Pakistan announces reforms to end insurgency in south-west region

Nov 24, 2009, 13:06 GMT

   Islamabad - Pakistani government on Tuesday announced a new reform package for south-western Balochistan province in a bid to end a separatist insurgency there.

   'The government hopes the proposed economic, political and constitutional reforms package will end deprivation of the people of the province,' Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told the national parliament.

   Ethnic Baloch tribes rose up against the central government in 2004, demanding autonomy and greater share of the profits from the Balochistan's natural resources.

   Hundreds have died in the rebel attacks on the law-enforcement agencies, and the security action over the last five years in the province which accounts for 44 percent of the country's area.

   Gilani invited the rebels for talks, hoping the proposed reforms will replace exploitation with justice and terrorism with peace and security.

   Balochistan has 25 per cent of the country's total natural gas production, as well as reserves of copper, gold, silver, magnetite and other minerals.

   The proposed reforms include rationalizing royalties of the minerals extracted from the region, said Raza Rabbani, a senior minister and head of the committee responsible for drafting the package.

   Troops are also suggested to be withdrawn to the barracks, exiled leaders to be allowed to return to Pakistan and political prisoners released.

   In the initial reaction from the ethnic groups, a nationalist leader Abdul Hai Baloch rejected the reforms saying there was 'nothing in it.'

   'The basic issue is that the people of Balochistan want autonomy and control over their natural resources,' said Abdul Hai Baloch, the head of the National Party. 'The people of Balochistan are fed up of a life of slavery.'

   Pakistani authorities have repeatedly said that India through its prime intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing, is supporting Baloch rebels.

   Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told German Press Agency dpa recently in an interview that his country was 'compiling hard evidence of India's involvement and interference in Balochistan.

   'Unless (India) dispenses with its visceral animosity towards Pakistan, attaining viable peace and security in South Asia will be even more elusive,' he added.