A PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY'RE A NATION ARE ONE:

Balochis have their own language and a separate identity. In the decades before the 1947 partition of India, Balochistan--at least those portions not incorporated into Persian--coalesced into a loose confederation of Baloch states under British protection. While some Baloch princely states chose to join Pakistan, the largest and most important--the Khanate of Kalat--asserted independence for several months before Pakistan ultimately absorbed it. The port city of Gwadar, meanwhile, remained part of the Sultanate of Oman until Pakistan annexed it in 1958. Today, Gwadar is among China's most important investments in Pakistan: it is not only among the most important ports in China's Indian Ocean "String of Pearls" strategy, but it is also the outlet for China's multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Absent the Gwadar port, CPEC's strategic and economic potential plummets.

The Balochis have long been restive inside Pakistan. For its first decade, Pakistan neglected the region. It invested little and left the British administrative system in place. In 1958, Balochi tribes rose in revolt against Pakistani rule, and Karachi (Pakistan's capital before the creation of Islamabad) declared martial law and moved to dismantle the tribal system and erase any notion that Balochistan was a legitimate entity. Against this backdrop, the Balochistan People's Liberation Front inaugurated a low-intensity guerilla campaign. In 1970, as Pakistan also faced unrest (and eventual secession) of its Bengali population, it acquiesced to the formation of a Balochistan province. Over subsequent decades, civil strife repeated erupted--first during the reign of President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and then against the backdrop of a 2004 development plan which locals believed would lead to an influx of Punjabis to the region. Balochi militants and terrorists continue to harass Pakistani state forces.

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