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Pakistan

Government must end mysterious disappearances: HRW

Dunya News

HRW's Asia director, Brad Adams says the national government has done little to end the carnage.

President Asif Ali Zardari has to realise it cannot just be wished away., headed. The report claims mineral-rich and strategically located Balochistan is home to some of the most brutal state-led human rights abuses. Local groups have counted more than 180 bodies, mostly of men who reportedly disappeared at the hands of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) in co-operation with Frontier Corps paramilitaries.The nationalists are also guilty of gross human rights violations, in particularly the targeted killing of Punjabi settlers, teachers, politicians and anyone deemed to be co-operating with the military.Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said the accusations were false. Weve responded to all this before. Its basically untrue, he said.Pakistani security officials estimate there are just 1,000 nationalist fighters, whose leaders are largely exiled in the UK, Switzerland and Dubai. But analysts say the barbarity underscores the fragility of Pakistani unity and could be a harbinger of unrest elsewhere.The fighting is small-scale: rebels attack electricity pylons, rail tracks and military convoys; the military responds by detaining those thought to be responsible.The exact number of those detained is unclear. In 2008 the interior minister, Rehman Malik, said at least 1,100 people were missing, but last January the Balochistan home minister put the figure at just 55 people.Targeted killings of settlers and other accused collaborators by rebels is carving up the province along worrisome ethnic lines – in Quetta, for instance, non-Baloch doctors refused to work in Baloch areas, fearing harm.The Zardari government has tried to appease nationalist sentiment through a generous aid package and greater funding, but the disappearances and deaths have fuelled nationalist sentiment.
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