Ten gunned down near China 'Belt and Road' projects in Pakistan

By Gul Yusufzai

 

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Ten labourers were gunned down in southwestern Pakistan on Saturday while working on link roads to connect outlying towns to the country's $57-billion Chinese "Belt and Road" initiative, security officials confirmed.

 

    The attack on the Pakistani labourers took place some 20 kilometres from the emerging port city of Gwadar in Baluchistan province that forms the southern hub of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

 

    "All the labourers were shot at close range," said senior levies official Muhammad Zareef, adding that the shooters were travelling on a motorcycle. The levies are a paramilitary force that oversees security in Baluchistan where police jurisdiction is limited to major urban centres.

 

    Gwadar's deep-water port is the exit point for a planned route from China's far-western Xinjiang region to the Arabian Sea.

 

Nadeem Javaid, who advises Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government and works closely on the CPEC programme, told Reuters earlier in the week that the Gwadar-Xinjiang corridor should be operational from June next year.

 

    He said Pakistan expects up to 4 percent of global trade to pass through it by 2020.

 

  Baluchistan, however, has long faced security concerns. Separatist militants in the province have waged a campaign against the central government for decades, demanding a greater share of the gas-rich region's resources.

 

Security officials have said previously that militants trying to disrupt construction on the "economic corridor" have killed 44 workers since 2014, all of whom were Pakistani.

 

Pakistan's military created an army division in 2015, believed to number more than 10,000 troops, specifically to protect CPEC projects and Chinese workers.

 

    The men killed and wounded on Saturday had been working for the provincial government at two separate construction sites on three kilometres apart along the same road. Two labourers wounded in the shootings were taken to hospital where one of them died from his injuries, Zareef said.

    The roads the labourers were working on are not specific CPEC-funded projects, but they are part of a network of connecting roads that are part of the corridor.

 

    No group has admitted responsibility for the shootings but past attacks in the region have been carried out by separatists who view construction projects as a means to take over their land.

 

    The shootings come a day after a suicide bomber targetting a Pakistani senator killed 26 people and injured 40, Baluchistan Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti said.

 

    Friday's attack was claimed by Islamic State via its Amaq news agency.

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-05-14

hunt the culprits down and burn them ...

labourers out working , nothing to do with any conflict .. just trying to earn a crust ..

That is really sad and thoroughly evil. Murdered simply because you were doing your job. The perpetrators of this horrible act really can't be considered human and I hope they get their just rewards and a painful death.

I knew it. This China project is going to encounter a multitude of similar obstructions. It's never going to work. Too many groups with an axe to grind against Chinese interests working on these projects. They'll blow'em up faster than they can rebuild them.

Edited May 14, 20179 yr by Usernames

58 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

He said Pakistan expects up to 4 percent of global trade to pass through it by 2020.

How much of that would be military supplies flowing to Afghanistan and onwards to the ME?

 

48 minutes ago, Usernames said:

I knew it. This China project is going to encounter a multitude of similar obstructions. It's never going to work. Too many groups with an axe to grind against Chinese interests working on these projects. They'll blow'em up faster than they can rebuild them.

Spot on.

The China project will be seen as a form of colonization by groups in the whole area.

It will unify the lot of them, and teach China a lesson that has already been learned by the Brits, the USSR, and the US.

You can't win in the Middle East and Central Asia.

12 minutes ago, VillageIdiot said:

Spot on.

The China project will be seen as a form of colonization by groups in the whole area.

It will unify the lot of them, and teach China a lesson that has already been learned by the Brits, the USSR, and the US.

You can't win in the Middle East and Central Asia.

The Brits, the USSR, and the US sent military expeditions into that region to do battle against the locals.  You know something we don't about the Chinese fighting in Afghanistan or Pakistan?

2 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

The Brits, the USSR, and the US sent military expeditions into that region to do battle against the locals.  You know something we don't about the Chinese fighting in Afghanistan or Pakistan?

Nobody said anything about "...the Chinese fighting in Afghanistan or Pakistan."

They are savvy enough to pull out before it comes to that.

47 minutes ago, VillageIdiot said:

Nobody said anything about "...the Chinese fighting in Afghanistan or Pakistan."

They are savvy enough to pull out before it comes to that.

You're the one who compared them to the Russians, Brits, and Americans.  The situation is not the same.  And we'll see if locals dislike easier transportation and access to a higher standard of living.

Probably an excuse for another religious mini-massacre.

3 hours ago, ilostmypassword said:

The Brits, the USSR, and the US sent military expeditions into that region to do battle against the locals.  You know something we don't about the Chinese fighting in Afghanistan or Pakistan?

They're too busy massacring Uighurs, which is going to piss off every Muslim from the Chinese border to Turkey.

2 minutes ago, John Drake said:

They're too busy massacring Uighurs, which is going to piss off every Muslim from the Chinese border to Turkey.

They may be pissed off at the Chinese, but we'll see how they feel about continuing to massacre their fellow Muslims.

On 5/14/2017 at 10:21 AM, VillageIdiot said:

Spot on.

The China project will be seen as a form of colonization by groups in the whole area.

It will unify the lot of them, and teach China a lesson that has already been learned by the Brits, the USSR, and the US.

You can't win in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Your not far off the mark. This will not be the first or last of the Silk Road deaths. If you wish to take the time you can Google the Silk Road and see the deaths and servitude to this  project by peoples in all countries it passes through. Its colonization by China under the guise of trade which of course will be in their favor.