he recent peace deal signed by Pakistani government with Maulana Sufi Mohammad, the founder of the Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), in the Swat Valley, is nothing but an abject surrender to the radical militants.
As part of the deal, Shariat laws have been enforced in seven districts of the Malakand Division and Kohistan district of Hazara Division. The TNSM, a part of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has been involved in armed conflict with the security agencies to establish Shariat rule in the region.
This is not the first time that the Pakistani establishment has signed peace deals with the Islamic militants; on April 20, 2008 it had signed a similar deal in Swat with the very same Sufi Mohammad, followed closely by another on May 21, with Maulana Fazlullah, the current leader of TNSM.
However, the latter deal was unilaterally discarded just a few weeks later under directives from the TTP chief, Baitullah Mehsud, who was unhappy with the ongoing military operations in Waziristan. As a result, Swat turned into a fierce battleground by the end of 2008, and by January 2009, the militants were controlling most of the Swat Valley.
Similar peace deals had earlier been signed with Taliban leaders Nek Mohammed and Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan, and later in North Waziristan. None of them brought lasting peace to the region; they merely helped the Taliban to spread its influence, reorganise, rearm, retrain and challenge the writ of the State. These deals have contributed immensely towards the creation of the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan in South and North Waziristan agencies.
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In an extremely feudal hierarchical tribal society like the one that exists in these parts of Pakistan, the mere willingness of the government to negotiate elevates the stature of the leader of the militant group to the level of the government official negotiating with him.
Moreover, the Taliban have always utilised such tactical interregnums to eliminate agents of the security forces and other collaborators. Consequently, after each such deal the Taliban has emerged stronger, so much so that in Waziristan today, security forces cannot venture outside their fortified garrisons.
The Swat deal has been followed by the coming together of three Taliban commanders in South and North Waziristan, two of whom were believed to be pro-government. As part of the deal with the government, Fazlullah wants the army to be withdrawn from Swat Valley, to facilitate consolidation of his hold and elimination of all elements that had sided with the security forces in the past.
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The overall scenario in Pakistan looks quite bleak. The district administration is practically absent in the areas under Taliban influence, with almost 60 percent of personnel missing due to large-scale desertions from the police. The Pakistan Army is reluctant to fight the Taliban, claiming that it is not its job, leaving the ill-equipped Frontier Corps (FC) to battle the militants.
While the Army clears the roads occasionally and settles down to long range artillery shelling, the FC which is supposed to hold the cleared areas is targeted by Taliban suicide bombers, forcing them to cower behind piles of sandbags. As the FC men hail from the region, their families are publicly decapitated and as a result, frequent advertisements appear in the local daily announcing that so-and-so has ‘resigned’ his job and has taken up a new vocation of ‘serving God.’
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The current deal with Sufi Mohammad, which has abolished all “un-Islamic” laws and has halted all operations by the security forces, leaves more than half the territory of NWFP ( the eight districts where Shariat laws have been enforced have an area of 37363 Sq Km, whereas the NWFP has a total area of 74521 sqKm) under the influence of the Taliban. Coupled with the fact that the Taliban already enjoys complete domination over most parts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), its control would extend over an area approximately the size of Sri Lanka.
This will definitely render the Taliban a grave menace in the region and has the international community justifiably concerned. US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke has clearly voiced his concerns over the increasing area under Taliban control in Pakistan. He described the people running Swat as murderous thugs who posed a threat not only to Pakistan, but also to the United States. He also voiced concerns about the possibility of the country’s nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of militants.
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President Asif Zardari has been forced by international pressure to concede that the pact with the militants was an “interim arrangement” to stabilise the restive Swat region. However, even if this is a temporary arrangement to give a breather to combat weary security forces, it poses a grave threat to the entire region, including India.
The armed militants, who have been fighting the security forces for months, are definitely not going to start ploughing fields just because the government has signed a deal with them. For years, all they have ever known is how to fight, and they will move on to other troubled spots in the region if they find such ‘work’ lacking in Swat.
Most of them would move to Afghanistan and the conflict zones in FATA; however, some of them will also move to Kashmir. Climatically, Swat is quite similar to Kashmir and many of the militants fighting there have been active in Kashmir in the past. After the last peace deals in Swat in 2008, both the violence in Afghanistan as well as the infiltration in Kashmir had increased. Similar developments should be expected after the current peace deal too.
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The deal poses twin challenges for Pakistan’s neighbours — One: it would lead to net accretion in the ranks of the armed militants challenging the state in Pakistan’s neighbourhood, and two: by allowing them a free hand, Pakistan would end up creating a bastion of Islamic fundamentalism in this region, which will thereby become the nerve centre for propagating Islamic radicalism in the entire Southern Asia.
Even within Pakistan, the militants will propagate their ideology and if FM stations in Swat are allowed to function unhindered, one would see newer areas coming under the Taliban’s influence. Rising sectarianism is also a manifestation of growing Talibanisation of the region.
Sectarian violence at Parchinar, Hangu, Dera Gazi Khan and now at Dera Ismail Khan clearly indicate that the policy of appeasing Taliban has not made life easy for the Shias living in the region.
The Taliban has also made inroads into the Pakistani heartland of Punjab and its recent targeting of security forces in Mianwali, clearly highlighting its growing influence. Media reports say Islamic militants have already infiltrated the population hubs of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, giving credence to President Zardari’s apprehensions that the Taliban could take over the country.
This poses serious questions about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and the international community needs to work out a contingency plan for such an eventuality.
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It is time that Pakistan realises that such deals with hardened Islamic militants do not eradicate extremism, but merely delay the eventual confrontation. Renowned columnist Irfan Husain has compared the deal in Swat to the Pakiistani Army’s 1971 surrender in Dhaka.
At a time when the Obama administration has made stabilisation of Afghanistan its utmost priority, the deal has caused enormous consternation to the US and other Western countries.
The US has enormous leverages over Islamabad, especially when Pakistan is facing an economic crisis of grave proportions. However, the provincial government in the NWFP seems committed to the deal, and probably hopes that the resultant peace will help it to usher in development in the remaining area under its control. Even the army is supportive of the deal, as it is chary of taking on the Islamic militants in this region.
The Pakistan government needs to do a fine balancing act between the American dictates and its domestic political compulsions. The current deal is likely to be utilised by the TNSM to enhance its influence in the region and to strengthen its cadres. The militants will continue to retain the capability to strike in the region, which will also be used as a safe sanctuary by the Al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership. This could invite attacks by US drones. The Recent attack in Kurram Agency indicates that the US will not dither from launching such attacks in other regions. Any such attack by the US could easily be used by the militants to walk out of the peace process, without losing face, at a moment of their choosing. The deal is unlikely to provide any long-term solution to the problems that the Swat Valley faces today.
Negotiations are of course necessary, but from a position of strength. Unfortunately the state of Pakistan is negotiating today from a position of weakness, which goes against the basic tenets of fighting insurgency.
The views expressed in the column are the author’s and not of Sify.com
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