Word: baluchistan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Baluchistan has angry nomads who cross a "silent border...
...Pakistani province of Baluchistan, roughly the size of Montana or Finland, has long been considered a target of opportunity for the Soviet Union. Nestled next to Iran and Afghanistan, both of which have large Baluchi populations, the province has a 471-mile-long coast on the Arabian Sea. Gwadar, its principal port, sits at the entrance to the Persian Gulf and the oil lanes to the West. Moscow's intervention in Afghanistan has renewed fears of Soviet subversion in the province, where disaffected separatists have long been agitating for regional autonomy. TIME New Delhi Bureau Chief Marcia Ganger last...
...sign of spring in Baluchistan's provincial capital of Quetta, as sure as the white blossoms bursting in the groves of almond trees, is the procession of caravans making its way up from the south. Through the 60-mile Bolan Pass in the Brahui mountains they come, nomadic families with their camels, sheep, donkeys, the beasts of burden laden with all their possessions. They march by day and camp at sundown while the animals graze on the stony, barren soil. Many will settle around Quetta for the summer: raising sheep, taking day jobs weeding the cultivated fields...
...Soviet troops and the size and sophistication of their weapons were far in excess of what was needed to quell an internal insurgency. Afghanistan, according to these suspicions, could be only a steppingstone on the way to further military aggression, either west into Iran or possibly south into Baluchistan. Straddling both Iran and Pakistan, this area is inhabited by fiercely independent Baluch tribesmen who have long sought autonomy from both countries. The other school maintained that the Soviet move was basically a defensive, self-contained operation aimed at rescuing a crumbling client regime. The military overkill, one Western European envoy...
...astride Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Baluchis, who have long yearned for autonomy, might welcome a Soviet-inspired Afghan invading force that would promise to honor the Baluchis' "legitimate aspirations" -as Afghanistan's new President, Babrak Karmal, has vowed to do. A friendly regime in a breakaway Baluchistan would give the Soviets an outlet to the Arabian Sea at the port of Gwadar and, from there, access to the Persian Gulf. "If I were a Russian," General Fazal told Carrington, "I would take the soft underbelly of Pakistan in Baluchistan and head straight for the warm waters...