Word: baluch
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...years old, but Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, a feudal lord in Pakistan's rugged Baluchistan province, wants to fight to the death. A Kalashnikov rifle strapped to his back, Bugti travels by camel through desert ravines and hobbles up cliffs to hidden caves where he plots ways for his Baluch tribesmen to ambush the Pakistani army. "It's better to die?as the Americans say?with your spurs on," says Bugti. "Instead of a slow death in bed, I'd rather death come to me while I'm fighting for a purpose." That purpose is to make life as difficult...
...That's not going to be easy. The Baluch, a distinct ethnic group spread over Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, are fiercely independent and have been a thorn in Islamabad's side for decades regardless of who is in power. Baluchistan is rich in gas and minerals, yet it is Pakistan's poorest province. The government says it wants to develop the territory to improve the lives of the Baluch and to secure the country's energy needs. But the Baluch say they have been marginalized and do not receive adequate royalties from the central authorities for the extraction...
...years ago even though the gas had been pumping for decades and had already been flowing to major cities and towns. The government is also building a multimillion-dollar port, Gwadar, off Baluchistan's southern coast, which Musharraf hopes will one day rival Dubai in the nearby Gulf. The Baluch fear, however, that Gwadar will draw so many settlers from Pakistan's other provinces that they will become an underclass minority in their own land...
...Baluch clans have gone on the offensive. They are sabotaging railways, blowing up gas pipelines and electricity cables, and attacking soldiers both in their garrisons and while they are on patrol on Baluchistan's desert roads. A mysterious group calling itself the Baluchistan Liberation Army has also sprung up. Bugti and the other tribal leaders say they have no link to the B.L.A., but Islamabad says the group is a creation of the feudal chieftains and that the insurgency is backed by India?an allegation New Delhi denies. B.L.A. snipers use World War II-vintage Lee-Enfield rifles to pick...
...Musharraf can ill afford a drawn-out guerrilla war in Baluchistan. His armies are already tied down with guarding the India-Pakistan border, while another 70,000 troops are combing the mountains along the Afghan border for al-Qaeda fighters. Yet the government needs to pacify the Baluch warriors. It has plans to expand gas exploration, allow a pipeline to run across Baluchistan from Iran to India, and, with Chinese help, it is building a multimillion dollar port at Gwadar?all of which incenses the Baluch tribesmen who are worried that, once again, they will...