Presented in the German Parliament, Berlin, 5th august 2006
Nasser Boladai, spokesperson for the Balochistan People’s Party

Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Balochistan People’s Party and the Baloch nation, I would like to express our heartfelt thanks and profound gratitude to the Azerbaijan and German Association which helped and made this opportunity possible. We sincerely value the opportunity given to us to present to you and the world the solution which in our view would resolve the plight of our oppressed Baloch people and other nations in Iran.

I am speaking here as the representative of the Balochistan People’s Party (BPP), a liberal Democratic Party struggling to achieve sovereignty for the Baloch people within a secular, federal, and democratic republic in Iran.
We are living in a world under different conditions. After many years of internal conflicts and international wars, the German people have chosen a liberal, democratic political system based on people’s sovereignty, and a federal structure based on shared sovereignty and self rule.

The people’s sovereignty and a federal structure have successfully prevented potential differences with neighbouring states turning into violent confrontation.
The liberal democratic experience has reduced the conflict between democratic countries in Europe to such an extent that both small and large countries confidently give up part of their sovereignty to the cause of the European Union.
On the other hand, in Iran, a theocratic and oppressive regime suppresses its own people and creates tension with its neighbours.

A feature of the Iranian regime is its fascist and chauvinistic character. The regime oppresses the majority of the country’s population because its ethnicity, languages and cultures do not reflect the dominant national identity. Iran is pursuing a policy of assimilation instead of integration. These fascist policies are creating tension between the regime and oppressed nationalities inside Iran.
German and other European people have had first hand experience of extreme fascist ideologies. European experience has shown that appeasement only encourages extremist regimes to adopt more extreme policies and make more trouble for their own people and for the world.

We believe that any kind of negotiation to appease such a regime, negotiation offering economic, security and political incentives, would increase the regime’s desire to suppress its own people, to interfere in the internal affairs of the neighbouring countries and to export terrorism.
We appeal to the European Union and countries to cease negotiating with this regime and, instead, to cooperate with the democratic opposition which is committed to a secular, democratic and federal system.

Iran is a multinational country consisting of six major nationalities: Ahwazi Arabs, Azerbaijani Turks, Baloch, Kurds, Persians and Turkmen.
Balochistan, “the land of the Baloch” is presently subjugated by three countries of Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan. The country is strategically situated at the eastern flank of the Middle East, linking the Central Asian states with the Indian subcontinent and the Indian Ocean. It posses the Northern part of Gulf and Arab Sea from the strait of the Hormose to Karachi.

The Indian government and Pakistan and Iran are trying to build a pipeline to take Iranian gas, which in large part belongs to Baloch, to Pakistan and to India. At same time China is building a deep seaport in Gwadar in the Eastern Balochistan, and India has started the construction of a road to link Afghanistan to Chabhar, a port City in Western Balochistan. Balochistan will become a cross road for pipeline serving the energy need of the region and world. All these activities are being carried out without consulting the Baloch people. In all these projects, the Baloch people have been sidelined in jobs and other benefits. Only India has expressed that Baloch should be consulted before development starts, but there are no signs that the parties are contacting Baloch popular representatives.

Since 1928 that Western Part of Balochistan was annexed by Iranian forces. The politics of the Iranian regimes in Balochistan are characterised by human rights abuses. The Baloch people in Iran are treated as third class citizens. They are deprived of almost all cultural, economical, political and social rights.
Baloch are especially discriminated in job market, for instance in the provincial administration in Zahedan during the former regime only two were Baloch, holding lowest income jobs, and all others were non-locals. The situation has not changed during the current theocratic Regime, when Mr Khatami was president; during a tour in Balochistan he had an audience with provincial authorities out of which only one was Baloch. He was representative of Zahedan in the National Assembly. Members of National Assembly are elected in a control and undemocratic elections in Iran.

In the last three months the Iranian regime has increased its oppressive policies in Balochistan. It is punishing the entire Baloch people. Under different pretexts, its security forces are killing more young Baloch people. Since 15 May 2006, when the regime began a military operation in Balochistan, more than 150 Baloch have been killed in check points at home or have been hanged, almost 90 % of them without any charge. The Iranian regime is taking revenge against the Baloch people because members of the Baloch resistance movement killed some government civil and military officials in an armed encounter.

The Islamic regime has accused the Baloch people of collaborating with Western powers and has used this as an excuse to launch a military operation at the beginning of May, this year. Several hundred civilians have been arrested. The regime’s security forces have increased the number of arrests and executions of innocent Baloch people. Especially since a shia radical cleric Hojatol Islam Mohammad Ibrahim Nekoonam became the Justice Minister of Balochistan, the wave of executions in Balochistan has become unstoppable.

Every day, all across Balochistan, Baloch people are executed by Molla (Nekoonam), or are kidnapped, or killed by the “Mersad”, the special secret force of spiritual leader Ayatollah Khamenehei, or are killed in a “fabricated” accident. This means that every day a Baloch family mourns for sons or a father.
While the international community and the international media focuses on the regime’s uncompromising stance on the nuclear weapons issue, the Islamic regime takes advantage of the crisis to suppress the Baloch people.

The Balochistan People’s Party appeals to the international community not to allow the Iranian regime to use the current nuclear weapons crisis to suppress the Baloch people. We ask the international community to send a fact finding mission to see the persecution, the arrests and the executions in Balochistan which have occurred during the latest military operation.
The Balochistan People’s Party believes that the only way to save the people in Iran, Middle East, central Asia and of course, the world from oppression, interference in internal affairs, and terrorist activities, is to change the Iranian regime before it acquires nuclear weapons.

In fact, for the first time, something unique is currently happening in Iran. All oppressed nationalities are rising to challenge the fascist and chauvinistic regime.
The Baloch people, the Ahvazi Arabs, the Azerbaijani Turks and the Kurds have taken to the streets or have challenged Iran’s security and intelligence services in armed encounters. This is a unique phenomenon. Subjugated nationalities, which make up more than 50% of the Iranian population, are challenging the regime simultaneously.

Unlike in previous years, there is now a united opposition against the Iranian government. The Congress of Nationalities for a Federal Iran, consisting of eight political parties and organizations which are struggling to establish a federal and democratic government, can serve as a catalyst and organizer for a united opposition to overthrow a government which supports terrorism and extremism.

The opposition in the oppressed nations, because of its opposition to the former monarchist regime and the current theocratic regime, has developed a secular, democratic and federal structure that could put Iran on a democratic path. A strong opposition that enjoys popular support inside the country as well as international backing is required to change an Iranian regime armed with a fanatic ideology and financed by oil money.
A strong component of the opposition is the Congress of Nationalities for a Federal Iran. It presently comprises political parties belonging to oppressed nationalities in Iran and enjoys popular support inside Iran.

The Congress of Nationalities is trying to strengthen itself by including other organisations and parties that struggle for federal structure based on parity of constituent parts in Iran.
The Balochistan People’s Party is working with other parties and organisations in the Congress of Nationalities for a Federal Iran in order to build a broader and stronger opposition to the current regime and to establish a democratic, secular, and federal government in Iran.

The Party is ready to work and cooperate with other organisations and parties to achieve this aim before the current fanatical regime arms itself with nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Protected by nuclear weapons, this regime will spread and support international terrorism and extremism and will continue to suppress its own people.


Nasser Boladai, spokesperson for the Balochistan People’s Party
Presented in the German Parliament, Berlin, 5th august 2006


 

APPENDIX 1

Introduction to the Balochistan People’s Party

The Balochistan People’s Party is a Liberal Democratic Party. It struggles to achieve the Baloch people’s sovereignty within the federal Democratic Republic in Iran. It has formulated a federal democratic framework which envisages a system based on parity of constituent parts. In the constituent parts, borders within Iran will be redrawn according to the language, history and people’s wishes. The new republics will have equal rights in all spheres of power. According to the Party’s program, the relationship between a republic and the federal government must include five basic principles:

National sovereignty: Principal authority rests with the republic, with the federal government having exclusive authority in ‘foreign affairs’, ‘defence’, ‘international financial relationships and financial relationships between republics within Iran’ and ‘communication. The republics will retain power and sovereignty over the remaining state departments.

Democracy: Parliamentarian democracy should be enforced in all levels of power, both at the federal and republic level.

Participation: National republics will have equal participation in all government bodies: the legislative, executive and judicial branches. For equal participation, the population and geographic size of the republic would not be taken into consideration.

Distribution of Power: Both the federal government and the republics should have written Constitutions, and unambiguous laws, regulations and memorandum that both in federal and republics level divides power horizontally between legislative, executive and judicial branches; and vertically divides power between federal and national republics governments.

Financial autonomy: To guarantee financial autonomy, tax collection power should be divided between the federal government and the national republics in a way that makes the national republics financially autonomous of federal government.

A permanent appropriate and lasting solution should be in line with internationally recognised principles of the right to self-determination and sovereign equality of nations. The federal government shall incorporate republics in its decision procedure on some constitutionally entrenched basis.


APPENDIX 2

An Introduction to Balochistan history

Balochistan, “the country of the Baloch,” is presently subjugated by three countries: Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan. The country, strategically situated at the eastern flank of the Middle East, links the Central Asian states with the Indian subcontinent and the Indian Ocean.
Balochistan has existed as a geographical area inhabited by a closely related people for thousands of years. It has even existed in recent times as a modern national state. Historically, Baloch had independent principalities within a Baloch national framework. For example, the independent state of Kalat from 1947 to 1948 was the last one. Kalat was occupied and annexed by Pakistan in 1948. However, Kalat governed over Eastern Balochistan directly or indirectly until 1973.
In 1849, an Iranian army defeated Baloch forces in Kerman and captured Bumpur. The Baloch political status changed radically in later decades, when, in the 19th century, the British and Persian Empires divided Balochistan into spheres of influences between the British Empire in India and the Persian Kingdom.

The Baloch people in Western Balochistan have been in constant revolt against the domination by and the chauvinistic policy of Iranian governments. The revolt of Jask (1873), of Sarhad (1888), and the general uprising in 1889 resulted in a scorched-earth policy by Iranian forces in 1889 aimed at suppressing Baloch rebellion. A major uprising under Baloch chieftain Sardar Hussein Narui in 1896 prompted a joint Anglo-Persian expeditionary force to crush the resistance. The resistance was crushed after two years and Chief Narui was arrested.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Bahram Khan gained control of nearly the entire central and southern region of Western Balochistan, ending the occupation by Iranian forces. In 1916, the British recognized him as the effective ruler of Western Balochistan. His nephew, Mir Dost Mohamed, succeeded Mir Bahram Khan. In 1928, the Iranian forces began an operation against Mir Dost Mohamed. Skirmishes continued for seven months and ended in the victory of Iranian forces over the Baloch. Dost Mohammad Khan went to Tehran for negotiations but was arrested and executed in Tehran. Thus Western Balochistan was finally annexed by the Persian Empire. The politics of the Iranian Government in Balochistan are characterised by persistent violation of human rights.