How are evil animals conceived? The past and present lives of Pakistan's Balochistan Liberation Army

On April 26, local time, an explosion occurred at a university in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, killing four people. Located outside the Confucius Institute at the University of Karachi, the four victims were three Chinese citizens (two women) and one Pakistani driver. Pakistan's terror group Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has declared responsibility for the attack.

Why is the Balochistan Liberation Army so rampant? Why is there such hatred for the Pakistani government that it strikes at us by hurting our fellow citizens? What are the deep-seated reasons for the emergence of the Balochistan Liberation Army? Let's take a look at where this evil origin comes from.

1. Balochistan Province, the birthplace of the Balochistan Liberation Army

Located in the southwestern region of Pakistan, Balochistan is the largest province in Pakistan and its geographical location is very important. The province borders Afghanistan to the north, the Arabian Sea to the south and Iran to the west (see Figure 1). This area has always been a place of contention for soldiers.

Figure 1

As early as the time of British colonial rule over India, the strong and brave Balochi Heavy Cavalry Corps had many large-scale bloody conflicts with the British colonial army at that time. The main ethnic groups living here so far are Balochi, Punjabi, Pashtun, Sindh and other ethnic groups. The Balochi people are the indigenous people of the province. Balochistan is rich in natural resources, with natural gas production accounting for half of all of Pakistan. In addition, coal, ferrochrome, sulfur, marble, gypsum, copper ore and other mineral resources are also very rich.

In 1947, India and Pakistan were divided, and the State of Karat in Pakistan's Balochistan region refused to join Pakistan and declared the establishment of the so-called "Independent State of Balochistan". This practice of the state of Karat directly led to a massive military crackdown from the central government of Pakistan. After that, some Baloch people feared that they would lose their rightful place and dignity in the future political, military, economic and other fields of Pakistan, and would be subjected to suppression and discrimination by the central government controlled by the free Punjabs. As a result, the enthusiasm of these Baloch people for autonomy is very high.

Between 1973 and 1976, many tribal armed forces in the area launched a series of armed insurrection activities. After Mohammed Zia Al-Haq came to power in 1977, preferential policies such as amnesty for armed rebels and increased funding to help the region develop its economy were introduced. Although these policies implemented by Zia Haq have, to some extent, alleviated the contradictions between the local and the central government. However, the original problems in the region have not been fundamentally solved.

Since 1980, some local ethnic armed groups in Balochistan have never abandoned the goal of establishing an independent State. Most of the local ethnic armed forces, represented by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BALA for short), advocate seeking independence in the region through armed violence.

The Balath is one of the physically armed military organizations of the local ethnic separatist forces in Balochistan, Pakistan. The organization was founded in 2000. On April 9, 2006, the Balay was designated by Pakistan as a terrorist organization, which was the first time that the Pakistani government had characterized the use of terrorism by balochistan armed groups.

Second, the background of the "solution"

The emergence of "Solution" has its profound background. The fundamental reason for its survival and continuous growth lies in the contradictions between the central government of Pakistan and the local forces in Balochistan Province in the following aspects.

The first is that a strong sense of local national independence has given birth to the emergence of "dissolution". The Baluch people belong to the Sunni sect of Islam, which claims to have its own unique ethnic origins and cultural characteristics, and its social development form belongs to the typical tribal social system. In the tribal society of the Baluchids, tribal leaders and elders have considerable power.

Not only are they extremely conservative in their thinking and cling to their original interests, but they are also able to use the power they control and their prestige in tribal societies to carry out extreme ideological education for the younger generation. As a result, most Baloch people in the region have little concept of "state". This inertial thinking and tradition of tribal identity stronger than national identity, both in the past and today, has been an important "driving force" behind the baluch people's quest to free themselves from the control of the central government of Pakistan and to establish the "Balochistan State" with the Baluchis as a single ethnic body.

The Balochi tribe has a history of about 2,000 years, and this ethnic group has established a political system under the leadership of its own ethnic group many times in its long history. Later, at the end of the Anglo-Indian colonial government, the Baloch people in Pakistan also carried out many ethnic independence struggles intensively. The Baluch people had hoped to gain independence and establish the "Balochistan State" after the British colonists withdrew from colonial rule in the South Asian subcontinent, but their hopes were greatly frustrated by the introduction of the Mountbatten Plan.

In the time that followed, a strong sense of local national independence combined with a continuous wave of armed "insurrection" in the local area, which eventually created a number of local separatist armed groups like the "Bal liberation."

It can be seen from this that a strong and conservative tribal national consciousness is the key internal cause of the continuous development and growth of the "Balochistan", and it is also the key to the difficulty of reaching consensus and bridging differences between the Baluch and the Central Government of Pakistan.

Second, in pakistan's central government and army, the Baluch are of a low and small number, and are basically vassal or subordinate. Since the founding of Pakistan, there have been few Baloch leaders in important positions in the central government and military of Pakistan.

About 60% of the government's administrative resources are monopolized by forces from the Province of Punjab, Baluchis rarely have access to the central cabinet and ministries, most of the senior positions in the administrative and judicial branches of the province are non-Baloch, the Balang account for only 5% of the Police in the Province, and the proportion of Punjabs in the army has reached 90%. As a result, some Balochi military and police who were militarily trained and harbored national separatist tendencies became the backbone of the later "Bala Liberation" in planning and carrying out armed insurrection against the Pakistani central government.

Third, the central government of Pakistan has not paid enough attention to the economic development and social and people's livelihood issues in Bi Province. Balochistan is a relatively backward province in Pakistan's economic development, accounting for only 3.5% of Pakistan's total economic output, and at a rate of 8.4% in Pakistan, the economic growth rate of Balochistan is only 2%. The province's per capita income is only 2/3 of Pakistan's per capita income. The province has basically no pillar industries, is not enough to make ends meet, has poor infrastructure, has low per capita income, and is the poorest area in Pakistan along with the North-West Frontier Province. The level of social development in Bi Province is low, and 9 of the 10 indicators such as education, health and health rank last in the country, of which the enrolment rate of primary education is not more than 40%. Labor productivity is less than 1/4 of Punjab, only 1/3 of Sindh, and the quality of labor is lower than that of other provinces.

Economic backwardness has led to balochistan's marginalization in Pakistan's domestic politics, while the further deterioration of relations between various local political forces and the central government has exacerbated the estrangement and suspicion between the local people and the central government of Pakistan. This deterioration and suspicion of relations between the localities and the central authorities in many aspects has provided the soil on which local ethnic armed organizations such as the "Bala Liberation" have dreamed of building an independent country.

Fourth, balochistan's ethnic complex composition, religious extremism and sectarian vendetta are prevalent, which have led to the entanglement of various forces in the region and the long-term chaos and turmoil in the social security environment. However, the Pakistani government has not taken effective action to alleviate ethnic and religious contradictions.

At present, there are two major ethnic groups in Pakistan's Balochstan province, the Baluch and the Pashtuns, each with a population of more than 40% of the total population of the province. In addition, there are a large number of Sikh Punjabi immigrants as well as Sindh, Bura ash, Hazara and so on. The Baluch inhabit the sparsely populated west, east, south and southeast. The Brah Ash live in the central region, while the Pashtuns live mainly in the north.

The international crude oil price soared in the 1970s, allowing Saudi Arabia to obtain huge economic resources. Against this backdrop, with the support of the U.S. government, the Saudi government and the CIA have funded a large number of Wahhabi extremist radicals to go to Afghanistan and Pakistan to carry out missionary and jihadist campaigns. It was also in the process that the Baluchids of Pakistan came into contact with and influenced Wahhabi thought. Some of the Baluch people, who are Sunni Muslims and have national separatist tendencies, began to become more and more aggressive after being "baptized" by the Wahhabism jihadist ideology. In addition, balochistan has a complex ethnic composition and different religions believed in by various ethnic groups, which has found a very good excuse for the extremist "jihadist" elements of the Baluch ethnic group represented by the "Baloch" to launch "jihadist" terrorist attacks in the name of "pure Islamic world."

In particular, other Baluch extremist armed groups in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Balochistan province, which has close ties to balay, often carry out terrorist and violent attacks against other ethnic groups living in the area with the militants of bahraki. The vast majority of the victims were Punjabis and Hazaras.

Fifth, the issue of resource allocation is also an important reason for the long-term distress and tension between the pakistani central government and the local relationship between Balochistan. Pakistan's mineral and energy resources are mainly distributed in Balibal Province and Northwest Frontier Province, of which Bi Province is the majority, accounting for about 50% of the country's total mineral resources. However, these abundant natural resources do not serve the local economy very well. Industrial enterprises in other provinces, such as Sindh and Punjab, are the biggest beneficiaries of these natural resources, a situation that has led local Balochians to argue that pakistan's central government is unjust in terms of the basic principles of the distribution of benefits.

The long-term imbalance in the pattern of profit distribution has become one of the main reasons for the intensification of local people's distrust of the central government. Because many of the leaders of the "PLO" had studied in the Soviet Union, and during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that year, most of the members of the organization were influenced by the Soviet Union's idea of "armed seizure of power and turning into masters". Therefore, the organization has always held that what it has done has always been a just struggle for the rights of its own nation and region, and a just cause that is conducive to the future and development of its own nation and region.

Sixth, the repeated independence movements in history are one of the important triggers for the emergence of "plutonium". The establishment and development of the "P&A" is related to the profound and complex historical factors of the region. As early as the British colonial period in India, there were many independence movements in balochistan.

To this day, in the minds of many Baluchis, their leader Bakhshi led the tribe's armed resistance to the British colonists and sought independence and self-government, which still makes them feel honored and proud. After this, the October Revolution in Russia and the Kemal Revolution in Turkey once again aroused the baloch people's sense of national independence. The Baloch launched a series of armed independence movements, but the results ended in failure under the joint suppression of the British colonists and the local native nobles.

After World War II, on the eve of Britain's preparations for withdrawal from the South Asian subcontinent, the Baloch thought they would gain independence after the British colonists withdrew from India. But after the British colonial authorities introduced the Mountbatten Plan, the Baloch people's dream of independence was shattered again. The Balochistan state of Karat refused to join Pakistan and declared itself the establishment of the "Independent State of Balochistan". This move in The State of Karat was not only firmly opposed by the Pakistani government, but also subjected to armed repression by the government.

With the needs of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, with the financial support of the Soviet National Security Council, the Baluch finally established their own armed organization, the Balochistan Liberation Army.