ANGRY BALOCHIS OPPOSE CHINA PAKISTAN ECONOMIC CORRIDOR

Reports emerging from Balochistan suggest that the indigenous Baloch people, through whose territory a major section of the ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) passes, are up in arms against the project, with sections of the population even carrying out attacks on those building the corridor. This is in complete contradiction to what the Pakistan government has been propagating internationally, that the Baloch are welcoming the CPEC as a project that will bring devel- opment to their doorstep.

The Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF), an armed insurgency group, which released its “quarterly report” for July- September, claims to have carried out multiple attacks on officials and assets stationed along the CPEC. According to individuals monitoring the area, the Pakistan government is trying to ensure that the real story of the resistance being offered to CPEC does not become public, and is clamping down on the local media. The BLF claims that it carried out four attacks on the Pakistan army’s construction company, Frontier Works Or- ganization (FWO), which is working on the CPEC. In these attacks, BLF claims to have destroyed three FWO vehicles and blown up two bridges with explosives along the CPEC route. The group also claims to have killed “several personnel deployed on CPEC”, but has not given the exact number of Pakistani soldiers killed.

On 6 August, the BLF blew up a bridge in the Rakhshan Giradi area of Washuk district, Balochistan, along the CPEC route. A second bridge was blown up on 7 September in the Rakhshan Gorgi area of the same district. On