GENEVA, March 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
On March 13, Balochistan House
hosted a conference titled 'Impact of CPEC on Balochistan' on the sidelines of the 34th
session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Those who
spoke included Ryszard Czarnecki,
Vice President, European Parliament, Siegfried Wolf, Senior Consultant, South Asia
Democratic Forum, Mehran Baluch,
Baloch Representative to EU and UN and Tarek Fatah, Executive
Director, Balochistan House.
Ryszard Czarnecki, while speaking
at the event, referred to the CPEC as a Chinese initiative that was
expected to provide China with
both strategic depth and economic benefits. He stated that though
the Pakistani government was projecting the CPEC as an
initiative that would improve the economic condition of ordinary
Pakistanis, in reality it was more likely to be used as a reason to
implement tighter security controls on any opposition by the
indigenous population with regard to the CPEC as well as thwart the
human rights of people in Balochinstan and other parts of
Pakistan. He concluded that for
any project to succeed there was first a need to end the
large scale human rights violation in Balochistan and elsewhere in Pakistan and provide the people with basic
necessities like water, health care etc.
In his presentation, Siegfried
Wolf largely focused on the situation in Balochistan. Informing the audience that
Balochistan was the largest but
least populated region in Pakistan, he also highlighted that despite
being rich in natural resource, it was the poorest region of the
country with an acute lack of education and health infrastructure.
Apart from these problems, he added that the locals were being
subject to human rights abuses including threat to life, in the
form of ethnic discrimination and religious extremism. Siegfried Wolf was of the opinion that the
Pakistani government was not interested in ameliorating the living
conditions of the Baloch or effectively tackling the issues related
to rights violations, because it was more keen to have a
continued access to the natural resources of Balochistan, that could only be possible by
repressing the rights of the people and controlling the region
through the might of the Army.
Baloch representative to the EU and the UN, Mehran Baluch called the CPEC a 'mega disaster'
for the people of Pakistan. He
opined that the Pakistani establishment was looking at using the
implementation of the CPEC project as a pretext to oppress the
people and suppress their rights. He expressed concern that it
would also result in the ethnic cleansing of the Baloch people, who
were seen to be standing in the way of the completion of the CPEC.
He appealed to the UN and the European Union to
also recognise the threat from the project to the western
world.
All the speakers agreed that it was essential for the
international community to take note of human rights
violations that were occurring as a result of the construction
of the CPEC against the wishes of the local population.
SOURCE Balochistan House