Eddy Shah help sought on Baluchistan
Shehmir Gorgej | 20.08.2008 15:29 | Terror War
Mother of Khalid Baloch, who was killed last year. A second son is in prison.
Ahmar Mustikhan, journalist and founder of the American Friends of Baluchistan, has written to Eddy Shah, founder of Today newspaper, friend of Rupert Murdoch, and a close relative of Prince Karim Aga Khan IV to help the Baluch as Shah believes in doing justice to people all over the world.
He said the Aga Khan was the main founder of Pakistan, while Jinnah was a show boy with whom the Baluch had "no love lost."
Mustikhan sent copies of his letter to the House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Senators Joe Biden, Richard Lugar, Robert Casey, Benjamin Cardin and Barbara Mikulski, Congressman, Brad Sherman Afghan ambassador to the U.S. S.T. Jawad, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson, and Pakistan's business magnate and columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee.
Following is the full text of Mustikhan's letter:
Please bear with me this liberty of writing an open letter to you—-but the matter at hand is of great public importance and of grave urgency in nature. I am writing this to you as you are an international celebrity who believes in justice being done to people all over the world and are also a close family member of Prince Karim Aga Khan IV.
I hope and pray you will bring this matter to the notice of the Aga Khan, and both of you will work to get justice done to the people of Baluchistan by advocating their right to self determination.
My family had the good fortune of being a close friend of your late father, Muchool J. Shah. He was a man of sterling qualities, a breed that has almost vanished in Pakistan, baring a few people like Ardeshir Cowasjee. Frankly though, I did not like Mr.
Cowasjee's write-up on the assassination of Baluch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, former governor and chief minister of Baluchistan, in DAWN, the newspaper owned by the Haroon family.
I recall your late father was in the process of selling a home in Karachi about 20 years ago, but was irked over the ridiculous obstacles he faced and had remarked what kind of a country Pakistan is where a person could not even sell his own property.
In fact, Pakistan is a ridiculous country as far as the Baluch national thinking goes. No one better than yourself knows the real founder of Pakistan was Sir Sultan Mohammed Aga Khan, while Jinnah was a mere show boy.
You might be knowing we the Baluch people never accepted Muhammad Ali Jinnah as the father of the Baluch nation. This is because Baluchistan was granted independence separately from India and Pakistan. It remained a separate country for seven and half months and then Pakistan army at gun point got an Instrument of Accession signed between the Baluch ruler, the Khan of Kalat Mir Ahmedyar Khan and Jinnah on March 27, 1948.
The most intriguing part of the signing of the Instrument of Accession was that the document was signed on different dates and in different cities by the Khan of Kalat and Jinnah!
Jinnah was a lawyer whose services the Khan of Kalat had acquired to negotiate the independence of Baluchistan from the British; until his death, the Khan of Kalat used to complain that Jinnah had cheated him. The cheating is akin to a lawyer who is assigned to work out the sale deed of a home ends up becoming the owner of the property himself. It is for this reason, the Baluch people have no love lost with Jinnah.
The Khan of Kalat's grandson the De Jure Ruler of Baluchistan, Beglar Begi (Prince among the Princes) Suleman Daud Ahmedzai, who has now sought asylum in the United Kingdom, will bear testimony to the fact what I am writing to you is true.
Since March 1948 Baluchistan had been treated like a colonial possession of the Punjabi-Mohajir army generals and civil bureaucracy. What more can be said about the gross injustices when people in the Dera Bugti area, where the gas wells are located, still use cow dung to cook their food, while the gas reaches deep into Punjab and Karachi hundreds of miles away.
Pakistani army generals and state machinery owe Baluchistan at least $15 billion in unpaid monies from Sui gas alone. When former governor and chief minister Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti raised his voice against the injustices he was killed extra judicially by the Pakistan army in August 2006.
Even Nawab Bugti's last remains were never handed to the bereaved family.
Nawabzada Bala'ach Marri, a member of the Baluchistan state assembly son of the most loved Baluch leader Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, who was likewise killed in November 2007 as he struggled to force the Pakistan army out of Baluchistan.
Asadullah Mengal, son of another popular leader Sardar Ataullah Mengal, was killed by the Pakistani intelligence way back in the mid 1970s and even to this day no one knows where he is buried. His second son Sardar Akhtar Mengal, who was a chief minister of Baluchistan, was kept in a cage inside the jail and was freed recently.
There are some Baluch mothers who have sacrificed more than one son for Baluchistan. The case in point is that of the mother of Dr. Khalid Baloch of Mekran, who was killed in an encounter with the Pakistan army in August last year. Baloch's brother Wahid Qanbar is still in jail, after being tortured in Pakistan military intelligence dungeons. But their aging mother says she is proud of her sons and displays the victory sign (See attached picture).
Tens of thousands of Baluch people have laid down their lives for the freedom of their country since March 1948. Just last month, Pakistan army killed more than 70 innocent tribesmen in the Kach and Uch areas. Pakistan’s cruelty against Baluchistan has few parallels in modern world history. There have been reports that Pakistan army has used phosphorous bombs and other chemical weapons against the Baluch tribesmen. One of the biggest harm done to Baluchistan was the testing of nuclear weapons in Chagai in May 1998. The Baluch do not consider the Jews, Hindus or Christians as their enemies, and question why have the Punjabi-Mohajir army generals used occupied Baluch lands for their hegemonistic designs. In the month of May, three Bugti tribesmen, namely Nazar Mohammed Bugti, Rostam Bugti, and Jeo Bugti, were burnt alive by the Pakistani occupation forces. An army officer told me that during the military operations, the soldiers would cut off the genitals of rebel tribesmen and throw them from helicopters on their villages to extract information but the Baluch were so loyal to their cause that they would rather die than betray the resistance.
People like yourself and the Aga Khan can surely help end the Nazi-style state terrorism against Baluchistan. The fact is that it is not only Baluchistan, but the entire world that is suffering from the grandiose designs of the Pakistan army generals. You might have followed reports that former I.S.I. chief General Mehmud Ahmed was in New York on the day of the 911 terror attacks. He was the one who asked the Al Qaeda and Taliban to fight against the U.S. Mahmud Ahmed, who was former president general Pervez Musharraf's mentor, was forced out of his post only after his actions came into limelight.
I am firmly convinced Pakistani secret services were involved in the slaying of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The main killer in the case Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was being sought by the FBI, was a guest at the home of the then home secretary of Punjab, Brigadier (retired) Ejaz Shah, a former operative of the I.S.I. Twice premier the late Benazir Bhutto had clearly mentioned Ejaz Shah, who was later chief of the Intelligence Bureau, was involved in plots to kill her. As recently as July 7, 2008 Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence was involved in the attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul that left 60 killed and 200 injured.
The C.I.A., Afghan and Indian security agencies, have confirmed I.S.I. role. Pakistan army and I.S.I. are resolved to see the International Security Assistance Force and democracy in Afghanistan defeated and the return of Taliban. Under the Taliban, Pakistan generals were calling Afghanistan their fifth province.
At the same time, Pakistan army, I.S.I. and Military Intelligence are carrying out a jihad against the Baluch. An attempt to “Pakistanize” Baluchistan under the slogan of Allahu Akbar and raining U.S.-supplied bullets and bombs on Baluch people have not worked for the last six decades and will not work in the future.
One of the most important developments is that under the leadership of the De Jure Ruler of Baluchistan, the Khan of Kalat Sulemand Daud Ahmedzai, the Baluch have decided to approach the International Court of Justice at the Hague. Ahmedzai, who has sought asylum in the U.K., got the mandate to seek international help at a historic and representative assembly or jirga he had called at the Shahi Palace in Kalat in the wake of Nawab Bugti's assassination.
Pakistan was born with defects and over the last six decades degenerated into a nation where only multimillionaire army generals, mullahs, and smugglers—all alied with international terror networks—matter. It is a country where Bhutto and Bugti are considered security threats while Osama bin Laden, Ayman Alzwahiri, and Mullah Omar are “national assets.”
Pakistan is a strange country, where elected prime ministers are killed by the military. Where soldiers from modest backgrounds like Ayub Khan, Ziaul Haq and Pervz Musharraf become multimillionaire generals through kickbacks and corruption in arms purchases, where politicians become the richest people--Asif Ali Zardari ranks second, Nawaz Sharif family ranks fourth in Pakistan--, where a lowly official and barber's son like Rahman Malik, involved in the oil-for-food scam, becomes the interior minister. What is more, this sleazeball Malik calls Nawab Brahamdagh Bugti, a secular Baluch hero and resistance leader, a terrorist.
In any case, Baluchistan does not want to have any truck with Pakistan. As the Aga Khan was the main founder of Pakistan, your role can change the course of history.
The Khan of Kalat, Beglar Begi (Prince among the Princes) Suleman Daud Ahmedzai is now living in the U.K. and I shall appreciate if you may please meet him in person and facilitate the peaceful balkanization of Pakistan without any further bloodshed.
Balkanization is a surefire way of dismantling the Pakistan army apparatus and I.S.I. so that the people of Baluchistan, Afghanistan and, in fact, the entire world can live in peace."
Shehmir Gorgej
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