Spokesperson for the Baloch Women Forum issued a statement to the media stating that “Caging an entire city with barbed wires, naming it fencing for security and promoting development, that too under the banner of a multibillion project called China Pakistan Economic Corridor (abbreviated as CPEC) with China as its main beneficiary and Pakistan a bridge to further suppress Balochistan in general, and Gwadar in particular.
She added “We, the Baloch Women Forum (BWF), denounce it to the fullest and call for a wake-up culmination of such a one-sided policy of fencing the city. We loud against any such policy which contributes in restricting the freedom of movement of the masses against the well-being and wishes of the people of Balochistan.Initially started in December 2020, the barbed-wire project, planned by military and the so-called provincial government, was designed to fence 24 square kilometers of the entire Baloch city, leaving two entrances only, and installations of 500 surveillance cameras. Although the surface intentions were to provide a self-claimed safe-city, the main motives of a fenced-Gwadar were the foreign interests in the port, the control of the daily lives of people in Gwadar, or to simply put, to compel the people to relocate from the strategically important Gwadar city. Though people reacted enough to cease the project back then, the persons-in-power are reluctant to comprehend and hence re-planning the same process in 2024. Such an anti-Baloch policy needs the best of our reactions.
BWF stands firm against such pathetic dealings, no matter who the actors are.The basic motive of fencing a region in the modern world is to disconnect a place or people from rest of the world. With this disconnection, the superiors would practice everything at their own and would control and monitor all the settings within the wired-fences. However, the two entrances, which will be guarded by the same forces, would only permit who they prefer. In the simplest terms, Gwadar will be directly under watch and gradually, it would go onto the lap of China as part of its debt-occupational policy.
Under the debt-occupational policy, China firstly provides certain amount of debts to a country on interests. After reaching a certain point, when the country fails to return the debts, China calls for less-expensed control of that region on lease. The recent Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Island’s capture for 99 years along with 15,000 acres land areas on lease in 2017 is the latest example of China’s debt-occupational policy. China is preparing a similar notch to seize the Gwadar port in Balochistan to further its economy using the Baloch Sea (The Arabian Sea) as its economic route.For the very purpose, each time Pakistan calls for loans to China, it responses in affirmation. On the other hand, the controversial provincial assembly in Balochistan seems less concerned about the future of the city and the masses, while looking for their personal futures and pleasing their masters (who have won them seats) more to get themselves prepared and promoted in the next elections.
We, at the BWF, in the strongest possible terms, reject the Gwadar fencing project and call for an end to such anti-Baloch policies. The fenced-Gwadar could be the guarantor of a further oppressed Balochistan. We urge masses to understand the effects of such fencing and stop it from being materialized to save your city from the word go.
