Introduction
Iran’s mullahs’ regime may be toppled and replaced with a secular setup, but the repression in the country won’t end if minorities in Iran are not given their rights. The people of Balochistan are demanding not just regime change but independence. The solution to Balochistan’s problems is to break the chains of slavery for which its people have paid enormous sacrifices over decades. This position is shared by the people of Kurdistan and Ahwaz as well. For these reasons, it is the minorities in Iran that are most committed to the uprising against the Islamic Republic and they who are suffering the harshest consequences from the regime’s crackdown.
On September 30, 2022, the Islamic regime violently repressed the demonstrations of Balochi protesters who were gathering in front of a police station in Zahedan – leading to what would become known as the “Zahedan massacre,” or “Bloody Friday,” which left more than 90 people dead. Suppression of Balochi people is almost the norm. I would like to remind readers that on November 27, 2022, the regime executed Mohammad Umar Khama Ejbari from Khurasan province, who had been imprisoned on false murder charges. Most recently, Iranian prison authorities executed Changyz Gorgaij Baloch, who was accused of drug trafficking with no evidence, and hanged a 24-year-old Baloch, Nyaz Gul, who was sentenced to death without a fair trial. Additionally, two minor Baloch brothers, Mohammad Rakhshani, 15, and Ali Rakhshani, 16, were reportedly sentenced to death by the Iranian judiciary in Zahedan city.
The Iran-Pakistan Nexus
Balochistan is divided among three countries: Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Iran and Pakistan have been cooperating to suppress the Baloch people’s struggle for self-determination since the time the Shah of Iran.
As even the Pakistani daily Dawn reported, “The breakup of Pakistan [in 1971, an internal crisis in Pakistan resulted in a third war between India and Pakistan and the secession of East Pakistan, which created the independent state of Bangladesh] disappointed the Shah. The further dismemberment of Pakistan was a nightmare for him and he was concerned about the growing activities of the insurgents in Balochistan… Afghanistan was another area of common concern between the two countries, especially considering Afghan prime minister, Muhammad Daud Khan’s hard position against Pakistan after his coup in 1973… [Khan] also kept… insisting that Afghanistan could no longer turn a blind eye to the sufferings of the Baloch… [However,] the Shah conceived that the Soviets were pushing ahead through Kabul an agenda that was ultimately aimed at the creation of a Greater Balochistan and the inevitable dismemberment of both Iran and Pakistan. The Shah pursued Pakistan to launch a military operation against the Baloch Liberation Front.”[1]
In fact, in 1973, the Shah of Iran visited Pakistan at the invitation of President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whose main opposition was the Pakistani faction of the National Awami Party (NAP). The NAP comprised Baloch and Pashtun leaders, and was led by veteran Baloch leader Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, who was a Baloch nationalist who believed in the path toward a federal system. However, after Bhutto’s violent crackdown against NAP and against the Balochi people, the Baloch Liberation Front launched an uprising against the central Pakistani government that lasted from 1973 to 1977, in which the Marri clan led the way. Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri was actually “the linchpin” of the 1973 Baloch insurgency.[2]
Fearing that the Baloch uprising would expand from Pakistan-Occupied Balochistan (POB) to Iran-Occupied Balochistan (IOP), Iran sponsored ground and air military operations against the Baloch people. The Shah’s army provided military hardware and financial support to the Pakistani army. A mutual agreement between the two countries paved the way for Pakistan to avail itself of 30 Huey Cobra attack helicopters and financial aid of millions of dollars to conduct and sustain military operations against the Baloch people. The conflict took the lives of approximately 15,000 Balochis and 5,000 Pakistan army personnel. The Bhutto regime was then overthrown by General Zia-ul-Haq, who released the NAP leadership from jail. Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, along with thousands of Marri Baloch patriots, migrated to Afghanistan and from there continued their political struggle for independence from Iran and Pakistan.
The Iran-Pakistan cooperation against the Balochi people continues to this day, as the repressive policies of the Shah against the minorities are continuing with the Islamic Republic regime. Just recently, on November 26, 2022, Pakistan air forces used Iran-made suicide drones against a camp of the Baloch Liberation Army in Kahan, a village in Pakistan-controlled Balochistan. In the drone attack, eight Balochi fighters lost their lives.[3]
Conclusion
The nexus between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Iran’s IRGC is jeopardizing regional peace and hindering the global economy. The ISI and the IRGC are exchanging military hardware, sharing intelligence, and promoting and sponsoring proxy wars that are threatening Western interests in the region. Furthermore, Tehran and Islamabad are assisting respectively China and Turkey to implement their expansionist agendas in the subcontinent.
Balochistan has a strategic geographical position, and is an important economic gateway, with trillions of dollars’ worth of underground rare earth minerals such as oil, gas, uranium, copper, and coal, and the two deep seaports of Gawadar and Chabahar. Balochistan is the perfect outpost to counter and keep under control Iran and its nuclear ambition, and its dangerous relation with Pakistan that may provide Tehran with tactical nukes.
Today, Iran’s minorities are realizing that they must remain united in order to bring an end to the Islamic Republic and to obtain independence. Kurds in particular are playing a pivotal role in reaching out to indigenous ethnic communities in order to cooperate in the uprising against the regime and to rewrite the borders in the region. The leader of the Free Balochistan Movement, Hyrbyair Marri (the son of Baloch leader Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri) is also playing a key role in bringing the oppressed nations in Iran under a single umbrella. However, the West seems absent. Kurdish people were supported by the U.S. and some European countries to defeat ISIS, but unfortunately, they were later left alone to be butchered.
According to Marri, minorities in Iran have to fight for their own rights and freedom without waiting for the West – which in any event should understand that it cannot afford to overlook the geostrategic importance of Balochistan, Kurdistan, and Ahwaz. “Balochistan and Kurdistan have been made meat grinders… by their occupiers [i.e. the Iranian regime]. The International Community sees our plight but remains deaf and dumb. It is time for the oppressed people to unite,” Marri stated.[4]