In blithe defiance of President Pervaiz Musharraf’s claims in the West, his war on terror is expanding alarmingly at home. Descending from the thick wooded hills of South and North Waziristan, the war has reached the barren hills of Darra Adamkhel, just 40 kilometers from Peshawar. This war is not only expanding, but is also getting aggressive where the so-called local Taliban are becoming more brazen in attacking the Pakistan army.
Earlier over-running two strategic forts in Waziristan, wherefrom they took away a large cache of arms, the local Taliban took away four truckloads of weapons the Pakistan army was moving through Kohat to the war-stricken Waziristan. These three incidents, preceded by the capturing of more than 200 army men last August without firing a shot, are enough to put the Musharraf administration to shame.
There can be two explanations: one, the local Taliban have become powerful enough to fight an offensive war against a regular army that prides itself on its professionalism and discipline. Second, the Taliban have their supporters in the ranks of the armed forces that stage-manage such incidents to replenish their depleting stocks and extract more concessions from a shaken administration.
Whatever may be the case, the most dreadful thing is that the Pakistani brand of ‘war on terror’ is not receding; rather it is throwing up more ominous signals of attrition and expansion. In the face of all this, the government seems to be pointless in how to tackle this situation and bring peace to the country. The tactics being employed by the government from the day one are inconsistent and murky. They start from a full-blown war in which every weapon in the army stockpile, except for the atom bomb, is used against the hardened Taliban. And end up signing a deal with them on their (read Taliban) terms.
These deals give a respite to the over-stretched state forces to count their dead and an opportunity to the militants to count their gains and regroup. At the same time they also get concessions from the government, which overawe the local tribal population, bringing them home the impression that the Pakistan army is not that invincible and the government not that powerful. The Taliban win over even those tribesmen who are sitting on the fringes.
Taliban or talibanization has unfortunately become a mindset which cannot be changed with the thud of bombs or the ricochet of the gunfire. Neither is it a spell that took the tribal people overnight. Talibanization or religious extremism has been sown in the soil of the NWFP over the years to weaken the Pakhtun nationalist forces and thus find a strategic depth in Afghanistan. This quest for strategic depth has now become a strategic folly that sees no easy end. In the process we see a rabid extremism.
It took Ziaul Haq and his American masters more than a decade to radicalize the Pakhtun society to raise a parallel army of the zealots to counter nationalist forces. It would now take more than a decade to make these zealots unlearn their militancy. It is an irony of fate that one military dictator, with an open support from the U.S., militarized the whole society, while another, this time on the dictates of Washington, has launched a war against militancy. All in the name of yet-to-be-defined national interest.
The rising talibanization needs to be checked, but only the use of force will never deliver. Unless the tribal areas are brought into the mainstream through economic development coupled with political changes by undoing the centuries-old Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR), tribal areas one after the other will erupt to challenge the writ of the government and keep the Pakistan armed forces embroiled in an internal war. The millions of bucks that Pakistan gets every month from the U.S. to recompense its expenses in the ‘war on terror’ need to be diverted towards the development of the tribal areas.
Since media persons are not allowed access to first hand information on whatever is going on in the different hotspots, many conspiracy theories are doing the round. One is that Pakistan does not want to silence the guns lest it loses its strategic importance for the U.S., which would cost it dearly in terms of finances and as well as diplomacy. If this is the reality, then the whole situation is not that troubling. But if the reality is what the government says that local Taliban are up against the state and fight such ferociously, then it is a threat to the very integrity of Pakistan.
For the last month or so it seems that the Taliban have scaled down their activities against the Nato forces in Afghanistan to give a beating to Pakistan on its soil and regroup for a summer offensive on the other side of the Durand Line. Pakistan’s efforts to employ jirga system for bringing peace to the war-battered areas are bearing no fruits. There are many reasons behind it. The Zia-sponsored radicalization has changed the power structure in the country in general and the tribal areas in particular.
Egged by the open support from the army and the government (which has been one and the same in Pakistan throughout except for a brief period: 1973-1976), mullahs started calling the shots in the tribal areas. Maliks, who worked as brokers between the political administration and the tribesmen, were rendered irrelevant. In case of any dispute the maliks would call a jirga, which had the power to implement its decision, even by force if need be.
Mullahs, who tasted power for the first time, disrupted the centuries-old cultural matrix of the tribal people in the name of religion. Since common people were already grueling under the FCR, they found a new hope in the mullahs who challenged every tradition but kept a mum on the black law that has no precedent after the end of apartheid in South Africa. This stand suited the political administration as well which extended support to the mullahs by giving them a free hand to impose their own brand of Islam and subject people to newer punishment without improving their lot by any means.
Now disputes are being resolved by ‘Sharia courts’ instead of the collective wisdom that rested in the tradition of jirga. It is does not mean that one still longs for the jirga system, but it was never expected to be replaced by something like ‘Sharia courts’ that sacrifice justice in the name of religion, thus bringing a bad name to Islam as well. Of late, the government realized the importance of jirga to reconcile the Taliban in Waziristan and Bajaur. But the realization dawned on the rulers after much water has flown down the bridge.
In the present circumstances the only way-out is to bring the tribal areas to the mainstream by scrapping the dreaded FCR. It should be coupled with a plan for economic development of the tribal areas which is not possible without promoting education. When people suffer economic deprivation in an environment of total ignorance, they very happily swell the ranks of fanatics like the Taliban. They vent their pent up rage in the name of jihad. Economic development and education will give the tribal people the hope of a happy life. And this hope will hold them away from fanaticism and radicalization.
