Swat: No point in talking to the Taliban... Obama, please bomb the Taliban headquarters in FATA since the Pakistani army is unwilling to do so.

No point in talking to the Taliban

Friday, January 23, 2009 by Farhat Taj Some weeks ago I was with a family in the NWFP. The family had staying with them many relatives from a Taliban-occupied tribal area. I asked one of the relatives his views on a dialogue with the Taliban. We were talking in Pashto, but the young man's prompt reaction came in English: "Dialogue? Taliban? My foot!" Then he returned to Pashto. "All those who want a dialogue with the Taliban should go to hell. No dialogue with the Taliban. The army must kill them all. But the army does not want to kill them." The remarks typify the widespread feelings of hatred towards the Taliban and of disappointment in the army's failure to curb them in the tribal areas and the NWFP. People just want the writ of the government restored and the Taliban brought before the law. Most of those in Pakistan who seek the dialogue are outsiders who do not care to come to the Pakhtun areas and see the ground realities and the sufferings of the people. They are either intellectually lazy or are insensitive to the trauma of the terrorised people. One of these advocates of a dialogue between the government and the Taliban is Masooda Bano. After reading her article in The News titled "What a Thought" (Jan 16), I sent her an email asking the following questions. 1) Which Taliban/militant leaders in the Pakhtun areas are you proposing for a dialogue? Please name those leaders. 2) Please elaborate why you think there should be dialogue with those leaders. Please elaborate one by one with reference to each leader? 3) If not the Taliban/militant leaders, who else are you proposing as partners in the dialogue? 4) Under what conditions should a dialogue with Taliban/militants take place, or should it be unconditional? 5) Are you from the NWFP or FATA? 6) If not, when was the last time you came to the NWFP or FATA? She never replied to my email. If she had replied, I would have had a better idea of the logic behind her suggestion for the dialogue. One person with whom I discussed her suggestion said the writer is backing the Taliban by asking for what they themselves ask--a dialogue. "The Taliban ask for dialogue just to get more time and space to reorganizes," said a woman. Masooda Bano referred to words two British ministers to conclude that there is "recognition at the global level that the use of force perpetuates rather than curtails militancy," which provides the Pakistani leadership with "just the right support to build a strong case for replacing military operations in the NWFP and tribal belt with dialogue." The Pakhtun who experience the full range of Talibanisation, day and and day out, know that Taliban atrocities are not going to end with a dialogue. The Taliban have an agenda of a savage social order to be imposed on the people. The Pakhtun are not ready for that and this is the reason why they are bearing the brunt of the Taliban savagery. Hatred against the Taliban in the Pakhtun areas is at an all-time high and so is disappointment, even resentment, about the Pakistani army for its failure to stop the Taliban. All over the NWFP and FATA one can find people who even discuss possibilities of Israel and India to be asked for help. Their argument goes like this: "We are not killed by Israel and India. We are killed by the Taliban and the Pakistani army. So, who is our enemy, then?" Many people in the Taliban-occupied territories of the NWFP and FATA told me they constantly pray for the US drones to bomb the Taliban headquarters in their areas since the Pakistani army is unwilling to do so. Many people of Waziristan told me they are satisfied with the US drone attacks on militants in Waziristan and they want the Americans to keep it up till all the militants, local Pakhtun, the Punjabis and the foreigners, are eliminated. The Pakhtun are not ready to accept that the strong Pakistani army is unable to eliminate the key leaders of all the Taliban groups and their headquarters. People argue: When the Pakistani army leadership wished, it eliminated Nawab Akbar Bugti in the most brutal manner, in complete disrespect for the wishes of the Baloch and other Pakistanis. How come the army does not eliminate the murderous gangsters like Taliban leaders Baituall and Fazllulah when the Pakhtun are asking for it? People want the army to eliminate the entire leadership of all Taliban gangs, their headquarters and hideouts in targeted operations based on good intelligence. The Pakhtun are not ready to accept that the mighty ISI cannot provide actionable intelligence to the army for prompt targeted operations. In my article of Jan 15 I explained that there cannot be a dialogue with the Taliban because there does not exist any common ground that is mutually respected by both the government of Pakistan and the Taliban. Such a ground, I argued, can be the law of Pakistan, the code of Pakhtunwali or Islam--none of which is respected by the Taliban. Now I would say that it is not even practical and feasible to have a dialogue with the Taliban. The Taliban are not a homogeneous group. There are not one, two, three, four or five Taliban leaders. The Taliban are made up of a large number of militant and criminal gangs. (Perhaps the ISI knows the exact number.) How many dialogues must the government initiate? How many criminal gangs must the government appease? The Taliban groups have a broad-based combined agenda--i.e., imposition of their own version of religion on the Pakhtun through terror and violence. But the groups operate independently of each other. They, however, support, or at least do not mess up with, each other's activities in the implementation of the agenda. Thus, for example, a group of local Taliban in North Waziristan have a peace deal with the army. According to the written version of the agreement (which has been seen by NWFP and tribal journalists), the deal binds the Taliban not to allow any activities in their area that can be against the law of Pakistan. But some South Waziristan Taliban gangs, linked with the Punjab-based sectarian groups Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jangvi, move through the area of North Waziristan Taliban to come to the area between Kohat and Parachinar to terrorise Shia Pakhtun in the area. After having committed their acts of terrorism in the Shia reas, they go back to South Waziristan via North Waziristan where the Taliban that have agreement with the army never ever try to stop this traffic in the Shia areas. Taliban gangs in both Waziristan routinely terrorise the people of Waziristan. This is one of the key reasons why so many people of Waziristan have preferred to live as internally displaced people in other parts of Pakistan. An internally displaced woman of Waziristan with whom I discussed Masooda Bano's article has this message for her: "Would you like to live under Taliban rule? If yes, you are most welcome to come to Taliban-occupied Waziristan or Swat. If not, why do you float pro-Taliban suggestions like the dialogue which will force the Pakhtun to live under their inhuman order one way of the other? Or perhaps you believe that the Pakhtun are naturally cut out for brutal life under the Taliban." The NWFP government had an agreement with groups of the Taliban in the NWFP. According to the agreement the arrested Taliban militants for involvements in terrorist activities were to be released after a judicial procedure. Later some Taliban leaders argued that they do not believe in the law of Pakistan and insisted the arrested Taliban must be released without any judicial procedure under the law. The government refused, and this put the agreement in trouble. The Pakhtun are sick and tired of this dialogue and the so-called peace agreements with the Taliban. They want the Taliban brought by force under Pakistani law. As a Pakhtun I understand the outsiders, whether ignorant or insensitive, do not understand and respect this law. (The News) The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy. Email: bergen34@yahoo.com

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Local militancy

ONE of the biggest obstacles in effectively tackling terrorism in Pakistan has been the state of denial in some official circles when it comes to understanding the nature of the threat. Does Pakistan face a threat from militants and terrorists because of the American presence in Afghanistan or is it the result of the long-standing tolerance of non-state actors on our soil? One could argue that terrorism in Pakistan, even in Afghanistan, preceded the presence of western troops in that country. The PPP-led government has consistently maintained that the threat to the nation is internal and must be acknowledged. Regrettably, NWFP Governor Owais Ahmad Ghani has gone off script. He has termed foreign troops in Afghanistan as a factor that is destabilising the region and called for their withdrawal. Moreover, demonstrating an odd perception of reality, the governor suggested Pakistan is well on its way to overcoming terrorism. Peshawar is on the road to normality and lashkars and jirgas were solving the problems of the tribal areas, claimed the governor. A position surely disputed by the local populations and at odds with the reality of fierce fighting between the state and the militants in many areas.

The government must at the very least distance itself from Governor Ghani’s statement and, preferably, have him publicly disown it. Only recently the government disposed of its national security adviser for disrupting its script, even though the adviser had only revealed the truth. The governor, on the other hand, has sent an alarming message that contradicts the official government policy on the very first day of a new American administration that has put Afghanistan and Pakistan at the top of its foreign policy agenda.

A major fallout of the failed Bush-Musharraf partnership has been the fact that seven years after 9/11, many Pakistanis refuse to accept the roots of terrorism here. The Americans’ and the international community’s ham-fisted nation-building project in Afghanistan certainly added to a climate that has allowed the Taliban to make a comeback there. However, the Pakistani story is different. Last September, Governor Ghani himself pointed this out in widely publicised comments: “Militants in the tribal areas of the NWFP have established firm networking (with jihadi groups) in southern Punjab and most fresh recruits for suicide attacks are coming from there. Militant leaders and commanders are also coming from Punjab. The militants’ field commander in Swat too is from Punjab.” Some Pakistani militants linking up with other Pakistani militants to fight the Pakistan state for control of Pakistani land — it is an undeniable facet of terrorism here, with the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan marginal to the argument. Governor Ghani knew this once; we wish his memory were not so short and he wouldn’t oversimplify a complex problem. (Dawn, Editorial)