Balochistan is placed in such a geo-strategically important location that any power, domestic or foreign, would want to have its stakes in there. Overall, the fact that Pakistan itself is located in a geo-politically significant area renders it in the world news especially in current global scenario with War on Terror ongoing. Historically, any region that has had such a significant spot has been source of acrimonious relationships between major regional and global powers. The case of Balochistan is not different at all.

In fact, there is every single reason that it has the same narrative as history would repeat itself in a cycle. Even though history takes its own course depending on the flow of the forces of time, Pakistan should wise up and not repeat the case of West Pakistan in 1970s with its largest province. With no singing of Pakistan's national anthem and banning of waving of the country's flag, there could not be any gloomier a scenario of drifting apart.

There seems to be two main sources of conflict for Balochistan, one is socio-economical. Despite being the richest province in resources, it is the least developed and its people are the poorest. The second is political with intra-provincial and inter-provincial disharmony. For both of these sources of conflict, the foreign powers have their interests. Firstly, for its resources and secondly, for being instrumentalised to perform against the Pakistani state and Pakistan Army.

Recently, in an interview to BBC Urdu, the current Cabinet Minister for Science and Technology, Mir Changez Khan Jamali, said about Balochistan that its people should not be fools to play into the hands of foreign powers by creating discord with the Pakistani state and Pakistan Army. He further claimed that the commander of the Frontier Corps has more influence in Balochistan than the Prime Minister himself. He admitted that the current government has not made any change in its policies toward Balochistan and that for the past four years, General Pervez Musharraf's policies have been implemented. Who is to be responsible for such a lack of concern for Balochistan? The government is first in line.

He blamed the security forces and intelligence agencies as well as Pakistan Army in spoiling Balochistan's situation by kidnapping the political workers and asked that their deaths be brought to justice. Hence, for whatever has gone wrong with Balochistan, no one is free of blame and everyone shares the guilt of not taking the right action. However, the political forces in Balochistan should work towards improving this rift between the locals and rest of the country. The ruling elites should for once think of who would bear the worst burnt of it all, a common man.

It is true that no army can work without the support of its people and most certainly Pakistan Army needs an image uplift amongst the Balochs. But come to think of this, what interest would Pakistan Army have in allowing Balochistan to split away from Pakistan or to remain with Pakistan but in such tumultuous circumstances? It has always been an old trick in the books of Pakistani politicians to put the blame on Pakistan Army for incompetence to execute their own duties in the right way. It was not Pakistan Army but the government that did not make the right choices and made a stark error in judgment in the case of Balochistan. Balochistan's crisis has been made into a quagmire for Pakistan Army. On the other hand, in order to build bridges, Pakistan Army has refused to carry out any kind of an operation in Balochistan, but rather demands that there should be a political solution to this politically motivated upheaval.