China, Pakistan and Iran intensified their effort against Balochistan, We must unite Baloch nation: Hyrbyair Marri

LONDON: China and Iran have signed a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement on 27 March 2021 that China will invest 400 billion dollars in Iran. Chinese state will get access to all sectors of the Iranian economy. China will get cheap oil which is looted by the Iranian state from Arabistan Al Ahwaz. They will get access to Balochistan’s ports and China will be able to even lease islands and strategic land to assert hegemony over the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian Mullahs and Chinese are calling the agreement an extension of China’s strategic Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China has signed similar agreements with Pakistan, and they are trying to control Balochistan’s strategic Gwadar port and building a military base on the Jiwani peninsula.

On the other hand, India has pledged to invest a few billion dollars in Chabahar and few other projects. Chabahar is Baloch land, located in the coastal belt of Iranian occupied Balochistan (IOB). India is focusing on an area in IOB and thinking that it will protect their interests and through this Indian government thinks that they will influence the region. Because of the recent agreements between China and Iran, China will have enormous clout over the whole of Iran. Would India be able to protect its interest by investing merely in a port and a railway track when the Chinese will be economically controlling everything in Iran?

Our enemies regardless of being economically broke have always stood by their allies. The Iranian Mullahs and the Pakistani Punjabi Army are standing with their allies in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The irony is that the countries who are supposed to be our allies, despite being economic giants, their government lack long-term vision, commitment, and strategy to secure their national interest or to understand our mutual long-term interest.

Iranians and Pakistanis are occupiers of Balochistan, they have been committing ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Baloch nation since the early 20th century. A recent example of what the Iranians have been doing is the Saravan Massacre. On 22nd February, Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ forces opened fire on the Baloch fuel traders in the Shamsar area of Saravan and massacred 40 innocent Baloch. Every year thousands of people are murdered by Iranian forces in those territories colonised by Persians including Balochistan, southern Azerbaijan, Arabistan Al Ahwaz and Kurdistan.

From mid-December 2020 to early February 2021, twenty-one Baloch have been lynched by the Iranian state. In 2016, Iran’s Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, Shahindokht Molaverdi admitted in a TV interview that they executed all the adult males and not even a single male adult was spared in a village in Sar Jangal, Zahedan in Iranian occupied Balochistan.

According to Human rights groups, Iranian occupied Balochistan (IOB) holds 3.5 per cent of the population of Iran but accounts for 5.7 per cent of total executions. Baloch people face the highest rate of executions in Iran, and despite being one of the richest nations in mineral wealth they are systematically being kept as one of the poorest people in the world with the lowest literacy and life expectancy rates.

Iran has spent around one billion dollars in dividing the Baloch nation and Balochistan along the Goldsmid line, by building the longest wall in modern history. Balochistan Wall is 700 kilometres long which is 5 times longer than the infamous Berlin Wall. Pakistan on the other hand has been fencing the Goldsmid line to further its colonial designs. In addition, Iran and Pakistan have divided Balochistan internally within several administrative boundaries to reduce the size of Baloch territory and now both occupying states are trying to further divide Balochistan because their goal is to somehow get rid of the name ‘Balochistan’.

A few months ago, the Pakistani Punjabi establishment planned to cut off Gwadar city from the rest of Balochistan by fencing it, but they backtracked when the Baloch people resisted these plans. To my knowledge, Pakistan has plans to fence the entire coastal belt of Balochistan in three phases. First, they want to fence Gwadar city and then they will extend the plan to the entire district of Gwadar. In the third and the last phase, Pakistan intends to build a fence and cut off the entire coastal belt from the rest of Balochistan. Calling Gwadar, the capital of the newly coined word ‘South Balochistan’ is another ploy to divide Balochistan and implement China’s grand plan in the region.

We as a nation have never accepted the division of Balochistan along Goldsmid and Durand Lines. We will never accept the division of Balochistan by Iran and Pakistan. We will not allow Balochistan to be divided like East and West Germany or North and South Korea. There is no North, South, East or West Balochistan, Balochistan is one land, and it is one country. Pakistan, China and Iran have intensified their efforts against the Baloch nation, it is our duty to unite the Baloch nation for once we are united no power in the world can divide us.