Word: baluchistan
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...These tensions may balloon in the future as other regional powers expand their interests in Baluchistan as well. The presence of some 19 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the province has raised the prospect of significant outside investment, but it has only deepened Baluch anxieties of alienation. China has already set about securing access to Baluchistan's other rich veins of resources: it owns a controlling interest in the massive gold and copper mine at Saindak and has steered the building of a $1 billion blue water port at Gwadar, mostly using Chinese labor. The growing...
...Baluch separatists claim that they never wanted to be part of Britain's partitioning of colonial India into the independent states of India and Pakistan and that they are the victims of an empire that barely ruled them. The border that splits Iranian and Pakistani Baluchistan was a line plotted in 1871 by a British colonial official, ceding territory to Iran's rulers in a bid to win Tehran's support against Czarist Russia. Now, the Baluch in Pakistan and Iran who fear independence may be out of reach campaign for expanded freedoms and guarantees to preserve their language...
...influencing the rebels. Pakistan's wariness of India's hand in its affairs has only grown after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan saw Indian engagement there bloom - Pakistani officials say Indian consulates in the Afghan cities of Kandahar and Jalalabad are behind the destabilizing acts of subversion in Baluchistan. Baluch attacks are frequently followed by Pakistani accusations of Indian involvement, though Islamabad, which has a noted record of being a breeding ground for terrorists who make their way to India, has yet to show any evidence of Indian collusion. Earlier this month, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rejected any notion...
...Meanwhile, Baluchistan simmers. Beyond the standard detachments of border troops, the Pakistani military has kept an occupying army in six major garrisons across the province since 1958. For decades, the Baluch have accused the army of kidnappings, disappearances and extrajudicial killings. In April, three dissident Baluch leaders were reportedly abducted by Pakistani security forces and found days later, their bodies bruised and ridden with bullets, triggering weeks of rioting and violence. A 2008 Amnesty International report, "Denying the Undeniable: Enforced Disappearances in Pakistan," charted at least 600 unresolved disappearances in Baluchistan alone. The 2006 killing of Akbar Bugti...
...remained mostly quiet on the matter, in part because it only has so much leverage that it can wield over the Pakistani military. During the Bush administration, there were suggestions that Washington was even secretly backing anti-Iranian groups like Jundullah and staging covert operations against Iran from Baluchistan. But a more public effort to reach a just solution for Baluch grievances would go a long way toward securing stability for Pakistan in general. The Baluch disturbances have put on hold plans to build a lucrative gas pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan - a link that would enhance regional...