The Latest Unrest In Gwadar Imperils Pakistan’s Eurasian Connectivity Plans

Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics are more inclined to focus their exports on Iran’s North-South Transport Corridor instead of Pakistan’s CPEC so long as the Baloch Conflict remains unresolved.

The Pakistani Commerce Minister recently chaired a meeting in which he called for boosting exports to Afghanistan and Central Asia, which aligns with Islamabad’s vision of expanding regional connectivity so as to facilitate those two’s exports to the global economy via CPEC’s terminal port of Gwadar. The latest unrest in that town imperils these plans, however, since the clashes between protesting Baloch and the security services show Afghanistan and Central Asia that Gwadar isn’t a reliable outlet to the sea.

The protesters blame the security services for firing on them without provocation while the security services blame the protesters for rioting, but regardless of whoever’s really to blame for the latest unrest, it reminded everyone that the Baloch Conflict isn’t going away and is poised to worsen in the future. The roots of this decades-long conflict’s latest phase are the locals’ demand that more of the profits from their region’s mineral riches and Gwadar’s port business remain within Balochistan.

Their movement comprises civil society activists, peaceful protesters, and terrorist-designated separatist groups that Islamabad has accused of being supported from abroad. Religious extremists have also exploited the lawlessness that characterizes broad swaths of Pakistan’s largest region. Over the past year, security threats have metastasized after Afghan-based TTP terrorists reportedly began to ally with some of the aforesaid separatists, with the nexus between them forming a formidable threat to CPEC.

This background enables observers to better understand the importance of the latest unrest in Gwadar. From the state’s perspective, the “Grand Baloch Gathering” might be a cover for terrorists to infiltrate the town, who might then provoke clashes with the security service in order to radicalize more of the locals. The average protester sees everything differently though since they’re feeling increasingly desperate as the state fails to meet their demands and terrorist attacks continue in the hinterland.

These zero-sum positions are why a sustainable resolution to the Baloch Conflict remains elusive since there’s a serious dearth of trust between both sides, but each is equally to blame for that. The state only pays occasional lip service to the locals’ demands and allegedly kidnaps those suspected of membership in banned groups, which further radicalizes the locals, while the terrorist-designated armed opposition that claims to act on behalf of the locals has carried out some truly atrocious attacks in the past.

Few on either side condemn their representatives out of fear that they’ll be persecuted, thus contributing to the perception that each is extremist in their own way without any moderates among them. The state and armed Baloch groups consider dissident to be treasonous to their respective causes, the first because it’s deemed to support separatism and the second since it’s deemed to be against it. This totalitarianism has prevented truly meaningful dialogue from taking place between their moderates.

The failure to hold such talks, which could aim to reach a fair resource-sharing agreement that preserves Pakistan’s territorial integrity, means that the Baloch Conflict will continue. Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics are accordingly more inclined to focus their exports on Iran’s North-South Transport Corridor instead of risking them being disrupted by more unrest along CPEC in Gwadar. The end result is that Pakistan’s Eurasian connectivity plans will fail to fully materialize until this conflict is finally resolved.