Balochistan Liberation Army- BLA- A Detail Insight

What motivated me to write this article and carry a detail research is the following picture as taken by someone very close to me on Sareyaab Road in Quetta city. The Wall Chalking says “Death to Pakistan by BLA”.

Source: Pro-Pakistan Team

Just like all patriotic Pakistani’s, this sentence boiled by blood but i had to calm down myself and decided to take out my laptop and do a detailed research about Baloch Liberation Army or generally referred as BLA. The blog post will come in different parts and this is the beginning of it. Since i will do research on different days, i will label them accordingly.  Hence this article will become a one long blog post on the BLA and its activities in Baluchistan.

Day 1 of my Research on BLA: History of BLA

Generally, whenever i start to do research on any organization, i try to find out as to what is the Mission, Objectives and End Goal of the group and then i jump to its history and how it was created and the factors behind its creation. So my first day of research on BLA will be an attempt to cover it.

Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) Mission, Objectives and Goals:

BLA Flag

Balochistan Liberation Army has a sole aim of separating Baluchistan from Pakistan and Afghanistan.  It is an organization involved to achieve that objective and ready to accept help from anywhere in the world. Now i would say, this is the stated objective of the BLA to its members and to those who are prone to indoctrination.

The real objective of any organization or entity can be judged either from the reasons of its creation or the broader objectives and directions of the people who created it. For this purpose, the history of the organization plays a significant role. That is why i always look for the history of the organization to ascertain the real motivation behind its creation and to track the people and institutions involved in its creation. This leads us to explore the the history of BLA

History and Creation of BLA:

The birth of Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) is attributed to an incident on 2nd January, 2005 at Sui where a lady doctor Shazia was raped. An army officer was blamed for the incident and hence made a justification to launch a campaign against the State of Pakistan and to ask for Liberation of Baluchistan. The problem is that Dr. Shazia Khalid is a Sindhi and not a Baloch and hence her mere rape in Sui, Balochistan will never be a logical reason for the Baloch Liberation Army to start its campaign against the State of Pakistan. We all know that Baloch Sardars kills hundreds of women in the name of honor and hence they will not be much moved by the rape of a Sindhi woman. Traditionally, Baloch even hates people from other provinces working at Oil and Gas fields as they consider them to be taking up jobs that Baloch will get otherwise. So they look at people like Shazia Khalid with a general animosity.

I agree with the other notion that the real BLA was created back in 1980’s when the Cold War was at its peak and Afghanistan was used as the front line while Pakistan was the front line ally of America. According to a stunning investigative report by various authors in newsCentralAsia:

During the Russo-Afghan war, the Soviet Union was surprised by the ability and resourcefulness of Pakistan to generate a quick and effective resistance movement in Afghanistan. To punish Pakistan and to answer back in the same currency, Kremlin decided to create some organizations that would specialize in sabotage activities in Pakistan.

One such organization was BLA (Balochistan Liberation Army), the brainchild of KGB that was built around the core of BSO (Baloch Students Organization). BSO was a group of assorted left-wing students in Quetta and some other cities of Balochistan. Misha and Sasha can be considered among the architects of the original BLA.

The BLA they created remained active during the Russo-Afghan war and then it disappeared from the surface, mostly because its main source of funding – the Soviet Union – disappeared from the scene. In the wake of 9-11, when the United States came rushing to Afghanistan with little preparation and less insight, the need was felt immediately to create sources of information and action that should be independent of the Government of Pakistan.

As Bush peered into the soul of Putin and found him a good guy, Rumsfeld also did his own peering into the soul of his Russian counterpart and found him a good game. The result was extensive and generous consultation by Russian veterans who knew more about Afghanistan and Balochistan than the Americans could hope to find.

It was presumably agreed that as long as their interests did not clash with each other directly, the United States (or at least Pentagon) and Kremlin would cooperate with each other in Balochistan. That brings us to January 2002. “Actually, most of the elements were in place, though dormant, and it was not difficult for anyone with sufficient resources to reactivate the whole thing,” said Misha about the present-day BLA that is blamed for most of the sabotage activities in Balochistan.

In January 2002, the first batch of ‘instructors’ crossed over from Afghanistan into Pakistan to set-up the first training camp. That was the seed from which the present insurgency has sprouted. It seemed like a modest effort back then.

Only two Indians, two Americans, and their Afghan driver-guide were in a faded brown Toyota Hilux double cabin SUV that crossed the border near Rashid Qila in Afghanistan and came to Muslim Bagh in Pakistani province of Balochistan on 17 January 2002. For this part of the journey, they used irregular trails. From Muslim Bagh to Kohlu they followed the regular but less-frequented roads.

Balach Marri - Source: Wikipedia.Com

In Kohlu they met with some Baloch youth and one American stayed in Kohlu while two Indians and one American went to Dera Bugti and returned after a few days. They spent the next couple of weeks in intense consultations with some Baloch activists and their mentors and then the work started for setting up a camp.

“Balach was one of our good boys and even though I don’t know who the present operators are, it can be said safely that Kohlu must have been picked as the first base because of Balach,” said Misha, a former KGB agent who served in Baluchistan.

Balach Marri is the son of Nawab Khair Baksh Marri and he qualified as an electronic engineer from Moscow. As was customary during those times, any Baloch students in Russia were cultivated actively and lavishly by the KGB. Balach was one of their success stories.

Because of intimate connections with India and Russia, it was no surprise that Balach Marri was picked as the new head of the revived BLA. The mountains between Kohlu and Kahan belong to the Marris.

Therefore, the creation of Balochistan Liberation Army can be attributed to the broader game that was being played in the region in 1980’s and which is currently again in progress in the region. The old players are back but on the opposite sides and hence their instruments of coercion and instability are back in business. BLA is one such tool which is used by these global powers to further their own interests. However, this time their interests are different!

The following

To Be Continued in Day 2:

In Day 2, we will examine the details operations and working of Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) to further determine their true status as Terrorist or a Freedom movement!

Click here to Read the Day 2 of Pro-Paksitan Research on BLA

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