Mohammad Jamil
Dana Rohrabacher in his bid to stir crisis in Pakistan continues with his plans, and is trying to persuade Voice of America to start program in Baloch language. On July 15, 2016, he had called on the overseer of the Voice of America to initiate native-language broadcasting to the Baloch people living in Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. UN Charter and international law protects the sovereignty of every member state and prohibits them from interfering in the internal matters of other member countries. However, US Senator Dana Rohrabacher (California), Congressmen Louie Gohmert (Texas) and Steve King (lowa) have been and openly and consistently supporting Balochistan’s insurgency. Senators have been attending various events organized to incite ethnic and separatist tendencies inside Pakistan. They have been supporting Sindhi, Baloch and Mohajir ethnic-based separatist movements in Pakistan, and attend regular conferences and meetings and carry out propaganda against the state and institutions of Pakistan.
During his meeting with VAC overseer, Dana Rohrabacher stated that the Baloch people occupy homelands that stretch across the borders of the three countries and their “secular, tolerant and liberal tradition is now in danger” of being deprived of access to independent media. The three dominant states, he said, are attempting to create a “single-state identity” – Persian, Punjab, and Pashtun – and impose the values of their respective religious sects. In a letter to John Lansing, chief executive officer of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, Rohrabacher wrote: “Native language broadcasting could help provide Baloch with non-biased news and liberal and democratic values. It would also help to preserve Baloch people language and its secular culture.” On 13th October 2017, two anti-Pakistan US Congressmen namely Dana Rohrabacher and Brad Sherman repeated their anti-Pakistan rhetoric during the meeting of US House of Representatives.
On 17th February 2012, US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher had introduced a resolution in the US House of Representatives, calling upon Pakistan to recognize the Baloch right to self- determination. The motion had been co-sponsored by House Representatives Louie Gohmert and Steve King. The proposed bill had favoured Baloch rights of self-determination and affording an opportunity to choose their own status of a sovereign state. Such resolutions moved by a tiny minority may not have any importance, but it helps in bringing Pakistan and its institutions into disrepute. This Great Game of the US strategic map-makers has been in full play in Balochistan province for quite some time. World maps, showing Pakistan all splintered up, and Balochistan province merging with Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan region making a Greater Balochistan, were published. But situation in Balochistan has been addressed at political level; an elected government is in place.
Meddling of some half-a-dozen US panjandrums berthed in the Congress in a matter strictly internal affair of Pakistan is indeed condemnable. The State Department had distanced itself from them stating that neither was it involved nor did it participate in their impudent venture. But neither deep interest of the US in Balochistan nor its deep infestation of this crucial province of Pakistan is any obscure. Balochistan’s enviously-prized coastline and its critical strategic location lurks temptingly not just in the eyes of neoconservatives like Dana Rohrabacher, a habitual Pakistan-bashing Republican Congressman who had organized the above hearing. Both its armchair and active-duty strategists stood swayed by the dream of controlling the crucially-placed Balochistan to project the US power and influence in the region and beyond. Anyhow, US lawmakers Rohrabacher and Ted Poe have been highly discriminate in their Pakistan bashing.
A bill was also introduced in the US House of Reps by Republican Congressmen Ted Poe and Dana Rohrabacher; a couple of days after the September 18, 2016 Uri Attacks in IoK (allegedly planned and conducted from Pakistan’s soil). The bill directed the US Department of State to submit a determination whether Pakistan Government or its institutions committed, conspired, attempted, aided or abetted any of specified acts constituting an act of or support for international terrorism. On 21st September 2016, one Indian MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar had submitted a Private Members Resolution titled, ‘Pakistan State Sponsor of Terror’ in Indian Parliament. On the same day, an anti-Pak petition titled “We the People ask The Administration to Declare Pakistan a State Sponsor of Terrorism” was made online. The White House, however, shut down the petition later, citing inadequate signature requirements.
Rohrabacher is a staunch opponent of illegal immigration, and favors the legalization of marijuana. In foreign policy, he supported withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, called for Trump to punish Turkish President Erdoğan on embassy violence, sided with Russia in the Russia–Georgia war, gave a qualified defense of the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and supports cooperating with Russia in Syria. On May 17, 2017, The Washington Post reported that a month before Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination (in April 2016), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy stated: “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump. Swear to God.” Brendan Buck, counselor to Paul Ryan, initially denied these reports but later, after being informed that the Post would cite a recording as evidence, said that McCarthy had been joking. In this backdrop, one cannot rule out that possibility that Dana Roherabacher is an India lobbyist.
