Author: S Iftikhar Murshed
Publication: New Age Islam
Date: October 9, 2011
URL: http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=5661
The silliness of an empty pageant was in evidence
at the All-Parties Conference convened by Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani
on Sept 29. The meeting should have promised justice-based retribution, as
mandated by the Quran, for the terrorists' killing of 35,000 Pakistani nationals,
including 3,000 security personnel. Instead, it unanimously adopted a 13-point
resolution which sought to appease the murderers and pledged that the "guiding
central principle" of policy would henceforth be to "give peace
a chance."
It is not known whether this catchy slogan
was deliberately or unwittingly plagiarised from the 1969 John Lennon song
which became the anthem of the US anti-war movement of the 1970s. The influence
of the Beatles on Pakistan's political leadership aside, what emerges is a
crass lack of sensitivity arising from faulty assumptions. This is evident
from the formulation: "Pakistan must initiate dialogue with a view to
negotiating peace with our own people in the tribal areas."
This ill-disguised indictment of tribal Pakhtuns
is unwarranted. They have never been at war with the rest of Pakistan and
the question of "negotiating peace" with them does not arise. They
are the major victims of terrorism. Their men have been ruthlessly slaughtered
for resisting the barbarity of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), their
homes have been razed to the ground and they have been compelled by circumstances
to live in misery in the settled areas as internally displaced persons.
In the words of a reputed scholar from the
area "the militants in FATA are the Punjabi Taliban and international
terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda who have committed atrocities on the tribal
people." Furthermore, an overwhelming majority of tribesmen look upon
the small lunatic fringe among their people who have joined the Taliban "as
murderers and anti-social elements" who must be brought to justice. The
"give peace a chance" policy amounts to feckless capitulation to
unbridled extremist violence.
The immutable principle of statecraft is that
negotiations should only be embarked upon from a position of strength, or
else the consequences can be disastrous. The sine qua non for any dialogue
with the TTP must be that they should terminate hostilities, surrender their
weapons, accept the supremacy of the Constitution and pledge fealty to the
state.
The response to the APC's offer of dialogue
came from the dreaded deputy commander of the TTP, Maulvi Faqir Muhammad.
He enunciated two preconditions for the commencement of negotiations: the
enforcement of the sharia in the country and a revision of Pakistan's cooperation
with the US.
Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of the
Federal Republic of Germany, believed that "an infallible way of conciliating
a tiger is to allow oneself to be devoured." This is the lesson that
Pakistan should have learnt from its experience since the emergence of the
TTP. Peace accords with this outfit, notably the Shakai deal with Nek Muhammad
in March 2004, the Sararoga truce with Baitullah Mehsud in February 2005,
the Miramshah understanding of September 2006 and the Khyber agreement in
June 2008 enabled the TTP to regroup and resume hostilities with ever greater
vengeance. A few months after the Sararoga agreement, Baitullah Mehsud threatened
two suicide bombings every week.
An even more striking example of the futility
of appeasing terrorist groups was the Feb 16, 2009, peace deal concluded with
Maulana Sufi Muhammad for the enforcement of Nizam-e-Adl regulations in Swat.
Soon afterwards the TTP overran the adjacent Buner district and Mullah Nazeer
Ahmed boasted, "the day is not far when Islamabad will be in the hands
of the Mujahideen."
On Sept 23, 2011, the Awami National Party
issued a statement emphasising the need "for an all-out effort by the
government of Pakistan to root out terrorist groups, their supply lines and
infrastructure on Pakistani soil." Six days later, its leader Asfandyar
Wali Khan went along with the APC consensus of initiating peace overtures
towards the terrorists who were "our own people in the tribal areas."
The same misperception has been repeatedly
articulated by Tehrik-e-Insaaf chief Imran Khan, with the difference that
all Pakhtuns, not merely those in the tribal areas, were equated with the
Taliban. In July this year a hilarious video was doing the rounds on the internet
in which he ranted: "Almighty Allah has created two kinds of creatures:
Insan (human beings) and Pathan. Pathans are very different people. America
may kill them in the numbers it wishes; they will fight even more. And they
fight with strategy... they don't fight to lose. They [the Taliban] don't
have to lose because they are in the Awam [masses]. The Pakhtun awam are with
them...this war is now a war of Pakhtuns, who are on both sides of the border."
Thus, in Imran Khan's reckoning, the Taliban,
and by implication the Pakhtuns, are not human beings but an altogether different
species. Such views are an insult to the heroes who have laid down their lives
to defend their fellow citizens from terrorists. One such person who comes
immediately to mind is Additional Inspector General of Police Safwat Ghayur
who was target-killed by the TTP in Peshawar last year. In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
alone 417 policemen have been killed and 1,042 were grievously injured in
49 suicide attacks since 2006.
The scourge is countrywide. On Sept 19 Karachi
SSP Muhammad Aslam Khan narrowly escaped a suicide bomb attack, though eight
others were killed. He was undaunted and declared on television that he was
determined to persevere in the jihad against terrorism. The TTP immediately
released a list of other senior police officials on their hit list and vowed
that if they failed to eliminate them their family members would be targeted.
The only female judge of an anti-terrorist court of Pakistan, Khalida Yasin,
has received similar threats, but she refuses to be intimidated.
These brave civilians and soldiers who are
fighting the terrorist groups in the tribal areas and elsewhere in the country
are perfectly within their rights to demand why they should continue to put
their lives at risk if the 58-odd leaders of political parties who participated
in the APC have resolved to negotiate with the TTP. As in the past, the end
result can only be the whittling away of the basic rights of the people and
the further erosion of state sovereignty.
The APC resolution also stresses that Pakistan
can become self-reliant through tax reforms, resource mobilisation and elimination
of corruption, and "trade, not aid, should clearly be the way forward."
These are obvious verities about which there can be no two opinions. But the
problem is that those prescribing the remedy, barring one or two exceptions,
are failed power-hungry leaders responsible for the malaise.
Poland's former president and Nobel laureate
Lech Walesa once said that "power is only important as an instrument
of service to the powerless," but in Pakistan it is wielded only to cater
to the illegal interests of the powerful. The findings of Transparency International
show that if 40 percent of funds from the exchequer were not embezzled and
the tax potential of Rs500 billion was collected, Pakistan would be able to
generate $10 billion annually.
The APC was prompted by the current standoff
between Pakistan and the US. This has been a crisis in the making since June
last year with the presentation of a study at the Carr Centre for Human Rights
Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. The report cited
"both Taliban and Haqqani commanders" as conceding that the ISI
"controls the most violent insurgent units, some of which appear to be
based in Pakistan." It also alleged: "Insurgent commanders confirmed
that the ISI are even represented as participants or observers on...the Quetta
Shura and the Haqqani command council."
The allegations are dubious, but nevertheless
serious. The question that arises is whether the Pakistani embassy in Washington
did anything to set the record straight or was it waiting for the strains
in the Pakistan-US equation to come to a head with the attacks on the US embassy
and Nato headquarters in Kabul on Sept 13 and American troops in Wardak on
Sept 11? Whatever the answer, initiating negotiations with the TTP will not
result in peace with honour and will only further isolate Pakistan, despite
all its sacrifices in the fight against terrorism.
