BOUCHER VISITS BALOCHISTAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ISLAMABAD 002782

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/21/2017
TAGS: PREL PTER PGOV PK AF
SUBJECT: BOUCHER VISITS BALOCHISTAN

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Peter Bodde, Reasons 1.4 (b),(d)


1. (C) Summary: On June 14, Assistant Secretary of State for
South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher made his
first visit to Balochistan. Inspector General of Police Tariq
Khosa discussed the need for more contacts with his
counterparts in Afghanistan and Iran and expressed doubt that
Afghan refugees would want to return home any time soon.
Members of Balochistan's Provincial Assembly complained that
their resolutions are frequently ignored by the government
and said that the chances of free and fair elections in
Balochistan were very poor. Chief Minister Jam Muhammad
Yousaf provided an exceptionally rosy picture of the
province, which was in marked contrast to the observations of
provincial assembly members.


2. (U) Boucher also visited a Police Training Center and a
voters' list display center in Quetta as well as the Chaman
border crossing and an International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Bureau-funded Frontier Corps Outpost at Spina
Tiza. Pishin District Frontier Corps Commandant Colonel
Massud emphasized the importance of cross-border cooperation
with the Afghan government to keep important trade lines open
and control illegal crossings. End Summary.

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Increasing Police Writ, Skills and Cross-Border Cooperation
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3. (C) On June 14, Assistant Secretary for South and Central
Asian Affairs Richard Boucher, accompanied by Charge
d'Affaires Peter Bodde and Senior Advisor Caitlin Hayden,
made his first trip to Balochistan. He began meetings in
Quetta with the new Inspector General of Police Tariq Khosa.
Khosa discussed the measures he had taken to increase
security in the province, such as boosting the numbers of
police constables and increasing the anti-terror force.
Khosa was optimistic that the conversion of 29 of the
province's &B8 areas (tribal areas with no government writ)
to &A8 areas (where there is a recognized police and
government presence) will be complete by the end of the year.
He insisted that there was no insurgency problem in
Balochistan and called militant groups' periodic acts of
violence &low-level sabotage.8 Khosa stressed that with
elections coming up later this year, sub-nationalist groups
in Balochistan would not want to be associated with
anti-government activity and that now was the time to bring
them on board by giving them government jobs. Khosa added
that he had inducted a number of police recruits from the
Marri tribe, whose leaders have violently opposed the
government.


4. (C) Khosa emphasized more face-to-face contact was needed
with his law enforcement counterparts in Afghanistan and Iran
to better coordinate security. Khosa complained, for example,
that the Balochistan Liberation Army received its funding and
instructions from leadership taking shelter in Afghanistan.
(Comment: Khosa exuded confidence at the meeting and
generally downplayed the serious challenge his police forces
face. He did not mention, for instance, the suicide bomber
who detonated himself inside the Quetta District Court
complex in February, killing 15 -- an event that rattled even
veteran Balochistan observers. Within hours of the Assistant
Secretary's departure, gunmen sprayed a passing van with

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bullets and killed seven Army soldiers. End Comment.)


5. (C) Khosa said that it would be difficult to convince
Balochistan's Afghan refugees to return home, since most of

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them had lived in Pakistan for the last 20 years and many
have obtained fake Pakistani national identity cards. The
religious political parties (which rule Balochistan's
provincial government in coalition with the Pakistan Muslim
League) did not want to address the issue because these
Afghans are a vote base, Khosa said. He estimated that there
were approximately 350,000 Afghans living illegally in Quetta
and said police have deported 500-600 in the past several
months. Khosa was upbeat about security in Jungle Pir Alizai
and Girdi Jungle refugee camps, however, and said that Girdi
Jungle is no longer a no-go area for police. Frontier Corps
ingress/egress monitoring of Jungle Pir Alizai camp has
effectively limited access by criminal elements.


6. (C) Khosa closed by saying that while his work was
difficult and vitally important, Balochistan, and Pakistan as
a whole, would only be stable by employing a &three-pronged
strategy of security, education and economic development.8
The most important thing the United States could do, he said,
is invest in education. Boucher agreed and stated that the
United States invests nearly $100 million a year in Pakistan
and would continue to invest in the education sector.

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Provincial Assembly Members Ask For Help
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7. (U) Meeting at the USAID-funded Provincial Assembly
Information and Technology Resource Center, provincial
assembly members complained that their assembly's resolutions
were frequently ignored. The assembly, had, for example,
rejected the government's plans for increasing the number of
military cantonments in the province; converting "B" law
enforcement areas to "A" areas; developing Gwadar port; and
building the India-Pakistan-Iran pipeline. Nevertheless, all
of these projects were moving forward. One member said that
Balochis had no control over their province's own resources.
They worried outsiders coming to the province would
eventually outnumber the Baloch themselves, which was why
control of Gwadar port should be handed over to the province.


8. (U) Members expressed pessimism at the prospect of free
and fair elections in Balochistan. Without an independent
election commission or judicial system, credibility was
impossible, one member said. The election commission and
intelligence agencies support the ruling party, he continued,
and the Commission refuses to meet with opposition political
parties.


9. (U) Another member complained that it was difficult for
Baloch students to get scholarships to study within Pakistan
and even more difficult for them to get visas to study abroad
in places like the U.S. The Charge replied that the Embassy
could start outreach efforts in Balochistan in the form of
information briefings for student exchanges and training for
the online visa application process. Another member accused
the intelligence agencies of training terrorists in
Balochistan.

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On the Other Hand, Chief Minister Assures That All Is Well
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10. (C) Balochistan's Chief Minister Jam Muhammad Yousaf (a
compromise candidate of the Pakistan Muslim League and
Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal coalition government) told Assistant
Secretary Boucher that he was happy with Balochistan's

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overall security situation. There had also been progress over

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the last five years in the areas of health, education, water,
and devolution, but Yousaf admitted that it was difficult to
spread development equitably because of Balochistan's sparse,
dispersed population.


11. (C) Yousaf said outside investment had helped
Balochistan. He also noted that efforts like Gwadar port
development had started under Prime Minister Sharif's regime
in the 1990's and had once enjoyed the full support of
Balochistan's nationalist political parties. Although Gwadar
Port did not provide many jobs to Balochis, other investments
did -- particularly in the mining and marble industries. When
asked about the prospects for more equitable revenue sharing
between the federal and provincial governments, Yousaf said
that the Sui Gas agreement (and the establishment of royalty
rates) had been concluded in 1956, when Balochistan led the
country in energy production. The situation had changed,
Yousaf said, and other areas were being developed for oil and
gas extraction, producing higher royalties for the provinces.
(Note: A frequent complaint from Balochistan's politicians
is that Sui's wellhead price is much lower than those in
other provinces. End Note.)


12. (C) When asked about the nationalist situation, Yousaf
said that 20,000 - 30,000 Balochis had taken shelter in
Afghanistan to avoid violence, but that militants like Baloch
Marri still crossed the Pak-Afghan border. To help settle
the situation and give displaced people a boost, Yousaf said,
he helped to resettle displaced people into Dera Bugti.
(Comment: The displaced people Yousaf helped resettle were
from a clan locked in a bitter blood feud with deceased
tribal leader Nawab Bugti's people. The incomers' presence
has increased tension in the area. End Comment.)


13. (C) Yousaf said that accusations of militant activity in
Balochistan's religious schools (madrassas) was overstated,
and that there was no substance to the allegation that there
is a "Quetta Shura" of Taliban leaders. "Mullah Omar is not
in Pakistan," Yousaf said.

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Frontier Corps Increasing Security on Pak-Afghan Border
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14. (C) Pishin District Frontier Corps Commandant Colonel
Massud told Boucher that the Frontier Corps needs to change
its strategic focus from anti-smuggling to border control to
best meet Pakistan's security challenges. To this end, the
Frontier Corps has constructed walls to prevent cross-border
movement; installed security lights; established new border
posts; and increased border patrols. Illegal border
crossings have increased substantially in the past year --
from a 2006 annual total of 1,719 to 2,511 so far in 2007
alone, he said. Most of these crossings could be attributed
to people's attempts to escape security operations in
southern Afghanistan, but Frontier Corps troops have seized a
large number of arms, ammunition, and narcotics from
smugglers as well.


15. (C) Massud complained that Pakistan was attempting to
control movement across the Pak-Afghan border, but Afghan
authorities had expressed little interest in providing real
support. Afghanistan, for example, rejected Pakistan's
request to install biometric scanners at the Chaman border
crossing, and the number of Pakistan border posts dwarfed
their Afghan counterparts.


16. (C) Cross-border trade was a vital link for people living

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in and around Chaman, Massud said, and there was a large
market that lay just inside the Afghan border. On average,
over 8,000 Pakistani nationals cross the Chaman border into
Afghanistan daily, but the Afghan government had just decreed
that small vehicles and motorcycles would not be permitted to
cross into Afghanistan for security reasons. This arbitrary
rule, he said, would create problems for Chaman's residents.

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Site Visits Show Ground Truth
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17. (U) Assistant Secretary Boucher's visit to Balochistan
included three other stops:

-- Boucher's visit to a police training center in Quetta
coincided with a basic investigation skills class provided by
U.S. law enforcement trainers. Trainees were learning how to
take fingerprints.

-- At a draft voter roll display center in Quetta, Boucher
learned that only three voters had visited the center to
check their names over the last two days. (Note: Pakistan's
Election Commission had just started a 21-day display period
of the new draft voter rolls to allow voters to confirm their
names are on the list and, if not, provide a chance to
register. Political parties and other observers have
expressed alarm at the low number of voters registered
(approximately 50 million) compared to old voters' list
(approximately 70 million) and the estimated number of
eligible voters (82-86 million). Even the Election
Commissioner has admitted that at least 10 million more
voters need to be registered to make the next general
elections credible; however, this is unlikely to happen
during the display period. End Note.)

-- Boucher also visited two sites controlled by the Frontier
Corps: the busy Chaman Border crossing and a remote border
outpost in the barren, ridged landscape of Spina Tiza, built
with International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Bureau
funds. At both sites, Frontier Corps officers were proud to
discuss their recent successes in controlling the Pak-Afghan
border and were interested in working with the U.S. to
bolster their capabilities.
BODDE