Miriam A

I’m very glad to be here today, to speak about some of the particular social issues in Balochistan, and in Pakistan in general, because some of these issues are not specific to Balochistan, though they are sometimes worse in the area. I am certainly not the expert that some of the experts on this panelists are, but I thought I could speak a little about U.S. policy toward the region, and since we are here talking about human rights issues – I take no position on the independence or non-independence of Balochistan – but I will discuss both political and social issues because I think that human rights abuses often cross lines, and are very often interconnected.

First of all, I think it’s really amazing how little has been written about and talked about Balochistan since 9/11, and since the strategic importance of that area – specifically to the U.S. and to U.S. foreign policy. Balochistan is the largest province in Pakistan. It is the most sparsely populated, but it is extremely important. It was during the many other Afghan wars, and it certainly is now for U.S. troops. Because of this, it is incumbent upon us to understand more about that region.

Some of these points have been mentioned already, but I wanted to reiterate a few of them. One of them being that there is a great deal of natural resources, mineral wealth and particularly, natural gas. There are five gas wells in Sui and they supply 38% of Pakistan’s needs. But, in contrast, only 6% of Balochistan even has gas connections, and much of that is connected to the military. I might also mention that 30% of the oil and gas is also controlled by Texas oil companies.

One of the other big issues in the region is the development of the Gwadar sea port, a major development project. This is being done in a typical way, to create conflict in Balochistan. I am not going to say that it is unique to that project because I have seen things like this in many other areas in Asia, but it is something that does not take a great deal of brain power to figure out that it is going to create tremendous resentment among the local Baloch because most of all of the planning is done from the central government and central institutions. Sometimes the local government, and end even the provincial government in Quetta, is not even informed of decisions, which means, obviously, that they are not even part of the planning process.

In conjunction with the development of this seaport is a very large housing scheme that has been developed, and is being planned to go to retired army and civilian officials in Pakistan. Most of the jobs in this seaport and in this project are given out in Karachi, so they are given out mostly to non-Baloch. It is not surprising that this is a source of great conflict for people in Balochistan, and gives them a feeling that they don’t even have a say over the resources and development in their own areas.

I want to move particularly to the situation of women, and to the situation of education. Much of what I am going to talk about is not specific to Balochistan, but I think that because Balochistan is much more remote, that all of these cases apply to the region, and not only that, but more likely that there is less reporting from that area.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent non-governmental organization – it is not like the other national human rights commissions in other countries in the region – has some statistics that it lists of abuses against women. Probably for some people and people from Pakistan, this is not surprising, but for people in the West it does give one pause, because it is listed in categories. The first category is honor killings; the second category is burn cases, and those are divided into different types of burn cases. Burns done by acid, and kitchen accidents. Following that you have the usual murder, abduction, but you also have gang rapes separate from rape cases. And I think this is very instructive – certainly we have heard about the problem of honor killings in reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. This is something that is typical in the country, and something that I think, although it is difficult to preach something from the West, is something that is going to change from within. And it’s not acceptable. And the women of Pakistan know that it is not acceptable, but they are working in a very difficult environment to try to bring about change.

According to a local human rights NGO working in Pakistan, in the first eight months of 2004, 631 women and girls had already died in honor killings. Half of them were in Sindh and many went unreported in Balochistan and in the North West Frontier Province. According to Human Rights Watch, only five percent of honor killings and rapes are even recorded, so we can imagine that many, many more cases are taking place but are simply unknown to anyone in the media. The most recent press release of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan is a statement decrying the fact that in a recent case, five out of six men were just acquitted in a gang rape.

I am speaking specifically about the situation of women because women are making up half of the population of this country, and if the status of women is so appalling, that says something about the status of the whole population. And if the human rights situation is that bad for women, that is a statement about the country and about the region. And I think it is something that needs to be looked at very closely, both by people within Pakistan and within Balochistan, as well as those from outside who can bring about some kind of pressure to bear to help bring about change.

Many of you know already about the high rates of illiteracy in Pakistan, both of women and men. 43% of men – and you can find somewhat different statistics but overall it gives you the general picture – 43% of men are illiterate and 72% of women are illiterate. In the year 2000, 57% of females were enrolled in primary school – that’s barely over half. 76% of males were enrolled in primary school, and actually USAID figures are much, much lower. When you get into secondary school, the figures go down drastically. So obviously education is an area that needs a great deal of attention, a great deal of focus, and a great deal of support. I think that probably the most important thing in terms of bringing about any changes in society and improvements in human rights is focusing on the education and raising the educational standards of the population. And that does not just mean the education of women, but the education of men as well.

Speaking about U.S. support in particular, certainly there is a good deal of support going from, for example, the U.S. Agency for International Development towards some of these sectors in Balochistan for education and for some development projects, I would say that there isn’t enough and there needs to be much, much more. And it needs to be sustained. It should not just be when the United States needs Pakistan for other reasons that it decides to increase its support in social areas.

In terms of U.S. policy, I want to give several recommendations and make several points. First of all, I think that given how much aid the U.S. is giving to Pakistan, it has done little to nothing about pressure on the human rights situation. It needs to use the leverage that it has to put some pressure on the government about the human rights situation in Pakistan.

I also wanted to point out that President Bush stated very specifically that the U.S. was going to judge countries by how they deal with their own citizens. Well, if Bush is going to call Pakistan an ally, then he needs, and his Administration, needs to speak out about the way the Pakistani government treats its own citizens. And I am speaking, in particular, about the Baloch.

Also, the Administration needs to speak out about women’s rights in Pakistan. If you can recall, one of the biggest issues, particularly in the U.S. Congress, over the Taliban regime was its treatment of women. So women’s rights in Afghanistan is something that has gotten a great deal of attention here in this country. And I know that the Administration has lauded the improvements for women in Afghanistan. Well, what about Pakistan? There are great similarities in the societies and in the way that women are treated in Pakistan, but I have heard very little about women’s rights in Pakistan, which is right next door. As was stated earlier, the ethnic identities are the same across borders. I would like to hear more about this, and not just about things like the wearing of burkas and some of the more superficial points about how women are treated. I am saying this because I myself actually think that that is a human rights abuse, having worn one once in about 110 degree weather. But I am talking about something much more fundamental, and I think that is something that the U.S. needs to speak much more strongly about.

Finally, I wanted to talk about the consistencies in U.S. policy. How about making conditions on U.S. weapons sales. I am not going to address at this point U.S. policy in Afghanistan, or U.S. policy in terms of supporting Musharraf, and the military. I can save that for another time. But if the U.S. wants to help bring about change or be consistent in its own human rights rhetoric, then it needs to be consistent in how it treats Pakistan and how it speaks about Pakistan in its treatment of its own people.

Some of the things that the U.S. could do is to place conditions on its weapons sales, that any weapons going to the Pakistani military may not be used against its own citizens. At least make that a condition. It’s not always easy to implement that, or to check it or to monitor it, but at the very least, make it your rhetoric.

And finally, how about a lot more support of judicial reform in Pakistan. One of the first things that is needed is to have a better court system. So many of these cases – as I mentioned the one recently – even if people are, and women in particular, brave enough to go to court and bring a case, how often is justice even done? Very, very seldom. So a lot of judicial support can be given by the U.S.

Finally, I just want to make a comparison. It’s interesting, but it’s also very sad. Most recently I’ve been working a lot on a region in the eastern part of Indonesia called West Papua. It’s the western part of Papua New Guinea. I’m really struck by a completely different area, a different ethnic group, but such similarities politically and in every other way. In West Papua, there is also a very poorly armed but long-running movement for independence for West Papua. It is the largest province in Indonesia. It is full of natural resources. The majority of all those resources go to the central government in Jakarta. There is a tremendous military presence in Papua, although the Papuans themselves are not fighting among themselves. And from the time of Indonesia having annexed Papua in a sham UN referendum, the human rights abuses have gone on and on. It has only made the feelings of the Papuan people stronger for wanting independence. Their chances seem slim to none, but they don’t give it up. And I am amazed at the similarities between a region in Southeast Asia, although it is considered Asia, it is very different in many ways, but these kinds of similarities where you have political repression, you refuse to treat citizens equally, you refuse to actually let them enjoy the profits of their own land and, in particular in the case of Balochistan and Pakistan, when you abuse half of the population.

Thank you.