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Pakistan: Who should the state talk to in FATA and what about ?

by I A Rehman, 29 May 2009

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Dawn

No return to the Raj

It may not be enough to promise the Fata people what they enjoyed under the British: I.A. Rehman

IF the decision to launch a military operation in Swat and other parts of the Malakand division was not easy to make, its implementation is proving to be even more problematic, and quite a few issues need to be thrashed out at the highest level.

Public attention is still rightly focused on the plight of the displaced people. Much needs to be done to mitigate their suffering. While one feels elated at stories of people throughout Frontier opening their homes to their guests, as displaced persons are called, no language possesses words that can adequately describe the cussedness of those trying to deny the IDPs’ right to seek shelter anywhere in Pakistan. But now questions have begun to be asked about the way the military operation is proceeding and what it will lead to, and this even in quarters that concede that the operation had become unavoidable.

Common citizens have been surprised at the apparently slow pace of the military operation. The assault on the militants’ positions in Mingora town, for instance, began more than two weeks after the start of the operation. While the main towns in Buner were claimed to have been cleared of insurgents after relatively brief encounters, the intensity and duration of the action in Swat has caused anxiety.

The first of the many questions the public finds intriguing is the size and composition of the insurgent force. If the number of militants is not as small as the authorities had originally imagined and if they are attracting fresh recruits, the implications call for a strategy to prevent the insurgents from receiving reinforcements. This might not be a purely military matter.

The people believe the intelligence outfits should be able to find out the ratio of indigenous militants to their alien leaders/supporters. Several authorities have asserted that Afghan war veterans have been streaming into the Malakand division, and Peshawar is rife with reports that a sizable number of militants from the Central Asian republics and some parts of Punjab have joined the insurgents. Even if these reports are exaggerated, the urgency of seeking the cooperation of the states concerned for at least stopping any fresh arrivals is obvious. That the task of stopping supplies and reinforcements to the adversary should receive as much attention as resoluteness in confronting it on the battlefield is plain common sense. No war strategist can afford to reject it.

Another issue that is causing increasing concern to the people, both within the conflict zone and outside, is covered by the utterly foul expression ‘collateral damage’ — foul because it induces public opinion to gloss over inexcusable killings. Two factors are believed to have contributed to civilian losses in life and property. The view that our security forces are not trained or equipped for fighting nimble-footed militants on a terrain that favours them has not been authoritatively repelled. The use of heavy artillery against a force which is scattered carries a risk of higher than permissible civilian casualties.

Secondly, the militants are not offering battle in the open (this pattern is likely to continue throughout the current phase of engagement). They keep shifting their positions in hills and hamlets. They also frequently ambush convoys and harass civil and military forces. Since the areas of conflict have not been completely vacated by the civilian population it may not be possible to avoid non-combatant casualties. The matter might not have become serious if credible information about the number of civilians killed and injured was available.

Unfortunately, the media has been forced out of the conflict zone, the means of communication with the population still holed up in its homes have snapped, and the official spokesmen usually give figures only of casualties suffered by the military and the militants. In this situation the people are likely to believe that the ‘collateral damage’ is higher than it is. This is grist to the rumour factories run by militants’ friends and sympathisers across Pakistan, especially among quasi-religious political parties and their surrogates in the media, and they will lose no opportunity to call a halt to the military operation.

The hazards for non-combatant civilians apart, human rights watchdog bodies will not accept denial of the militants’ right to the protection of humanitarian laws and conventions. The military forces must not answer the militants’ provocative actions or brutal treatment of their personnel in a manner that carries the slightest suggestion of anger or vengeance. This is necessary, among other things, to pre-empt pro-militancy elements’ designs to scuttle the military operations.

The most important issue is related to post-operation prospects. The objective of the military operation is not very clear. The statement that the writ of the state is to be restored raises more questions than it answers. What the state is faced with is no ordinary law and order matter, in which case force is used to quell disorder and punish the culprits through a judicial process.

The colonial method of dealing with politically motivated rebellion also will not work now. In that scheme force was used to blunt the threat to colonial possessions, the ring leaders of the revolt were tried and imprisoned before reprieve or amnesty was negotiated. Nobody can think of exterminating the militants. Even after their resistance has been broken matters will necessarily be decided through negotiations.

The British Raj stabilised the north-western frontier by granting autonomy to the tribal population and pledging non-interference in their affairs. They were free to enter the British territory but were liable to be punished for any breach of law or peace. Political agents developed a system of securing the tribal maliks’ cooperation through stipends and other forms of gratification.

If anyone is thinking of merely pushing the militants into the hills the matter must be debated in earnest. The model worked for the British not because they had superior firepower but because they had succeeded in keeping the tribes isolated and the latter were content with living in poverty so long as their autonomy was respected.

Conditions have changed. The tribal population is no longer isolated from or immune to external influences. Access to TV and the Internet has changed their outlook on life and austerity is no longer a virtue or an inescapable reality. Besides, the cleric who used to be subservient to the malik has supplanted him. The Pakistan establishment has already realised that clerics cannot be manipulated the way maliks were. And the tribals, at least their leaders, have had a taste of affluence.

Thus, when the time for talks comes, questions as to who should the state talk to and what terms could be offered by it will become critical. It might not be enough to promise the Fata people what they enjoyed under the British. What exactly will be the status of the Malakand division? Will the territory be distinguishable from the settled districts only by Sharia courts or will it move closer to Fata? Such concessions could undermine the state’s integrity. The time to face these questions is now.