By Paul Tighe
Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said army units will withdraw from areas of Baluchistan as part of a plan to end an insurgency in the province that produces a quarter of the country’s natural gas.
Soldiers will hand over control of seven checkpoints to units of the Frontier Corps, meeting a long-standing demand of the people, Gilani told Parliament at the end of a debate yesterday on greater rights for Baluchistan. The corps is a paramilitary force recruited mostly from people from the tribal areas.
The prime minister repeated an offer to meet with dissident Baluch leaders, saying “we have never shied away from meeting any stakeholder,” the official Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
Pakistan’s government is offering economic aid and political changes for Baluchistan, the province in the southwest where insurgents have attacked oil and gas installations, pipelines and security forces in recent years. The Baluch group of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, a tribal leader killed by security forces in 2006, says it is fighting for the rights of local people, including royalties from the minerals and fuels discovered in the region.
Pakistan says the insurgency is backed by neighboring India and groups in Afghanistan. India denies the charge.
Baluchistan is Pakistan’s largest province by area, covering 44 percent of the country. Its population of more than 8 million, according to a 2007 census, is the smallest in the country of 176 million people. Punjab, the region that generates more than half of the country’s economic growth, had more than 87 million people, according to the census.
Gas, Oil Royalties
Royalties from oil, gas and minerals will be assigned as part of a package that includes inviting exiled leaders to return to the country and withdrawing politically motivated court cases, Raza Rabbani, a senior leader of Gilani’s ruling Pakistan People’s Party, told lawmakers last month.
Payment of dues amounting to more than $1.4 billion has been authorized, Gilani said yesterday, according to APP. This is “just the start,” it cited him as saying.
Pakistan’s government aims to invest $15 billion over five years to develop the oil and natural gas industry and reduce dependence on imports and meet local demand, which is forecast to double by 2020.
Baluchistan is home to the Sui gas fields, the country’s largest. Production from the aging fields that opened in 1955 is declining by as much as 5 percent a year, Khalid Rahman, chief executive officer of Pakistan Petroleum Ltd., the country’s biggest gas producer, said earlier this year.
Frontier Corps units will be deployed in Sui soon, Gilani told lawmakers yesterday, APP reported.
To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Tighe in Sydney at ptighe@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: December 9, 2009 19:42 EST
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