March 06 , 2009

The Swat Deal’s Unintended Consequences

 

While Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi has emphatically assured

his Afghan counterpart and US officials, during his visit to Washington, that the Swat Deal was no more than a local solution to a local problem and not a surrender or appeasement of the pro-Taliban militants of the area, President Zardari said in an interview to the CBS on February 15 that the Taliban threat was spreading to various parts of the country and they were “trying to take over the state of Pakistan; so, we are fighting for the survival of Pakistan”.

The Foreign Minister was evidently trying to assure the Afghans and the US leaders that the deal was of not much significance, it was no capitulation to the demands of the militants; the President was magnifying the threat of the Taliban to invite a much larger financial and military aid to cope with it.

The situation on the ground might be somewhere between the two positions.

Pakistani officials’ efforts to de-link Pakistani militants of its northern and tribal belt from the position of the Taliban in Afghanistan, their India fixation, their concept of strategic depth and of proxies, have all become irrelevant by the march of events in recent years. Pakistani Taliban share with their Afghan counterparts the obscurantist perception of Islam. They draw inspiration from the successes of the Afghan Taliban. And, there is no denying the fact that the Afghan Taliban control much of the countryside and fears are mounting that they may lay siege to Kabul unless they are stopped in their tracks chiefly by the NATO forces. The writ of the government of Karzai is so limited that he is called the “mayor of Kabul”.

That being the situation, the US and NATO commanders in the area have been pleading for the allocation of additional troops to be able to counter the onslaught of the Taliban. President Obama has already ordered 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan, and he has also sought a high-level review of the US strategy to deal with the militants in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The appointment of Richard Holbrooke and the current consultations with the high-level Afghan and Pakistan delegations in Washington is in that context. The new strategy will be submitted to the NATO summit next April to hammer out a workable and effective international plan. The chief aim will be to obviate the possibility of another 9/11-type attack to be hatched in the Taliban sanctuaries and carried out by their fanatics and suicide bombers.

To eliminate such a threat, the very evil of extremism is to be uprooted. If the new strategy could achieve this, nothing better could be conceived. But, may scholars of the region consider such a task almost impossible, a chimera. For, Afghanistan has been a graveyard of all invading foreign forces. The Soviet Union is the latest casualty that lost its super power status and central Asian territories following its failure in Afghanistan. The Afghans are fierce, belligerent and regard revenge an article of faith. Their terrain is inhospitable, and ideally suited for guerrilla warfare. So was the terrain in Vietnam where bulk of the conflict took place in subterranean hideouts.

Time will show how the new strategy now being planned will work out in eliminating the Taliban guerillas particularly the suicide bombers, whose supply line and ranks do not seem to deplete.

From the viewpoint of Pakistan, two points merit consideration. First: Is Pakistan drifting into Islamic extremism? Second: Will the Pakistani Mullahs and their Taliban incarnation succeed in launching a mass movement and taking over the reins of government?

ISLAMIC EXTREMISM : The founding fathers of Pakistan, the Quaid-I-Azam in particular, left no doubt about the nature of the state they had conceived and their followers totally endorsed. In an address to the Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947, the Quaid made the unambiguous statement: “You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed –that has nothing to do with the business of the state… We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state.”

He reiterated this basic principle in a radio address in February 1948. He said: “In any case, Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state to be ruled by priests with a divine mission. We have many non-Muslims, Hindus, Christians, and Parsi -but they are all Pakistanis. The will enjoy the same rights and privileges as any other citizens and will play their rightful part in the affairs of Pakistan.”

The religious parties, Jamaat-I-Islami, Jamiat-ul Ulema, Ahrar and others, who had opposed the very concept of a separate state for the Indian Muslims, moved their headquarters to Pakistan and started pleading for the enforcement of Islamic laws (Sharia) in the nascent state. The first concession to their demand was the Objectives Resolution of 1949 that allowed the extremists to put a foot inside the door. Then, they made a bid for power through the anti-Ahmadi movement (1953) –a murky chapter of unnecessary death and destruction in the annals of Pakistan. The enquiry Committee headed by Chief Justice Munir discovered that the Mullahs were unable to even offer a unanimous definition of a Muslim. The agitation failed to galvanize the masses. The leaders wanted to use the slogan of Islam to forge national unity but nothing beyond that.

Another anti-Ahmadi agitation was launched by the student wing of Jamaat-I-Islami in 1974 that claimed several lives. Prime Minister Bhutto had a legislation passed declaring the Ahmadis outside the pale of Islam. This was a sad move, inasmuch as a religious issue was being solved through the political channel.

The Swat Accord strikes as a similar political concession to the demands of the religious extremists.

For the first time in Pakistan’s history, the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) a conglomeration of several political parties opposed to Bhutto’s rule, used Islam as major slogan in a national agitation. The PNA promised the enforcement of Islamic laws once Bhutto was toppled. The emergence of Gen. Zia as the national leader, the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, the Jihad, Mujahideen and other subsequent events are too recent to need description here. Gen. Zia’s Islamization process has spawned the religious madresas and influenced a sector of the armed forces too. But, in an era of globalization, Internet, satellite communication and new opportunities of interaction with foreigners, and of livelihood, Zia’s zeal for Islamization stalled in its tracks in Pakistan. But, in Afghanistan the internecine strife among warlords and their obnoxious conducts gave a fillip to the Taliban movement.

Also, the Taliban had remained at the helm of affairs till they were removed by the U.S. The weak, unimaginative and corrupt government of President Karzai could hardly follow through and eliminate the Taliban by offering a more attractive alternative. They kept expanding and consolidating their hold. What Pakistan in currently experiencing in FATA is their fallout.

TALIBAN AS A MASS MOVEMENT PAKISTAN:

Although Mr. Zardari has informed his American audience that pockets of Taliban exists now in many parts of the country. Be that as it may, Taliban’s bigotry and reign of terror in the Tribal areas and in Swat has alienated the people at large. The following extract from a recent report of Daud Khattak of Times, London, exemplifies the atrocities meted out by the Taliban in Swat:

“What I found in Swat was a hell-hole. Suicide bombings, car bombs and artillery have scarred the valley’s roads and buildings. The charred remains of hospitals and even a madrasah litter the landscape. Nearly 200 schools have been destroyed, all girls over the age of eight are banned from lessons and, in a symbol of the Taliban’s hatred of learning, the public library in Mingora (chief city of Swat) has been wrecked. The Taliban have banned music and dancing, television and internet cafes. Women cannot leave home without wearing a burqa, the all-encompassing robe. Justice has been enforced with floggings and public executions. Everyone who can afford to leave has fled the valley. Police stations are deserted and fewer than 100 policemen remain.”

People are attracted to a mass movement by prospect of a sudden and spectacular change in their condition of life. The Taliban have made hundreds of thousands of the residents of Swat flee from life. They want to rule through fear and terror. That is hardly the basis of a mass movement. So, the Taliban and the Mullahs behind them can hardly craft a successful mass movement.

It is not in the blood of the tribal folks to lay down their arms. The Swat accord is thus doomed to collapse like its predecessor a year back.

Arifhussaini@hotmail.com