Pakistani state must address concerns of Balochs: Report


Pakistan must address the concerns of the Baloch people as the attack by TTP has increased in Balochistan in the past few years.


January 3, 2023

Balochistan [Pakistan], January 3 (ANI): Despite being a treasure of natural resources, Pakistan’s Balochistan falls under the poor category and so the state needs to figure out the reason behind the inability to bring socioeconomic upliftment to this resource-rich region, Mukhtar Ahmed writes in local media.

Balochistan is not only suffering an economic crisis but also a security issue. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) took responsibility for the recent attack in Chaman where five security officials belonging to the Levies were also killed. This was in addition to attacks in Kohlu, Zhob and Turbat by Baloch separatists, reported the New Pakistan website.

According to the New Pakistan website, the growing presence of the TTP in Balochistan has made the province’s people more worried especially after the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan last year.
Despite being a naturally rich province, the people of Balochistan suffer due to the apathy of Provincial and Federal government.

The Afghani Taliban refused to help and the TTP is now on the rampage in two provinces of the country, and in the federal capital, it is time the Pakistani state actually rethought its security calculus.
Recalling Abbas Nasir, former Editor of Dawn, wrote “Balochistan is on the boil again and precious lives continue to be lost in the province, with little or no acknowledgement that the so-called iron-hand policy being pursued there since the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006 has delivered nothing but spiralling death and destruction.”

As Nasir notes, “The policy pursued so far has inflicted considerable pain and agony on the law-enforcement personnel and the Baloch population alike. While the paramilitary forces are armed with the ‘writ of the law’ in taking on the ‘terrorists’, the general Baloch public is furious at being treated like a hostile, alien presence on their own soil,” New Pakistan reported.

Earlier, the Dailytimes reported citing the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) report that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces had suffered close to 376 terror attacks the previous year.

The report claimed that the majority of the attacks were carried out by banned terror outfits such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Daish (Islamic State Khorasan) and Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA).

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province as a whole had an exponential surge in violence, with a corresponding rise in fatalities. Government officials, law enforcement officers, and civilians made up the majority of the victims of violence. According to the study, there were several foreigners among the civilian population.

According to the Center, after November 28 there was an extraordinary uptick in terrorist assaults in KP and Balochistan, with over twenty strikes occurring in only the month of December.

 (ANI)

Baloch activists protest in London against Pakistani police brutality in Gwadar

Darcy Robertson

3 January 2023


London [United Kingdom]3 JANUARY (ANI): The Baloch Republican Party UK held a protest in London against the brutality of the Pakistani Armed Forces and Army in Gwadar, Balochistan.

Speaking on Twitter, the Baloch Republican Party UK Zone said: “BRP UK protested in London against the brutality of the Pakistani Armed Forces and Army in #Gwadar, showing solidarity with our brothers and sisters in #Balochistan #gwadarundersiege #GwadarProtests #GwadarisNotAlone. “

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In the video shared on the Twitter account, the protesters could be seen holding placards that read: “No more security forces in Turbat, Balochistan”, “Trawler mafia must stop using Gwadar Sea in Balochistan”, ” UK intervenes in Gwadar Balochistan” and many more.

Cases of physical intimidation and enforced disappearances of the local Baloch population have increased significantly even as the offensive against the Baloch Liberation Force rages on, the International Forum for Rights and Security (IFFRAS) reported.

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Recently, the case of Siraj Noor and Mohammad Arif, who were kidnapped by the Pakistani military while on vacation in their hometown, sparked a protest in Pakistan.

Local residents took to the streets in Khuzdar district of Balochistan on Sunday, blocking the main road in the area after two students were violently kidnapped by Pakistani forces, Pakistani media reported.

Due to the closure of the highway, a long line of cars formed, trapping many passengers, the Balochistan Post reported.

Siraj Noor, one of those missing, is a 6-semester law student at Sargodha University, while Muhammad Arif earned his MA from Balochistan University in 2022, the Balochistan Post reported, adding that while different schools of thought have investigated the youth’s enforced disappearance Condemn, the authorities have not yet commented on the matter.

Akhtar Mengal, leader of the Baluchistan National Party, has repeatedly accused the Pakistani security forces of conducting fake encounters and forcing the disappearance of Baloch locals.

Cases of fake encounters and enforced disappearances tripled during Imran Khan’s tenure as prime minister. This is despite the fact that the Baloch National (Menghal) Party was in a coalition with Imran’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.

Collectively, these incidents have caused thousands to disappear in Baloch province. IFFRAS, citing Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, an organization that searches for missing persons, reported that more than five thousand people are still missing. It said students, activists, women and children were among the missing. 

(ANI)

Gwadar Rights protesters threaten Chinese nationals to leave port

Maulana issued a threat to the Chinese nationals living in Gwadar warning that if the government "ignores" their peaceful protests, the participants have a right "to pick up and use weapons to protect our rights."

ANI

Published on : 

1 Jan, 2023, 

 

BALOCHISTAN: Gwadar Rights Movement leader, Maulana Hidayat ur Rehman, issued a warning to Chinese nationals to leave the Gwadar port area, reported The Maritime Executive.

Maulana issued a threat to the Chinese nationals living in Gwadar, according to reports, warning that if the government "ignores" their peaceful protests, the participants have a right "to pick up and use weapons to protect our rights."

Media reports suggest that there are fewer than 500 Chinese in Gwadar, all based in the Gwadar Port compound, reported Asian Lite International.

Protests on the expansion of Pakistan's Gwadar Port, a key asset for China's BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) in Asia, continue to escalate, potentially jeopardizing economic ties between China and Pakistan, reported The Maritime Executive.

Last week, the events took a new twist after a protest leader warned Chinese nationals to leave Gwadar by the end of the week. Chinese citizens are facing increasing threats from different militant groups in Pakistan, with a rise in recent incidents of targeted attacks on China nationals.

The growing anti-China sentiment in Gwadar may adversely impact the progress of key CPEC projects. The protests led by Rehman, affiliated with the Gwadar Rights Movement, have been going on for about two months.

The protests mainly involve blocking Gwadar's port entrance and the Gwadar East Bay Expressway, a key artery connecting the port with Pakistan's main highway network, reported The Maritime Executive.

Participants are demanding an immediate ban on illegal trawling in Balochistan's maritime boundaries, recovery of missing Baloch people, closure of unnecessary security checkpoints, primacy to local workers over Chinese citizens, maximum concessions in border trade with Iran, and end to narcotics, among other Gwadar-related issues.

The protesters also want the government to ease curbs on informal border trading with Iran. While these demands are not directly linked to Chinese projects in Gwadar, experts argue that many locals believe the developments are part of the problem, reported The Maritime Executive. Last year, Rehman led similar protests for over 32 days.

He called the action off after the government promised to address his raised demands, which the protesters now say were never resolved. Rehman and the other protestors had largely avoided threatening China openly last year.

Rehman's decision to issue a warning to Chinese nationals is seen as a move to coerce the Pak Government into a negotiation, reported The Maritime Executive.

Since 2021, Chinese nationals have been the target of terror attacks in Pakistan. This includes a bomb attack in July 2021, which killed at least nine Chinese workers on a bus heading to the Dasu hydropower project site.

These threats have prompted Beijing to press Islamabad to guarantee security for its nationals. When Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited Beijing last month, the security of the Chinese in Pakistan was among the items on the agenda.

With protesters demanding urgent government attention, it may well be that the security of the Chinese is being used as leverage for negotiations. Rehman has also vowed to stop all Chinese projects in Gwadar and prevent the movement of high-profile dignitaries in the port town, reported The Maritime Executive.

Pakistan enjoys a special economic relationship with China, and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is regarded as the crown jewel of the BRI. It will offer China the shortest access to the markets of Central Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe through the deep-sea port of Gwadar.

CPEC is slated to cost over USD 50 billion, including the development of highways, railways, and special economic zones. Gwadar Port is the linchpin of the initiative.

Although CPEC was launched back in 2015, local resistance has significantly affected its pace. The project further slowed during the administration of the previous Prime Minister Imran Khan due to friction between his government and China, but the new administration appears keen to revive CPEC, reported The Maritime Executive.

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Grace Millane's mum reaches summit of Mt Kilimanjaro in memory of daughter

Auckland reporter Jan 03 2023

LAWRENCE SMITH/STUFF

Gillian Millane pictured outside the High Court in Auckland following her

 daughter’s death. She is pictured with her husband, David Millane, 

and police detective inspector Scott Beard.

The mother of British tourist Grace Millane has reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro on a climb to honour her late daughter and her husband, David Millane.

Gillian Millane reached the peak, which is 5895 metres above sea level, this week.

Photos posted to Instagram showed her posing at the summit, wearing long pants and a jacket, along with gloves, sunglasses and a beanie.

She was accompanied by her husband’s brother Martin Millane, sister Heather Gammer and her friend Jason Bedding.

READ MORE:
* Grace Millane murder: 'You walked into our lives and destroyed Grace'
* Grace Millane: How her family are using her death as a force for change
* British backpacker Grace Millane's family donate handbags to domestic violence victims

The group did the climb to raise money for White Ribbon, a charity raising awareness about domestic violence, as well as a local United Kingdom hospice and the charity Widowed and Young.

Gillian Millane threw her support behind White Ribbon after her daughter died “so some mum doesn't have to go through this or some father doesn't have to go through what I go through”, she earlier told Newshub.

Grace, a 22-year-old from Essex in the UK, came to New Zealand in 2018 on her OE.

She made international headlines when she disappeared in Auckland.

Her body was found in a bush in the Waitākere Ranges a week later.

Jesse Kempson was found guilty of her murder in November 2019 and was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.

In November 2020, David Millane died of cancer.

Grace Millane was murdered while in New Zealand on her OE.

Following Grace’s death, the family also started the organisation Love Grace, which strives to help domestic abuse victims.

Thousands of Kiwis have donated handbags to the cause, which sees bags filled with cosmetics given to women who “need to be reminded of their worth”.

Gillian’s niece earlier posted on the Love Grace Instagram page about her aunt’s adventures, saying she had to go to Sri Lanka to train.

“We don’t have any mountains here in Essex, in fact we don’t have many hills,” the post said.

“So she went to Sri Lanka to get some practice in.

“It was hot, wet and there were so many leeches, the views were amazing and the people she met fast became friends.”

The Millane family’s fundraising page shows they have raised £19,208, or NZ$36643, for White Ribbon UK so far.

They have also raised $9294 for St Luke's Hospice and $4975 for Widowed and Young.

Elephants: Covid and ethics reshape Thailand's tourism industry

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Image caption,

Kwanmueang and his mahout Lek have returned to their home town as the tourism industry changes

By Jonathan Head

South East Asia correspondent

As he ambles in for his annual health check, Kwanmueang's size takes your breath away.

Nearly three metres high at the shoulder, weighing at least four tonnes, and with spectacular tusks that curve together until they almost touch, the 18-year-old Thai bull elephant is an imposing sight.

Yet he and his keeper, or mahout, Sornsiri "Lek" Sapmak, are in trouble.

They used to make a living by having Kwanmueang take part in ceremonies to ordain new monks, or dress up as a war elephant for re-enacting historic battles. All that stopped during the Covid lockdowns.

More elephants are used for tourism in Thailand - over 3,000 - than anywhere else. Unlike other countries with captive populations, those in Thailand are nearly all privately owned. So the collapse of tourism during the pandemic has had a devastating impact on the elephants and their owners, who no longer earn enough to look after them.

Even as tourism starts to recover, another threat hangs over this unique industry. Ethical concerns over how captive animals are kept and trained are prompting many foreign visitors to boycott the elephant shows, which were once a staple of tour groups, raising questions over whether elephant tourism can ever go back to what it was before Covid.

Lek and Kwanmueang have come back to Lek's home village in Surin province - a region whose people are famed for their skill in keeping, training, and in the past capturing, elephants.

Image caption,

Elephants are everywhere in Surin

Lek is not alone. Hundreds of other elephants have returned to Surin from tourist hot spots like Phuket and Chiang Mai, where they made money by performing tricks or giving rides to foreign visitors.

Walking through these villages is a disarming experience. Nearly every house has one or more elephants chained up in their front yards, or resting under trees. You get used to seeing the huge animals plodding along the road, their mahouts straddling their broad necks, and when driving you learn to take care to move around them.

Boonyarat "Joy" Salangam owns four elephants, which she and her partner brought back from Phuket when tourism dried up in 2020. One is a playful baby, penned in with its mother in an enclosure Joy built in front of her house.

"Covid stopped everything," she says. "The mahouts, owners and elephants have all been unemployed. In the tourist camps the females are kept apart from the bulls, but here we have all been hanging out together, and the elephants have been having sex. We don't force them. They do it in their own time. So the population is increasing."

Joy says she thought about selling her baby elephant to raise funds - they can fetch as much as a luxury car - but worried about how well he would be looked after. Joy has lived with his mother, who is 39 years old, nearly all of her life, and inherited her from her grandparents.

Image caption,

Elephants are expensive animals to care for - needing vast amounts of food and water each day

The mahouts too may live for decades with the same elephant from when they are both young, sometimes choosing to sleep with them, taking them to lakes or rivers to bathe in the evening, and keeping a close eye on their health. That has been a challenge under Covid.

Elephants are expensive. An adult needs to eat 100-200kg (220-440lb) of food a day, and drinks up to 100 litres (22 gallons) of water. Without any other income, owners like Joy have been livestreaming their animals on social media, while appealing for donations.

Sometimes this is done at home, as the elephants play or bathe, or they get a friend to ride a motorbike alongside them to film them on their evening walks. Viewers can pay online for the elephants to earn baskets of bananas by performing tricks, but this is not ideal for their health.

Their diet should mainly be different kinds of leaves and grass, but with so many elephants coming back to the area it is hard to find enough for them.

"We are finding they have digestive problems, because of the change in diet," says Nuttapon Bangkaew, a vet giving free check-ups offered by Elephant Kingdom, a project started seven years ago to improve the welfare of elephants in Surin.

"When the mahouts or elephant owners come back home, they don't have any income. So, they don't have money to buy grass or food for them. They have to do these social media livestreams to make money, but this causes health problems."

Elephants are native to Thailand, but the wild population has shrunk from around 100,000 a century ago, to perhaps only 3,000-4,000 today. In the past large numbers were captured and used in the logging industry, but when that was banned in the late 1980s to protect what remained of the country's forests, they started being used to entertain tourists instead.

In the earliest shows, they demonstrated their skill with logs. But these expanded, as Thailand's tourism boomed, to offering rides, or antics such as having the animals paint or play football. The campaigning group World Animal Protection (WAP) estimates that before Covid elephants generated up to $770m (£626m) a year for Thailand.

WAP is one of a number of groups trying to end the use of elephants for entertainment, arguing that it is unnatural, and always involves cruel training techniques. Many tourists are already seeking more ethical ways to experience elephants in Thailand. Some tour groups in Europe and North America will no longer send clients to elephant camps which include riding or bathing.

So a new niche has emerged in the eco-tourism industry to meet these concerns.

Saengduean "Lek" Chailert, a pioneer in ethical elephant tourism, opened the Elephant Nature Park, north of Chiang Mai, in the 1990s - both as a refuge for injured animals and to explore better ways to allow tourists and elephants to interact.

"We wanted to go fully ethical, to focus on conservation. So we decided to stop the programmes of elephant baths and feeding for tourists," she said.

That cost them half their bookings. And, she adds, tour operators said they couldn't send clients to them because everyone "wants to touch and hug the elephants, they want to put their hands on them".

Image caption,

Thailand's captive elephants would not be able to live independently in the wild

But today, Lek says, there are signs everywhere in Chiang Mai advertising "no bull-hooks, no chains, no riding".

"I checked in Koh Samui - before there were so many camps doing elephant riding. Now there are only two players left. In Phuket, only a few places are left, and in Chiang Mai, just two places."

However, ethical elephant tourism has its limits. Out of more than 200 camps which were operating before the Covid shutdown, only 11, including Lek's, get the WAP's approval.

Lek has a large plot of land, around 100 hectares (250 acres), along the Mae Taeng river. That is just about enough space for the 122 elephants she has - 45 of them rescued from bankrupt businesses during Covid - to be able to wander freely without being chained.

Other camps do not have that option. One, also in Chiang Mai, which advertises "ethical elephant tours", does allow bathing with humans. It says that because it does not have the means to build a sufficiently large enclosure it has to chain them in the evening, for the safety of the elephants and humans.

Image caption,

Some elephants are chained up to stop them wandering - something rights groups criticise

Some in the industry say this is all right; that there needs to be a more balanced approach between the abuses which used to characterise the industry and the demand of animal rights groups that all elephant entertainment should end.

"Riding elephants can be part of a system for taking care of them," says Theerapat Trungprakan, who heads the Thai Elephant Alliance Association, a group of elephant owners and business operators.

"They get to go to different places, going to a waterfall, for example, where they can drink the best quality water, or swimming there. It also increases the safety for the elephant to go with humans because there are dangers like pesticides or electricity cables beyond an elephant's judgement."

He describes some of the arguments made by animal rights groups as emotional and melodramatic, and believes that ethical sanctuaries can be less healthy, because without humans being paid to ride them the elephants get fewer opportunities to take long walks.

There are two debates now hanging over the future of Thailand's captive elephants. One is over what humans should and should not be allowed to do with them. The other, larger question is over what practical options there are for supporting such a massive population of large and long-lived animals.

"I have a wish list in my head, and on top of the wish list is to end the captivity of all wildlife, but we just know that that's not going to happen," says Edwin Wiek, one of the most prominent anti-trafficking campaigners in Thailand.

Image caption,

Edwin Wiek has worked with wildlife in Thailand for two decades

He started the Wildlife Friends Foundation of Thailand 21 years ago to rescue animals that were injured and kept illegally. He has 24 rescued elephants that roam freely in a 16-hectare corral.

"The ideal scenario would be having elephants semi-wild, like we keep them here, in large natural enclosures where they can hang around, bathe, run or forage for food, as they would in nature."

But he realises that would be a costly project with few takers given Thailand is home to 3,000 captive elephants.

"I'm afraid that the majority of elephants, three-quarters of them at least, will still need to find alternative income. And that means there will still be a lot of places where elephant rides, elephant bathing and feeding by tourists will be part of daily routine."

This is all the more likely to happen when tourists from markets like China, Russia and India start travelling to Thailand again, as they tend to enjoy the old-fashioned elephant entertainment shows more, which are often included on their package tours.

What Edwin Wiek believes should happen is for the breeding of domestic elephants to stop - so that the population falls to a level where they can all be kept in those ideal, semi-wild conditions, visited by the smaller number of tourists willing to pay just to see, not touch them.

Then, he says, the government could turn its attention to managing a growing wild population by creating corridors that allow them to move between Thailand's national parks and fragments of forest without coming into conflict with humans.

But Thailand has no strategy in place for that. In fact, regulation of domestic elephants is a muddle, divided between three ministries which do not co-ordinate with each other.

So the future of these magnificent creatures is left largely with their owners, many of them still in precarious financial shape.

The mahouts are counting the days until the tourists come back in the numbers they used to, but also worry that the only business many of them know may be threatened by changing tastes.

Bringing her elephants back to Surin from Phuket cost Joy more than $2,000. She says she cannot afford to return there until she is sure the shows are getting big crowds again.

"Right now it is very difficult for us, because we don't have enough money. The elephants and humans are both unemployed. Will there still be shows? I think there will, but not so many, because some foreign tourists think we, those who keep elephants, do not love them, that we torture them with bull-hooks to make them perform. I think things will change."