Word: baluchistan
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...colonized" Baluchistan yearns for autonomy
...Afghanistan. This nation was literally quartered by the British map makers who brushed in arbitrary political boundaries during their heyday of 19th century imperialism. Like so much of this part of the world in the late 20th century, this "country" can no longer be ignored. Its name is Baluchistan (pronounced Ba-loo-chi-stan...
...tribal reality of Baluchistan has caused trouble not only for the Pakistani government but also for Iran. The dour, nomadic Baluch tribesmen who make up 60% of the Pakistani province's 2.5 million population have about 1 million kin in eastern Iran and perhaps 300,000 more in Afghanistan. In 1972 Pakistan's Baluch launched a revolt against the regime of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who retaliated harshly over the next four years. At the peak of the fighting, the Shah supplied helicopters and pilots to help 70,000 Pakistani soldiers put down the rebellion...
Flinty, arid Baluchistan is a sparsely populated land that only its sons could love. Corrugated by rugged mountain ranges, the area receives an average of 10 in. of rain a year, usually all at once, vs. 36.5 in. in more fertile northern Pakistan, near Kashmir. In summer, temperatures can rise to 130° F. In winter, they can fall to subfreezing levels. Desert scorpions and other noxious fauna abound. Prolonged exposure to Baluchistan can be fatal: when the army of Alexander the Great marched across it on the way home from India, two-thirds of the men died. But local...
...which the Baluch will go to any length to satisfy, including even paying for it. In one Baluch tribe, $400 is the traditional fine for murder, while the penalties for causing bodily injuries start at $50. Fiercely clannish, the main Baluch tribes are headed by chieftains called sardars. Says Baluchistan Times Editor Fasih Iqbal: "A tribe follows its sardar. If he goes Communist, so goes the whole tribe...