Economic Exploitation in Balochistan

Map of Balochistan
Source: The Diplomat

Overview: About Balochistan

Balochistan, one of the four provinces of Pakistan covers 43% of the country’s land area (347,190km) and is geographically the largest province of Pakistan. Balochistan had remained a semi-autonomous state before the Independence of Pakistan, and after 1947 most of the historical Balochistan named after the Baloch people, became a federating unit of Pakistan.

At around six million in number, the Balochs make up only 4.96% (Government of Pakistan, 1998) of the total population. Compared with other provinces, Balochistan has an immense base of natural resources (oil, gas, gold, copper, uranium,coal and others). But interestingly, Balochistan’s economic and social development appears to face particularly daunting challenges.

Economic Exploitation & no control over own resources

Despite living with a good endowment of natural resources, Balochistan faces extreme poverty, conflict, hunger and instability due to the systematic looting and plundering of its natural wealth by general administrations.

Pak security forces have been the main source of political and economic power in Balochistan since 1947. And their exploitation of the land has caused this largest province to lag behind other provinces of Pakistan in the pace of development. Punjabi and Chinese businessmen have also been plundering Balochistan’s plentiful natural resources, but the Baloch indigenous people have not benefited from it.

A classic illustration of this is the discovery of Sui gas fields in 1952 in Balochistan. Over the last four decades, it supplied cheap natural gas to Pakistan's economic centers, supporting the country's industrialization, without any benefit to the Baloch people.

Natural gas generates annual revenues of around Rs.3.1 billion. (Government of Balochistan. (2003))

Even though Balochistan is responsible for 23% of Pakistan’s total gas production, only 6% of the produce is consumed in the region. Sui, Balochistan, the place where gas is being extracted from and supplied to Punjab and other parts of Pakistan, is deprived of gas!  And the continued exploitation of gas and oil reserves has depleted much of the reserves in Sui, Loti and Uch.

Balochistan is believed to have 0.459 billion tons of coal reserves and coal fields all of which are located in northern part of the province. Coal has also been a traditionally important mineral resource of Balochistan and this too is mainly transported to other provinces of Pakistan and is used directly as a source of energy or converted into other sources  of energy like electricity. Natural gas and coal together meet around 40 percent of the primary energy production needs of Pakistan [(Government of Balochistan. (2006). White Paper Budget 2006-07. Quetta: GoB)]. Exact coal sources data in Balochistan is not available, but Balochistan is blessed with the resources that can help ease energy shortage substantially through renewable energy. Yet, Balochistan is starved of power and faces the longest hours of blackouts.

“The Saindak copper and gold project is centred in Balochistan’s largest and most resource-rich district, Chaghi. But the great irony is that, with an official population of only about 226,000, it remains one of the poorest and undeveloped districts in Balochistan” - Dawn

Another example of resource exploitation is the 1995 multi-billion copper-gold Saindak and Rek – e – Dik gold-copper projects respectively in the Chagi  District. In  2002,  the  Federal  government  entered  into  an  agreement  with  a  Chinese company to  handover the  Saindak Project. Under the agreement the Chinese  company would fetch  80%  of total  profits  back  home, pay  18%  to  the federal  government  of  Pakistan and disburse only 2% to Balochistan government as royalty charges (Grae, 2006).
While the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a newer phenomenon, MCC’s (Metallurgical Corporation of China) involvement in Chaghi & Pakistan’s economic subservience to China is more than two decades old.

Balochistan has always been treated just like a ‘colony’. The potentially productive mineral sector of Balochistan currently employs only 1.3 per cent of the employed persons in the province. The province has large deposits of coal, copper, lead, gold and other minerals whose ore is minted and then processed into finished products elsewhere in Pakistan. The Pakistan government has made no efforts to establish industries in Balochistan to help in the production of the raw materials into finished goods in the province itself.

Source: Population Census 1998 and World Bank

Human Development Index

Balochistan has the lowest Human Development Index in the entire southern and western Asian region and one of the lowest in the world (Government of Balochistan 2013). The number of poor people in rural Balochistan increased from 1.5 million people in 1998-99 to 3.2 million people in 2006-07.

Comparing the four provinces of Pakistan, Balochistan scores lowest in nine of the ten key indicators for education, literacy, health, water and sanitation.

Balochistan’s share of Pakistan’s GDP is a paltry 3.5 percent and it has the weakest long-term growth performance of all provinces; from 1972-73 to 2004-05 the economy expanded 2.7 times in Balochistan, 3.6 times in the North West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and Sindh and 4.0 times in Punjab (World Bank 2008).This has led to a widening of the per-capita income level which, for Balochistan, in 2004 stood at $400 – two thirds of the level for all of Pakistan (World Bank 2008). (Source - World Bank 2008).

BALOCHISTAN IS LOCATED BETWEEN THREE INCREASINGLY IMPORTANT REGIONS OF THE WORLD; THE OIL-RICH MIDDLE EAST, HEAVILY POPULATED SOUTH ASIA AND THE ECONOMICALLY EMERGING AND RESOURCE-RICH CENTRAL ASIA - BALOCHISTAN VOICES

Balochistan is bestowed with some of the best assets for development with an important geo-strategic position and potentials that could make the province a possible industrial hub and also an inter-regional transport and trade but due to un-ending deprivation, Balochistan remains an otherwise lost province of Pakistan.

The 2002 Gwadar port project which the Pakistani administration has been pushing, with substantial financial aid from Chinese businessmen has systematically excluded and marginalised the Baloch people.

“Quetta, along with other eight cities of Balochistan including Dalbandin, Nokkondi, Gwadar, Panjgur, Pasni, Ormara, Turbat and Jiwani is facing acute scarcity of water due to less rainfall and over exploration of groundwater” - Daily Times

Acute water shortage

"Half of Balochistan is gripped by a drought," says Dr Ainuddin, chairperson of the Disaster Management Department at the University of Balochistan.

While in the rest of Pakistan, agriculture sector plays a vital role in the economic development of the country, Balochistan’s agricultural productivity is curbed by the scarcity of water. According to reports, 58% of land is uncultivable due to water scarcity.
Due to persistent droughts and water scarcity, only 1/3rd of the total dry but fertile land of Balochistan can be deemed as productive or pasture land.

The Indus River System that irrigates other provinces of Pakistan does not reach a greater part of Balochistan, and with scanty rainfall adding up to this, Balochistan is the worst hit. Had the water been properly managed through dams and channels, the province would have sufficient water to irrigate its dry but fertile lands. Government officials blame the drought on climate change, not mismanagement.

The CPEC Master Plan (Dawn)

CPEC and Balochistan

The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a ‘One Belt One Road’ project that stands to connect China's largest province Xinjiang with Pakistan's Gwadar port in Balochistan.

The new trade route Kashgar - home to the oppressed Uighurs in Western China, through to the deep sea port of Gwadar, in Balochistan is considered a corridor for death and destruction for the Baloch just as China is systematically decimating the Uighur. Launched in 2015 and currently worth US$62 billion, the federal government and the army are both strong backers of CPEC.

The Baloch nationalist politicians and intellectuals believe that with the completion of this project, there are bound to be drastic political, socio-cultural and economic changes in Balochistan and the Baloch as a national entity would certainly face a crisis of existence. Critics worry that, while it has great potential, the benefits of CPEC could bypass most ordinary Balochs.

According to a recent article on the European Council on Foreign Relations website: The Balochistan Tinderbox

The infrastructure-driven initiative (CPEC) will be flanked by special economic zones and infrastructures along its route and will need thousands of workers and operators. Taking this into consideration it was certain that there’d be employment opportunities for Baloch, but according to sources, there has been a massive influx of Punjabi and Chinese labourers who would settle here permanently,  dramatically changing the demographic picture of the region. This systematic denial of opportunities to participate in their own economy is turning the local inhabitants into a minority in their own land.

The Chinese firms have already depleted a vast area in Chagai district of gold and uranium deposits. It is an open-secret that under the CPEC umbrella, there’ll be a quantum leap in the mining of mineral deposits of Khuzdar (chromite, antimony), Chaghi (chromite), Qila Saifullah (antimony, chromite) Saindak (gold, silver), Reko Diq (gold), Kalat (iron ore), Lasbela (manganese), Gwadar (oil refinery), Muslim Bagh (chromite). The Baloch belonging to the land of the  richest natural resources, are among the economically poorest people of the world.

The Baloch believe that the CPEC will increase the pace of what they called “the cultural imperialism of the state”.

“In 2002, the Pakistani finance minister Shoukat Aziz disclosed that 2.5 million people will be settled in Gwadar region after the completion of Gwadar deep sea port.

The people of Balochistan rose in revolt five times against the federation for more

political and economic rights.

A mix of ‘carrots’ and ‘sticks’

Pakistani security forces have been accused of committing grave human rights abuses , a ‘kill and dump’ policy, killing Baloch people and  political activists.

In late 2016 there were claims that nearly 1000 dead bodies of political activists and alleged armed separatists had been found in the province since 2011.

As a result a pro-independence, armed insurgency against the Pakistani state continues its fight in a bid to address the Baloch grievances. Over the last few decades the Pakistani authorities have responded to the movement in the province in a heavy handed manner.

A three-year  ‘Balochistan Conciliation Package’ (Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan) was launched in 2009 with the purported intention  to build stability by addressing a wide range of Baloch grievances, by promoting demilitarisation and by creating greater economic opportunities, especially for the youth. But there has been a growing gap between promises and delivery.

An average Baloch still lives on less than a dollar a day, and over 90% of settlements in Balochistan have no access to potable drinking water or medical facilities.

Within Pakistan, Balochistan’s per capita income is less than half of the country’s average, meaning that an average resident of Balochistan is likely to be twice as poor as his counterpart living in any other three provinces (Institute of Public Policy, 2011).

Most independent observers agree that, overall, Pakistan has promised much but has handed out only oppression and tyranny.

The conspiracy and silence within the media, coupled with the unwritten censorship imposed by the Pakistani authorities, has further plunged Balochistan into an area of darkness.