World: Turbulent Fragment

A "colonized" Baluchistan yearns for autonomy

Once major trouble spot on the crescent of crisis is Pakistan. Less a country than an idea for a Muslim republic that has never quite worked, Pakistan is a federation of four provinces, each of which has a formidable sense of regional identity. The largest (133,000 sq. mi.) and most turbulent of these jostling fragments is actually part of a tribal nation without defined borders, whose people also inhabit the eastern fringe of Iran and the southern tier of Afghanistan. This nation was literally quartered by the British map makers who brushed in arbitrary political boundaries during their heyday of 19th century imperialism. Like so much of this part of the world in the late 20th century, this "country" can no longer be ignored. Its name is Baluchistan (pronounced Ba-loo-chi-stan).

The tribal reality of Baluchistan has caused trouble not only for the Pakistani government but also for Iran. The dour, nomadic Baluch tribesmen who make up 60% of the Pakistani province's 2.5 million population have about 1 million kin in eastern Iran and perhaps 300,000 more in Afghanistan. In 1972 Pakistan's Baluch launched a revolt against the regime of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who retaliated harshly over the next four years. At the peak of the fighting, the Shah supplied helicopters and pilots to help 70,000 Pakistani soldiers put down the rebellion of 55,000 bearded, turbaned Muslim guerrillas, who were mostly armed with local versions of Britain's Edwardian-vintage Lee-Enfield rifle. Since then, the Baluch have been relatively quiet. But members of a Marxist Baluchistan People's Liberation Front have found sanctuary in Afghanistan, and resentment of Pakistan's unfulfilled promises of greater freedom lingers. So too does concern among some Western analysts that future upheaval in Baluchistan could lead to an extension of Soviet influence south to the Indian Ocean. TIME Correspondent David DeVoss, after spending ten days in Baluchistan, last week filed this report on a triangle of turmoil:

Flinty, arid Baluchistan is a sparsely populated land that only its sons could love. Corrugated by rugged mountain ranges, the area receives an average of 10 in. of rain a year, usually all at once, vs. 36.5 in. in more fertile northern Pakistan, near Kashmir. In summer, temperatures can rise to 130° F. In winter, they can fall to subfreezing levels. Desert scorpions and other noxious fauna abound. Prolonged exposure to Baluchistan can be fatal: when the army of Alexander the Great marched across it on the way home from India, two-thirds of the men died. But local folklore has it that Baluchistan's towering hills are carpets covering vast troves of mineral wealth. "We have a saying here," beams one local leader, the portly Khan of Kalat, "that a Baluch child may be born without socks on his feet, but when he grows every step he takes is on gold." The fact is that Baluchistan has a bit of oil, coal and natural gas, but not much else.