Baluchistan for Onyx Bowls and War

All I wanted to know was where my onyx bowls came from. Now I know.

Gemstone bowls
I bought some beautiful onyx bowls from a young Pakistani fellow at the Gem Show in Tucson. He gave me a card explaining the source of the onyx and explained that the ranting, raving, angry old man at the booth was his dad. I put the card in a bag, thinking I would research the subject later, wondering also what made the old man so mad.

Once at home, I couldn't find the card. Until today. This is what it said:

"ONYX, BALOCHISTAN, PAKISTAN - This colorful banded onyx is the cold water deposition of calcium carbonate saturated with iron in the oxidized (red) and reduced (green) states. The onyx is similar to stalagmites, stalactites and travertine. This deposit of ornamental and decorative material is located near the border of Pakistan with Iran."

I now understand the inorganic origins of colors in my onyx bowls. Now for understanding what goes on in Balochistan besides mining onyx... not nearly as easily understood as chemistry.

Southwest in Pakistan
Balochistan, or Baluchistan as Americans spell it, is a province on the southwest side of Pakistan. Valuable resources, like gas, gold, and onyx, are found in a spit of land bordered by a triangular area between Afghanistan and Iran.

Only my finger on a globe will ever get there. Not only did I not know a place called Baluchistan existed, but where it was on a spinning sphere on my desk, hidden between two foreign, forbidden places.

Inhospitable
Baluchistan is one of Pakistan's forgotten provinces. It is mountainous, desert, and barren, with little development except for gas-pipeline and electricity-producing infrastructure. Quetta, the nearest city and provincial capital, is a hotbed of struggle. Both the city and the province are infested with spies and Taliban leaders, according to an AfPak Channel news article.

If that doesn't make Baluchistan inhospitable enough, there's the struggle between Shiites and Sunnis, the latter wanting to wipe out the former from ancient hatreds. Why stop there. There's more.

Separatist Baruch Republicans
An ethnic group, the Baluch Republican Army, wants to separate Baluchistan from the rest of the country. It shows its intentions by blowing up Baluchistan's gas pipelines, power plants and electrical infrastructure. And the group doesn't much like anybody else; not Sunnis, not Shiites, not even the Taliban are on their list of friends.

New year brings new attacks
Baluchistan has been under such attack since January this year with explosions, wanton destruction of its gas resource, power outages, and no way to carry on in the usual ways. Killings are up 43 percent since 2009. If there's such a thing as normal life in Baluchistan, nobody's lived it for a long time.

But back at the Show...
I consider myself lucky to have my onyx bowls from Baluchistan. While I'll wonder how the Pakistani family manages to mine, produce, and export beautiful onyx bowls from that angry war-torn region, I'll never again wonder what makes the old man at the Gem Show so mad.

Sources: embedded in the text.