BELEAGUERED BUGTI HUNTED DOWN

They hunted him down and killed him mercilessly. Circumstances are getting murkier by the day. Killing ones own people and bowing before foreign powers, constitute the pillar of our state policy. In his 80s Nawab Bugti was a major political player.  Balochistan is afire and how long this fire will take to burn out is any ones guess. But the supreme ruler can congratulate himself that he has resolved one third of the impediments in the way of progress by taking care of one of the three sirdars. Now Dera Bugti will march ahead into the 21^st century.

 

I remember having met Mr. Akbar Bugti for the first time in 1997 when I went to call on him after assuming the charge of Chief Secretary Balochistan. It was on Chief Minister�s advice that I called on him. He received me very cordially at his residence in Quetta, which appeared to be a fortified and well-protected place. Even the streets were closed for reasons of security. He had a large number of enemies. We sat on the floor appropriately carpeted and cushioned.  We had about an hour�s conversation. I found him very articulate, forthright and candid. His was an impressive figure and his white hirsute added to his almost royal bearing. He told me that before the provincial government agreed to my appointment the Federal Government had sent three names including mine. Mr. Ilahi Bukhsh Soomro called Mr. Bugti asking him to choose Mr. Hasan Bhutto, one of the panelists. Bugti refused without a minutes hesitation. When Mr. Soomro insisted that the officer had great merit, Mr. Bugti said a Bhutto never, whatever his merits. Mr. Soomro assured him that he was no relation of the famous man, but Bugti was not moved.

 

            It was Mr. Nawaz Sharif�s government at the Centre who had come with a heavy mandate at the centre who showed welcome change in attitude towards smaller provinces. Unlike all his predecessors, Mr. Sharif decided to take along the �nationalist leadership��. Mr. Akhtar Mengal, who headed the coalition in the Provincial Assembly of which Mr. Bugti was a part, was allowed to form the government despite misgivings in powerful quarters. Soon after, the coalition partners fell out on something or the other and Bugti and Mengal started a media war. Since I got frequent opportunities of meeting the Chief Minister I advised him to hold his fire and not to get into a slanging match beyond a point of no return. But Mengal, relatively a young man, insisted on confronting Mr. Bugti head on because according to him Bugti was a bully and deserved to be treated as such. I told him that any rift in the coalition partners will provide the insidious forces to play their dirty games and install someone incompetent and corrupt to do their bidding and represent them rather than the people of Balochistan. Not long afterwards the inevitable happened and the government was dismissed.

 

            Mr. Nawaz Sharif, as soon as he assumed office, traveled all the way from Islamabad to Dera Bugti in Prime Minister�s jet along with important members of his government and some senior civil servants to call on Mr. Bugti. The gesture did not seem to impress Bugti much who appeared to take it into a stride. After all this was not the first time that he had been wooed by the mighty and the powerful. The plane landed at Jacobabad airport and one was surprised that Mr. Bugti was not waiting at the tarmac to receive the Prime Minister. The delegation then boarded the helicopter and took off for Dera Bugti. There was no Mr. Bugti to receive the Prime Minister even at the helipad. The delegation then drove to Bugti House. He was not there even at the outside gate. Only after the Prime Minister and his delegation had entered the house, did Mr. Bugti emerge to receive him at the entrance to the hall, which was to be the venue of the meeting. The delegation was made to sit in Baluchi tradition on the floor and everyone could share the company with the Prime Minister and Bugti Nawab. For a few minutes the two men went to a separate room to talk together. Lunch was served and since Mr. Bugti ate very spicy meals, he served the guests the same kind of food. Those who were careful chose to pass up the dishes and rely on yogurt and bread to avoid unpleasant consequences.

 

            Before lunch was served, Mr. Bugti called one of his underlings to bring the present for the Prime Minister. This looked like an ordinary stick and was perhaps a hand carved. Mr. Bugti ordered his underling to present the stick to the Prime Minister that he graciously accepted. The Chief Minister told me afterwards that Mr. Bugti�s gesture violated traditional Baluchi courtesy because by not personally handing over the present to the Prime Minister he impliedly treated him not at par with himself but at a level lower than himself. Otherwise in Baluchi tradition, if he had treated the Prime Minister as his equal, he would have presented the carved stick with his own hand. That was Bugti, arrogance incarnate. When he resigned as Governor he did not address Mr. Bhutto as Prime Minister. Mr. Sher Baz Mazari has quoted in his book �A Journey To Disillusionment� an instance when Bhutto visited him at the Governor�s House and showed some annoyance at children playing in the gubernatorial lawns, Bugti ignored the protest and told the Prime Minister that it was natural for children to play.

           

Mr. Bugti was a very canny character and a tough negotiator. He knew better than any Baloch Sirdar how to squeeze his opponent to the limit. Pakistan Petroleum Limited running Sui Gas Fields and OGDCL running some other wells in the area were made to pay through the nose for their presence in those areas either in terms of rent / lease for the land or the employees that had to be given jobs. Some agreements between Mr. Bugti and OGDC Limited read like treaties between two sovereign entities. His demands easily qualified as extortion.

 

            Mr. Nawaz Sharif known to be a man in great hurry wished to make some amendments to the constitution for which he had the necessary numbers in the National Assembly but not in the Senate. Mr. Bugti had five Senators and so did MQM. The need for these ten votes acquired special significance whenever an amendment had to be carried through and that too in a hurry. The provincial government was totally helpless in ensuring the presence of Mr. Bugti�s Senators in Islamabad. His five senators would hide and prove to be elusive and inaccessible unless some personal representative of the Prime Minister had spoken to Mr. Bugti and fulfilled his demands; most of them relating to payments which Mr. Bugti thought were due to him. Not unlike the World Bank, which has begun insisting on compliance of conditionalities upfront before signing a loan, he wanted payment upfront. Some Deputy Secretary Finance would travel from Islamabad carrying loads of cash before Mr. Bugti ordered his henchmen to travel to Islamabad and vote appropriately.

 

Bugti was a shrewd man and also knew the limits. He therefore, before he died, made it known that a stand off between him and General Musharaff could be resolved on the basis of proposals made by a committee constituted by the regime. But General Musharaff wanted his precise location in the mountains so as to establish the writ of his government. This he seems to have accomplished by executing Bugti in a military operation involving ground troops, helicopter gunship, missiles and whatever including satellite monitoring of his presence. Balochistan is at a stand still, Quetta is under curfew, flights have been cancelled, and rail and road links cut off and life is in disarray. University hostels have been vacated, hundreds of students arrested and millions of rupees worth of property damaged. Writ indeed.

 

Mr. Bugti�s death may provide satisfaction to some vengeful souls but they know not what is afoot. Mr. Bugti may be guilty of many crimes including murders but he died a brave man fighting and has left indelible mark on the psyche of the people of Balochistan as a leader who fought for their rights against unfeeling exploitative establishment. He is a Shaheed and every political leader of Baluchistan will have to champion his cause under his rubric and in his name. He ranks next to Mari Nawab in tribal hierarchy but his political standing has now surpassed all others.

 

The future is frighteningly bleak. The situation is reminiscent of 1971 when a military junta was confronting the combined might of public opinion in a particular province only to avoid transferring power to the people. A turbulent Balochistan hardly suits the United States, which is fighting its war ��against terror�� in this region by occupying Afghanistan through Nato forces. The statement of the American government spokesman that it �would like to see the Balochistan dispute settled within the framework of strong and united Pakistan� is ominous. Declassified US papers bear close resemblance to the US government position on East Pakistan. The outcome is there for everyone to see. They had Gen Yahya Khan providing Kissinger a safe passage to China and here we have another general fighting their war on terror. Americans are never very squeamish about principles least of all about democracy.

 

Balochistan may have slipped out of hand and it is not unlikely that gas supply to the cities of Pakistan may suddenly be disrupted with a government feeling totally helpless. Under such circumstance the United States might have to dust off some of the think tank reports proposing realignment of boundaries. Gawader port has become a hotly contested issue between China and the United States. Pakistan is in no position to upset either of the two. If the United States offers the lure of independence to Baluchi leadership, they would be happy to hand over Gawader as well as some district say of Kharan for stationing American troops to control the region. A dead Bugti is for more dangerous to the writ of the government than a Bugti alive. One could do business with him. His intransigence was calculated and diacritical.

 

Two sons, one of who would be a Sirdar, survive Mr. Bugti but they both lack his competence, stature or charisma and would not be able to carry his legacy. Senator Shahid Bugti, his son-in-law may perhaps represent him, but only for a while, because he lacks tribal roots. What was Mr. Bugti fighting for, people ask? The answer is implicit in the question. He was not asking for the moon. Once the state turned its guns on him, made him homeless and forced him to flee into the mountains, he was left with no choice but to present himself as a spokesman of Baluchi people and their rights and put up a brave fight. The picture of prickly proud Sirdar sitting in a chair in front of a cave somewhere in the mountains would stick indelibly in the minds of people. Sardar Atta Ullah Mengal and Khair Bukhsh Marri have kept a lower profile. Mr. Bugti articulated his views on provincial autonomy including the right of the province to choose mega projects, which the Federal Government always boasted as its gift to the province, forgetting that the poor province of Balochistan has been subsidizing gas all over the country for the last half a century. The province is in a virtual state of occupation with about 100,000 FC and army troops. The Provincial Government does not have any say whatsoever in any matter. It is usually selected by the establishment and installed by devious means. Most of their choices are incompetent and corrupt. Akbar Bugti was the best Chief Minister Balochistan had besides Mr. Ata Ullah Mengal; and about others, the less said the better.

 

            Now what? What has to be done? Instead of overcoming tribalism, state has descended into tribalism. Nothing better illustrates than the end of standoff between the ruler and the Nawab. The only answer is immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the armed forced from politics, restoration of full and unguided democracy even if it throws up tribal leaders the military doesn�t like as members of the assemblies, thinning of troops in the province and equitable as well as fair distribution of resources. The greatest peril to the federation is the lack of provincial autonomy and the greatest threat to the provincial autonomy is the military, which rules the roost. Some people in the province holding a monopoly over patriotism glibly allege the leadership of smaller provinces to be lacking in patriotism. That is utter non-sense. People in smaller provinces are as patriotic as anybody else, if not more.

           

Bugti�s death, particularly the circumstances surrounding it, has created a very dangerous situation, which only the genuine representatives of the people can address. One has to read the newspaper to see that Balochistan has been crippled by strikes and violence. If immediate steps are not taken we may live to rue the day. As the American say, �you ain�t seen nothing yet�.

 

Syed Shahid Husain

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