BLUF asks ICRC and all UN agencies to leave Balochistan

The Baloch Hal News

QUETTA: While accepting responsibility for threatening the Quetta office of International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), an underground Baloch organization, Baloch Liberation United Front (BLUF), has asked ICRC and all UN agencies to immediately shut down their activities and leave Balochistan, reported Online News Agency here on Saturday.

BLUF is the same organization that kidnapped the American head of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), John Solecki, last year and killed Balochistan Education Minister Shafiq Ahmed Khan.

According to Shah Haq Baloch, a spokesman of the shadowy Baloch nationalist group who spoke to Online News Agency on a satellite phone, the threat to ICRC Quetta office had been issued by his organization due to its “partial role” in Balochistan.

“The role of these foreign organization on the issue of the state brutality is partial. The ICRC and other foreign groups have not done anything satisfactory for tens of thousands of displaced Baloch. We warn ICRC and all UN agencies to immediately halt all their activities and leave Balochistan because these organizations kept quite (on the plight of the Baloch people) even after the safe release of John Solecki. This attitude will no longer be tolerated,” said the spokesman.

The BLUF representative, when asked about an earlier statement issued by Baloch Republican Army (BRA) and Baloch Republican Party (BRP) in which they disowned the threats and accused state intelligence agencies for doing so in order to defame the Baloch movement, said BRA was a respectable organization which BLUF admired for its commitment to the Baloch cause.

“We want BRA to confirm things before issuing statements. They should be patient and refrain from issuing policy statements hastily. ICRC has been threatened by BLUF and if it does not suspend its activities, we will take strict action against it,” he warned.

Balochistan chief minister Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani had held “foreign hand” responsible for the threats to international organizations working in Balochistan besides assuring complete security to all foreign organizations operating in Balochistan.