It begins long ago, the story of Balochistan. It begins when Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's founding father, betrayed the agreements he himself had helped draw up: the agreements that, at the time of the British withdrawal from the former British Empire in India, made Balochistan an independent nation. A few months later, Jinnah occupied the region, forcing the rightful ruler to sign the annexation to the newly formed Pakistan to avoid further bloodshed. Many mantain that the annexation to Pakistan was, in fact, illegal, not only because it was effected by force, but also on purely juridical grounds. At the time, Balochistan was a constitutional monarchy and the Khan had no legal right whatsoever to hand over the country to Pakistan. To have legal validity, his decision needed to be ratified by his parliament, a body that had twice voted against annexation. The forced annexation, as might have been predicted, engendered a spirit of rebellion that simmers to this day. This resentment has been exacerbated by Pakistan’s behaviour as an invader rather than an ally. Since then, and it was 1948, the region has been considered "more a colony than a part of Pakistan" and treated accordingly: words ord of Imran Khan, Pakistan's former premier, who ten years ago was testifying in London on behalf of one of the Baloch leaders. There have been many uprisings over the years, mostly smothered in bloodshed. The current one is perhaps the most complex and also the bloodiest. It is the result of President Musharraf's brutally repressive policies and strategies, and it flared up in 2006 after the killing of Nawab Mohammad Akbar Khan Bugti: an event described by some analysts as Balochistan's 9/11. Bugti's killing marked a turning point in the dynamics then unfolding in the region and opened an irreparable rift between the local population and the central state. The never-quite-dormant flames of the independence movement, which in recent years had given way to a more composed struggle for autonomy, were rekindled. And they have been further fanned by the policies put in place by the 'democratic' governments that have succeeded Musharraf. Disappeared people, who could be counted on the fingers of one hand at the time, have grown to tens of thousands over the years. Those who hoped indeed that democracy would restore some semblance of legality to Balochistan have been bitterly disillusioned. In fact, it was the democratic governments, which are controlled by the Army and intelligence services, that implemented the 'kill and dump' policy on a large scale and gave complete license to kill to the Pakistani army. In 2014, a number of mass graves filled with unnamed bodies were found, hastily filled and concealed, and more continue to be found. The consequences of the nuclear tests, carried out at the time in Balochistan itself, continue to scar the population amid general indifference: they have poisoned land, water and air, and caused cancer cases in the thousands and birth of children to deformed animals. The region is in the hands of the army and the so-called 'death squads' operating on its behalf: squads of common criminals and mobsters who not only help establish terror but also serve as trainers and coordinators for the various jihadi groups Islamabad has imported there. Quetta, from which the famous 'Quetta Shura' directed Taliban operations, is the capital of Balochistan. With the Taliban, fundamentalist Islam was also imported into the region along with madrassas. A new language, Urdu, has been imported, and Baloch language and songs and history have been banned in schools. Says Bashir Zeb, who commands the Balochistan Liberation Army made the protagonist in the last two years of sensational attacks "We consider armed struggle a form of political struggle. Our movement draws its roots from well-established political convictions, and it is currently being carried out by these means only because all forms of peaceful struggle have been forbidden to us and weapons have become the only possible choice." Even Imran Khan, before he came to power and became a tool in the hands of the Army and intelligence services, declared, "If I were a Baloch, I would also take up arms. To defend the rights of my people, because I would not have access to politics, since the elections here are heavily rigged." All parameters of violence indicate that the overall security situation in Balochistan has deteriorated significantly in 2022, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killing of ethnic Baloch by the security apparatus have been rampant. The annual report released on January 12, 2023, by Paank, the human rights organization of the Baloch National Movement (BNM), recorded that the Pakistan Army forcibly disappeared 629 persons, extra-judicially killed 195, and tortured 187.

The report declared that year 2022 was full of human tragedy in Balochistan, with mass punishment, forced disappearances, murders, massacres and violence. On January 30, 2023, under the Universal Periodic Review process at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, member states called on Pakistan to stop enforced disappearances and other human rights abuses, and demanded protection for the people. The escalating attacks on SFs in Balochistan are substantially a consequence of the continuing frustration among Baloch nationalist groups over the systematic extermination of ethnic Baloch through enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings by Pakistani security agencies, in addition to the persistent neglect of the basic needs of the population. In 2017, Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Senator Farhatullah Babar stated that there are "secret torture cells" operating throughout the country. He further said that "no one, including the parliament and Supreme Court, knows how many such torture cells are present, the number of people that are present there, and the number of people that have died during interrogation.". International law defines an enforced disappearance as the detention of anyone by state forces or their agents who refuse to acknowledge the detention or whereabouts of the person, placing them outside the protection of the law. Since March 2011, 8,463 complaints of enforced disappearances have been received by Pakistan’s Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances. Activists estimate the real number to be much higher. Most of the families of forcibly disappeared people who spoke to Amnesty International said in fact that not only were they unable to use the legal system to locate their loved ones, despite the constitutional safeguards and the applications of the Penal Code as a protection against enforced disappearances, but that they had considerable difficulties even filing a First Information Report (FIR) with the police. Despite assurances from multiple governments that Pakistan will accede to International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CED) since 20085 and as recently as 2019, this has still not happened. And the state continues to 'disappear' people and the crackdowns on families of the disappeared who exercise their right to peaceful protest are more and more frequent and violent. More and more often, specially in Balochistan, women are the target of both, disappearences and crackdowns. Harassment often takes the form of arbitrary arrest and/or detention: according to reports, three Baloch women activist have been 'disappeared' within the span of a week. In a landmark decision, last June, Chief Justice Athar Minallah issued an order saying that “When there is sufficient evidence to conclude that it is, prima facie, a case of ‘enforced disappearance’ then it becomes an obligation of the State and all its organs to trace the disappeared citizen”. However, according to human rights activists, this is the latest in a series of court directives over the years that have so far failed to stop security agencies from carrying out secret detentions and enforced disappearances. “The Government of Pakistan has a duty to respect, protect and fulfil the right to peaceful assembly, without any type of discrimination under international human rights law, as recognized by Article 21 of the ICCPR. Assemblies include meetings, processions, rallies and sit-ins. Furthermore, Article 16 of the Constitution of Pakistan enshrines the freedom of peaceful assembly as a fundamental right” states the Amnesty report. Over the years, a new generation of well-educated and well-bred young people has emerged, a generation of social and human rights activists, but also a generation of young people furious at the systematic exploitation of local resources and the vicious repression the region suffers. The 'new' uprising is no longer directed only against state representatives but also, and more importantly, against the outright colonialist Chinese invasion that goes by the name of Cpec, China Pakistan Economic Corridor. Cpec, if any were needed, has further exacerbated an already difficult situation. According to the Pakistan Central Mines Labor Federation, "In 2021, at least 176 miners were killed and 180 injured in mining accidents. Of these deaths, at least 100 were reported in Balochistan alone." Balochistan is Pakistan's largest province, of key strategic importance since it borders Iran and Afghanistan. It is also the poorest of all Pakistani provinces: nearly 75 percent of Baloch live in rural areas and have little or no access to health facilities, schools, drinking water and gas. Despite the fact that the region's subsoil is extremely rich in minerals, and the province has in recent years become the flagship of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the infamous CPEC that has now become a case study for researchers. The minerals, gold, copper, zinc and lead, are in fact exploited exclusively by Chinese state-owned companies.

So far, the Pakistani government has received only a 3 percent share of mining profits, while Balochistan, according to its people, has received less than zero despite bombastic Chinese statements. Chagai, the district of which Saindak is a part, is one of the poorest in already impoverished Balochistan. Like Chagai, Lasbela, the district of which Duddar is a part, is also one of the most deprived in the geographic area. Local unskilled workers are paid an average of 15,000 Pakistani rupees per month (compared to the local average of 40,000), and working conditions are even worse than those recently highlighted by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in its latest report. Imperialism is one of the most used, abused and misused words ever. But, at the end of the day, there's no more fitting word to describe the de-facto Chinese occupation of Balochistan. Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province with almost 40 per cent of its geographical area and shares borders with Iran and Afghanistan, making it a geopolitically strategic region. Also, it is the poorest of all Pakistan provinces with nearly 75 per cent Balochs living in rural areas and having little or not at all access to health facilities, schools, clean water and gas. Balochistan has the second highest incidence of multidimensional poverty in Pakistan (after FATA region): according to UNDP, the 71% of the population in Balochistan live below the poverty line. The percentage increases to 85% if you consider only the rural population, and decreases to 36% in cities. Altough, for example, the Sui gas fields in Dera Bugti supplies more or less the 15% of the gas in the country, most of the people in the area have no other option than burning firewood because they have no gas, in patent violation, by the way, of Article 52 of the Pakistani Constitution. But while Sui is runned by a Pakistani company, the Pakistan Petrolum Limited, the lion's share into the natural resources of the region goes almost totally to China. The Saindak copper and gold project is centred in Balochistan’s largest and most resource-rich district, Chagai. But the great irony is that, with an official population of only about 226,000, it remains one of the poorest districts in Balochistan. If Balochistan is said to be the most undeveloped province in Pakistan, Chagai is its most undeveloped district.

According to Balochistan National Party (BNP-Mengal) President Sardar Akhtar Jan Mengal, after launching of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)-related projects in the province, a lot of hype and propaganda had been launched that the project would change the destiny of Balochistan, but the ground reality was that the people of Gwadar were still without drinking water, electricity, jobs and foreign vessels were exploiting the resources of Balochistan. It made headlines in 2022: Pakistan, most probably on China's behalf, is fencing Gwadar. At the beginning of December, in fact, the residents of the Baloch town woke up to discover “another brick in the wall” or, to be precise, another attempt to cage and jail them. A large metal fence long, at the end of the work, 24 kilometers stretching from north of the old airport to Balochistan Broadway Avenue and from there cutting straight to the sea. Dividing in the process into two halves houses and private buildings, but that is. Baloch have been protesting about the unpteenth violation of their human and civil rights, about thousands of people deprived of their livehood because not anymore able to go fishing, because the 'developing' city is resembling every day more, at least for its residents, an open air jail.The protesters started a sit-in in Gwadar on October 27, 2022, demanded an end to illegal trawling, a major issue for the people of the port city, for whom fishing is one of the very few sources of income. The Government had licensed Chinese trawlers to fish in the waters off the coast, and locals, with their small boats, were unable to compete with their better equipped Chinese competitors. 

The local population is in danger of being erased by the Chinese operating not even so covertly behind Islamabad's back, by the intelligence services, the army, the death squads, the Taliban. It risks being erased by the indifference of a West that is perfectly aware and yet reluctant to take a stand. A population branded as 'terrorists' because they no longer have any options left, because those who do not fight die anyway. Of hardship, of disease, at the hands of someone. Islamabad accuses the Balochs of being 'foreign agents,' the same charge levelled at all groups protesting extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture of journalists and bloggers, dismissals of intellectuals and distinguished university professors. Three-quarters of the country, roughly, according to the military is financed and run by the notorious 'foreign agents.' The loyalists, numbers in hand, are basically just jihadi of various natures and members of the army. The West knows this but continues to sell arms and lend support to Pakistan in exchange for supporting the shameful 'peace process' in Afghanistan. No one can really tell what will happen in the next few years, or even in the next few months. There have been far too many players playing in Balochistan for years: the state, tribal leaders, intelligence-paid squads, the armed forces, the Chinese, guerrilla groups. Then again, the Taliban imported into the region by the military, the Pashtuns who are also in revolt against Islamabad, the various hardline and jihadi terrorist groups considered by the aforementioned Islamabad to be more or less strategic assets. The region is of fundamental strategic and geopolitical importance, for Islamabad, for the Chinese Cpec project. But it is also important for many other players in the region who play the new avatars of the good old 'Great Game'. They all play, none excluded, it should be remembered, on the skin and lives of the local population. Who are meanwhile in danger of becoming an army of ghosts.