GENEVA: Dr. Lakhu Lohana of the World Sindhi Congress said Balochistan’s hardships have continued for nearly 80 years and rejected the notion that the region stands merely at a political “crossroads.”
Addressing the 12th session of the Balochistan International Conference, organized by the Baloch National Movement (BNM), he said Balochistan is instead “on the path of freedom and liberation.”
The Sindhi nationalist leader and former senior official of the World Sindhi Congress (WSC) said that on March 27, 1948, a dark night of slavery, colonialism, cruelty and repression descended on Balochistan one that has not ended to this day. If anything, he said, it has only grown darker.
Lohana said that beyond killings and enforced disappearances, countless people have died over the past eight decades due to poverty and malnutrition, despite Balochistan being rich in gold, copper, coal, gas, oil and other minerals.
He noted that Pakistan’s first major gas reserve was discovered at Sui, giving rise to the term “Sui gas” described by the Pakistani state as the country’s largest gas reserve. By his account, more than 90 percent of that reserve has already been depleted, even as women in Balochistan still walk miles barefoot to fetch water.
“At present, the poverty rate in Balochistan is among the highest in Pakistan-administered territory. Malnutrition rates are similarly among the highest. Maternal and infant mortality rates are also the highest. The occupying state of Pakistan has, in the truest sense, kept the people of Balochistan in mediaeval, inhumane conditions,” he said.
He asked whether anyone with even a shred of conscience could allow this to continue, invoking the United Nations Charter of Human Rights and appealing to the international community.
“How many more bodies from Balochistan will have to bleed before the world can no longer deny that atrocities are taking place and that they must stop?”
He said Sindh stands at a similarly critical juncture, with activists bearing the responsibility of securing freedom for their nation and homeland.
He added that the world “has become a very difficult place” and that subject nations must remain bound to one another in solidarity.
Closing his remarks, he pushed back directly on the conference’s theme. “This title ‘Balochistan at a crossroads’ I would ask leave to differ,” he said. “Balochistan is not at any crossroads. Balochistan is on the path of freedom and liberation. Sindh and Balochistan should make this journey together.”
