“Hundreds of nationalist activists have gone missing in the province amid allegations that they are being kept incommunicado by the security agencies … The [Pakistani] army killed a nationalist leader in 2006 … To contain the backlash from the killing, the government arrested a large number of political leaders and activists and charged them with serious offences, including treason.”

This is new news to me, I was unaware that Pakistani troops were even in Balochistan. A brief primer on Balochistan shows that it is a region shared by three countries: Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan (just as a point of interest, Alexander the Great annexed the area in 326 BC, and it was briefly part of the Hellenistic civilization). Modern day Iran and Pakistan each have a province called Balochistan/Baluchestan. There have been secessionist rumblings (to put it lightly) in Balochistan ever since Pakistan’s formation, however, the province eventually joined the Pakistani-Federation under the usual assumptions, that it would have greater access to services and economic development as part of Pakistan than alone. Pakistani-Balochistan is strategically relevant in the context of the current stage of imperialism because of its border with Afghanistan and Iran, and its coastline along the Arabian Sea, and it is likely that any attack on Iran will require the logistical and territorial support of the Pakistani government.

For those of us interested in contextualising the suspension of Pakistan’s constitution and judiciary over six-months ago, it would now appear that at least one more reason behind dismantling the rule of law in Pakistan was that it made it easier for the U.S.-allied-government-of-Pakistan to impose structural changes onto sensitive parts of the country (as evidenced by this posting on Leftnews in early January), thereby effectively clearing the ground of any potential opposition in advance of a future strike against Iran.

It is absolutely shameful that western-media sources are (barely) reporting on these important events after the fact. It would appear they have learned very little from their grievous errors in the lead up to the imperial war on Iraq.

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