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| Karakoram Highway near Juglot (Image: Wiki) |
By Akhilesh Pillalamarri
Escalating tensions in a remote territory threaten to drag Pakistan into yet another conflict.
As if Pakistan doesn’t have enough problems in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and in Balochistan, it now faces unrest in the territory of Gilgit-Baltistan.
Gilgit-Baltistan is a mountainous territory in the Himalayas in the far northeast corner of Pakistan. It is home to 12 of the world’s 30 tallest mountain peaks, including K2 and Nanga Parbat. Pakistan considers it to be of extreme strategic importance because it borders ally China and is home to the only land route between the two countries. This route is the breathtakingly beautiful Karakorum Highway, the highest paved international road in the world. The region is also quite distinct from the rest of Pakistan, and indeed the world, in terms of its people. While Gilgit is inhabited by various groups that are related to but distinct from Kashmiris, Baltistan is inhabited by the Balti, who are a Tibetan Muslim group. Additionally, the Burusho people of the Hunza Valley speak a language unrelated to any other in the world. Most of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan are Shia Muslims, unlike the rest of Pakistan, which is mainly Sunni, making Gilgit-Baltistan the only majority Shia province or territory in Pakistan.
The remoteness and distinctiveness of Gilgit-Baltistan in relation to the rest of Pakistan fuel both a sense of uniqueness and aloofness from the problems that have engulfed the rest of the country. This, however, has started to change recently. In June 2013, the effects of the Taliban insurgency suddenly spilled over into the territory, when about a dozen heavily armed Pakistani Taliban militants executed 10 foreign mountain climbers, including a U.S. citizen, at the base of Nanga Parbat. The tourist industry, one of the major sources of revenue for the region, has all but collapsed since then.
Read the full story at The Diplomat