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| 1970s operation in Balochistan | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theInsurgency in Balochistan and theCold War | |||||||
 Pakistan Army'sAviation Unit'sHueyCobra AH-1S CobraAttack Helicopters at AVN Base,Multan. | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 PakistanSupported by:  Iran Oman |  Baloch separatists Pashtun Zalmay[1]Supported by:  Afghanistan Iraq | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Tikka KhanZulfikar Ali BhuttoAkbar KhanAkbar Bugti (Only 1973) Armed by: Mohammed Reza PahlaviPost-combat: Rahimuddin Khan | Khair Bakhsh Marri (POW)Ataullah Mengal (POW)Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo (POW)Sher Mohammad Marri | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 80,000 (Initial) 145,000 (peak) | 20,000 (Initial)[3] 55,000 Tribesmen (Peak)[3] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| ~3,000 casualties (including injured and killed)[4] | ~5,300 casualties[4] 30,000 fled to Afghanistan after the operation | ||||||
| ~16,000 civilian casualties[4] 38,000 political prisoners arrested | |||||||
The1970s operation in Balochistan, also known as theFourth Balochistan Conflict was a four-yearmilitary conflict inBalochistan, the largest province ofPakistan, between thePakistan Army andBalochseparatists and tribesmen that lasted from 1973 to 1977.
The conflict began in 1973 shortly after then-Pakistani PresidentZulfikar Ali Bhutto dismissed the elected provincial government of Balochistan on the pretext thatarms had been discovered in theIraqi Embassy, ostensibly for Baloch rebels. The ensuing protest against the dismissal of the duly elected government also led to calls for Balochistan's secession, met by Bhutto's ordering the Pakistan Army into the province.Akbar Khan Bugti served asprovincial governor during the early stages of the conflict. The operation itself was led by GeneralTikka Khan against an unknown number of militants coordinated by their Balochsardars, or tribal chiefs, most notablyKhair Bakhsh Marri andAtaullah Mengal.Iran provided military support to the operation.[5]
Fighting was intermittent throughout the conflict, climaxing in 1974 with drawn-out battles. The Bhutto regime was overthrown by GeneralZia-ul-Haq on 5 July 1977, andmartial law was imposed. A general amnesty was declared by military governorRahimuddin Khan. Military action ended by November 1977, replaced by development and educational policies to conciliate the province.
The1971 civil war had ended with the defeat ofPakistan at the hands ofBangladesh and India.East Pakistan declared itself to beindependent. It became a newsovereign state calledBangladesh, to be ruled byBengali leaderSheikh Mujibur Rahman. Mujib had been a major personality in the events that had led to the war, having called for greater provincial autonomy and rights for what was then East Pakistan, only to be met with utter disapproval by the then military rulerYahya Khan and his West Pakistan-based political opponentZulfikar Ali Bhutto. Despite Mujib's having won the federal elections of 1970, both Yahya and Bhutto refused to let Mujib form the central government. The ensuing unrest gradually deteriorated into civil war, and ultimately thesecession of Bangladesh after the India-Pakistan War of 1971. India also played a large part in the independence of Bangladesh by arming and financing the separatist group Mukti Bahini which rebelled against the Pakistani State after the injustice done to the then East Pakistan. Most importantly, India sent its troops into East Pakistan to aid the Bengali separatists in suppressing the Pakistan army[citation needed].
This greatly influenced Balochistan's leading political party, theNational Awami Party (NAP). Led by ethnic nationalists andfeudal leaders such as SardarAtaullah Mengal andKhan Wali Khan, the party dominated the province due to the large amount of individual political influence its leaders held. Emboldened by the secession of Bangladesh, the party demanded greaterautonomy from Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who had become the newPresident of Pakistan following his predecessor Yahya Khan's resignation in December 1971, in return for a consensual agreement on Bhutto'sPakistan Constitution of 1973. Bhutto, however, refused to negotiate on any terms that might have involved a reduction in his powers, with chief ministerAtaullah Mengal inQuetta andMufti Mahmud inPeshawar. The already significantcivil unrest now turned volatile as tensions between the NAP and Bhutto erupted.
The ethno-separatist rebellion of Balochistan of the 1970s, the most threateningcivil disorder to Pakistan since Bangladesh's secession, now began. Surveying the political instability, Bhutto's central government sacked two provincial governments within six months, arrested the two chief ministers, two governors, forty-four Members of theNational Assembly andProvincial Assembly, obtained an order from theSupreme Court banning theNAP, and charged everyone with high treason to be tried by a specially constituted Hyderabad Tribunal of handpicked judges. Following the allegeddiscovery of Iraqi arms in Islamabad in February 1973, Bhutto dissolved the Balochistan Provincial Assembly and infuriated Balochistan's political oligarchs.
In time, the nationalistinsurgency, which had been steadily gathering steam, now exploded into action, with widespreadcivil disobedience and armed uprisings. Bhutto now sent in the army to maintain order and crush the insurgency. This essentially pitted the ethno-separatists against the central government. As casualties rose, the insurgency became a full-fledged armed struggle against thePakistan Army. The sporadic fighting between theinsurgency and the army started in 1973 with the largest confrontation taking place in September 1974 when around 15,000 ethno-separatists fought the Pakistan Army and Air Force. The army suffered more than 3,000 casualties in the fight while the militants lost some 5,000 fighters as of 1977.[4] After three years of fighting the separatists were running out ofammunition and so withdrew by 1976.
Pakistan asserted India was covertly intervening in Balochistan in the same way it had intervened in East Pakistan before the secession of Bangladesh. India denied the assertions, replying that it was fearful of further balkanisation of the subcontinent after Bangladesh. In retrospect, Avinash Paliwal, in his bookMy Enemy's Enemy: India in Afghanistan from the Soviet Invasion to the US Withdrawal, cites a junior Indian intelligence officer participant in these operations who recalled that "we gave Baloch everything, from money to guns, during the 1970s, everything". Paliwal further claims that just as Pakistan and India were bitter rivals, so were Iran and Iraq. In the pursuit of their respective rivalries, Pakistan andIran developed closer relations, as did India andIraq. Arming Baloch insurgents inIran and Pakistan was in the interest of bothIraq and India. The militant groupPasthun Zalmay was responsible for a series of bomb blasts and other insurgent activities in Pakistan; it comprised Balochs and Pashtuns and was in direct contact withKabul as well as with the Indian andIraqi missions in Afghanistan. As a consequence, relations betweenIran and India deteriorated so much that in 1975, Indian diplomat Ram D. Sathe sent a secret letter to the Indian ambassador inTehran in which Sathe predicted that "it will be a few more days before the Iranians will stridently back the Pakistanis (on Kashmir) ... Personally I do not think we should be under any illusion about this matter. I think Iranians will definitely back the Pakistanis".[1]
It was after visiting Iran in 1973 that PresidentZulfikar Ali Bhutto had dissolved Balochistan's provincial government in the run-up to the operation. When the operation was begun,Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, theShah of Iran and Bhutto ally, feared a spread of Baloch ethnic resistance into Iran. TheImperial Iranian Army began providing Pakistan with military hardware and financial support.[6] Among Iran's contributions were 30HueyCobra attack helicopters and $200 million in aid.
During the conflict, US provided training and military equipment to Pakistan, most notable is the Marine training program to train the Pakistan army troops against Baloch separatists.[7][8] Moreover many military officers were trained in US as well as many in Pakistan by American forces in this conflict.[9] In 1974, an embargo was imposed on Pakistan due to WOMD projects, but due to intensification of the insurgency,it was lifted in 1975 and weapons were sent to Pakistan to deal with the situation.[10]
TheRepublic of Afghanistan under the leadership ofGeneral Mohammed Daoud Khan provided covert support toPashtun andBaloch militants.[11][1] Daoud Khan had ordered the construction of military training camps for Pashtun and Baloch militants inKabul and inKandahar.[12][13] Camps in Kabul were under the supervision and control of the Afghan Republican Guard.[12] Pashtun and Baloch militants were provided with arms, ammunition, and training in insurgent warfare so that they would fight against Pakistan.[12][13][11]
Relations betweenBaloch separatists andBa'athist Iraq had historical roots and were strong up until the2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Following theIndo-Pakistani War of 1971, Iraq had begun to collaborate with theSoviet Union in launching a covert operation to provide military aid to Baloch insurgents operating inPakistan andIran. The aim of this operation was to destabilize the two countries by helping dissident Baloch rebels in their fight against the Iranian and Pakistani states that wereclose allies with theUnited States. The operation remained modestly successful during the early 1970s, but ultimately failed when there was unrest amongst the Baloch nationalist leaders involved in theinsurgency due to internal disputes. This disorder accompanied by an extremely tough crackdown by thePakistan Army (supported by Iran) in itsBalochistan province crippled the joint Iraqi-Soviet attempts to destabilize the two key U.S. allies in the region and pave the way for Iraq's dominance over Iran as well as more favourable circumstances forIndia against Pakistan, with the goal of the region completely falling under the Sovietsphere of influence. The disputes took place when Baloch politiciansGhaus Bakhsh Bizenjo andAtaullah Mengal of theNational Awami Party refused to accept the demands ofAkbar Bugti to establish himself as theGovernor of the Pakistani Province of Balochistan.
During theDhofar war, Baloch militants includingBSO started supporting Dhofari rebels. In a shootout in Balochistan, an Omani recruiter who came to recruit Baloch mercenaries was seriously wounded. This incident prompted Oman to provide financial support to Pakistan against insurgents. Moreover, Pakistani troops were also trained in Oman to fight against Baloch separatists.[14]
Due to communist ideology of the insurgents and in an attempt to destabilize Pakistan, a western aligned nation, the Soviet union started supporting groups likeBalochistan Liberation Front, enabling them to regroup. They also provided financial assistance and training to the separatists.[15][16] American defence aid to Pakistan also promoted further Soviet support to the separatists to gain a stronghold in the region in the form of an independent Marxist Balochistan.[16] Moreover a Marxist state in the region could break theGreen belt isolating Pakistan and breaking direct connection with western aligned states.[16]
Although major fighting had broken down, ideologicalschisms causedsplinter groups to form and steadily gain momentum. On 5 July 1977, the Bhutto government was overthrown by General Zia-ul-Haq and martial law was imposed. With the civil disobedience in Balochistan remaining widespread, the military brought in Lieutenant General Rahimuddin Khan as governor under martial law. Rahimuddin declared ageneral amnesty for belligerents willing to give up arms and oversawmilitary withdrawal.Ataullah Mengal andKhair Bakhsh Marri, sardars that had been active in the conflict, were isolated by Rahimuddin from provincial affairs, and left the province for foreign countries. Marri later said the Baloch independence movement was 'at a virtual standstill',[17] andMarri tribesmen granted amnesty laid down their arms.Akbar Bugti, having sided with Tikka Khan and now being sidelined by Rahimuddin Khan, went into self-imposed seclusion.[18] Civil disobedience movements and anti-government protests died down.
Rahimuddin's tenure also ushered in sustained development.[17] Following theSoviet invasion of neighbouringAfghanistan in 1979, Rahimuddin used the resultant foreign attention on Balochistan by introducing an externally financed development programme for the area.[19] Forty million dollars (USD) were committed to the programme by the end of 1987, by which time Rahimuddin had resigned.[20] He expedited the regulation ofPakistan Petroleum Limited, the exploration company charged with theSui gas field. He consolidated the then-contentious integration ofGwadar into Balochistan, which had earlier been notified as a district in 1977. Addressing theprovince's literacy rate, the lowest in the country for both males and females,[21] he administered the freeing up of resources towards education, created girls'incentive programs, and had several girls' schools built in theDera Bugti District. As part of his infrastructure schemes, he also forced his way in extending electricity to vast areas withsubsoil water.[22]
Tensions have resurfaced inthe province with thePakistan Army being involved in attacks against ethnic Baloch and Pashtun separatist groups like theBalochistan Liberation Army, theBaloch Liberation Front and theBaloch Republican Army. Attempted uprisings have taken place as recently as 2006.
Balochistan is home to the largest number of school buildings that are falling apart. It also has the fewest educational institutions, the lowest literacy rate among both males and females.
| Domestic | |
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| India and Pakistan | |
| Afghanistan | |
| Middle East | |
| Worldwide | |
| Foreign deployments | |
| Anti-piracy | |
