Daily Times Editorial April 19, 2013

Earthquake and after The 7.8 magnitude (on the Richter scale) earthquake that struck southeastern Iran and southwestern Pakistani Balochistan on Monday has left devastation in its wake. It was the most powerful earthquake to strike the region in five decades. On our side of the Iranian border, the town of Mashkail in Pakistani Balochistan was the worst hit. The remoteness of the region, scattered communities, lack of paved roads and electricity, limited mobile phone coverage and no proper medical facilities means difficulties in estimating the human and property loss. So far, reports say 5,000 people have been affected in the area, 2,000 homes and 150 shops destroyed, at least one person killed in Iran and 40 in Pakistan. The National Disaster Management Authority says 105 injured people have been treated. A military rescue effort has been mounted, with 16 badly injured people transported by helicopter to Quetta for treatment, while another eight others, including four young children from one family, are still awaiting evacuation by helicopter after an attempt on Wednesday was aborted by a dust storm. They were expected to be evacuated on Thursday. These are the lucky ones. Fifteen to twenty injured reportedly had to endure a 45-minute, bone-shaking journey to the Iranian border to reach a hospital. Meanwhile in devastated Mashkail, while some survivors prayed for the dead, others dug through rubble with spades and even knives to try and receiver their meagre belongings. According to Frontier Corps commander Major-General Obaidullah Khattak, nine doctors were on the scene, which portrayed a picture of just three tents in the town, with people scared to return to their homes for fear of aftershocks, a 5.7 magnitude tremor having set nerves on edge again on Wednesday. At least five government buildings housing administrative and revenue offices were reported damaged, along with a school and a hospital. The US has offered aid, including an offer to its favourite enemy Iran. The UN Secretary General too has said they are ready to offer assistance, but this has yet to be concretised. The tragedy is of course a tragedy wrought by the awesome forces of nature, about which man can do little. However, the destruction and loss of life aside, the conditions revealed in this corner of Balochistan have exposed the heart-rending poverty and deprivation in most of Balochistan. Tall claims about ‘development’ and bringing the province at par with the rest of the country sound even hollower now. The irreducible fact is that Balochistan’s treatment at the hands of the state as an ‘internal colony’ since independence has rendered the province and its people destitute, without rights, and terribly oppressed. It is this treatment, which has consistently continued through civilian and military regimes in our history that has finally, and perhaps inevitably, stoked separatist sentiment to such an extent that a whole generation of frustrated and angry young men are today perched on top of their mountains, fighting a guerrilla war for independence. If only wiser counsel had prevailed earlier, and even now, the addressing of the genuine grievances of the Baloch dating back to 1948, redressal of the worst atrocities and repression, embrace of the Baloch as equal citizens of Pakistan had been in evidence, things may not have come to such a pass. Years ago, in 1970, after the elections in that year, a typhoon struck what was then East Pakistan. The ineffective, if not absent rescue and relief effort arguably hardened opinion in East Pakistan against the Central authorities and the perennial bogeyman Punjab, and underlay the final break with Pakistan to emerge as today’s Bangladesh. Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. If the rescue and rehabilitation effort in Balochistan post-earthquake falters or is seen as inadequate, the only forces to gain traction from such a development will be the separatist insurgents. Even the moderate nationalists by now wedded (seemingly irrevocably) to participating in the looming elections will be embarrassed and shamefaced in such a situation. It is in the interests of the state and the fragile unity of the country for the authorities not to conduct the rescue and rehabilitation effort in their business-as-usual style, but to make all-out efforts to bring relief and succour to the poor, wretched and devastated victims of the earthquake.