freedom
fighters into actions of "terrorists," and disclaims
any official power of the Khan of Kalat. General Musharraf charges
that the feudal system of sardar rule is the problem, but to
the Baluch this has long been their way of life. Islamabad also
uses the presence of the Taliban as a cover for military actions
against the Baluch.
A few nights back, we sat in
Khan Suleiman's home in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan. It
is located on Syriab Street, street of chiefs, and we met in
in a simple room with banks of low couches, over a spread of
nuts, pomegranate seeds, overripe bananas and cardamom tea. "Have
you seen any Taliban yet?" Khan Suleiman likes to tease.
I had told him that there was nothing much in the mainstream
press about Baluchistan other than claims that Quetta was now
thick with Taliban. When we'd flown into Quetta the day before,
as the pilot flew like a cowboy, taking dizzy dips over the red
hills that surround Quetta, I looked down and saw what reminded
me of an old Wild West American outpost. Sand rolls off the desert,
rock dust off the mountains, giving the whole town a shimmering,
ghostly air. At the airport, the first man to help with my bags
said: "I am Baluch, not Taliban." The presence of Taliban
in Quetta seems to be some kind of inside joke that's probably
not that funny. It's not that the Taliban aren't here in Quetta,
a town not far from the Afghanistan border, but they are not
messing with Baluch business, I'm told. "They cross the
border, and they are with us."
But there is unquestionably
an ominous feeling in Quetta. Leaving and entering our hotel,
a mirror on wheels is rolled under the car chassis to look for
bombs. The first day we go to the Russian bazaar, we are followed
by Pakistan's Military Intelligence and photographed. As we shop
for headscarves, the MI follows us and Khan Suleiman's men follow
the MI. It feels more Graham Greene ironic than dangerous, yet
the implication is there. Khan Suleiman's men confront the MI.
"You do your job, we'll do ours," they are told. The
day after we leave Quetta, three missiles hit the Parliament
building. No one takes responsibility for it.
Khan Suleiman's
Hummer
While in Quetta, Khan Suleiman
has arranged some interviews with several tribal chiefs. It is
important to the Khan that we understand this is not "his"
call, but the call of all Baluch, and he wants us to hear it
confirmed from other chiefs. The first is Chief of Sarawan Nawab
Mohammad Aslam Raisani. We drive into a walled and gated courtyard,
where tribesmen mill about with Kalashnikovs slung over their
shoulders as casually as women sling their purses. As I get out
of the car, I hear the Mission Impossible theme song. It's Abdullah's
cell phone. Abdullah is one of Suleiman's men assigned to this
trip, and he's also got another cell phone that rings with the
theme to The Godfather. Inside we meet Nawab Raisani,
a distinguished chief with a raspy voice that I imagine is the
result of an old war wound. He is gracious, gentle, and gestures
towards a large plastic mat on the floor covered in food. He
confirms his support for the Khan and that the tribes have "set
aside our conflicts and disputes so that we can raise a collective
voice." He stresses the importance of identity, "The
Pakistan government wants to finish our national identity,"
he says. I ask if the tribes will be able to stay unified, and
he answers that pressure is being put on the heads of tribes
to do so. I ask if he would compromise on the question of autonomy
for Baluchistan. "We will not go for any type of compromise,"
says Nawab Raisani. "We want total autonomy."
There is a problem with autonomy
for Baluchistan. As it was with the Native Americans, there are
broken treaties involved. The current troubles in Baluchistan
date back to the 1947 agreement between Britain and India that
created Pakistan. Six million Baluch were forced to become part
of the newly created country. But a 1948 treaty, in which the
current Khan of Kalat (Khan Suleiman's grandfather) acceded to
Pakistan, delineates that accession in only four areas: defense,
foreign affairs, currency and communications. Resource and autonomy
rights were not given up, but there is an ambiguity to the language
of the treaty that has been exploited by Islamabad. There is
also an older controversy around the 1893 "Durand Line"
agreement between British India and Afghanistan, which divided
the Pashtun and Baluch tribes into Afghanistan, sections of Iran,
and what was to become, in 1947, Pakistan-slicing up a nomadic
culture with arbitrary lines in the sand. The Baluch, a culture
that dates back over a thousand years, ended up living under
colonialist-style rule by Pakistan, a nation that at the time
was one year old.
Revered author and historian
Agha Mir Naseer Khan Ahmadzai Baloch is the keeper of Baluch
history. "We founded the Baluch Nation in 1410. We Baluch
made a kingdom. And we told the superpower at the time that they
should confirm our kingdom. We were told: 'You Baluch are sheep
herders and on this condition I accept your kingdom. You should
agree that annually you should give me ten thousand sheep.' And
in this way," laughs Naseer Baloch, "our Baluch Kingdom
came into existence. From this time right up to Khan Suleiman,
35 Khans have passed. The British conquered Baluchistan and annexed
us to India. When they formed Pakistan in 1947, we were told,
if you don't join Pakistan we will attack you."
Khan Suleiman's next step will
be to appeal to the World Court in Hague, the International Court
of Justice (ICJ), claiming that Pakistan has violated the 1948
treaty as well as the 1973 Constitution that promised provincial
autonomy. Violations include the plundering of resources, and
the non-payment of royalties on fisheries, gas, minerals and
overflights, and the building of cantonments. But the question
is whether or not the ICJ can give fair hearing to Baluchistan,
a tribal province without clear sovereign status, now that Pakistan
has become a nation of international standing.
Which is why it is imperative
that such a move is backed in the press. The alternative, if
an appeal to the ICJ fails, is likely to be armed struggle.
Khan Suleiman is slyly hopeful
of U.S. help. Without U.S. or other foreign support, Baluchistan
does not have the wealth nor military might to sustain a long
insurgency. It is a hope that is touching, fragile, and ornery
all at once. "We'll see," he says with a sideways grin,
"if the Americans are as moral as they say they are. The
elephant has different kinds of teeth. The ones the elephant
shows, and ones he eats with. They are not the same teeth."
We drive from Quetta to Kalat,
where the Khan has his palace and his mosque, and Khan Suleiman
casually tells us we are to meet Sardar Ataullah Mengal next,
in a town called Wadh. I expect an interview similar to the one
we had with Nawab Raisani, but that's not the case.
As soon as we are on the road
to Wadh, the air is electric. The convoy of cars and guns is
longer this time. There are tribals that have come out of the
hills to see Khan Suleiman off. The closer we get to Wadh, the
more men we see on the sides of the roads. They raise guns in
salute, or join the convoy on motorbikes. Some carry the flag
of Kalat. The convoy gets larger and larger, until, when we pull
in for gas, there is a swarm of followers. Khan Suleiman gets
out of the car and the reverence for the man from his people
is stunning. Islamabad may think Khan Suleiman has no official
power, but neither did many a charismatic leader throughout history.
We arrive at Sardar Mengal's
compound. A huge fluttering tent is set up, laid out with gorgeous
Persian carpets, light streams in from above and the tent flutters,
as if Allah is announcing his presence. As we enter, a sea of
men turns and stands. As soon as Khan Suleiman and Sardar Mengal
are seated, everyone else sits. They speak for a while, as Sardar
Mengal confirms his support of the alliance of tribes. "We
want to use the tribal way to unify," says Mengal, "then
move on to democracy and the modern ways." Khan Suleiman
has said that the example to think of is Britain, with its combination
of Parliament-style democracy and monarchy. And as Khan Suleiman
says about his role in this model, "I'd rather be Queen
Elizabeth than Tony Blair." The gathering itself, with its
open invitation to the people to attend, its transparent nature
in that the people can listen to their chiefs talk and ask direct
questions, does have the feeling of a Parliament-style meeting.
Later, as we speak of current
U.S. policy in Iraq and the Middle East, Ataullah Mengal asks
me, with a certain belligerence, "Why are Americans so dumb?"
As if to prove it, I have no satisfactory answer.
The next day, we meet with
Prince Musa and his son Noroz, a gentle young man ready to step
up for his tribe. Prince Musa speaks of his love of flowers and
weapons, his soft spot against the killing of animals. He dresses
in camouflage clothes and dark sunglasses, and as he takes a
whiff of the narcissus he grows, he reminds us of Robert Duvall
in Apocalypse Now. He describes his support for Khan Suleiman.
"We are a traditional people," says Prince Musa. "Tradition
is that the elder son become Khan. We have a saying in Baluch:
If one person sits on a horse it looks nice. Two people sitting
on a horse it doesn't look nice. They will laugh at you. A horse
is made for only one person."
Prince Musa's tongue is for
peace, but the sense one gets is that he is very ready to fight
for it. No one we interviewed was shy about their readiness to
go to war for their rights. And they believe their inferior weaponry
and manpower are more than made up for by their superior guerrilla
tactics and knowledge of their own land. "You Americans
are worthless on the ground," I am told more than once.
As Khan Suleiman puts it: "When you're eyeball to eyeball
the first one that blinks is gone. So you have to be strong and
not blink." Later he says, speaking both of Iraq and Afghanistan,
"The U.S. gets in quicksand and turns the wheels and gets
in deeper."
The Baluch Liberation Front
and the Baluch Liberation Army, along with the more official
Baluch National Party are increasingly made up of not just moderate
to extreme tribals or politicians, but intelligentsia, merchants,
laborers, out-of-work engineers, lawyers, and the new Baluch
middle class.
The Baluch Student Organization
actively stages demonstrations, roadblocks and rallies. Rumor
has it the BLF and the BLA are paid in dollars, but others contend
India or Russia finances the opposition. Wherever the backing
comes from, because of the geographic position and potential
resource wealth of Baluchistan, and this new bid for autonomy,
many have an interest and a hand in keeping the region unstable.
At the same time, it is US aid to Islamabad and US weaponry that
is being used against the Baluch opposition. But perhaps that
is politics in the desert, the sands ever-shifting.
As this story goes to press,
there is a 13-day protest march in progress, despite the house
arrests of key players and other governmental attempts to stop
it. It seems that, as I've been told, "All Baluch want independence.
Even the birds want independence." It also seems that calls
to resistance are most effective when written on the wind.
Annie Nocenti was in Baluchistan shooting a documentary
on the Baluch. You can visit www.thebaluch.com
for more info and to watch video clips of the interviews mentioned
in this article. This article first appeared in the Brooklyn
Rail. Nocenti can be reached at annienocenti10013@yahoo.com
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