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The path to peace in Fata

The residents of Bara in Khyber Agency have faced an extremely difficult situation ever since Pakistan joined the war on terror and deployed the army in the tribal areas. A vast majority of the inhabitants of that area are now internally displaced persons (IDPs) while those who had, per force, remained behind are either targeted by the militants or killed during military operations and indiscriminate shelling and firing incidents. This has become a norm of life there.

But what happened in Bara recently is a different story, unheard of and with no parallel in the history of this ten-year war. On that day 19 innocent Afridis from the Sepah tribe, including women, children and old men, were gunned down in cold blood in broad daylight a few kilometres from Shalober Kambar Khail after some miscreants had attacked four newly-built security check posts the night before.

The security forces blamed militants for the incident whereas the locals suspect the truth is somewhat different. Who really carried out the gruesome killings is difficult to prove but it can safely be ruled out that militants would take any kind of revenge for an attack on a post manned by security personnel who are their sworn enemies; on the contrary they (the militants) would rejoice. Only time will tell who was responsible for the murders but people firmly believe that it was a reprisal for the attack on the check posts.

Details of the killings, narrated to me by a native, are heart wrenching. According to him, the perpetrators did not spare anyone in sight. Abdul Jalil, an old mentally challenged man, was shot point blank. Seventy-five year old Lala Haider Khan was killed along with his two daughters and his only son, a first year college student. The irony is that the children were drilled with bullets when they tried to use their own bodies to shield their father from the murderers.

While the construction of new check posts may have been a security requirement, the people of the area view it in a different light. It is believed that smuggling – for which the area is notoriously famous – was the main reason for their construction. Cattle smuggling from Pakistan to Afghanistan has become an extremely lucrative business, with profits surpassing those of traditionally smuggled goods.

In connivance with the concerned agencies on the ground, smugglers take herds of cows and buffalos on foot from Peshawar to Bara and then onward to Afghanistan bribing officials all the way. Local wisdom has it that these posts were established only to extort yet more money from the smugglers because there was no real need for them otherwise in the presence of check posts that are already there in the area.

Words cannot describe the manner in which the provincial government behaved with participants of the peaceful procession when they came to Peshawar carrying bodies of their loved ones. The reaction of the government was downright despicable and disgraceful. It insulted the Pakhtun and their traditions of which the provincial government claims to be the champion. Disrespecting the dead or snatching dead bodies away from relatives is nowhere near the traditions of that area or acceptable in any civilised society in the world.

The real face of those preaching ‘adm-e-tashadud’ (non-violence) surfaced only when police fired on, tear gassed, baton charged and used water canons on the demonstrators. And after midnight they snatched the dead bodies to force the relatives of the deceased out of Peshawar. What kind of message is the provincial government sending out to the people of Fata, which it wants to make a part of the province? Is this the sort of love and respect that it has for the people of that area? Why should the people there trust the government anymore?

And what did the illustrious governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa do while all this was going on? As an agent of the president, he should have intervened and stopped the police from taking such violent action against peaceful protesters. Instead, he preferred to remain in hiding in the palatial Governor House. Stories of how he conducts himself during official functions there have become common knowledge courtesy of the press.

Ten years is a long enough period for any problem to believed but the government seems least bothered and is only marking time till its tenure comes to an end. Had it been serious about solving the problem of militancy, it would have taken adequate remedial steps immediately after assuming power. It would have relieved of the onerous responsibility of public dealing, for which it is least suited and only generates ill will, and moved it to the barracks to be available to render help to the Frontier Scouts, Levies and other civil armed forces, if required.

The government itself should have handled the day-to-day affairs of the people there. This would have prevented the army and the people from coming to a stage where they take opposing positions. The government, instead, ignored the issue and sought shelter behind the regulation in aid of civil powers” in Fata. My article “When will Fata’s grievances be addressed” (January 25, 2012) shed light on this problem in detail.

Why Fata was singled out for military deployment there when other options were available is beyond the comprehension of the people who live there. The Frontier Scouts and the Levies, commanded by officers from the army and the police, were already stationed there to maintain law and order. Their numbers and strength could have been increased instead of sending in the army.

How much longer are we going to continue with these policies and get our soldiers and civilians killed? How long are we going to keep the people of the tribal areas away from taking part in policy matters concerning them and their area? How long are we going to deny them the basic human right of governing themselves?

Too much time has already been wasted in pursuing something that was not that difficult to achieve, only if we had listened to the locals. We have to empower them like other citizens in the rest of the country.

Let them feel that they really matter and that they are masters of their own destiny. Let them rule the area, let them solve their own problems and let them develop the area so that it is at par with the rest of the country in terms of education, health and employment opportunities. This is the only way to bring peace and stability to our tribal areas.

The writer is a former ambassador. Email: waziruk@hotmail.com

Ayaz Wazir, "The path to peace in Fata," The News. 2013-02-01.
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