The Border Trade Union, a representative body of the traders, held a press conference in Turbat Press Club, denouncing the closure of the Pak-Iran border and saying that: “Border trade is a matter of life and death.” They said that the border closure has pushed thousands of residents of district Kech into starvation.
Hafiz Nasir ud Deen, the newly appointed organizer of the traders’ union, and the Gulzar Dost Baloch, the deputy organizer, were among the many who addressed the press conference in Turbat on Friday.
The speakers denounced the recent policies of the Pakistani authorities regarding the Pak-Iran border trade. Under the new policy, the oil traders are now obliged to take a token, and only then can they cross the border. This has drastically affected the border trade, and hundreds of oil-carrying vehicles are forced to wait for their turn in the scorching summer heat. A few weeks ago – when the policy was newly enacted – several traders died at the border due to dehydration and starvation. Furthermore, the new policy has reduced the border trade to a snail’s pace, and traders have to wait for weeks for their next turn.
The speakers said that we reject the new token policy. They said that thousands of vehicles are lining the Pak-Iran border for days. The drivers are suffering from all sorts of difficulties. They requested the authorities to increase the border crossing points so that the drives can easily pass through.
The speakers said that unemployment is ubiquitous in district Kech: There are no trade centres, companies or factories that could provide a living for the residents. He said that under all these conditions, the border trade is the last resort for the people of Kech to eke out sustainable living.
The speakers said that sitting in their air-conditioned rooms in Islamabad, unaware of the conditions in Kech, the authorities order the closure of the border. They don’t understand that the border trade is a “matter of life and death” for us.
The speakers said that in the effort to build a better future for their families, traders take crushing loans, pushing themselves knees in debt, to buy vehicles for trade purposes. But tall their dreams are crushed when the authorities continuously close the border or use various other tactics to impede the trade, they said.