Resolving the Baloch issue is in Pakistan’s political and economic interest

Treating what is going in the province of Balochistan as a security matter only is the wrong approach.

On January 1, Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, lost his cool at a news conference in Islamabad. When asked about the Baloch people who had been protesting in the Pakistani capital, demanding government action on enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, Kakar became visibly angry.

He called those demonstrating “relatives of those fighting against the state” and their supporters “advocates of terrorists in Balochistan”. His tirade aimed to delegitimise the Baloch protestors and justify the violence the Islamabad police had unleashed against them.

The approach of the caretaker prime minister, himself a Pashtun hailing from Balochistan, underlines the main issue with government policy towards the Baloch people. For decades, the civilian and military rulers of Pakistan have presented the Baloch issue as a security matter instead of looking into the community’s grievances and demands.

This approach has led to systematic violations of the human, political and economic rights of the Baloch people and fuelled a conflict in their region. The crisis will only deepen unless the Pakistani government changes tack.

Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan, making up some 43.6 percent of the total area of the country. The province is rich in natural resources like gold, copper, oil and natural gas and boasts a 770km (478-mile) stretch of coastline, where the strategic Gwadar Port is located – a prominent feature of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Despite being rich in natural resources, Balochistan remains the poorest province in Pakistan. The Baloch ethnic group, which makes up a