“Annexation of the occupied islands is a slap on the face of those who celebrating the 18th Amendment,” BNM said.
The Spokesman for the Baloch National Movement termed Pakistan’s presidential ordinance on the islands of Balochistan and Sindh as another attack on Baloch and Sindhi nations and a robbery of their coast and resources. “Such tactics by the occupiers of the occupied territories are not new. This only proves all our concerns, expressed long ago, that plans were being made to seize Balochistan’s coastal belt and separate it from Balochistan,” spokesperson added.
The BNM spokesperson further said that Pakistan was resorting to the so-called constitution and legislation to strengthen its rule over all subjugated nations including Baloch and Sindhis and to strengthen its occupation. It is a universal fact that legislation and the constitution of the occupier have no place in the occupied territories. Resistance by the Baloch and Sindhi nation against such measures is a natural phenomenon.
He said that the establishment of the Pakistan Island Development Authority to occupy the precious islands of Baloch and Sindhis is a slap on the face of those who rejoice over the 18th amendment. In fact, the Eighteenth Amendment was a hoax and an attempt to upbeat the Baloch nation through parliamentary groups. The fact is that even the parliamentarians knew that the 18th Amendment was a deception and a mirage, but they joined the state in this deception and became complicit in the crime, he said.
Islands are situated only in Balochistan and Sindh while the Islamabad-based legislation itself is proof that this is an occupying policy of Baloch coast and an attack on the livelihood of Baloch and Sindhi fishermen, the spokesman continued. Fishermen in Balochistan are already protesting against the horrific destruction of aquatic life and extermination of fish resources caused by foreign trawlers and nets who are licensed to fish in Sindh and Balochistan while adding to this injustice the state has restricted local fishermen from fishing in their own ancestral fishing areas, he added.
It is pertinent to mention that fishermen in Gwadar and Jewni towns of Balochistan had protested several times in the past against being banned to fish near the islands.
Balochistan has a coast-line of 700 kilometres and unlike the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, it is free of hurricanes. It is twice more productive than the other portions of the Indian Ocean.
According to reports, fishermen have been bared to fish near the coast in Gwadar due to security threats and in Ormara due to the security of Naval Base, which has harmed the economic and living conditions of local fishermen.