The US State Department on July 2, 2019 designated the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) as a 'global terrorist group', making it a crime for anyone in the US to assist the militants. Separately, the US Department of the Treasury has frozen all BLA assets in the US (if there are any) and forbidden US citizens worldwide from any financial dealings with the BLA or people associated with it. Our Foreign Office has welcomed the US decision, seeing it as validation of Pakistan's view on the question. Comment in the media also holds the development as a reflection of improving relations between the US and Pakistan in the context of the search for a peaceful settlement of the Afghan war. Although BLA is listed as a proscribed organisation in Pakistan and the UK, the latter has allowed the BLA leader Hairbyar Marri to reside in Britain as a refugee, despite Pakistan's protests. BLA has been waging an insurgency in Balochistan since 2002, and has mounted vicious attacks of late on the Chinese Consulate in Karachi and a five-star hotel in Gwadar. Islamabad may rightfully be feeling chuffed at the recognition of its case against the BLA by Washington, but Pakistan, in its own interest, would surely continue its quest to bring peace to the troubled of Balochistan. Post-9/11, the distinction between political struggles and terrorist campaigns the world over has not just been blurred but obliterated. Now all armed struggles by non-state actors and opposition groups, including the struggle for self-determination in Kashmir, have been lumped in the terrorist basket. This may be a 'convenient' stick to beat all such movements with, but it runs the risk of a 'one size fits all' approach, which obliterates nuance, differences, and context. Balochistan is wracked currently by the fifth insurgency since Pakistan's independence. Each such outbreak, owed to varying historical and fresh reasons and has to be dealt with by wielding the big stick. The fact, however, that each generation in Balochistan since Pakistan's independence has felt compelled to pick up the gun to highlight grievances that feel otherwise go unheard, should give pause for thought. As Einstein so succinctly put it years ago: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The 'results' of quelling the spate of insurgencies in Balochistan in our history are the possibility that despite recent setbacks to the BLA and other insurgent groups at the hands of the military and security forces, which have reduced the struggle to a low-level insurgency, the troubles in Balochistan should not be allowed to remain destined to continue indefinitely. This obviously has implications for the CPEC, a large length of which passes through troubled Balochistan and where Gwadar is located.
The prevailing narrative seeks to relegate the Balochistan insurgency simply to an India-backed campaign complicated further by the presence of other foreign agencies. However, it goes without saying, foreign interference in our internal affairs can only take place if our house is on fire. Off again, on again attempts to hold talks with the exiled leaders of the insurgency have so far come to naught. But even the concerns of parties from Balochistan such as the Balochistan National Party-Mengal that are in the parliamentary mainstream await satisfactory resolution. Short of separatism, and within the four corners of the Constitution and law, surely there is space for changing the political dynamic in favour of a negotiated political settlement leading to peace in the largest but least developed province of Pakistan. Difficult as this enterprise appears, the alternative of a purely military solution (and its concomitant manipulated political dispensation in Quetta), does not appeal to logic or sense as offering a long-term or permanent solution, if the track record and history are kept in view. A fresh political approach, despite the obstacles, still suggests itself as the option worth adhering to.