Balochistan Diary 4:

A kiss of Luck & Fate of locals

Saeed Minhas

Riding on Pakistan Air Force C-130 and escorted by our friends from ISPR, a couple of
days in Quetta, Ziarat and Chamalang with lots of adventurous heli-ride--one of which
from Chamalang towards Sui almost dried life out of the entire entourage--not only
helped us get the idea of vastness of the province but also the dryness, wilderness and
resourcefulness with which over seven million Balochs are living. This media-military
alliance for two nights bore yet another testimony to the fact that when civilians
collaborate with comparatively-better-synchronized military officials, neither time nor
space remains the sole domain of Khakis and exigencies just happen.
A word about the kiss of fortune we all had on this tour. Flying from Chamalang
Coalmines towards Sui, hardly 20 nautical miles into the journey, an unexpected rainy
storm with thick clouds and high velocity winds made the heli dangle and dip in zero-
visibility for about two minutes. With spear-like barren peaks poking skywards--ranging
from five to seven thousand feet high--and due to extra load of media-men and their
camera apparatus, heli was not flying higher than 5000 feet from ground, dropped jaws,
wide-open eyes and frozen bodies waiting for any eventuality was the scene inside the
heli. Gen. Ather Abbass, Haroon Rashid, Saafi, Bokhari, Saabir, Hanfi, Chinese
broadcaster Musarat, sensation-sniffing CNN crew and me were all trying to look
through the side glasses to see if we can find anything beyond thick clouds engulfing the
entire heli.
A drowsy Malick felt the jerks and dipping but preferred to keep dozing perhaps
understanding that there was hardly anything anyone of us could have done, except to
pray for safety. Water dripping inside the heli and frenetically busy pilots with no radio
help were the only one to look at with questions in everyone’s eyes. Thunderous heli-
rotors apparently fighting with the lashing winds and rain were homing in the message
that we certainly are in midst of a storm about which neither PAF knew nor pilots were
aware of before taking off from Chamalang.
The scary thought crossing everyone’s mind was that the other two helis carrying
remaining members of the media entourage might be somewhere around us and if spiky
rugged mountains were one adversary than they might prove another one. Nevertheless,
after the prolonged two or so minutes, PAF pilots not only kept their heads but managed
to pull back from the stormy zone to bring us all back to Chamalang Coalmines. What
followed that is not hard to predict as the jaded faces just kept showing indifference to all
that had just happened, and the courageous pilots who themselves were puffing the sighs
of relief did not spare this moment to seek a photograph with all of the survivors because
all of them were potential front page news item or a breaking news for at-least few hours.
Starting from Chaklala airbase and after landing at Samungli airbase, the helis took us to
Kan Depo--in Ziarat District, a restive area inhibited mainly by Pashtoons--where a
reconstructed high school, a Basic Health Unit and a mosque was on display for all of us.
Our Khaki friends were showing us around the extra-ordinary work of re-building the
earthquake devastated structures like schools, health units and mosques which they have
developed partly with over Rs. 114 million donations--equivalent to one day salary of
entire army and partly with federal and provincial government contributions.
Local officials briefed the media to praise the Army for leading the reconstruction efforts,
a battery of local politicians and federal minister Kakar--all from JUI (F)--also tried to
prove their utility by chipping in with their own trumpets, but basic problems in all these
areas were just begging to be addressed or at-least understood.
A doctor, who claimed that he has left US to serve in Balochistan who was responsible
for running two BHUs in the area--more than 150 Kms apart from each other--had all the
praises for the Army and was boosting about the services rendered to the sparsely
populated area finally broke out before the media with a list of those basic problems
mentioned above.
The electricity hardly visits them, meaning thereby that the life saving drugs claimed to
be dispensed through this BHU cannot be kept there and it merely serves as a health
consultative centre at the best, if at all. Nearest Hospital incase of eventuality is more
than 150 kilometers away and there is no ambulance--private or official--to take any
critically ill person to the hospital. Knowing the conservative nature of area, the unit does
not have any Lady Doctor or even a lady paramedic, thus locals females continue to
suffer at the hands of local quakes.
Drinking water is not available there and an area mainly dependent on apple orchards and
other agricultural growing remain dependant on rains for their crops and drinking water.
Rain has evaded this area for almost past one-and-a-half year, therefore, situation is not
hard to understand.
The US-returned Doctor at BHU further stunned the visitors by telling them “Whenever,
I visit this BHU, its hard for me to stay here for long because there is no toilet here and to
answer the nature’s call, I have to head for nearby mountains.”
One wonders, where is the provincial government and what federal housing minister
Kakar, who was there to inaugurate one of these reconstructed buildings with his name
on the plaque, has done in the past two years while Army was reconstructing these
structures? Sine Army has helped rebuild this BHU or others, it’s now for the provincial
government to provide all these logistics, but the provincial Health Minister, Maulana
Samad Khan from JUI (F) along with his brother--some sort of an ex and equally a
Maulana in his own right--was more willing to smile back than respond to such queries.
Ziarat, the residency of founder of Pakistan was at display where a towering portrait of
Quaid-e-Azam was standing at the entrance showing him saluting to all the visitors.
Inside the renovated residency, a lot has been changed, though the local commanders
took pride in disclosing that on the orders of Lt. Gen. Khalid Shameem Wynne, the then
commander of the 12th corps in Quetta and now serving as Chief of General Staff. One of
the local senior officials had was of the view that “Archeological restoration is
considered a highly skilled and scientific job, but when that too is done by Army Jawans,
then what should we expect.” The natural flow of gardens has been reshaped by putting
in cemented pathways and huge stairs cases, even the mosaic tiles decorating the roofs of
inner structure have been replaced with locally available wood. It certainly was not what
I had visited back in 1994 when Nawab Magsi was holding the provincial citadel under
BB’s second government as Chief Minister, when residency was being used as a guest
house for CM and his friends and we were given the privilege to sleep in the same room
where founder of nation used to sleep.