The WGED Should Directly Contact Victims' Families, the State Will Mislead Them: Hyrbyair Marri

The bodies of those who cannot survive their extremely brutal torture, are often dumped in desolated areas across Balochistan.

(LONDON) - We welcome the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances to Balochistan but we are concerned that Pakistan's rulers will restrict the group’s free movement in an effort to stop them from observing the ground realities. We also fear that Pakistan will provide them false and misleading information. The Baloch patriot leader Hyrbyair Marri expressed these views in a statement from London.

He further said that our friends in Balochistan and we in foreign countries have always requested the UN and International Community to intervene and take notice of catastrophic Human Rights violations in Balochistan. Pakistan's intelligence agencies, the FC (Frontier Constabulary), Police and their local proxies extra-judicially abduct people and torture them in secret torture cells for years. The bodies of those who cannot survive their extremely brutal torture, are often dumped in desolated areas across Balochistan. Sometimes wild animals eat the flesh of these victims whereas sometimes they are disfigured to the extent of beyond recognition.

Mass graves were found in several areas, particularly, in Dera Bugti and Kohistan Marri. He said, many places have been declared as no-go areas for the native people and they cannot go back to their villages because their everything has either been looted or confiscated by Pakistani occupying forces. Thousands of families have been forcefully displaced from their ancestral villages because of military operation and they have not only migrated to other areas of Balochistan but also sought refuge in Sindh and Afghanistan. The Internal Displaced People (IDPs) are subjected psychological and physical insults. Pakistani forces continue to chase and harass them and violate the sanctity of their houses in the name of search operation, Hyrbyair Marri said.

The Baloch Leader further said that UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances, other International NGOs, Human Rights campaigners and many journalists have been striving from years to visit Marri and Bugti region including Kahan, Naseer Abad, Jaffar Abad, New Kahan, Makaran and other areas of Balochistan to collect first-hand information about disappearances and displacements. But Pakistan in order to conceal the crimes of its security agencies have denied them access to those areas.

Offering assistance to the UN team the Baloch leader said, “We (Baloch) offer our complete support and cooperation to the UN working group because the Baloch nation wants the group to visit freely and compile their fact finding report without facing any kind of hurdle to know the ground realities. Earlier visits of such groups were patronized by Pakistani state and they were only allowed to visit certain places and people under the watchful eyes of the apparatus. They were intentionally taken to visit people who manipulated the grave problem of Balochistan and mixed it up with other non-serious issues”, said Mr Marri.

Hyrbyair Marri said, “along with our best wishes we also want to request the Working Group to specially visit the Baloch refugees which number in thousands. These Baloch are living in extremely appalling conditions and they are in dire need of food, clean water, medicines and shelter from the UN. Their several family members are in the list of disappeared people which has been compiled by the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP). They are living under regular threats of Pakistani raids. Various Baloch refugees have been abducted from Hub, Naseerabad, Jaffarabad, Rajan Pur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Hyderabad and Jackobabad. In some case all the bread earners of these refugee families were kidnapped and later killed one by one under custody by Pakistani security forces.

The Baloch leader said that the bitter reality about enforced disappearances of Baloch people is that Pakistani security agencies abduct them in broad day light in-front of many witnesses but later deny having them in their custody. Their relatives are pressurized and threatened to keep quite otherwise their loved ones will be killed and they (families) will also have to suffer the same fate. There are numerous such examples when relatives of abducted Baloch raised their voice for the release of their loved ones; they were abducted and brutally killed just like Advocate Zaman Khan Marri, Yaseen Baloch and hundreds of others.

Hyrbyair Marri said we have been informed that Pakistani security forces have already started harassing families of abducted Baloch to keep them away from the UN visiting team and conceal Pakistan’s crimes in Balochistan. They are also planning to stop members of civil society and other people who raise their voice against enforced disappearance from meeting the UN Working Group team.

Mr Marri has emphasized that the UN Working Group should make sure that they visit the war torn areas in Balochistan and have direct contact with the family members of enforced disappeared and extra-judicially killed Baloch activists to get precise and first-hand information. “Baloch Nation does not trust the representatives of Pakistani institutions and so called Human Rights Organisations working in Pakistan. Pakistani Human Rights Groups are more like state diplomats than impartial Human Rights activists. They have always mixed up Baloch National issue with state sponsored criminal activities and mislead the common public about Baloch freedom struggle”, Hyrbyair Marri said.

“We have time and again said and would like to make it clear again that the issue of Enforced Disappearances, extra-judicial killings and other gross human rights violations in Balochistan are Pakistan’s policy to counter Baloch freedom struggle and these issues are connected with illegal occupation of Balochistan since 27 March 1948. We hope that the respected UN team will look into this human tragedy in Balochistan in connection with Baloch national issue and in their report recommend to UN for a permanent and peaceful solution of Balochistan. Pakistan should be urged to respect all the International Laws which it as a state has failed to comply with”, Mr Marri said.

Hyrbyair Marri said, “Pakistan's recent allegations against Save the Children (International Organisation) and ordering them to leave the country confirms our apprehensions that Pakistan doesn’t allow International Aid Organisations to work independently. It is obvious that Pakistan is breeding terrorism and their terror networks have full backing of Pakistani army and intelligence agencies; hence, they fear that these Organisations might find the leaders of the religious extremist Organisation that are hiding and operating from Pakistan with the blessing of Pakistani Army.”

Remarking on UN intervention in Syria to save lives of innocent people, Mr Marri, said that UN efforts to resolve the social and sectarian issues there are appreciable. However, Balochistan matter is a conflict between two different nations and UN should intervene on urgent basis and play its role to stop Baloch Genocide and Pakistani state terrorism against Baloch people.