Pakhtunkhwa Peace Forum

2010-08-14T01:04:00.002-04:00

VIEW: Pakistan's options in Afghanistan —Shahid Ilyas

It seems that Pakistan's ability to sustain its support to the Afghan insurgents is very limited, and its chances of success almost nil. We have to find ways to safeguard our interests through more acceptable means

"Pakistan denies Afghanistan transit for Indian trucks," says a news report. "India to build Afghanistan's parliament house," says another report. "Pakistan's intelligence agency is directing Taliban attacks on western targets in Afghanistan," says yet another. "New Delhi has already invested $ 1.2 billion in roads, electrical lines and other infrastructure that is expected to hit $ 4 billion," another source states.

These are some of the news coming out of Afghanistan and this is the context in which Pakistan would like to befriend Afghanistan to the detriment of India. What conclusions can we draw from this? What is the logic put forward by Pakistan to convince Afghanistan that it should consider a serious friendship?

Pakistan believes that close friendship between India and Afghanistan is against its national interests. Therefore, the process of Afghan-Indian friendship has to be halted and reversed. Pakistan has two options to achieve its objectives. It could evolve a strategy that aims at forging brotherly relations with the Afghanistan we see today. This will necessitate some sincere help in Afghan stability and reconstruction. Secondly, it will necessitate a change in perceptions with regard to Afghan-Indian relations. This means the recognition of the fact that sovereign states have the right to choose their friends. If Afghanistan and India are interested in mutual friendship and cooperation, they have the sovereign right to do so, and no other actor has the right to sabotage that friendship. And, finally, Pakistan's wish to befriend Afghanistan will necessitate tangible measures on the part of the former that result in the birth of a genuine belief in Afghanistan, the US and India that it has stopped facilitating the ongoing insurgency in Afghanistan.

The second option available to Pakistan is to continue behaving in the way it has been alleged to have in its relations with Afghanistan. Pakistan is seen by Kabul, Washington and Delhi as the biggest hurdle in Afghanistan's peace and reconstruction. It is accused of funnelling support to the Afghan Taliban in their effort to topple the incumbent government in Kabul.

Pakistan's policy towards Afghanistan is determined by its fears about two factors, which are inter-related:

1. A stable Afghanistan, run by a secular government, is most likely to renew its claims over the territories between the Khyber Pass and River Indus, the area that is predominantly inhabited by ethnic Pakhtuns. This region was annexed by Britain during its empire in the subcontinent with the aim of making it a buffer — together with Afghanistan — between itself and the Russian empire. No Afghan government, including the Taliban, has ever recognised this area as constituting a legitimate part of Pakistan.

2. The second is the Indian involvement in Afghanistan, and its alleged support to the Baloch insurgency. Because of Pakistan's track record of fuelling insurgencies in parts of India, including Kashmir, the Pakistani establishment believes that India uses Afghanistan to support the different insurgencies on its soil.

The international community seems determined to make sure that Afghanistan emerges as a relatively stable country, its soil is not used for attacks on the West, and provision of basic services to its population. Towards that end, Afghanistan has made substantial progress. Road infrastructure has been built, schools and universities have been made functional, more than three-quarters of Afghans have access to health facilities, electricity has been provided to most urban centres, new hydroelectric power plants are being built and agriculture has been revived. Moreover, NATO has been working on training the Afghan security forces. According to the Long War Journal, as of December 2008, the Afghan National Army (ANA) stood at approximately 79,000 soldiers, 52,000 of whom were engaged in combat operations. During the spring and summer of 2008, the ANA led 62 percent of operations. According to the same journal, on September 10, 2008, the international community's Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board approved the increase of the ANA from 80,000 to 122,000 soldiers. With an additional 12,000 trainee, transient, hospitalised, and student personnel included, this accounts for a total strength of 134,000. This expansion project is currently underway and is going to be completed by the year 2013.

Apart from increasing the capacity of infrastructure and security forces, the US president has unequivocally stated that he was misunderstood regarding his Afghan strategy and his mention of the 'withdrawal' of US forces in 2011. Clear messages are propping up from US policy making circles, including the White House, State Department and the Pentagon, to the effect that the US did not mean complete withdrawal, rather it meant the beginning of a 'process' of withdrawal. The US government has also made clear that it intends to finish the job in Afghanistan before it contemplates a complete withdrawal. So, the question arises, what if President Obama declares the promised beginning of withdrawal by announcing that, say, 3,000 US troops will return home by the end of 2011 and another 1,200 by the year 2015? Will that not mean that he met his promise regarding the beginning of 'drawing down' of US troops? And make no mistake, this is precisely what the US intends to do. So we do not need to wait in the wings with our Taliban proxies for the US troops to withdraw to move in to establish the 'Islamic Caliphate of Afghanistan'.

And finally, how far are we economically and militarily strong to sustain support for our Taliban proxies in Afghanistan? Unfortunately, the Taliban (Punjabi Taliban included) are hitting the Pakistani state harder than they hit Afghanistan. With the increasing capacities of the Afghan security forces and the sustained support to and presence in Afghanistan of the international forces, the Taliban's capability to operate in Afghanistan is very limited. They are turning inward and are increasingly targeting the Pakistani state and society for its support to the war on terror.

It seems that Pakistan's ability to sustain its support to the Afghan insurgents is very limited, and its chances of success almost nil. We have to find ways to safeguard our interests through more acceptable means. The best way seems to be for Pakistan to recognise the ground realities in our region and make sincere efforts towards forging friendly relations with Afghanistan. This will entail recognition of the fact that a more stable and prosperous Afghanistan offers an opportunity to Pakistan to pursue its 'Durand Line case' with a more enlightened and progressive government in Kabul. The two countries, through diplomacy, should be in a position to find a solution to the issue that is acceptable to the people and governments of the two countries. A zero-sum game has already harmed the two countries tremendously.

The writer is a member of the Pakhtunkhwa Peace Forum and a freelance columnist hailing from Waziristan. He can be reached at ilyasakbarkhan@gmail.com

Source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\08\14\story_14-8-2010_pg3_4

2010-03-23T00:20:00.002-04:00

Talking is not a bad thing, but when it is done without the participation of those who are the subject of such talks, it will most likely result in a disaster

Pakistan’s political and military top brass will soon be in Washington for a ‘strategic dialogue’ with the US. Obviously, the main item on the agenda will be the prevailing situation in Pakhtunkhwa and Afghanistan. The US will convey its concerns regarding Pakistan’s role in the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and the growing grip of terrorists on Pakhtunkhwa and its spread to Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi. Pakistan will appraise its interlocutors about its concerns and ‘national interests’ in Afghanistan. It will mainly focus on airing its fears about the increasing cooperation between India and Afghanistan and will likely request a sustained supply of financial handouts and military equipment that the army so badly feels like having against its perceived enemy, India.

Talking is not a bad thing, but when it is done without the participation of those who are the subject of such talks, it will most likely result in a disaster. The Pakhtun and the turmoil on their lands — supposedly the theme of the dialogue — are reportedly not being represented in the upcoming Pak-US strategic dialogue. The delegation heading for the US does not include either the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP) led by Mahmud Khan Achakzai or the Awami National Party (ANP) led by Asfandyar Wali. These are the mainstream political parties of Pakhtunkhwa having a deep bearing on the events of their ethnic constituency. These parties represent the most influential and educated class of Pakhtun society. What benefit can a dialogue bring without the participation of the Pakhtun leadership and intelligentsia?

If indeed the purpose of the dialogue is the ongoing terrorism-related turmoil in Pakhtunkhwa, it can only be counterproductive without the participation of the Pakhtuns. Already, the prevailing thinking among them is that they are being ruled like a colony by the Punjab-dominated establishment in Rawalpindi-Islamabad. The Pakhtuns are increasingly complaining that the American opinion of them is formed by the establishment in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. They argue that under a well thought-out strategy, they are being presented to the world as terrorists through the media. The planned strategic dialogue without them will only reinforce their belief in their (perceived or real) exploitation by the bigger province. An added factor now will be that they will consider the US a co-culprit, responsible for their sufferings.

Pakhtun civil society was alarmed last month by Richard Holbrooke’s remarks that “almost every Pakhtun family has someone involved with the [Taliban] movement”. They believe that Holbrooke’s remarks represent the US government’s understanding of the Pakhtuns. A dialogue between the US and Pakistan without any Pakhtun representation will further deepen that belief and suspicion. Among the Pakhtun intelligentsia — and it represents the bulk of Pakhtun public opinion — there is a concern that this kind of moves can only incite a section of the Pakhtun youth to fight against the US and the Pakistani state on the Taliban side.

These concerns can only be addressed if the US assures them — through concrete actions — that it is their friend. These steps could include, among others, appointing someone as its representative to Afghanistan who knows the Taliban issue well. Mr Holbrooke certainly does not know the Taliban well if he thinks that every Pakhtun family has some links with the Taliban, without any consideration for those thousands of Pakhtun families who suffered, and are still suffering, at the hands of militants. If he does not understand the problem, how can he be expected to solve it? Second, the US should make sure that any negotiations that aim at discussing Pakhtunkhwa and its problems must include the genuine representatives of the Pakhtuns. The Pakhtuns are mainly represented by the ANP and the PKMAP. The latter currently has no representatives in parliament because of its boycott of the 2008 elections. However, it is a popular party of the Pakhtuns. Therefore, the leadership of these parties needs to be taken on board if any dialogue has to be successful.

Another move through which the US can assure the Pakhtuns of its friendship can be the disbursement of funds that the US Congress approves for the terrorist-affected areas directly to their representatives (the government of Pakhtunkhwa) in Peshawar. The representative government sitting in Peshawar knows better than anyone else where the funds could best be utilised in order to improve the lives of those who can join the Taliban anytime due to economic hardships.

The writer is a freelance columnist based in Waziristan. He can be reached at ilyasakbarkhan@gmail.com

Listen to the Pashtun By Zubair Torwali

2010-03-13T15:44:00.003-05:00

The fact that Pashtuns living on both sides of the Durand Line are bearing the brunt of terrorism and the War on Terror is an obvious truth. As scapegoats for the last three decades, sometimes in the name of a ‘Jihad’ against the communist regime of the former USSR, sometimes in the name of strategic depth against contending neighbors, and now in the name of the so-called war on terror, the voices of the Pashtuns have not been adequately heard.

In this game the major players never bother about the actual people of the region. What has happened in the region, and what is happening now, is the result of the conflicting of agendas between the major players involved. In this mess, the neighbors of the Pashtun region – between the Oxus and the Indus – are as responsible as the big powers. Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, Russia and the USA all have their own plans for the region at the cost of the destruction and genocide of the Pashtuns. Specifically, these states have designs which are irreconcilable with each other. Pakistan has always wanted a dependent regime in Kabul, one which would have no connection with India. Iran and Saudi Arabia have colliding agendas in the region, mainly based on sectarian grounds. Similarly China and the USA have their designs as well. But the most regretful and astonishing aspect of this game is that these players have never regarded the Pashtun people of the region as human beings. On the contrary, they have tried to make these people mere scapegoats. The realization of this crucial game is now greatly felt by the Pashtun intelligentsia on either side of the Durand Line.

For the last two months this writer has been engaged in an online discussion with many of the Pashtun intelligentsia. The discussion covers topics from politics to the phenomenon of global jihad. In this article some of the main concerns are given.

First, the Pashtun see the famous policy of ‘strategic depth’ as a deep grave for the Pashtun people. They are not reluctant about expressing their conviction that the Punjabidominated establishment of Pakistan has made the Pashtun people scapegoats for the ‘survival’ of Pakistan. They contend that what is happening in the region after the withdrawal of the Soviet forces from Afghanistan in the late eighties has its roots in this “strategic depth policy”; and in this Pakistan has been helped by the Wahabi state of Saudi Arabia. To further this policy, they first produced the Mujahideen who were used against the Soviet Union. When this failed to achieve anything, the Taliban were installed in Afghanistan, who brought the peace of the graveyard into Afghanistan through the use of brute force against those who did not support themedieval version of Islam they wished to impose. Initially, the United States was happy with what was going on in Afghanistan, After 9/11, things took a serious turn. After the USA’s direct intervention in Afghanistan, the strategic depth policy dragged the war to the eastern side of the Durand Line and into the settled areas of the Pashtun population.

Second, the Pashtun intelligentsia sounds off on its grievances against the mainstream media, particularly in Pakistan. In spite of the brutality that the Taliban has inflicted upon women, children, the general public and the security forces, elements in the media still remain who support the militants and their version of jihad.

Besides that the media provide more space to pro-strategic depth and anti-Pashtun eleelements. People who spout the waging of jihad on neighbouring states are given extra space on the electronic media, whereas those who talk sense, keeping ground realities in view, are labeled as being treacherous or unpatriotic. Further, the media has continued to harp on issues for which it seems they are paid by some hidden forces. For example the media hype against the corruption of a single individual who happens to be the president of Pakistan. Thus the media ignores the core issues of security and Pashtun genocide.

No section of the media raise voices of protest against the banning of coverage during the South Waziristan operation. The talkshows, which mainly mould the opinions of viewers, do not give due space to the Pashtun scholars and leaders. Instead they often invite ‘analysts’ who do not even know the geography of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Thus the Pashtun intelligentsia has started to think this selective and exclusive approach in the mainstream media is a threat to the national integrity of Pakistan, thus ringing memories of the exclusion of Bengalis before the partition of Pakistan.

Thirdly, the drone attacks on the Al-Qaeda and Taliban hideouts of the in the Pakistani territory of FATA are seen by the Pashtuns not as an infringement of sovereignty but as a precise weapon which has to this date killed some of the top leaders of Al-Qaeda and Taliban. This hype in the name of sovereignty is an effort by the pro-Taliban segments of the media who want to protect them as strategic assets.

Fourth, the Pashtun intelligentsia is very sensitive about their identity issue. They think the North West Frontier Province should be given a specific name. They would like the province to be named Pukhtunkhwa, but a number of them also see Afghaniya as an applicable alternative.

These concerns and grievances are not baseless, since the Pashtun are the direct victims of terrorism and counter-terrorism. The Pakistani designers of foreign policy, the media and civil society need to listen to the Pashtun, as should the international community as well.

The writer is a freelance analyst and social activist based in Swat, Pakistan, and coordinates the Center for Educationand Development there. Email: ztorwali@gmail.com

The worst democracy is always better than the finest dictatorship: by: Zubair Torwali

2010-01-17T13:22:00.000-05:00

Dear friends,

I would say that democracy has suffered long in this country. It must now be given a chance. The crooks in the infamous establishment never want it to flourish in Pakistan. Here I would again repeat the common saying that the worst democracy is always better than the finest dictatorship. Today I see those people who are now out of parliament-mainly due to their own whims-are at loggerheads with the democratic government. The president, certainly not from angels, has been made the main excuse to topple the democratic government. We cannot say that this democratic government is above ills. But it must be given the time to show its credibility. Only the people of Pakistan are sovereign, and they must be let hold their elected government accountable. The military and its proxies have no right to rush to stab the government.

Amidst many ills, the present democracy has performed far better than the previous 'dubious' government of the dictator. Take the example of the war against militancy. During the era of Musharraf hundreds of soldiers would be "kidnapped' or made 'hostages' by scores of Taliban in FATA. Then there were deals with them. In Swat the FM Mullah was deliberately left to haunt and hunt the people for a couple of years. The former phases of the military operation in Swat were like war games. This procrastination, rather covert support to the militants, forced the local people lose their trust in the state of Pakistan. This was the real cause of the people fear to raise against the militants. This game was going on in the valley. The dictator did not harness the militants for two reasons: the then NWFP government was helping the dictator clandestinely; and secondly the dictator was not willing to reign the militants in order to expose him indespensible to the West. Between these two mill stones of the dictator's policy the people were grinded. On the one hand Musharraf was 'apparently' fighting the militancy but on the other he was grooming them.

Now take the example of the democratic government. It has in its credit a number of achievements: for the first time a spurious operation was launched against the militants in Swat. Credit of this must be given to the ANP government of the province and the PPP government in the center. So far the February 2009 deal with the militants is concerned it was not by the government. It was done by the military establishment with the sole purpose of providing some safe haven to the endangered militancy in FATA. This was done. Many ANP leaders will not deny that they were then helpless before the military. I have many a talks shows on record where the provincial government has then shown their helplessness, though iimplicitly. The ANP government has tried to build pressure on the military. The ANP leader Asfandiyar was not in the US for a recreation tour. He was there to build the pressure on the powerful Trojan Horse (military establishment) to act decisively. Then came the SWA operation, though still doubtful to be successful yet a good start. Another great achievement, though many will deny, of the democratic government is the Kerry Lugar bill (now Act). The Act was not a product of a few days or weeks. The PPP is well aware that they cannot reign the military establishment until they do so by the very lords of it-the US. They negotiated the issue with the US and finally came with the bill which has the conditions of bringing the military under the civilian command in practice, too. A big chunk of the aid is for the development of institutions and development of the social sector. The military reacted on the bill and came up with its version of reservations. Nowhere in the world the military has a say in the political decision. It is Pakistan where the military can even make its concerns public by issuing statements to the media. The military in Pakistan has always tried to step into the shoes of the civilian government. It was also an achievement of the democratic government that it did not approve the NRO from the parliament. Think of a dictator what it would have done with the NRO. This monster was the product of a military dictatorship.

Now the establishment is hell bent to dethrone the democratic government with the help of media and judiciary. The number of the NRO beneficiaries is 8041. Among them only 34 are politicians, and yet all the shit is thrown upon them in the media; and even among them one person is most targeted-the president. What about the rest? There might have been some generals. But where have they fled. I am not a partisan political worker. But this is what I see. We have no choice other than to make our democratic institutions strong enough to lead the country further. Now we can see the establishment seems to have hired a number of politicians who are shot loose to malign the democratic government. This government needs to complete its tenure, whatever the case be.

Now a few sentences about the name: if the majority of the democratic government has decided to have Pushtookhaw/Pukhtunkhwa as the name for the province I should have no objection. And let me hope that the ethno-senstized government will give proper sapce for the preservation, promotion and recognition to the less indentified communities and their culture so as to enable me to confidently advocate their(the government) case. But as I told earlier that we, who call themselves enlightened civil society, should keep a check and balance on the government in order to enhance its performance so that we may not wheel in the vicious circle, rather to move forward. Otherwise the military establishment and its proxies will have their chance to drag us back into the stone age.

Thank you for bearing with me so long....

Zubair Torwali

analysis: Tormenting of the tribes —Farhat Taj

2009-12-25T20:13:00.000-05:00

analysis: Tormenting of the tribes —Farhat Taj

The state interfered with the culture of FATA when alien jihadis from all over the world, armed with sophisticated weapons and money, were brought to the area. It was the state — not the FATA tribes — that raised armed militias and imposed them on FATA

This is in response to Rafia Zakaria’s article ‘The trouble with tribes’ (Daily Times, November 28, 2009). The writer compared the tribes of the Philippines and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). I have no knowledge about the Philippines’ tribes, therefore, I would not write about them. I would challenge the fabricated notions that the writer attributed to the people of FATA.

It is not true that the state of Pakistan has had limited control over FATA. Being a resident of Pakhtunkhwa, including FATA, I have observed firsthand that the state had a good control over the area. I have seen people called out in the middle of the night by the state authorities because they hosted someone unwanted by the state. I have also seen that collective punishments were handed out to the entire families, even tribes, for the crimes of one person of the family/tribe. On the other hand, smugglers and criminals from all over Pakistan continue to live in peace in the area with covert or overt support of the state authorities. In short, no one could enter FATA if the state did not wish for his/her arrival in the area. This controlled and fabricated ‘weak’ state authority over FATA was by design by which the world and the wider Pakistani society were made to believe that FATA tribes are fiercely autonomous and hate integration in a modern state structure. This is because the area was made a strategic space by the state to be used against Afghanistan. Jihadis from all over the world were legally brought to the area and based there for onwards assaults in Afghanistan. The tribes of FATA were never even asked whether they wished for so many foreigners on their soil.

Ms Zakaria wrote, “In both cases, local tribes command militias or local armies of hundreds and sometimes thousands of people. The result has been an empowerment of local tribes and warlords leaving the local population completely helpless at their hands.” If the writer had a slight idea of the Pakhtun tribal culture, she would never have used the following words about the FATA tribes.

In FATA there is a centuries old tradition of jirga to maintain social order in the area, besides settlement of other issues. The jirga used to make or break armed lashkar of hundreds, even thousands of tribesmen, if necessary, for maintenance of order in the tribal society. The tradition survived because according to the scheme of things in the strategic depth, the FATA tribes were to be kept out of the integration in the legal structure of Pakistan. The institution of jirga used to peacefully resolve disputes between and within the tribes. The jirga would order the formation of an armed lashkar of the local villagers or tribesmen if a dispute could not be resolved peacefully. The jirga would order the dismemberment of the lashkar after a jirga decision had been enforced and the members of the lashkar would simply go home. Thus making and breaking of armed lashkars have been part of the culture of the FATA tribes and they never became a security problem for the local tribal people or wider society in Pakistan like the Taliban gangs now. Actually in FATA a strong institution of jirga is the permanent feature, not a lashkar. An armed lashkar is made by the jirga, if and when necessary. The tribes used to resolve most of the disputes peacefully. Rarely occasions for the formation of armed lashkars came about. Lashkars, whenever made, were fully under the control of the tribal jirga. Most importantly, these lashkars were made for local objectives within specific areas, often village or villages, within FATA. These lashkars never had a global, regional or even a national agenda. This is exactly what the Taliban embodies: a global jihadi agenda that they want to impose on the unwilling population in FATA and beyond.

The state interfered with the culture of FATA when alien jihadis from all over the world, armed with sophisticated weapons and money, were brought to the area. It was the state — not the FATA tribes — that raised armed militias and imposed them on FATA. These jihadi gangs had never been in control of the local tribes or their jirgas. This weakened the institution of the jirga but still it managed to control order in the tribal society. When the war erupted in Afghanistan after 9/11, al Qaeda terrorists ran into FATA, especially Waziristan, with the full blessing of the state and against the wishes of most people of Waziristan. When the tribal elders of Waziristan resisted their presence on their soil, the terrorists began to eliminate the entire tribal leadership through targeted killing. Over 600 tribal elders, teachers, doctors, government servants, both in service and retired, have been killed only in Waziristan with state collusion according the families of the assassinated people.

Today, the people of Waziristan, for example, inform that even terrorists from Waziristan are in minority in their own land. The majority, they say, is made by the Punjabi Taliban, the foreign terrorists and Pakhtuns from other areas. The same is the view of the people in other tribal areas in FATA. Thus the armed militias that the writer is referring to were never made by the local tribes, but by the state. The tribes never permanently had armed militias. They do not have any permanent armed militias even today. It is also pertinent to mention that international gangs of jihadis now occupying FATA have banned the institution of jirga and the tribal elders have been killed all over FATA.

Like people all over Pakistan, the people of FATA also have grievances against the state. But they never took up weapons against the state due to this and they are not doing so even now. The overwhelming majority of the local tribesmen do not back the international armed jihadi groups in FATA. The groups are occupying FATA and the people of FATA are sick and tired of them. The tribesmen of FATA who have joined those groups are seen as criminals by the vast majority of tribesmen and women and they want the state to kill them all along with the Punjabis and foreign terrorists — the Arabs, Uzbeks, Afghans, Africans and European, both ethnic and Muslim immigrants.

Any society in the world could have criminals. Why is it so difficult to understand that FATA tribes may also have their criminals? Since the institution of jirga has been weakened, it is now the responsibility of the Pakistan Army to kill those criminals.

I would request that writers refrain from justifying or explaining the crimes of the jihadi gangs in terms of grievances of the FATA tribes, because this is just not the expression of grievances of the tribesmen and women. Such pieces of writings are a source of torment to the suffering people of FATA because they mislead the world about the people of the area and thus contribute to the human tragedy in the area. Let’s request the state to crush the jihadis in line with the wishes of the people of FATA and give up the notion of strategic depth for good; the mad pursuit of which has brought death and destruction to FATA and beyond.

The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy. She can be reached at bergen34@yahoo.com

Source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\12\26\story_26-12-2009_pg3_5

Undignified ‘Lordships’ at war against ‘People’s Will’ – Guest post by Ahmad Nadeem Gehla

2009-12-23T19:21:00.000-05:00

The deterioration of judicial institutions which began with notorious judgment of Justice Munir touched its bottom when superior judiciary convicted ZA Bhutto – the elected Prime Minister of the country to death on directions of a dictator. One of the judges who signed the verdict has confessed that it was a ‘judicial murder’ and the case has since become a permanent source of shame and humiliation for the superior judiciary which turns in to embracement when cited before a court. The ‘puppets of establishment’ seated in court rooms, only loyal to rulers set new precedents of immorality and injustice with every passing day – as such, the justice has remained as an alien concept. In Pakistan, the dignity associated with being ‘Lordship’ suffered heavily when religious right wing judges handpicked by Military Dictator Zia-ul-Haq turned superior judiciary – the guardian of constitutional guarantees of people in to ‘slaughter house’ of justice. Superior judiciary became a tool for oppression in hands of a hypocrite dictator behind the veil of religion to victimize the journalists, left wing political workers, civil society activists and even progressive and liberal lawyers.

Whenever establishment overthrew the elected government in violation of constitution, these judges came forward to validate the unconstitutional actions and Mullah’s declared dictators as ‘holly warriors’. The notorious ‘Mullah-Military-Judges Alliance’ has been an effective weapon against the ‘will of the people’ – to oust the elected governments. The government of Benazir Bhutto was terminated twice by powerful intelligence agencies and military establishment while judiciary validated these acts under the notorious ‘doctrine of necessity’. Establishment which wanted to oust the liberal forces from politics started a campaign to malign the name of Benazir Bhutto, her husband Asif Ali Zardari and workers of her Pakistan People’s Party. False cases were registered against her and her family and same judiciary which killed her father also convicted her on directions of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharaif. When the tapes of conservations between then head of notorious ‘National Accountability Bureau’ of Nawaz Sharif and the Judges of superior courts who convicted her became public, the three judges had to resign.

In 2001, Pervez Musharaf took over the power in a military coup, throwing an elected Prime Minister in prison. These ‘judicial brigade’ of military establishment not only provided the coup a ‘judicial cover’ but also granted dictator the power to single handedly amends the constitution. Once loyal to Nawaz Sharif, the same judiciary convicted him for life imprisonment and confiscated his property to prove their loyalty with the new master. However, these ‘custodian of constitution’ does not reacted when the dictator unconstitutionally pardon and exiled the convicted Nawaz Sharif and his family to Saudi Arabia on interference of head of a ‘friendly state’. Benazir Bhutto was not allowed to enter the country and her husband remained in prison for eleven long years in false cases which Nawaz Sharif and former Chairman of NAB Saifur Rehman, both have admitted to be registered on pressure of establishment. In 2007, Pervez Musharaf agreed to issue ‘National Reconciliation Ordinance’ to withdraw all politically motivated cases against leadership of political parties to facilitate their return to country. This is a recognized practice when any state has returned to democracy from dictatorship; withdrawal of the politically motivated cases is always the first step.

When Pervez Musharaf fired and detained the judges of superior courts, the Lawyer’s community reacted strongly on action of dictator but was never able to gather more than few thousand people. Soon civil society, media and political parties joined the protests. Pakistan People’s Party which always has been a victim of judiciary lost lives of more than 200 workers during protests and countless including present Prime Minister went to prison. Despite all pressure and protests they were unable to get a single judge released from detention or restored. As elected government took over the power, Prime Minister’s first order was for release of these detained judges, who kept him in prison for five years to please the dictator. When Asif Ali Zardari ousted Pervez Musharaf from presidential palace and got unanimously elected President, establishment decided to put a check on him in form of a right wing supported hostile Chief Justice who was angry for not getting restored.

The establishment started feeling uncomfortable when US offered $11 billion aid package for social development and conditioned military assistance with strengthening of democratic institutions and elimination of extremists. Supreme court of Pakistan took up the National reconciliation Ordinance for ‘judicial review’ to undermine the democratic government. Dr. Ayisha Sidddaqa, a scholar and civil society activist who was one of the most vocal supporters for restoration of judiciary declared the decision as, “But if a question is asked about whether the decision signifies the strengthening of the democratic process and civilian institutions, the answer must be in the negative. Since the perception regarding the decision is that it strengthens the armed forces and their ability to manipulate political stakeholders, it is not possible to see a major shift in the balance of power. The decision does coincide with the growing anger of the security establishment against the civilian government for becoming ‘too big for its boots.’ Given the friction between Islamabad and GHQ over the Kerry-Lugar law and other issues, the military is certainly coincidentally, if nothing else, a prime beneficiary of the Supreme Court decision. A humiliated president has lesser possibilities with which to tackle a rival institution”.

This has to be remembered that the law expired months earlier and Supreme Court has no power to give an ordinance a new life and send to parliament, only president can do so. Secondly the NRO law was purely a political arrangement and judiciary around the world avoids interfering in to political decisions. The exception taken in case of Richard Nixon for judicial review of political decisions where ‘demands for a fair trial and criminal justice outweighed the political question doctrine’ as ruled by a US Federal Court in is clearly missing in present exercise as President Zardari was available for trial under detention for over a decade without getting justice. Questions are also being raised as to why the Supreme Court ignored to pass orders against those who negotiated and issued the NRO law at the first place, present Army Chief being the chief negotiator as then head of ISI. This is also being argued that while President Zardari spent eleven years in prison as under trial accused being main target of proceedings, why no actions has been ordered against the judges of superior courts who failed to conclude his cases in such a long time on political pressure. Surprisingly, the allegations of misuse of office by Chief Justice himself to secure a government posting for his son has not been sent to NAB for investigation.

Since taking over power President Zardari has ordered action against Taliban militants making right wing Taliban apologists and spy agencies unhappy, who considers Taliban as an ‘asset’. Right wing religious parties like Jamat Islamami and PTI of Imran Khan, who both openly support Taliban militants, are celebrating the ‘historic judgment’. Qazi Hussein Ahmad, the head of pro Taliban JI has announced to ‘implement’ the order of Supreme Court through street power. Asima Jahangir, the United Nation’s Special Reporter on Human Rights, Chairperson of Human rights Commission of Pakistan and the most prominent supporter of restoration of judiciary, while commenting on judgment of SC declared it , “Witch-hunts, rather than the impartial administration of justice, will keep the public amused. The norms of justice will be judged by the level of humiliation meted out to the wrongdoers, rather than strengthening institutions capable of protecting the rights of the people”. While Supreme Court has ignored the doctrine of ‘past and closed transaction’ in deciding NRO, the same has not been applied to unconstitutional acts of mighty generals and judges of Superior Judiciary themselves. Also, the judgment delivered by the full strength of Supreme Court has closed all doors for appeal from aggrieved parties; most of them were condemned without a chance of being heard.

The case filed by former Air marshal Asghar Khan with proofs of misuse of public funds by ‘mighty generals’ to form notorious right wing political alliance IJI against PPP is pending without decision before same Supreme Court for past eighteen years. The legal experts are terming the judgment as ‘targeted justice’ on behest of right wing Mullah’s and military establishment. The confrontation started by pro-establishment and Taliban sympathizers backed judiciary is meant to pave way for rouge generals to overthrow the democratic government. The military establishment will then be able to manipulate the action against extremists, providing safe heavens to ‘Good Taliban’ to be used as an asset for purpose of notorious ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan. They would once again be able to direct national resources to develop ‘Defense Housing Societies’ and ‘Judges Colonies’, rather than providing education, healthcare and clean water facilities of 160 million deprived. We have to remember that in 1998, the richest four Generals in world were from Pakistan, who profited from ‘jihad enterprise’ of ‘mullah-military-judges’ trio on cost of democracy and civil liberties. A former ISI official has challenged the presidential immunity and his eligibility as not being ‘righteous’ under Article 62, 63 of Constitution. They judiciary is set to determine his ‘righteousness’ in defiance of ‘people’s will’, as the fact that President has been elected with a two third majority.

Judiciary is clearly playing the role of ‘hired assassin’ for establishment to paralyze the government in defiance of constitutional boundaries. The right wing Mullah’s, who are never able to get hold of power through popular vote are eying the ‘power sharing’ with military establishment and thus will able to implement ‘divine laws’. Their partner judiciary has already signaled to ‘judge’ all politicians under Articles 62, 63 of constitution, inserted by a dictator which requires the parliamentarians to be ‘righteous’. This is the time for liberal and democratic political parties in parliament to act and strike down the controversial Articles 62, 63 of Constitution inserted by a dictator along with other discriminatory provisions and make judges answerable before parliament. In democracy it is only ‘people’ who judge their representatives through the ballot and parliament should have the power to scrutinize the appointment and conduct of judges, amendment in constitution is need of time to prevent judicial coups against democratic governments. This is the time for civil society, liberal, democratic and progressive forces to join hand to save democratic process. If ‘Mullah-Military-Judges alliance’ is able to derail democracy, in name of ‘targeted accountability’ and ‘righteousness’ by ousting the liberal politicians, the Pakistan of future might be little different from Afghanistan of today. The situation is also a wakeup call for international community to support the democratic process in Pakistan, before greedy ‘mullah-military-judges alliance’ turns it in to another Somalia or Afghanistan.

VIEW: Political decisions and the judiciary —Ahmad Nadeem Gehla

2009-12-23T19:18:00.001-05:00

"Superior courts around the world avoid interfering in political matters despite having jurisdiction over such issues under the ‘political question doctrine’. The purpose of this self-imposed restriction is to distinguish the role of the judiciary from those of the legislature and the executive."

A study of the transformation from military dictatorship to democracy around the world would reveal that there are two possible ways. Either it is achieved through a popular revolution or by negotiations between political forces and dictators. The former invariably demolishes the entire system and mostly involves bloodshed putting a new system in place while the latter allows the change to happen within the prevailing system based upon certain negotiated terms. These terms might not necessarily meet international laws and judicial norms, as it is always a middle path. The return of democracy in Pakistan after a long period of military dictatorship is a unique example of such ‘negotiated change’. The terms reached with the help of international power brokers and guarantors ensured withdrawal of politically motivated cases, return of the exiled leadership and shedding of the uniform by Pervez Musharraf in return for re-election. After the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the international and domestic pressure became so immense that Pervez Musharraf not only had to accept the condition of fair elections but also had to negotiate for an exit in return for protection from prosecution for his unconstitutional actions. A civilian dictator might not get such a deal.

Another option available to the political forces at that time was to overthrow dictatorship by a popular revolution. Let us not forget that the world community would not allow a nuclear-armed nation to reach the point of a bloody revolution, especially when there are more chances of falling into a civil war hijacked by religious extremists than overthrowing a dictator. Without a negotiated change, howsoever popular a movement might be, it is not possible to remove a military-backed dictator without bloodshed. We have witnessed the return of Mian Nawaz Sharif from exile, who came back in violation of a deal reached on the guarantees of our ‘friends’ in the Middle East and was sent back on the next flight. Despite the promises of a million people’s reception by right wing parties, not a dozen were able to break the security arrangements and show up at the airport to receive their leader.

Unable to fight the powerful military establishment that has far more guns and tanks at its disposal, negotiating with it was the only option available to Benazir Bhutto. The much debated and controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) promulgated by Musharraf paved the way for the return of Benazir Bhutto and later for Mian Nawaz Sharif. The cases withdrawn against Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari under the NRO were registered during the regime of Nawaz Sharif and remained unproved during the lengthy trial and detention of Asif Ali Zardai for eleven years. Both Mian Nawaz Sharif and Saifur Rehman, the former head of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), have repeatedly confessed that these cases were false and were created on the behest of the establishment, which wanted to malign the name of Benazir Bhutto and her family.

This fact alone leaves no space for the political leadership to avoid its responsibility of revoking these politically motivated cases through parliamentary legislation. Mr Sharif and the MQM should have taken a bolder stand in parliament. However, the political leadership is trying to avoid its responsibility just to please the establishment, thus pushing the matter of the NRO to the superior judiciary to decide. Superior courts around the world avoid interfering in political matters despite having jurisdiction over such issues under the ‘political question doctrine’. The purpose of this self-imposed restriction is to distinguish the role of the judiciary from those of the legislature and the executive. Political questions include the ratification of constitutional amendments, conduct of foreign policy and administrative actions of governments. However, there is no rigid rule and a court might choose to go ahead in case the ‘demands for a fair trial and criminal justice outweighed the political question doctrine’ as ruled by a US Federal Court in the case of President Richard Nixon.

The exception set in the Nixon case is widely referred to and abused to neutralise political rivals in dictatorships and developing democracies where the establishments use the superior judiciary as a tool to further their own agendas. The superior judiciary in Pakistan has been a victim of this power game by dictators and the political leadership at the cost of its integrity and reputation. The judiciary has lost a lot in terms of legitimacy of its decisions while playing the power game — from the death sentence of ZA Bhutto being the worst and unrecoverable stigma on its face to providing a cover to the unconstitutional takeover of Pervez Musharraf. The same superior judiciary in office today miserably failed to dispense justice to Asif Ali Zardari for years and convicted Nawaz Sharif under the establishment’s pressure. With the restoration of the Chief Justice and sacked judges through a popular movement, the judiciary has won its independence but its impartiality is still to be tested. Should the judiciary once again be dragged to deliver political decisions while the political leadership lacks the courage to take a bold stand on its publically confessed mistakes of the past?

It might not be out of context to mention that the first prime minister of Pakistan from Sindh was assassinated in Punjab and those in the establishment involved in the cover up of his murder were blessed with huge estates. ZA Bhutto, the second prime minister from the same province, was killed due to a judicial verdict. The third and fourth prime ministers Muhammad Khan Junejo and Benazir Bhutto respectively, were unconstitutionally sacked and could not get justice from the judiciary. Once again the superior judiciary is being dragged into the power game to remove President Zardari from the office for which he has been elected with an overwhelming majority from four provincial Assemblies, the National Assembly and the Senate. The plan to extract a political decision on technical grounds to remove an elected president is not going to strengthen the institution of the judiciary or democracy.

Apart from the outcome of a political circus to be staged in the superior judiciary, those advising President Zardari to face the judiciary have to realise the fact that he was in continuous imprisonment for eleven years. His detention is longer than the period of life imprisonment in Pakistan. Even if convicted in cases against him, the sentence would have been lesser than imprisonment already undergone by Mr Zardari. According to the judgments of the Supreme Court under Section 497 of the CRPC, any person who is under detention for more than two years and whose trial is not concluded would become entitled to bail. The Supreme Court did not extend the very same relief of bail to President Zardari for eleven long years. Under the criminal laws of Pakistan, if the prosecution fails to bring sufficient evidence against the accused for a reasonably long period of time, the accused has a right to request the court to drop the charges. Mr Zardari’s applications before the superior courts for that relief also failed to earn him justice. The president’s ‘advisors’ should have reservations about him getting justice this time around when most of the judges are the same ones who were unable to dispense justice to him in the past.

Even after the restoration of the judiciary, the leaders of the lawyer’s movement are raising several questions about its performance. While Mr Sharif and Altaf Hussain have advised President Zardari to face the courts, both leaders are reluctant to welcome the decision of Roedad Khan’s petition for ISI’s money politics and a judicial enquiry into the May 12 massacre respectively. There is a prescribed process for removal of an elected president in the Constitution. If the political leadership thinks that Mr Zardari is either ineligible or unfit for the job, it should resort to the constitutional remedy through an impeachment motion. Once again, dragging the judiciary into the power game would be an unpleasant and undesired burden for an institution that still has to go through the test of impartiality and establish its lost credibility. While all other institutions have deteriorated to their core during long dictatorships, the only hope left for the people is the institution of the judiciary, restored after a long and tough struggle. If the political leadership once again falls into the establishment’s trap to extract political decisions from the courts, the scars on national unity and institutional integrity might be deeper than we could afford as a nation.

Source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/print.asp?page=2009\11\26\story_26-11-2009_pg3_5

VIEW: Mr President, the nation stands by you —Sharmila Faruqui

2009-12-21T17:22:00.001-05:00

There is no room for political terrorism right now. Let’s win this war first. We have all the time in the world to settle petty issues and win political points later. Yes, there is room for further improvement in governance and strengthening institutions, which is part of an ongoing democratic process

President Asif Ali Zardari is once again being maligned by a certain section of the media and some anti-democratic politicians without any justification. To be fair to him, he is not the author of the Kerry-Lugar Act (KLA) and he has not authored, drafted or imposed the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). But he is being blatantly blamed by a partial and predisposed media. Some vested interests seem to be after his job and his blood. It seems to be a classic case of sour grapes. Some were allegedly promised top ambassadorial positions in Europe and elsewhere and when they were not offered any diplomatic posts, they became vengeful. They now regularly predict doomsday scenario for the presidency. Indeed, the real character of these anti-Zardari elements has now been exposed. In its innocence the leadership trusted them but they stabbed the party and the government in the back.

Now these elements occupy top positions in the mainstream media and attack the president for every thing under the sun, be it the KLA, NRO, sugar price hike and even drought. In almost every analysis the president is usually portrayed as the real culprit for every ill in this society. These elements openly predict and preach that his days are numbered and he is on his way out. This is incredibly unfair, unjustified and defies all forms of fair play. Asif Ali Zardari is the duly, constitutionally and democratically elected president of Pakistan.

To start with, President Zardari had nothing to do with the drafting of the Kerry-Lugar Bill, which provides $ 7.5 billion economic aid over a span of five years to Pakistan. President Obama signed the Bill after lengthy deliberations and approval by the US Congress. President Zardari had no role in it but some of his detractors created frenzy in the media. Political opponents of the PPP with the backing of a certain section of the media raised questions of ‘national honour’ and asked people to revolt against this US law. As pointed out during her recent visit, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton openly stated that Pakistan had every right to reject the aid under KLA if it felt dishonoured by it. Strangely, the KLA is enforced right now without any change and the people of Pakistan have lost interest in it as it was all part of the anti-Zardari drive.

Coming to the NRO, it was enforced by General (retd) Pervez Musharraf. The expedient nature of the NRO was dictated by political difficulties that Musharraf was facing in the post-2007 era. He was under immense pressure from the international community to offer an even playing field to the top mainstream political parties, including the PPP, and to put an end to a long history of political victimisation in the form of fabricated cases. Mr Zardari was not in the picture when Benazir Bhutto Shaheed embarked upon her journey after nine years of forced exile. Unfortunately, everything changed in the aftermath of the Rawalpindi tragedy on December 27, 2007. Pakistan is still reeling from the grave impact of that colossal tragedy.

Benazir Bhutto’s assassination had practically and emotionally separated Sindh from the federation. For days the Sindhis were clamouring for revenge, crying, sobbing, and wailing for ‘Sindh ji Shaheed Rani’. Her widower rose to the occasion, forgot his personal pain and opted to side with the wailing Pakistan and raised the slogan of ‘Pakistan Khappay’. This slogan saved Pakistan in real terms. Mr Zardari then wiped his tears and along with Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Asifa went on a mission to wipe the tears of the Pakistani nation. The whole nation was with him; he won back disoriented souls and broken hearts. The PPP gained a comfortable majority in the elections and true to his wife’s approach, Mr Zardari took everyone on board. He went to Raiwind, Nine Zero, DI Khan, Walibagh, Kingri House and the Baloch leaders. And within a short span of time he won back Pakistan proving prophets of doom wrong.

True, he took his time in implementing some agreed decisions but this country is at war and is fighting for its very survival — a battle Pakistan cannot afford to lose. This is no time to score points; it is the need of the hour to score a decisive victory against our enemies. These terrorists are the enemies of Pakistan and Islam; they deserve no mercy. They are killing our soldiers, men, women and children with impunity. The enemy is ruthless and deserves to be punished. This is not the time to see Zardari defeated politically; the man lost his wife to the terrorists. There is no room for political terrorism right now. Let’s win this war first. We have all the time in the world to settle petty issues and win political points later. Yes, there is room for further improvement in governance and strengthening institutions, which is part of an ongoing democratic process. There is also a need to differentiate between friends and foes.

Mr President you are a fighter, you have undergone the hardships of solitary confinement for over 11 years — a near lifetime imprisonment for politically motivated persecution. You have faced a merciless media trial and character assassination with stoic resolve. The people of Pakistan and all the democratic forces are with you in these difficult times. You are the constitutionally and democratically elected president of Pakistan for five years. We stand by you in your steadfastness to save the federation and to thwart any attempt to derail democracy in Pakistan by vested interests. Pakistan Khappay!

Sharmila Faruqui is Advisor to Chief Minister Sindh and Secretary Records and Events PPP (Women’s Wing) Sindh

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\12\21\story_21-12-2009_pg3_4

Babar Ayaz: Pakistan's Supreme Court should tackle corruption in the judiciary

2009-12-21T13:34:00.001-05:00

"People like us who supported the restoration of judges were hopeful that the higher judiciary will concentrate on tackling the corruption in the lower courts, but so far no visible change is seen. Don’t they say that charity begins at home? The common man suffers in the lower courts and seldom has the money to reach the superior judiciary."
-- Babar Ayaz

December 21, 2009

Supreme Court should look into allegations that the ISI used slush funds to defeat Benazir Bhutto

Babar Ayaz
http://babarayaz.wordpress.com/

Pakistani political soap opera continues and so far no surprises for the audience. In the latest episode the Supreme Court declared that the National Reconciliation Ordinance was “ultra vires and violative of various constitutional provisions.” Much before the court took up the matter on 7th

December this decision was expected as nobody was willing to defend a bad law. Even the government and its allies first backed out from getting this bad law passed from the parliament, and then made it clear in the Supreme Court that its not going to defend this law.

The Acting Attorney General Shah Khawar stated clearly that the NRO “was promulgated by the previous regime and I am under instruction not to defend it.” Then entered my friend Barrister Kamal Azfar representing the Federation, but perhaps his role was only to highlight the political side of the case. Having made a politically charged allegation that the political system is threatened by the GHQ and CIA, he clarified on the next day that it was his personal view and not that of his client (Federation).

He pleaded “as such I withdraw the same” allegation. Interesting isn’t it. President Zardari, who was the whipping boy during the proceedings of this case, also rushed to say that Azfar’s remarks about GHQ and CIA were uncalled for. What is intriguing is how come Barrister Azfar clubbed GHQ and CIA as a threat to the system, when the Americans have tied their aid to Pakistan with the civilian government’s control over the army? I wonder is it a political miscalculation or he knows through his clients more than we all do.

Those who have been consistently struggling against the military interference in politics since the time of Ayub Khan feel that Kamal Azfar should have put on record how democratic dispensations have been sabotaged in this country. This could have provided the right political prospective to the case which would have long-term implications for the politics of Pakistan.

Of the thousands of NRO beneficiaries which included those who have been indicted for murder and rape, the Supreme Court particularly mentioned the money laundering case in which President Zardari is an accused. While striking down a disgusting law, perhaps the SCP also wanted to show that justice should be started from the top.

But now the unexpected twist in the story. The Swiss Law Ministry spokesman has said that first the Pakistani Courts would have to re-open the case and convict the accused and then come to them. The logic is that the charge of ill-gotten wealth, which it was, has to be proved where the crime was committed. The money laundering has to then follow. This was not expected by many people who thought that by going to Swiss courts directly the hot issue of President’s immunity would be tackled well. The ball is back in Pakistan’s court.

Now coming up in the next episode of this never ending political soap would be the petition challenging the immunity of the President. The media would once again have a good topic for the talk shows and to keep up the ratings. And the Kharadar speculators in Karachi would have another issue for taking bets. This time the decision is not predictable. Political Pundits in Islamabad are of the view that if President Zardari would hasten to take the role of titular head of state as envisaged in the original 1973 constitution, his immunity would not be touched.

The moralists demand is that he should resign with all those who have pending cases against them. This is a just demand. Look what has happened in the case of Defence Minister Chaudhry Mukhtar who was not allowed to travel on an official visit to China. While it is a good example that for once nobody is above the law in the country, it is also disgraceful for the nation. What are we telling the world that we have entrusted the defense of the country in the hands of a minister who cannot be trusted to return home after the meeting. (This is aside from the fact that Ch. Mukhtar claims that inclusion of his name in the NRO list was a mistake and he has challenged it in court).

The Prime Minister has taken action against the officials who were responsible for putting Defence Minister on ECL. I hope the court would let the executive do its job and give them their due constitutional space. At present there is a growing feeling that courts are being carried away with the hype built by the media.

It is because of such legal complications that usually civilised politicians resign when they are indicted in a case. But of course this happens in the countries that have democratic traditions and a neat balance among the three pillars of democracy. Alas! Pakistan does not fall in this category. The Interior Ministry which is supposed to put people on exit control list had barred its own minister from travelling abroad. If the Interior Minister has any grain of self-respect he should resign and face the trial. The defense taken by the ministers that they are only accused and not convicted is technically correct, but the practical issue is that by remaining in a position of power they can influence the case and would not be able to discharge their duties effectively.

People like us who supported the restoration of judges were hopeful that the higher judiciary will concentrate on tackling the corruption in the lower courts, but so far no visible change is seen. Don’t they say that charity begins at home? The common man suffers in the lower courts and seldom has the money to reach the superior judiciary.

Finally, having won all the laurels for giving the decision that hurts many in the sitting civilian government, the Supreme Court’s popularity graph is high. The Chief Justice and some of his colleagues have also the distinction of standing up to a military ruler. After the NRO the people would now be right to look up to the Supreme Court to take up Asghar Khan’s petition, in his life time, in which he had accused a number of politicians of taking slush money from ISI to form an alliance and defeat PPP in the elections.

The then ISI Chief had also admitted that he had given this money and divulged the politicians names and amounts doled out to them. This case is much older than the NRO petition which stands disposed. A courageous decision would snub those who talk of selective justice in this country. It would also set an example for invisible soldiers to stay away from meddling in the country’s politics. It is their interference in politics to protect their dangerous national security policies that has damaged the country more than anything else. Clipping the President’s wings is not enough, whittling khaki angles’ power is important to bring this country out of the self-destruction mode.
---------
Babar Ayaz is a veteran of the Pakistan political scene and blogs athttp://babarayaz.wordpress.com/ . He can be reached at

THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM IN PUKHTUNKHWA By Fatima Ahmed

2009-12-20T12:18:00.000-05:00

THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM IN PUKHTUNKHWA
By Fatima Ahmed
Fatimakhan76999@gmail.com

Most minds today, especially in our region are overwhelmed with the fear of a deadly conflict following the developments in world politics and particularly some recent events in our region. The theory of Clash of Civilization and clash of religion has gained currency and is used to define the ongoing conflict. There is growing discontent based on development of feelings that Muslims are under threat from the Non-Muslims, especially the US and westerners.

Following the event of 9/11 and the ongoing War on Terror, a perception has developed that Clash of Civilization, a controversial theory of Samuel P. Huntington, is well underway. The clash of Civilizations is a controversial theory which says that people's cultural / religious identity will be the primary source of conflict in the post cold war world. Academically, this theory has been criticized a lot and given the substance of the theory it is clear that the civilizations, which Huntington has identified as distinct civilizations, do not even exist. The Muslim world is severely fractured along ethnic, sectarian and political lines with Kurds, Arabs, Persians, Turks, Indonesians, Indians etc all having different world views. Moreover the criteria of the proposed delineation are not clear. Neither are the western powers including the USA fighting a global war on the pretext of promoting their religions - Christianity or Judaism. Given the situation there is a dire need of understanding that it is not a war between religions or faiths but a struggle for political power and vested economic interests that is being played out in our homes, villages and cities.

Now let us come close to our own region. We can not escape the fact that events in Afghanistan and Pukhtunkhwa east of the Durand are closely inter-linked. In the aftermath of 9/11, the USA attacked Afghanistan with the aim of overthrowing the brutal Taliban regime and Al-Qaeeda. This was followed by the establishment of a legitimate and elected government in Afghanistan. Ever since some vested interests groups and regional powers are advocating the theory of clash of religions. The sole aim seems to be destabilizing the peace process in the region. This campaign is launched to mislead the masses, indoctrinate them and prevent our land and people from benefiting from the fruits of education, development, democracy and peaceful life with a control over our own destiny. These vested interest groups and states for their own illegitimate interests are portraying the belief that the current state of affairs in world is a war of religions and our people and land has been converted into a battleground in this war. Despite the fact that most of our regional and local leadership clearly understand the hollowness of this theory, why is this clash of religions being used to give a blanket cover to the conflict in our region? Why is the peace of our land being destroyed using these hollow slogans? Why are our poor and simple people being misguided in the name of religion? Why are we being termed as terrorists and fundamentalists? Why are we being driven back to the cave age? Why are our region and our people the main target? The answer to these questions is both simple and complicated. Partly it is due to our geographical location, our backwardness, illiteracy, and our conservative religious orientation, but more than that it is because of our ignorance of the world affairs and politics.

It is said that if we don’t know our past history, we can not become masters of our future. Therefore, we must turn to history to find answers to the problems we face today. Today we are the biggest victims of religious extremism, yet we are considered as the perpetrators of religious extremism. We are being killed in the name of religion everywhere and on both sides of the divide. We the Pukhtuns are today being portrayed as fundamentalists, extremists, blindly religious, violent and terrorists all around the world. Yet a slight look on our history reveals that religion has never been the basis of our politics and identity. The use of religion and extremism is a recent phenomenon and worse still it is not indigenous to us. Pakhtuns never fought their wars on religious grounds till very recently. We have deep traditions of living in harmony and seldom has violence occurred based on religion and culture till quite recent times. The aim of this paper today is to look back in history with a view to understand the real causes and reasons for the current problems and how history can help us to regain our peace and harmony

GEOGRAPHY AND ITS IMPACT
Before dwelling deep into the subject of religious extremism in our region, it would be appropriate to understand how the geography has affected the religio-political balance and created tensions in this region. Pakhtuns occupy a mass of land, which has been of great geo-strategic importance in the past and will remain so in the future as well. Pakhtuns, basically a Central Asian stock, are living at the crossroads of Chinese, Indian, Russian and Persian civilizations. Pakhtunkhwa lies on the south eastern edge of Central Asia bordering at South Asia. Practically forming a gateway to Indian sub-continent, this region had been continuously trampled by waves of invaders and conquerors who were heading towards the "treasures" of India. These including figures like Alexander the Great, Mongols, Moguls and so on. For centuries this factor has proved to be of decisive importance in charting the course of life in Pakhtunkhwa and it has left an indelible imprint on the national character of Pakhtuns. Politically these areas have always been linked with Central Asia with deep ethnic, linguistic, cultural and social links. It was only in the 18th and19th century, when the Sikhs and eventually the British seized parts of Pukhtunkhwa, that this area developed political links with South Asia. Geography has thus played such an enormous role in shaping the history of Pakhtunkhwa that it is very difficult to find any parallel to it in world history. The Great Game’ rivalry of the world powers has not ended, rather it has resurfaced with renewed ferocity in the recent past.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Decline of the Durrani Pukhtun State : Although the Pukhtuns have a history which is 5000 years old, the first formal Pukhtun national state emerged in the 18th Century under Ahmed Shah Abdali. This state extended from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea Coast in Balochistan. Towards the end of the 19th century the Durrani Pakhtun State was on the decline because of colonialist machinations and outright aggressions. The most severe blow to the unity of Pakhtunkhwa in the 19th century came from the north-west ward expansions of the British colonialists in the Indian subcontinent. The Great Game in the 19th Century 7. Britain's "Great Game" began with the first Afghan War (1838-42) and continued for over a century. British invasion of Afghanistan in 1838 was a first step to conquer Central Asia and to put an end to the south-ward march of Russia. The tough resistance put by Afghans, coupled with European pressures stopped the onward British march into Central Asia (or the so-called Forward Policy), but the British did not give up this ambition altogether. To get themselves entrenched into the borders of Central Asia, the British colonialists occupied and divided the lands of Pakhtuns by imposing, through an unequal treaty, "The Durand Line" on Afghanistan, a division that remains as unnatural today as it was at the end of the 19th century when it was first imposed.
The colonial administrative division of the lands of the Pakhtuns and the decline of the traditional international land trade through Pakhtunkhwa led to socio-economic and cultural stagnation and decline. The clamping of Stalinist Iron Curtain over Central Asia contributed to the socio-cultural alienation of Pakhtuns from their Central Asian roots, pushing them towards Indian subcontinent where they naturally faced the crisis of identity. This crisis of identity and historical roots persist to this day. The colonialists utilized this opportunity to perpetuate their oppression and exploitation of Pakhtunkhwa. But the Pakhtun masses did not put up with this situation even for a single day.
The passes and valleys of Pakhtunkhwa echoed the gunfire of freedom fighters as generations after generations of Pakhtuns kept the flame of resistance alive. Pashto literature, particularly Pashto poetry provides a very powerful depiction of the heroic struggles of Pakhtuns. When the British discovered that the Pashtun were virtually impossible to defeat in battle, they focused on intensifying discord among feuding clans in an effort to weaken resistance.

But the most interesting feature of this struggle spanning over a period of more than a hundred years culminating in the departure of the British and the creation of Pakistan is the fact that religion was not a motivation for waging war - nationalism was. History is witness to this fact. Despite fighting a no of battles against the British as late as 1940s; there was no religious coloring to these battles. This struggle was purely for political reasons and aimed at achieving independence for the people from the British, based on tribal or local cultural and ethnic identity. Winston Churchill testifies to this fact in his Book ‘The Story of the Malakand Field Force’ while he accompanied the British Indian army as a young journalist in 1897.

The World Wars : History is witness to the fact that our region and people have never fought their wars on religious grounds and religious violence was non-existent in these areas. Afghanistan, predominantly inhibited by Pakhtuns and being a national state of Pakhtuns remained neutral in the worst political circumstances of World War-I as well as World War -II. During both the World Wars our people inhibiting the areas under the control of British Empire fought alongside the British in the British Indian army in far off battlefields like Gallipoli, Sinai and Palestine, Mesopotamia and East Africa etc. Their religious identity or affiliation did not impede them from fighting alongside the people who were not affiliated to them religiously. The stories of their bravery during the World War- 2 as part of the British Indian Army in such far off places like East Africa, North Africa, Middle East, Malaya, Singapore, Burma and Italy are written in golden words in history books. It is important to note that their religious identity never came in their way for fighting on behalf of the people opposed to their own faith,Political Struggle for Independence.

In the beginning of the 20th Century, the nationalist struggle against colonialism started taking birth worldwide. The Muslim Elite in united India had to seek recourse to religion to demand independence and ensure their political dominance, being overwhelmed by the Hindu majority in a post colonial democratic India. The people of our region had no such compulsion. Our elders like Haji Sahib Turangzai and Bacha Khan thus based their struggle for independence on secular and liberal ideas and not on religion or communal hatred. In short religious identity was a problem of Indian Muslims and communal politics was a tool to secure political power for them. For the Pukhtuns religion was something for-granted and not a cause of conflict with others. Religion did not require to be emphasized and hence a religious identity was not necessary. This resulted in the divergence in political opinion to use religion for political means. The same has been the reason for the mistrust of Pukhtuns in Pakistan which continues even today.

Politically our people fought their struggle against colonialism in shape of non-violence moment and there was no religious coloring to these endeavors. These fights were purely based on the principles of their fundamental right to freedom and these movements never appealed to the religious sensitivities of the population. The legendary freedom fighter of Pukhtoons, Fakhr-e-Afghan Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan who led the political freedom fight against the British was an ardent believer of the principles of non-violence and did not believe on use of religion for this struggle because he was a visionary and understood the implications which we are witnessing today in the shape of religious extremism, fundamentalism and terrorism. Ghafar Khan was opposed to communal politics and advocated the independence of a united, multi-ethnic and secular India. To achieve this end, he founded the Khudai Khidmatgar Movement during the 1920s. The oath which this great Pakhtuns leader used to administer to his followers joining the Khudai Khidmatgar Movement is a shining example of tolerance, self control and non-violence. The oath runs as under:In the name of God who is Present and Evident, I am a Khudai Khitmatgar.I will serve the nation without any self-interest.I will not take revenge (badla) and my actions will not be a burden for anyone.My actions will be non-violent.I will make every sacrifice required of me to stay on this path.I will serve people without regard to their religion or faith.I shall use nation-made goods.I shall not be tempted by any office."

Even more wonderful is the lesson of non-violence that he gave to his followers using religion for peace not for war."I am going to give you such a weapon that the police and the army will not be able to stand against it. It is the weapon of the Prophet, but you are not aware of it. That weapon is patience and righteousness. No power on earth can stand against it."

British communal politics and its Impact on this region
The British colonial power played a dominant role in fuelling religious passions in the Sub-Continent for its own vested interests. The reasons for this were obvious. Briefly these can be summarized as under:-
a. Towards the end of the World War 2, the British Empire was greatly weakened and the proverbial Sun on the British Empire was finally going to set.
b. Western colonies were on the decline and Colonialism as a force to rule the world was loosing ground fast.
c. The British Empire was already loosing its outposts in South East Asia, Africa and Middle East.
d. The movement for independence in South Asia was gaining momentum fast.
e. Communist USSR had already absorbed much of Central Asia and threatening to reach the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.
f. USSR had also occupied most of Eastern Europe and erected client states elsewhere like Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Laos and many more.
g. A socialist/communist movement in China was about to take over the country.
h. West was particularly fearful of the communist expansion to southwest in the Middle East with its vast oil reserves.
j. South Asia, due to the socialist leanings of Indian National Congress, was likely to align with USSR on independence; whereas South East Asia was already comfortably in the Soviet Camp.

To cut the long story short, by the end of World War -2, Communism had replaced Nazism as an opposing ideology for the Western imperialism. Islam as an ideology opposed to communism could provide a barrier against communist expansion. Therefore the British played a major role in bringing religious and communal politics to serve their own interests in the region. This was particularly applicable in South Asia where the religious fault lines already existed due to the Colonial principle of ‘Divide and Rule’. An Islamic state at the junction of South Asia, Central Asia and Middle East afforded the capability of serving as a frontline state against the communist expansion southwards to the Indian Ocean. The ‘Great Game’ was to be only temporarily postponed to be taken up another day. Once again geography had played a role to shape our future.Independence of Pakistan

Ghaffar Khan and the majority of Pukhtuns were strongly opposed to the partition of India on religious grounds. The Red Shirts were willing to work with Indian politicians from Congress Party representing the predominant Hindu majority. When The Congress party refused last-ditch compromises to prevent the partition, like the Cabinet mission plan and Gandhi's suggestion to offer the Prime Ministership to Jinnah, Bacha Khan and his followers felt a sense of betrayal by both Pakistan and India. Bacha Khan's last words to Gandhi and his erstwhile allies in the Congress party were: "You have thrown us to the wolves." This is a clear proof that the people of this region believed in liberal politics and were averse to politics based on obscurantist and extremist ideals.

When Pakistan came in to being in 1947, Jinnah’s speech of 11th Aug envisioned it to be a modern, democratic and liberal state where every body will be free to exercise their faith. Bacha Khan took the oath of allegiance to the new nation of Pakistan. Shortly afterwards he addressed the Pakistan constituent assembly and announced his support for Pakistan, while at the same time his Khudai Khidmatgar movement pledged allegiance to Pakistan and severed all links to the Congress Party.

After the creation of Pakistan people accepted and lived peacefully in the state of Pakistan with no religious tensions in this area. It is worth mentioning that unlike other parts of Pakistan , there was no religious tension in these areas during the ‘Ahmadi/ Qadiani ‘ crisis which engulfed most of Punjab/Sindh in the 60s and 70s.

SOCIO-POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS MAKE UP OF OUR SOCIETY
Social Values and Culture20. At the outset it is important to understand that the Pukhtun society does not require religion to play a dominant role in organizing the social life of the people. The reason being that our society over the centuries has evolved a reasonable balance between religious values and national /ethnic values or code of conduct. Thus there are well established norms of behavior and areas of influence of both HUJRA AND MOSQUE in our society.

The Pukhtoon social structure that has attracted the attention of many a scholar is mainly governed by conventions and traditions and a code of honor known as "Pukhtoonwali". This un-written code is the keystone of the arch of the Pukhtoons' social fabric. It exercises a great influence on our actions and has been held sacrosanct generation after generation. The Pukhtoonwali or the Pukhtoon code of honour embraces all the activities from the cradle to the grave. It imposes upon the members of the Pukhtoon society four chief obligations. Firstly Nanawatey or repentance over past hostility or inimical attitude and grant of asylum, secondly Teega or a truce declared by a Jirga to avoid bloodshed between two rival factions, thirdly Badal or obligation to seek revenge by retaliation and fourthly Melmastiya or an open hearted hospitality which is one of the most sublime and noble features of Pukhtoon character. In broad sense hospitality, magnanimity, chivalry, honesty, uprightness, patriotism, love and devotion for the country are the essential features of Pukhtoonwali. The history of Pukhtoonwali is as old as the history of the Pukhtoons and every individual of Pukhtoon society is expected to abide by these age old traditions. Given this the notion of religiosity in pukhtoon society is a farce and pukhtoons have no relevance with extremism despite the fact that they love their religion.

Pukhtunkhwa thus has been historically peaceful – culturally, ethnically, socially and religiously. Despite the presence of significant pockets of non-muslims in parts of this area, there have been historically no religious tensions and our religious identity never came in to play as a political tool. The reasons for this are twofold: firstly a very strong, dynamic and potent Pukhtun identity and culture obviates the need for an alternative religious or sectarian identity and secondly the absence of any threat from a competing religious ideology means complete religious harmony. Relations with Non-Muslims.

Historically non-Muslims masses have lived in our region in complete harmony, enjoying absolute religious freedom and even protection from any external threats. Hindus and sikhs in Buner, Swat, Hangu, Dir, Peshawar and Charsadda have lived with fraternity. Even now non-muslims pockets in our society exist. They conduct their lives with peace and harmony and enjoy economic and social security. Hindus and Sikhs are running their own businesses in Barikot, Swat, Buner, Peshawar, Mardan and other parts of our land. Christians are also leading their lives in complete harmony and enjoy religious freedom. They are respected as Ahle-Kitab and close to Islam and even inter-marriages with them are allowed according to our religious belief. Moreover, their services towards our society in the form of missionary schools and hospitals have made them dearer to us. Their services in health and education sector of our people are worth appreciation.

The situation however changed towards the mid of 20th century. In the middle of the 20th century the Muslims of South Asia (Sub-Continent) being a minority, felt a need for asserting their religious identity to acquire political power in the post colonial world. Our region being linked to South Asia through the illegal occupation by the British thus assumed this overwhelmingly religious identity when Pakistan came in to being. In other words it can be argued that religion has not been a cause of tension/conflict in Pakhtun society before its association with the state of Pakistan. This is a phenomenon that has been forced on our society and not indigenous to it. The Pukhtun society was a fairly balanced, peaceful and tolerant society till the Jihad factor came in due to the Afghan War in the 80s.

THE SOVIET INVASION AND THE AFGHAN WAR Bold
Disturbance in Socio-Political Balance : Inherently Pakhtuns society was balanced due to the religious affair being the duty of the mullahs/ religious leaders and the secular and temporal affairs were in the hands of elders of society like community elders, Maliks and Khans. Jihad factor disturbed this balance, concentrating both the religious and temporal affairs of society in the hands of mullahs. Ever since 1947, when Pakistan got independence, both Pakistan and Afghanistan did not develop friendly neighborly relations due to the historical baggage of Durand Line which they inherited from the British. Thus intervention in the affairs of each other started resulting in destabilizing attempts against the regimes in Kabul. The people of our area being Pakhtun with deep ethnic and linguistic links across the Durand were naturally not considered to be loyal and hence could not be used for this purpose based on nationalism. Therefore the religious card was the only tool in the hands of establishment, which could serve their purpose.

Let us see a case study how religious extremism was introduced into district Dir which is the hub of religious parties in NWFP. In order to destabilize the government of Afghanistan during Sardar Daud's regime in Kabul, the area and people of Dir were used. An effort was made by arranging an uprising in Kunar province of Afghanistan against Sardar Daud. Obviously, a launching pad and human resource was required for the purpose. This part of Pukhtunkhwa, Dir District afforded the best option with close geographical proximity with the Kunar area. Moreover the simple and poor masses were ideally prone to religious manipulation. For this purpose JI was supported and virtually installed in Dir District which provided the requisite support for the uprising by manipulating and misguiding the simple people in the name of religion. This resulted in the development of religious obscurantism and extremism in this area which continues even today. Afghan forward policy is even now advocated by the JI as the well-merited tool for the service and betterment of the Pakhtun people of our region. Looking a bit back into the recent past, it is worth mentioning that from whole of Pakistan JI has only won elections from this District consistently. That is how religion was introduced in to Pakhtun politics. Development of Religious Extremism.

The war in Afghanistan further exacerbated the situation. USA and the west required an ideology against the spread of communist ideology in Afghanistan. Pakistan afforded the potential to serve the interests of the capitalist block. Pakistan was also looking to solve its border disputes with Afghanistan once and for ever in addition to the flawed myth of gaining strategic depth in Afghanistan against the arch rival India. So instead of using Pakhtun nationalism which had defeated the British Empire before, religion was used and the war against USSR was termed as Jihad. Pakhtuns were used for defeating communism on their own land with their own blood for the benefit of the West and the local powers. Different states including USA and the Gulf Arab States started funding the militant groups created by the intelligence agencies. A large number of people having different ethnicities including Arabs, Indians, Kashmiris, Chechens, Sudanese, and Algerians etc were brought to this land. Religious indoctrination started and huge literature was printed for convincing people to fight this war as a religious war. The money from the Gulf countries was instrumental in the mushrooming of madrasas in our areas. These madrassas provided these parties with hundreds and thousands of religiously motivated activists along with a growing network of mosques used as a political platform of the religious parties. The mushroom growth of religious sanctuaries / madaris in our area also provided fighters and mercenaries for this war. Meanwhile, sectarianism also gained currency in the region with the clandestine support of various states. Their obvious purpose was promoting their own culture and increasing their own influence in our areas in an atmosphere where religion was being used as a blanket cover for geopolitics. For example Iran supported the Shiites and Saudi Arabia promoted Wahabism in the region. Its obvious effects were the increase of extremism, obscurantism and religious bigotry which we can witness very vividly today across the Pakhtun lands.

THE NEW GREAT GAME AND TALIBANISATION OF PUKHTUNKHWA
Once the Afghan war ended with the disintegration of USSR, the Western Powers and USA left. They left Afghanistan and our people high and dry for the Arabs and the regional powers to manipulate. The intelligence agencies and establishments fully used the situation of civil war in Afghanistan. In the resulted war-lordism in Afghanistan, intelligence agencies made various groups which fought among themselves paving the path for attaining the ‘strategic depth’. Meanwhile, the terrorist and militant religious groups established their influence on both sides of the Durand. Afghanistan became virtually an Arab colony. To give a final shape to the whole struggle the Pakhtun land was used for providing support to Taliban to install them at the centre in Kabul. Talibanization of this region was the natural consequence. The obvious result was the promotion of extremism. Afghanistan became a safe haven for the terrorists from all over the world. Here in our areas, movements like TNSM emerged and covered the whole Malakand division. Local administration is reported to have been involved due to the most probable extension of civil law to Malakand division. The local administration helped Sufi Muhammad and his organization to impede the extension of civil law. This attempt fortunately failed but its effects had to appear in the form of open support for Taliban regime in Afghanistan. This support led to the loss of the precious lives of hundred and thousands of our naïve and simple people mostly youth in 2001 at the advice of TNSM chief. The result was hatred against the West in the minds of people who lost their loved ones in the so called Jihad of Taleban.

Another important development during all this time had been the break-up of USSR and independence of the new Central Asian states following the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan. This changed situation a renewed interest of the world powers particularly the West in this region. The CAR states are sitting over the second largest oil and gas reserves in the world. Once again the Great Game was on. The big oil companies from the west like Unocol and regional players were once again looking to reach central Asia. They thus had no problem with the Taliban as long as they could do business with them. However things went wrong as they were distend to; as a natural consequence of support to extremism, fundamentalism and obscurantism. The Taliban embarked on an extremist path symbolized by their utter disrespect for the universal values of religious tolerance, human rights and established international norms of diplomacy and good international relation. This was anathema to the civilized world All this was toped by the emergence of Al-Qaeeda as the real threat to the West in the post cold war era with Osama bin Laden comfortably operating from Taliban led Afghanistan to the utter contempt of world powers including the United Nations. The sequence culminated in the attacks on the twin towers on 9/11, 2001.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Afghanistan again became an international issue and USA attacked to remove the Taliban in 2001 and establish a representative democratic government there. After losing control over Afghanistan, the establishment again manipulated political and electoral processes to manage a political comeback by pro-Taliban political forces in Pakhtunkhwa and Baloachistan. It would serve more than one purpose. The phobia of a threat from its western borders can be overcome only with the enforcement of a policy of containment. It was also expected to boost the morale of the remnants of Taliban who are resisting the new setup in Afghanistan. An added advantage would be the use of religious right by the ruling establishment as a lever for putting pressure on US and other Western countries to have a better bargain.....The rest is all courrent history culminating in the imposition of Sharia rule in the Malakand region just this month. No wonder once again the man on the front is Maulana Sufi Muhammad, whom if the Government had not jailed on his return from Afghanistan in 2002, people would have surely killed many times over for the death and destruction he caused to their families. Ironically today, once again Sufi Mohammed has been presented to the Pakhtuns as a saviour. The sadest part of this sordid story is that this time around the party on the front of this move is not JI or JUI or PML but our very own secular nationalist party, the Awami National Party.

CURRENT TRENDS OF EXTREMISM
Now while looking to the future wearing the glasses of the past history, look at the propaganda of religious extremism which threatens to destroy the fabric of the Pakhtun society, economy, politics and social harmony and propagates the ideas of clash of religions in our land. Even a simple mind can easily understand that this is all for political reasons and not for any service to Islam. Some clear and obvious conclusions from history are:-

a. Our region has never produced religiously extremist ideologies; they have been imposed on us from abroad.
b. The ideologies and roots of religious extremism and terrorism in South Asia lie far off across the Indus.
c. Currently there is no indigenous religio-idealogical centre in Pukhtunkhwa which promotes hatred and animosity among the human beings on the basis of religion.
d. All these influences come from South of Indus and are aimed at our region for their own regional and political interests.
e. Militant organizations like Lashkar-i-Tayiba, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Al-Badr, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and even the Tablighi Jumaat, and all religious parties like Jumaat Islami etc have their head quarters outside Pakhtun lands and are run from there. They only use the blood of our youth and obviously the give us the name of terrorists.
f. The extremist philosophies are the product of Indian and Arab societies with a clandestine support from establishment of many countries and not the Pukhtun society.
g. For example, the Tablighi jumaat, being an Indian-oriented organization head quartered in Lahore has since its inception focused on Pakhtun areas paving the way for making the society religiously intolerant and in turn our people fall pray to the extremist organizations.
h. The religious parties, deeply involved in militant activities in Kashmir and Afghanistan bear their foundation from Indian society. These were openly supported by the establishment during the Afghan war. In early eighties due to the Afghan war, these organizations were more focused on our region with the result that leadership of these were also transferred to our region.

So why Our Region is prone to manipulation? Given the situation, let us think why our people and land is prone to manipulation? Why different forces find it easy to use us for the promotion of their own interests with our blood and resources? The answer is simple as Iqbal says:
Hai Jurm-I-zaeefi ki saza margai mufajat .
The following are just a few reasons:-
a. Our people are living in a tribal and somewhere in semi-tribal society having no awareness of the global and regional political circumstances prevailing around them.
b. As the masses at large are uneducated and illiterate, therefore they easily fall prey to different sort of exploiters who use them. They benefit from the traditional Pakhtun naivety and especially by their conservative religious beliefs.
c. Our tribal area, which has been used as a launching pad during the so-called Jihad in Afghanistan, has over a long period developed a war economy in people, which is largely self-sustaining.
d. Besides poverty and underdevelopment in our areas too is the main cause, which makes people more prone to manipulation.
e. With out having infrastructure for communication, businesses and for carrying out their economic activities, the extremist forces find it easy to influence and utilize the people for their own interests.
f. It is worth mentioning that, the sole psychological arm in their hands is religion, which in turn creates hatred and obscurantism in the minds of people making it a never ending game.

Although, whole of our country has never witnessed democracy even for a day in the true sense of the word, however the situation of our area is largely different form other parts of the country. As has earlier been mentioned, religion has been brought into politics for the purpose of diffusing the secular and liberal masses demanding their due share in government and control of resources, political parties based on religious basis have been promoted. These forces advocate the obscurantist ideas. Unlike the settled areas, the situation in our tribal areas is far worse. They are governed through the most infamous FCR, the black law that was introduced by the British colonialists, having no example of its kind in contemporary world. Having no representatives, which could speak for the people and represent their true inspiration they are at the mercy of a political agent appointed by the state. It’s a pity that the FCR today is worse than that existed during the British days. Having gained independence, what Pakistan did is that it simply corrupted the existing Jirga system in these areas and gave the influence to the clergy with the sword of religion in his hand.This situation has resulted in the area and its people being dubbed as the hotbed of international terrorism. We are unable to establish our own media, which can represent our true aspirations and give the correct picture to the world. Media controlled by state and by other organizations portrays us as extremist and terrorists to the world. This in turn makes our people more alienated and reactionary. All this is resulting in misunderstanding about other religion and hatred toward others in the world on religious basis. Similarly, the world opinion about us is growing in a negative way, which brings us under fire from other forces in the world. No wonder today we the Pukhtuns are being killed by all, the US, the NATO, the Taliban and the Pakistani Forces and hated by all. In the end how true this saying of Bacha Khan seems to be today.

"O Pathans! Your house has fallen into ruin. Arise and rebuild it, and remember to what race you belong."

Source: http://pakhtunvoice.blogspot.com/2009/04/rise-of-religious-extremism-in.html

analysis: The Pakhtun, the Taliban and Imran Khan —Farhat Taj

2009-12-19T17:18:00.000-05:00

By Farhat taj
Hate for the US is the problem of Imran Khan or his anti-Pakhtun allies. It is not the problem of the people of FATA. Their problem is occupation of their land by the international jihadi gangs. There are clear signs that the people of FATA are cooperating with the Americans in liberating their land from the jihadi occupation.

This is in response to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s recent declaration that he is ready to mediate and start negotiations with the Taliban to secure a peace agreement if the government is willing to guarantee that it would not scrap the peace deal with them under US pressure. He made this offer in an interview with Dr Moeed Pirzada on a private TV channel. By now Imran Khan stands fully exposed that he is one of the forces of darkness — the jihadi generals like Hamid Gul, the Jamaat-e-Islami and other pan-Islamists like the Deobandis, neo-Wahabis and Akhwan ideologues. Together they have given the Taliban identity to the Pakhtun and caused massacre of over three million of them on both sides of the Durand Line. They continue to destroy the Pakhtun for a great game against India and in the name of global Islamism. It is, however, the duty of all educated Pakhtuns to challenge the bizarre fabrications that Imran Khan attributed to the people of FATA to justify his offer.

Imran Khan said one of the Taliban groups is made of tribesmen who hate the US and attack the state and society in Pakistan because they see the country in alliance with the US. This is a bizarre fantasy of Imran Khan having nothing to do with tribesmen in FATA. There are no tribesmen who are killing innocent civilians and security forces due to anti-US sentiment. The tribesmen who have joined the Taliban groups are seen as criminals by their fellow tribesmen. The tribesmen who have joined the ranks of different Taliban groups are lost to the global jihadi ideology of the al Qaeda and stand stripped of Pakhtunwali. They are no more Pakhtun! They themselves have given up their Pakhtun identity. They claim to fight for global Islam that disrespects ethnic sensitivities.

The militants, in Imran Khan’s own words in the interview, are 15,000. Clearly not all of them are tribesmen. They include the Punjabi Taliban and foreign terrorists. There are no signs that these 15,000 or so terrorists are backed by tribal society. There has never been any grand tribal jirga in any tribal area that backed the terrorists, local or foreign. The Taliban groups in FATA are Hafiz Gul Abrader Groups, Haqqani Group, Mullah Nazeer Group, Turkistan Brittani Group, Tariq Afridi Group, Mangal Bagh Group, and Maulvi Omar Group. These terrorist groups are killing indiscriminately inside and beyond FATA. None of them had ever been backed by tribal jirgas. In fact, some of them have banned jirgas and termed them as ‘un-Islamic’ institutions. These groups have to be crushed for peace in Pakhtunkhwa and wider Pakistan. Anyone seeking dialogue with such groups is the enemy of the Pakhtun and Pakistan.

Hate for the US is the problem of Imran Khan or his anti-Pakhtun allies. It is not the problem of the people of FATA. Their problem is occupation of their land by the international jihadi gangs. There are clear signs that the people of FATA are cooperating with the Americans in liberating their land from the jihadi occupation. The drone strikes could not have been successful in killing so many al Qaeda and Taliban leaders without the help of the people of Waziristan on the ground.

Moreover, the Taliban kill people every single day in Waziristan on suspicion of spying for the US. They think that with terror they can deter the people of Waziristan from coordinating with the Americans. This has not been successful so far. Why is Imran Khan ever so silent over the daily slaughter of innocent people of Waziristan on charges of spying for the US? Are they not tribesmen and women and even human beings?

The most outrageous statement he made is that the assassinated tribal leadership in Waziristan was pro-US. The leadership has been eliminated by the Taliban with state collusion according to the families of the assassinated people. I challenge Imran Khan to prove that even a single person among the assassinated 600-plus tribal leaders, religious scholars, teachers, doctors, etc., was pro-US! Were respectable tribal elders like Shah Alam Wazir, Khandan Mehsud, Mirza Alam Mehsud, Mohammad Nawaz Mehsud, and Farooq Wazir pro-US? The Taliban beheaded Mufti Sibghatullah and killed Maulana Mohammad Hussain, Imam of Godam Mosque, Tank. Does Imran Khan believe that those religious scholars were also pro-US? Imran Khan must tender an unconditional apology to the people of Waziristan, especially to the family of the assassinated people for making this bizarre statement.

Exploiting the infamous anti-Indian stance, he argues that the government of Pakistan is pleasing India by making the soldiers of the Pakistan Army fight with the Taliban. This is the interpretation of the pro-jihadi forces in Pakistan. It is not the view of the people of FATA. This war is not about India or the US. It is about us — the citizens of Pakistan, whose lives are disrupted by the terrorists who are hell bent upon subjugating us to their version of shariah. The jihadi pursuit of our state created these terrorists and it is now the duty of the state to eliminate them if Pakistan has to survive as a modern democratic state.

Both the PPP and the ANP have lost near and dear ones in terrorist acts of the Taliban. They must continue the fight against the Taliban and ignore the offer of Imran Khan, who is in any case not a neutral party but one of the pro-Taliban forces. In this regard I wish to refer to one of the points of the joint declaration of a grand jirga of all democratic political parties, intelligentsia and civil society organisations held in Peshawar on December 12-13, 2009. The declaration says, “All those political or non-political forces that defend the Taliban and Talibanisation in Pakistan in one way or the other like the Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Tehreek-e-Insaf and other outfits are considered anti-Pakistan, anti-people and anti-Pakhtun by the people of Pakhtunkhwa.”

The Pakistan Army must continue fighting the Taliban until their complete elimination. The military establishment must know that lack of protection of the state from the Taliban atrocities has already thrown the people of Waziristan into cooperation with the US in terms of spying for the drone attacks on the terrorists occupying the area. A time may not be far when the rest of Pakhtunkhwa will be cooperating with the US. What would become of the federation of Pakistan in such a situation? Up until now most Pakhtuns are loyal to the federation of Pakistan, but this loyalty is definitely not limitless and requires that the state must protect them and their way of life. By eliminating the Taliban, the army must prove that it stands with the Pakhtun who suffer under the Taliban. In the long run, this may be important for a constant inflow of Pakhtun loyalty with the state of Pakistan.

The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy.
She can be reached at bergen34@ yahoo.com
DailyTimes

PopupWindow

2009-11-23T15:18:00.000-05:00

PopupWindow

Pashto New Song: Pa Yow Koor Ki Ousighu (In A Single House We Live)!!!!!

2009-11-14T15:25:00.001-05:00

Warawaee Lasoona---The Dance of Unity

2009-10-26T16:19:00.001-04:00

A synopsis of Thavareekh Rehmat Khani (Part 1)

2009-10-26T16:16:00.000-04:00

It is said that the Yousafzai clans were settled in the Gara (Garkoi) and Nashki, the GhoriahKhel especially the Khalils were settled in Trunk, Maqr and QaraBagh. There was a falling out between the the two clans, and the GhoriaKhel defeated the the Khakhay/Khashey clans and took over their lands. Thus the Yousafzai, the Gigyani, the Tharklani and the Muhammedzai clans migrated to Kabul and settled there.

As time passed the displaced clans, especially the Yousafzai did well in their new home and garnered great influence in Kabul and the surrounding areas. At the time when a very young Mirza Ulug Baig son of Abu Sayed Bahadar Taimuri arrived in Kabul, the Malik of the Khakhay tribes was Yousafzai named Malik Sulaiman Shah son of Malik Tajuddin son of Malik Razar.

Malik Sulaiman Shah took the young impressionable Ulug Baig under his wing. Malik Sulaiman Shah went as far as betrothing his daughter to him and the Yousafzai swore him allegiance, in the farsighted hope that when he rose to power so would the Yousafzai.

A much respected elder of the Malazai tribe Sheikh Usman one day rebuked Malik Sulaiman for showering so much time and attention on Ulug Baig, prophecising that the youth had the eyes of Yazid and would one day be the death of the clan. Malik Sulaiman chose to ignore the prophecy and continued his patronage. When Ulug Baig came to power it was actually Sulaiman Shah pulling all the strings in the back ground influencing all decisions made, thus the Yousafzai had free reign of Kabul.

Malik Sulaiman Shah was one of six brothers by one account and seven by another.

Sultan Shah who was the eldest brother was also the father of Malik Ahmed.

Behram, the third brother was appointed to collect all dues and taxes from the traders and caravans that passed through the kingdom.

Khairuddin was the fourth brother.

Painda the fifth brother was so strong that he was nick named Hathi (elephant).
The names of the other brothers are lost.

The falling out of the Gigiani and the Yousafzai.

Malik Ahmed son of Sultan Shah had a very beautiful sister called Fatima. She was engaged to Ibrahim son of Gadayee of the Ilyaszai sub-clan of the Yousafzai.
There were two Gigiani's in Ulug Baig's court by the name of Shibli son of Thori and Hussan son of Changa, both were from the Changazai sub-clan of the Musazai sub-clan of the Gigiani. They were very popular with Ulug Baig who trusted them and it was through their convincing that he forced the betrothal of Fatima to a member of the Gigiani tribe.

Ibrahim learning of this betrayal abducted his finance and went into hiding. The Gigianis accused Sulaiman Shah of orchestrating the whole fiasco and held him responsible, but because of Sulaiman Shah's clout at court there was not much they could do about it. That did not stop them from planning and plotting revenge.

The Yousafzai safe in the knowledge that they were protected by Sulaiman Shah had fallen beyond redemption, they were notorious for their orgies and drunken brawls. One particular Yousafzai by the name of Mirkat was known to kidnap and sell people of respectable families for a cup of wine, he would forcefully make people sell things to him at a lower than market price or just outright take them. The Yousafzai had sunk very low.

Small skirmishes would break out between the Gigiani and the Yousafzai, but when Ulug Baig decided to attack the Gigiani, Sulaiman Shah from a sense of loyalty or farsightedness alerted them.
When Ulug Baig and his army reached the deserted Gigiani settlement he was furious and tried to find the leak in his camp. Eventually the Gigianis betrayed Sulaiman Shah and the Yousafzai fell out of favor. In the meanwhile the Gigiani through the efforts of Shibli son of Thori and Hussan son of Changa made peace with Ulug Baig.

On gaining favor at court the Gigiani were soon enticed into taking up arms against the Yousafzai with the blessings of Ulug Baig, who promised to join in once the initial attack began.

The battle of Ghowra Margha

An advance party of Gigiani raided Yousafzai livestock, this gave them enough forewarning to assemble a fighting front. On seeing the the enemy organized into four ranks, the Yousafzai organized themselves similarly. The fierce battle that ensued left many dead and the Gigiani and Ulug Baig's men totally defeated. The spilled blood that day colored the ground red and thus the battle and the place came to be known as Ghowra Margha (blood covered ground).

A Fatal Invitation
This surprise defeat left Ulug Baig more determined than ever to teach the Yousafzai a lesson. Plotting with the Gigiani, it was decided that the Yousafzai would be approached by a different method, instead of fighting them they would extend friendship and invite them to a feast at Ulug Baig's court. Letters of friendship, forgiveness and invitations to the feast were sent out to all the Yousafzai, inviting th one and all to attend.

The Yousafzai who were used to and missed their life of luxury and comfort could not wait to come back to court, they accepted the invitations and no one wanting to be left out of what Ulug Baig was about to bestow, the Yousafzai drove the final nail into their coffin themselves and played right into the hands of Ulug Baig and the Gigiani by showing up enforce.

The 700 Yousafzai were strategically divided into groups and hosted by different members of court. On arrival at their hosts homes the unsuspecting and unarmed men were taken into captivity. This was all done so quietly that no one was able to send out any messages to warn others. Sulaiman Shah was spared the humility of being bound captive, but followed as all the rest were taken to appear before Ulug Baig.

Five unsuspecting Ranazai including Kausar son of Mullah Hussain RanazaiYousafzai showed up unawares to see how the guest Yousafzai were doing. These unlucky five were also bound with the condemned.

Sheikh Usman who was also among those condemned, on seeing Sulaiman Shah asked him if he remembered his words and Sulaiman Shah acknowledged that he did. On seeing the weeping Sulaiman Shah, Ulug Baig told him that he would never forget the kindness that had been bestowed on him and there fore he was free to go.

Sulaiman Shah refused and asked Ulug Baig to grant him three requests instead.

1) To make sure that he was the first one beheaded.
2 )To free his 15 year old nephew Ahmed son of Sultan Shah in his stead.
3) After killing the 700 present, to leave the Yousafzai in peace and to let the survivors leave in peace.

Ulug Baig agreed and ordered the Gigiani to personally behead all the well known Yousafzai and the rest were to be beheaded by the court executioners.

Sheikh Usman who had shown surprise at the arrival of the five Ranrizai now said that a person by the name of Thor Qawal was not present, since he too was to be executed that day according to his divine foretelling. Thor Qawal who had been out of town visiting relatives in Kandahar, as luck would have it chose that very moment to show up at court to pay respects to Ulug Baig. He too was tied up.

Shibli son of Thori and Hussan Changa beheaded Sulaiman Shah first and then a few other Yousafzai elders. Sheikh Usmans head supposedly kept talking for a while and it unnerved the executioners. When they reached Kausar son of Mullah Hussain and his four friends they claimed that their swords would not cut through his skin. Word was sent to Ulug Baig who sent an aide to see what was happening. The aide himself tried and went back to Ulug Baig, who then ordered Kauser to be presented before him. Kausar refused to leave without his friends so all five were presented before Ulug Baig, who spared their life.

Thus the young Ahmed and the five Ranrzai left and the dead Yousafzai were buried at about three arrows length north east of Kabul in a place called Sia Sang and to this day is known as the a “Area of the martyred Yousafzai”

Ulug Baig also kept his promise to let the remaining Yousafzai leave, but after taking away all they possessed, even the clothes on their backs. A Yousafzai by the name of Musa son of Asko Akozai who had hidden his treasures well was the only one left with anything. It was this treasure that helped the Yousafzai in the tough times ahead.

Ahmed and the five Ranrizai on returning called a jirga, and it was decided that they would all leave, but they were not sure where to go. Sheikh Zangi son of Mullah Khalil Ranrizai Khwaza Khel suggested that they return to Swat because that was their homeland. He foretold that after a brief struggle they would win their homeland back from the occupiers and when they did they were to gift him a mound called Zao in Badwan. The Yousafzai agreed on Ahmed being the new leader and Mullah Hussain Ranrizai stood up and cut a branch giving it to Ahmed bestowed him with the title of Malik. Malik Ahmed was given everyones blessings and told to lead them all out of the forsaken place.

The raggle taggle Yousafzai set out towards Peshawar. It was then that Musa son of Asko Akozai very generously shared his treasure with everyone helping them re-establish themselves in a new place.

Dar Pa Dar, Where the Heart Lies Posted by Samar:

2009-10-26T16:04:00.002-04:00

Dar Pa Dar is a documentary on the plight of Afghan refugee women who
have silently borne the brunt and traumas of the war in Afghanistan.
Left to raise families alone and learning to deal with the p...ain of
husbands, sons and fathers returning severely handicapped or not at
all. Now they face even more agony as they unwillingly leave behind
those they lost in foreign soil as they are forced to return home.

Pashto sad song about Peshawar,Pekhawar jarhegee

2009-10-13T19:57:00.000-04:00

The Two Faces of Jihad Militants from South Punjab tend to be better educated and more ruthless than those from the NWFP. By Ayesha Siddiqa

2009-10-11T14:17:00.001-04:00

The Two Faces of Jihad

Militants from South Punjab tend to be better educated and more ruthless than those from the NWFP.

By Ayesha Siddiqa

The Punjabi jihadis are different from their counterparts in FATA: the former are comparatively more educated. There are many, such as Maulana Masood Azhar, who were educated in the Banuri town madrassa in Karachi and completed their dars-e-nizami – an eight-year course in religious ideology that inculcates the significance of jihad in the pupil. There is a constant flow of students from religious seminaries in South Punjab to Karachi. There are also those who have a secular education and are given responsibility for further education or conversion, and not just jihad. Additionally, there is also a reverse flow of militant religious scholars from South Punjab to other parts of the country. A prime example is Lal Masjid’s Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi and his wife, who hail from Dera Ghazi Khan.

Besides being relatively more educated, the Punjabi jihadis are also distinguishable from the Pashtoon jihadis in terms of their style of fighting. A lot of the fidayeen (suicide bombers) come from the Punjab and are reputed to be much more brutal in their handling of victims. Frontier Governor Owais Ghani says some of the more ferocious commanders of the Taliban forces in Waziristan and Swat are South Punjabi jihadis and are much more difficult to crack than their Pashtoon counterparts. They have no emotional ties with people up north, he states, and are mainly ideology-driven, just like their Arab and Uzbek brothers-in-arms. So, as one freelancing jihadi confided, Uzbeks chop off a victim’s head with extreme precision and fight with an enviable commitment. The Punjabi jihadis want to avenge the rape of Muslim women in Chechnya, Bosnia, Palestine, Kashmir and Afghanistan by waging a war against non-Muslims. Militant groups show films of the killing of Muslims in these conflict zones and the rape of women to draw potential warriors. The preachers assure the fighters that a holy war is not only sanctioned by Islam but is a must for every able-bodied Muslim male.

So, it does not really matter that the territories mentioned above are not connected with the immediate social reality of the fighters. Unlike the Pashtoons, the South Punjabis are not motivated to wage war because they have lost one of their own in the war on terror. Instead, they are willing to give up their lives (or offer others in their family) because they are highly motivated about higher, selfless causes. Jihad provides an immediate sense of empowerment to people who now begin to see themselves as being capable of helping helpless women in far away lands. Those who are sent are even given Arab names to inculcate in them a sense of history.

http://www.newsline.com.pk/buttons/end.jpg

Terror’s Training Ground By Ayesha Siddiqa

2009-10-11T14:04:00.001-04:00

Cover Story

A few years ago, I met some young boys from my village near Bahawalpur who were preparing to go on jihad. They smirked politely when I asked them to close their eyes and imagine their future. “We can tell you without closing our eyes that we don’t see anything.”

It was not entirely surprising. South Punjab is a region mired in poverty and underdevelopment. There are few job prospects for the youth. While the government has built airports and a few hospitals, these projects are symbolic and barely meet the needs of the area. It’s in areas like this, amid economic stagnation and hopelessness, that religious extremists find fertile ground to plant and spread their ideology.

The first step is recruitment – and the methodology is straightforward. Young children, or even men, are taken to madrassas in nearby towns. They are fed well and kept in living conditions considerably better than what they are used to. This is a simple psychological strategy meant to help them compare their homes with the alternatives offered by militant organisations. The returning children, like the boys I met, then undergo ideological indoctrination in a madrassa. Those who are indoctrinated always bring more friends and family with them. It is a swelling cycle.

Madrassas nurturing armies of young Islamic militants ready to embrace martyrdom have been on the rise for years in the Punjab. In fact, South Punjab has become the hub of jihadism. Yet, somehow, there are still many people in Pakistan who refuse to acknowledge this threat.

Four major militant outfits, the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), are all comfortably ensconced in South Punjab (see article “Brothers in Arms”). Sources claim that there are about 5,000 to 9,000 youth from South Punjab fighting in Afghanistan and Waziristan. A renowned Pakistani researcher, Hassan Abbas cites a figure of 2,000 youth engaged in Waziristan. The area has become critical to planning, recruitment and logistical support for terrorist attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In fact, in his study on the Punjabi Taliban, Abbas has quoted Tariq Pervez, the chief of a new government outfit named the National Counter-Terrorism Authority (NCTA), as saying that the jihad veterans in South Punjab are instrumental in providing the foot soldiers and implementing terror plans conceived and funded mainly by Al-Qaeda operatives. This shouldn’t come as a surprise considering that the force that conquered Khost in 1988-89 comprised numerous South Punjabi commanders who fought for the armies of various Afghan warlords such as Gulbuddin Hikmatyar and Burhanuddin Rabbani. Even now, all the four major organisations are involved in Afghanistan.

The above facts are not unknown to the provincial and federal governments or the army. It was not too long ago that the federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik equated South Punjab with Swat. The statement was negated by the IG Punjab. Perhaps, the senior police officer was not refuting his superior but challenging the story by Sabrina Tavernese of The New York Times (NYT). The story had highlighted jihadism in South Punjab, especially in Dera Ghazi Khan. The NYT story even drew a reaction from media outlets across the country. No one understood that South Punjab is being rightly equated with Swat, not because of violence but due to the presence of elements that aim at taking the society and state in another direction.

An English-language daily newspaper reacted to the NYT story by dispatching a journalist to South Punjab who wrote a series of articles that attempted to analyse the existing problem. One of the stories highlighted comments by the Bahawalpur Regional Police Officer (RPO) Mushtaq Sukhera, in which he denied that there was a threat of Talibanisation in South Punjab. He said that all such reports pertaining to South Punjab were nothing more than a figment of the western press’s imagination. Many others express a similar opinion. There are five explanations for this.

Firstly, opinion makers and policy makers are in a state of denial regarding the gravity of the problem. Additionally, they believe an overemphasis on this region might draw excessive US attention to South Punjab – an area epitomising mainstream Pakistan. Thus, it is difficult even to find anecdotal evidence regarding the activities of jihadis in this sub-region. We only gain some knowledge about the happenings from coincidental accidents like the blast that took place in a madrassa in Mian Chunoon, exposing the stockpile of arms its owner had stored on the premises.

Secondly, officer Sukhera and others like him do not see any threat because the Punjab-based outfits are “home-grown” and are not seen as directly connected to the war in Afghanistan. This is contestable on two counts: South Punjabi jihadists have been connected with the Afghan jihad since the 1980s and the majority is still engaged in fighting in Afghanistan.

Thirdly, since all these outfits were created by the ISI to support General Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamisation process, in essence to fight a proxy war for Saudi Arabia against Iran by targeting the Shia community, and later the Kashmir war, the officials feel comfortable that they will never spin out of control. Those that become uncontrollable, such as Al-Furqan, are then abandoned. This outfit was involved in the second assassination attempt on Musharraf and had initially broken away from the JeM after the leadership developed differences over assets, power and ideology. Thus, the district officials and intelligence agencies turned a blind eye to the killing of the district amir of Al-Furqan in Bahawalpur in May 2009. As far as the JeM is concerned, it continues its engagement with the establishment. In any case, groups that are partly committed to the Kashmir cause and confrontation with India continue to survive. This is certainly the perception about the LeT. But in reality, the Wahhabi outfit has also been engaged in other regions, such as the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Badakhshan since 2004.

Fourthly, there is confusion at the operational level in the government regarding the definition of Talibanisation, which is then reflected in the larger debate on the issue. Many, including the RPO, define the process as an effort by an armed group to use force to change the social conditioning in an area. Ostensibly, the militant outfits in the Punjab continue to coexist with the pirs, prostitutes and the drug mafia, and there is no reason that they will follow in the footsteps of Sufi Mohammad and Maulana Fazlullah, or Baitullah Mehsud. Since the authorities only recognise the pattern followed by the Afghan warlords or those in Pakistan’s tribal areas, they tend not to understand that what is happening in the Punjab may not be Talibanisation but could eventually prove to be as lethal as what they call Talibanisation.

Finally, many believe that Talibanisation cannot take place in a region known for practicing the Sufi version of Islam. There are many, besides the Bahawalpur RPO, who subscribe to the above theory. A year ago in an interview with an American channel, Farahnaz Ispahani, an MNA and wife of Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, stated that extremism couldn’t flourish in South Punjab because it was a land of Sufi shrines. This is partially true. The Sufi influence would work as a bulwark against this Talibanisation of society. However, Sufi Islam cannot fight poverty, underdevelopment and poor governance – all key factors that encourage Talibanisation.

South Punjab boasts names such as the Mazaris, Legharis and Gilanis, most of whom are not just politicians and big landowners but also belong to significant pir families. But they have done little to alleviate the sufferings of their constituents. A visit to Dera Ghazi Khan is depressing. Despite the fact that the division produced a president, Farooq Khan Leghari, the state of underdevelopment there is shocking. Reportedly, people living in the area in the immediate vicinity of the Leghari tribe could not sell their land without permission from the head of the tribe, the former president, who has been the tribal chief for many years. Under the circumstances, the poor and the dispossessed became attractive targets for militant outfits offering money. The country’s current economic downturn could raise the popularity of militant outfits.

In recent history, the gap created due to the non-performance of Sufi shrines and Barelvi Islam, or the exploitative nature of these institutions, has been filled partly by the Deobandi and Ahl-e-Hadith madrassa conversion teams and groups, such as the Tableeghi Jamaat, and militant outfits. This alternative, unfortunately, is equally exploitative in nature. Sadly, today the shrines and Barelvi Islam have little to offer in terms of “marketing” to counter the package deal offered by the Salafists for the life hereafter, especially to a shaheed: 70 hoors (virgins), a queen hoor (virgin queen), a crown of jewels and forgiveness for 70 additional people. This promise means a lot for the poor youth who cannot hope for any change in a pre-capitalist socio-economic and political environment, where power is hard to re-negotiate. Furthermore, as stated by the former information minister Mohammad Ali Durrani, who had been a jihadi from 1984-90, a poor youth suddenly turning into a jihadi commander is a tremendous story of social mobility and recognition that he would never get in his existing socio-economic system. More importantly, the Deobandis and Ahl-e-Hadith offer a textual basis for their package, which is difficult for the pirs to refute due to the lack of an internal religious discourse in the Islamic world. The modern generation of pirs has not engaged in an internal discourse to counter this ideological onslaught by the Salafis. The main belief of Salafism is that all Muslims should practice Islam as it was during the time of Prophet Muhammad. The religion at that time, according to them, was perfect. Salafism – which pre-dates Wahhabism – is often used interchangeably with Wahhabism, which is actually an extension of Salafism.

Punjab offers a different pattern of extremism and jihadism. The pattern is closer to what one saw in Swat, where Sufi Mohammad and his TNSM spent quite a few years indoctrinating the society and building up a social movement before they got embroiled in a conflict with the state. South Punjab’s story is, in a sense, like Swat’s in that there is a gradual strengthening of Salafism and a build-up of militancy in the area. The procedure of conversion though, dates back to pre-1947. Still, the 1980s were clearly a watershed, when both rabid ideology and jihad were introduced to the area. Zia-ul-Haq encouraged the opening up of religious seminaries that, unlike the more traditional madrassas that were usually attached with Sufi shrines, subscribed to Salafi ideology. In later years, South Punjab became critical to inducting people for the Kashmir jihad. The ascendancy of the Tableeghi Jamaat and such madrassas that presented a more rabid version of religion gradually prepared the ground for later invasion by the militant groups. Two reports prepared around 1994, firstly by the district collector Bahawalpur and later by the Punjab government, highlighted the exponential rise in the number of madrassas and how these fanned sectarian and ideological hatred in the province. These reports also stated that all of these seminaries were provided funding by the government through the zakat fund.

The number of seminaries had increased during and after the 1980s. According to a 1996 report, there were 883 madrassas in Bahawalpur, 361 in Dera Ghazi Khan, 325 in Multan and 149 in Sargodha district. The madrassas in Bahawalpur outnumbered all other cities, including Lahore. These numbers relate to Deobandi madrassas only and do not include the Ahl-e-Hadith, Barelvi and other sects. Newer estimates from the intelligence bureau for 2008 show approximately 1,383 madrassas in the Bahawalpur division that house 84,000 students. Although the highest number of madrassas is in Rahim Yar Khan district (559) followed by Bahawalpur (481) and Bahawalnagar (310), it is Bahawalpur in which the highest number of students (36,000) is enlisted. The total number of madrassa students in Pakistan has reached about one million.

Everyone has been so focused on FATA and the NWFP that they failed to notice the huge increase in religious seminaries in these districts of South Punjab. According to a study conducted by historian Tahir Kamran, the total number of madrassas in the Punjab rose from 1,320 in 1988 to 3,153 in 2000, an increase of almost 140%. These madrassas were meant to provide a rapid supply of jihadis to the Afghan war of the 1980s. At the time of 9/11, the Bahawalpur division alone could boast of approximately 15,000-20,000 trained militants, some of whom had resettled in their areas during the period that Musharraf claimed to have clamped down on the jihad industry. Many went into the education sector, opened private schools and even joined the media.

These madrassas play three essential roles. First, they convert people to Salafism and neutralise resistance to a more rabid interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah in society. Consequently, the majority of the Barelvis cannot present a logical resistance to the opposing ideology. In many instances, the Barelvis themselves get converted to the idea of jihad. Secondly, these madrassas are used to train youth, who are then inducted into jihad. Most of the foot soldiers come from the religious seminaries. One of the principles taught to the students pertains to the concept of jihad as being a sacred duty that has to continue until the end of a Muslim’s life or the end of the world. Lastly, madrassas are an essential transit point for the youth, who are recruited from government schools. They are usually put through the conversion process after they have attended a 21-day initial training programme in the Frontier province or Kashmir (see box “A Different Breed”).

State support, which follows two distinct tracks, is also instrumental in the growth of jihadism in this region. On the one hand, there has generally been a link or understanding between political parties and militant groups. Since political parties are unable to eliminate militants or most politicians are sympathetic towards the militants, they tend to curb their activities through political deal-making. The understanding between the SSP and Benazir Bhutto after the 1993 elections, or the alleged deal between the PML-N and the SSP during the 2008 elections, denote the relationship between major political parties and the jihadis. Currently, the SSP in South Punjab is more supportive of the PML-N.

The second track involves operational links between the outfits and the state’s intelligence apparatus. As mentioned earlier, some of the outfits claim to have received training from the country’s intelligence agencies. Even now, local people talk of truckloads of weapons arriving at the doorstep of the JeM headquarters and other sites in the middle of the night. While official sources continue to claim that the outfit was banned and does not exist, or that Masood Azhar is on the run from his hometown of Bahawalpur, the facts prove otherwise. For instance, the outfit continues to acquire real estate in the area, such as a new site near Chowk Azam in Bahawalpur, which many believe is being used as a training site. Although the new police chief has put restraints on the JeM and disallowed it from constructing on the site, the outfit continues to appropriate more land around the area. Junior police officials even claim seeing tunnels being dug inside the premises. The new facility is on the bank of the Lahore-Karachi national highway, which means that in the event of a crisis, the JeM could block the road as has happened in Kohat and elsewhere. Furthermore, the outfit’s main headquarters in the city is guarded by AK-47-armed men who harass any journalist trying to take a photograph of the building. In one instance, even a police official was shooed away and later intimidated by spooks of an intelligence agency for spying on the outfit. Despite the claim that the SSP, the LeJ and the JeM have broken ties with intelligence agencies and are now fighting the army in Waziristan, the fact remains that their presence in the towns of South Punjab continues unhindered.

Is it naivety and inefficiency on the part of officialdom or a deliberate effort to withhold information? The government claims that Maulana Masood Azhar has not visited his hometown in the last three years. But he held a massive book launch of his new publication Fatah-ul-Jawad: Quranic Verses on Jihad, on April 28, 2008, in Bahawalpur. Moreover, JeM’s armed men manned all entrances and exits to the city that day – and there was no police force in sight. The ISI is said to have severed its links with the JeM for assisting the Pashtoon Taliban in inciting violence in the country. Sources from FATA claim, however, that the JeM, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and LeT are suspected by the Taliban for their links with state agencies.

In addition, intelligence agencies reportedly ward off anyone attempting to probe into the affairs of these outfits. In one case, a local in Bahawalpur city invoked daily visits from a certain agency after he assisted a foreign journalist. Similarly, only six months back, a BBC team was chased out of the area by agency officials. In fact, intelligence officials, who had forgotten about my existence since my last book was published, revisited my village in South Punjab soon after I began writing on militancy in the area and have gone to the extent of planting a story in one of the Urdu newspapers to malign me in my own area. In any case, no serious operation was conducted against these outfits after the Mumbai attacks and the recent spate of violence in the country. Hence, all of them continue to survive.

The Deobandi outfits are not the only ones popular in South Punjab. Ahl-e-Hadith/Wahhabi organisations such as the Tehreek-ul-Mujahidden (TuM) and the LeT also have a following in the region. While TuM, which is relatively a smaller organisation, has support in Dera Ghazi Khan, the LeT is popular in Bahawalpur, Multan and the areas bordering Central Punjab. Headquartered in Muridke, the LeT is popular among the Punjabi and Urdu-speaking Mohajir settlers.

There are obvious sociological reasons for LeT’s relative popularity among these people. The majority of this population represents either the lower-middle-class farmers or middle-class trader-merchants. The middle class is instrumental in providing funding to these outfits. And the support is not confined to South Punjab alone. In fact, middle-class trader-merchants from other parts of the Punjab also feed jihad through their funding. This does not mean that there are no Seraiki speakers in Wahhabi organisations but just that the dominant influence is that of the Punjabis and Mohajirs. The Seraiki-speaking population is mostly associated with the SSP, LeJ and JeM, not to mention the freelancing jihadis that have direct links with the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP).

The LeT’s presence in South Punjab is far more obvious than others courtesy of the wall chalkings and social work by its sister outfit, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Despite the rumours of friction between the LeT and the JuD leadership, the two segments operate in unison in South Punjab. Three of the favourite areas of recruitment in South Punjab for all outfits are Cholistan in Bahawalpur, the Rekh in Dera Ghazi Khan, and the Kacha area in Rajanpur. The first two are desert areas known for their poverty and underdevelopment, while the third is known for dacoits. However, another known feature of Kacha in Rajanpur is that the clerics of the Lal Masjid come from this area and have partly managed to push back the dacoits. Local sources claim that the influence of the clerics has increased since they started receiving cooperation from the police to jointly fight the dacoits.

Organisations such as the LeT have even begun to recruit women in the Punjab. These women undergo 21 days of ideological and military training. The goal is to ensure that these women will be able to fight if their menfolk are out on jihad and an enemy attacks Pakistan.

The militant outfits are rich, both ideologically and materially. They have ample financial resources that flow from four distinct sources: official sources (in some cases); Middle Eastern and Gulf states (not necessarily official channels); donations; and the Punjabi middle class, which is predominantly engaged in funding both madrassas and jihad for social, moral and political ends. With regard to donations, the militant outfits are extremely responsive to the changing environment and have adapted their money-collection tactics. Gone are the days of money-collection boxes. Now, especially in villages, followers are asked to raise money by selling harvested crops. And in terms of the Punjabi middle class, there are traders in Islamabad and other smaller urban centres that contribute regularly to the cause. These trader-merchants and upcoming entrepreneurs see donations to these outfits as a source of atonement for their sins. In Tahir Kamran’s study “Deobandiism in the Punjab,” Deobandiism (and Wahhabiism) is an urban phenomenon. If so, then the existence of these militant outfits in rural Punjab indicates a new social trend. Perhaps, due to greater access to technology (mobiles, television sets, satellite receivers, etc), the landscape (and rustic lifestyles) of Punjab’s rural areas has changed. There is an unplanned urbanisation of the rural areas due to the emergence of small towns with no social development, health and education infrastructure. Socially and politically, there is a gap that is filled by these militant outfits or related ideological institutions.

Fortunately, they have not succeeded in changing the lifestyles of the ordinary people. This is perhaps because there are multiple cultural strands that do not allow the jihadis to impose their norms the way they have in the tribal areas or the Frontier province. This is not to say that there is no threat from them in South Punjab: the liberalism and multi-polarity of society is certainly at risk. The threat is posed by the religious seminaries and the new recruits for jihad, who change social norms slowly and gradually. Sadly nothing, including the powerful political system of the area, which in any case is extremely warped, helps ward off the threat of extremism and jihadism. Ultimately, South Punjab could fall prey to the myopia of its ruling elite.

So how does the state and society deal with this issue?

Deploying the military is not an option. In the Punjab this will create a division within the powerful army because of regional loyalty. The foremost task is to examine the nature of the state’s relationship with the militants as strategic partners: should this relationship continue to exist to the detriment of the state? Once this mystifying question is resolved, all militant forces can be dealt with through an integrated police-intelligence operation.

This, however, amounts to winning only half the battle. The other half deals with the basic problems faced by the likes of those young jihadis-in-training from Bahawalpur who said, “We don’t see anything” in our futures. Presently, there is hardly any industrialisation in South Punjab and the mainstay of the area, agriculture, is faltering. The region requires economic strengthening: new ideas in agriculture, capital investment and new, relevant industries. This is the time that the government must plan beyond the usual textile and sugar industries that have arguably turned into huge mafias that are draining the local economy rather than feeding it.

Investment in social development is desperately needed. A larger social infrastructure that provides jobs and an educational system that is responsive to the needs of the population can contribute to filling the gaps. The message of militancy is quite potent, especially in terms of the dreams it sells to the youth, such as those disillusioned boys from my village. Jihad elevates youngsters from a state of being dispossessed to an imagined exalted status. They visualise themselves taking their places among great historical figures such as Mohammad bin Qasim and Khalid bin Waleed. It is these dreams for which the state must provide an alternative. http://www.newsline.com.pk/buttons/end.jpg

Secretary Clinton Meets With Foreign Minister of Pakistan

2009-10-07T23:11:00.001-04:00

Oct. 6, 2009
Secretary Clinton made remarks following a bilateral meeting with His Excellency Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Foreign Minister of Pakistan, in the Treaty Room.

My response to the two letters that appeared in the News about my article on Salarzai. (By: Farhat Taj)

2009-10-04T20:29:00.001-04:00

http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=201572

Taliban and Salarzais
Monday, October 05, 2009

This is in response to two letters in this Newspaper dated 29, September 2009 in response to my article dated 27 September 2009.

As I mentioned in the article, the information was given to me by some leaders of the Salarzai lashkar who wish not to be named due to their security. I have to respect their wish. I also made it clear in the article that I do not have any intentions whatsoever to defame the security forces of Pakistan, who I greatly respect, including the FC.

The reason I wrote this article was to highlight some of the most disturbing facts and perceptions I observed all over FATA and NWFP. One of the facts is that hundreds of anti-Taliban tribal leaders have been target killed. There has never been independent investigation of the target killing during the Musharaf government when they started and in the present government in which they continue to happen. The perception of most of the Pakhtun that I have been interacting with all over FATA and NWFP, especially families of the target killed people is that officers in the security force did the target killing. They clearly name the individual officers of the armed forces along with their military ranks. Taliban , they said, were used as a smoke screen for the purpose to hide the killers among the security forces. The families are afraid to say it publicly but anyone who wins over their confidence, they open up their heart to them.

As per the perception, the aim of the targeted killing is create a full leadership space for the religious extremists in the Pakhtun society. The anti-Talian lashkars are traps. A lashkar would clearly identify those who would have the heart to stand up to the Taliban. Thus the lashkar leaders would continued to be target killed by the intelligence agencies until there is no one left among the Pakhtuns who can take up arms against the Taliban. Because the intelligence agencies cannot create chaos in the Pakhtun areas in Afghanistan due to the presence of the US and NATO forces there, they need the Pakhtun areas in Pakistan to be dominated by religious extremists. The intelligence agencies are engaged in deceiving the world and fellow Pakistanis. There is an understanding between the Taliban and the army: the Taliban will not attack any one above the rank of colonel in the army and the army will not attack the Taliban leaders. This means that Allah Ditha (a reference to Punjabi soldiers and Taliban foot soldiers) and Thothi Gul (a reference to Pakhtun soldiers and Taliban foot soldiers) can die and the leadership on both sides would enjoy the deadly game and the US and the Petro-Dollars it attracts for the military and militants. Meanwhile, the welfare of the Pakhtun citizens of Pakistan can also go to hell.

I never said these perceptions are correct. But they are there lurking in silence due to fear of the intelligence agencies. As I write these lines there is a news coming from Bannu about the target killing of an anti-Taliban leader.

The war on terror is the war for hearts and minds. How can the security forces of Pakistan win this war in presence of such perceptions in the one of the most important battlegrounds of the war on terror?

We in Pakistan need an open public debate on the issues to counter the perceptions. Moreover, the state must initiate independent judicial investigation on who killed hundreds of anti-Taliban tribal elders and leaders all over FATA and NWFP and to make sure that no other anti-Taliban leaders are target killed from now onwards.

Now coming to the letter of Malik Munasib Khan. As can bee seen in my article, the information about him was communicated to me via phone by the Salarzai leaders. I was also given two other names who they said were killed along with Mulik Munasib. I clearly remember all these names. I did not mention their names in my article because I was told they were not leaders of the lashkar. The problem is that I am now back in Norway and cannot go to the Salarzai leaders to see whether this news was a misunderstanding or mistake. The Salarzai leaders complain that their phones are being taped by the ISI and they cannot talk anything about the article on phone. So I have no option to wait until the leaders are confident enough talk on phone.

Meanwhile, I am very sorry for any mental distress that my article might have caused to Malik Munasib Khan, his family and friends. I happy to hear that he is alive. I hope the information about the other two people would also prove wrong.

Farhat Taj

US accuses Pakistan of backing Afghan groups - 26 Sept

2009-09-26T23:44:00.000-04:00

The Taliban and Salarzais By:Farhat Taj

2009-09-26T23:43:00.001-04:00

Sunday, September 27, 2009
Farhat Taj

I was in Pakistan in August and had the opportunity to meet the leaders of the anti-Taliban lashkar (volunteer army) of Bajaur’s Salarzai tribe. I am honoured that upon my request they travelled from Bajaur to meet me in Nowshehra and shared with me information about their anti-Taliban struggle. I am not mentioning their names for reasons of their security.

The area of the Salarzai tribe is on the border with Afghanistan. The tribe have collectively decided that there won’t be any Taliban on their soil. The Taliban have been driven out of the Salarzai area. The Salarzai lashkar, mostly made up of labourers and peasants, has successfully kept the Salazai area free of the Taliban.

Tens of Salarzail lashkar leaders have been target-killed. The Salarzai leaders informed me they hold the ISI responsible for the targeted killings. “The Taliban are just a façade. The real force is the ISI punishing us for our anti-Taliban struggle,” said one of the leaders.

The leaders said that Mamond Taliban headquarters used to be in Damadola, which is a few kilometres from the FC fort in Bajaur. The Mamond Taliban used to bomb Salarzai villages. The Salarzai tribal elders requested the Political Agent, the authorities of the FC and the Pakistani army to stop the Mamond Taliban. None of these offered any help. Finally the Salarzai lashkar took positions on the mountains and for two hours heavily bombarded the surrounding villages of the Mamond Taliban. At that point the political agent and a colonel of the army asked the Salarzai lashkar to stop the bombing. They gave the same old logic: who will fight the NATO forces from across the Afghan border if you eliminate the Taliban?

Following such encounters with the state authorities, the Salarzais decided to fire at any forces entering their area: be it the Taliban, Al Qaida, the army or the US or NATO. The Salarzais have taken up positions all over the area and are always on guard. The tribesmen take turns to defend those positions. Unlike the bombed out schools in the Taliban-controlled areas, all schools in the Salarzai region are functioning. The tribesmen are performing security duties in both girls’ and boys’ schools in the area.

The leaders informed me that there is a set pattern of target-killing of anti-Taliban Salarzai leader. Before each targeted killing all telephone links with the far-flung Salarzai area are cut off. The targeted killing takes place in 24 to 48 hours later. The telephone links are restored a couple of days after the assassinated leader has been buried. A day or so later a news item of a few lines appears in the newspapers about the killing. “No one in Pakistan seems to be bothered about the state-sponsored targeted killing of anti-Taliban Salarzai leaders. Our area is too far from the rest of Pakistan and our agony means nothing to fellow-Pakistanis. The Pakistani media never ever tries to probe into the targeted killings,” said one of the Salarzai leaders.

All telephone lines to the Salarzia area were dead the day I was meeting with the leaders. They said they were deeply worried whose turn it might be to be targeted for killing. Two days later the telephone links were restored. The same day they informed me on telephone that Malik Munasib Khan, the spokesman of the Salarzai lashkar, had been killed. They held the ISI responsible for his killing.

The Salarzai leaders also informed me that last year the army deliberately fired at those villages in Bajaur that were known to be staunchly anti-Taliban. They said one of their colleagues called Maj Gen Alam Khattak to ask him to stop the bombing of his village. “Major General Sahib! I will start a vendetta with you if you did not halt the bombing of my village immediately. I will make sure to kill you and your family at the first available opportunity,” they quoted one of their colleagues as saying. The major general asked him to meet Col Sajjad who was bombing the anti-Taliban villages from his base in Timergara. That colleague saw a big Bajaur map affixed on the wall in the office of Col Sajjad. The map had several encircled villages. Col Sajjad informed him that the map had been handed over to him by his commanders with the order to bomb all the encircled villages. “Our colleague’s blood boiled with anger: none of the villages had Taliban in them,” said the Salarzai leaders. The villages included Butmali, Danqul, Attkay, Matasha, Baro, Raghjan and Nazkai.

On the other hand, those Salarzai villages that had Taliban were not marked on the map or bombed by the army. Such villages are Pashat, Banda, Malasyed, Darra and Gundai. Now the Salarzai lashkar has cleared these villages from Taliban control, without any state support.

The leaders also made the accusation that the Salarzais are discriminated against by the state in allocation of developmental funds due to their hostility to the Taliban. The FATA Rural Development Project (FRDP) is working in Bajaur Agency but entire Salarzai area of the agency has been deliberately excluded by from the project. “A wilful under-development has been imposed on us as punishment for our anti-Taliban stance. The Salazai area would be included in FRDP if we allowed the Taliban to take control of our area. Without this, we Salarzais can beg as much as we can for development, but the state will never budge,” said the Salarzai tribal leaders.

The reason I write this piece is not to defame the institution of the Pakistani army, which I hold in high esteem. I just wish to request the President of Pakistan, the Chief of Army Staff and the DG of the ISI to pay attention to the complaints of the Salarzais and resolve their problems to the satisfaction of the tribe. The Salarzai leaders categorically told me they are loyal Pakistanis, but they are not ready to let the peace of their area be destroyed for the power games of the intelligence agencies. All they want from the state is peaceful and development.

I would request fellow-Pakistanis all over the country to support the Salarzais. I wonder why the civil society of Pakistan is so silent over the heroic anti-Taliban struggle of the Salarzais. Salarzais are the natural allies of all those who are against the Taliban and civil society should forcefully support them. I would request the Pakistani media to keep a close watch on the Salarzai area to discourage targeted killings there.

The Taliban are anti-civilisation. The Salarzais are the embodiment of civilisation because they are so oppose to the Taliban. I would request all civilised people in the world to morally support the Salarzais in the name of human civilisation.

The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo, and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy.

Email: bergen34@yahoo.com

http://thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=200309

Phase II of Afghan jihad By Dr Muzaffar Iqbal

2009-09-26T23:41:00.000-04:00

The Obama administration is not talking in public about an exit strategy for Afghanistan, at least not yet, but there are tell-tale signs that before he faces public-opinion polls again towards the end of his first term in office, Barak Hussein Obama will have to wind up US military involvement in Afghanistan his predecessor left for him. As usual, the average American has started to ask: what are we doing in Afghanistan?

This is not wishful thinking: each new coffin that arrives back in America decreases public support for this unjust and unnecessary war. Then there is the colossal financial loss America is suffering in Afghanistan where, eight years later, it controls only the capital and a few isolated spots in parts of the country. After pumping billions of dollars into an effort to push Afghanistan into modernity--a modernity that comes dressed up with a consumer economy, a modern media replete with commercials and pop shows, network channels for news and entertainment around the clock, and a centrally controlled army--all that America has been able to do so far can be seen in the few newly erected tall buildings in Kabul which remain under constant threat of attacks, spread corruption of all kinds, ensure the continuity of drug trade, and allow the return of the war loads. In addition, it has institutionalised the degradation of the average Afghan who now feels out of place in his or her own country because it is being pushed into cultural, political, and economic domains totally foreign to them.

Thus, sooner than later, America will pull out of Afghanistan, and once the elephant is gone, all the rest will leave as well: the NATO soldiers who have been biding their time, the Canadians who do not know what they are doing, the so-called multinational army that is increasingly becoming disoriented. Indeed, history has an unfailing behaviour and whatever happens, always repeats itself, especially in Afghanistan, where no foreign army has ever been able to stay over the entire course of existence of that strange, rugged, beloved country, home to one of the most fascinating civilisations in the world.

The main question for Afghans is: what are the possible scenarios once the Americans leave? Obviously, the Americans will leave with all the cosmetic appearance of "staying behind": that is, they will establish a dummy government, propped on a rickety structure consisting of their advisors, even a certain number of soldiers will be left behind, but they will demand that Afghans now take charge of their own affairs. This would mean a central government which will continue to receive certain amount of subsistence monetary support as well as decreasing military assistance. Once this phase begins, those who have waged an unrelenting jihad against American occupation of Afghanistan will find themselves in a new situation demanding utmost care and strategic planning.

This new situation will not be similar to the time when the Russians left, for at that time, there were many contenders to power and all of them had participated in the so-called Afghan jihad which drove Russians out of the country. This time around, however, there is a clear demarcation of various stakeholders: only the Taliban have been militarily active against the current occupation. Thus, once the new phase begins, the dummy government in Kabul will have to contend with them. So, it will be a case of an ideologically cohesive group fighting against a more-or-less well-defined and institutionalised army with its command centralised in Kabul. No doubt the Kabul power base will be a mixture of various factions consisting of all those who have joined hands with occupation forces to harvest bumper crops of drugs, inflowing cash and contracts, and ministerial positions.

This scenario will lead to the second phase of the Afghan jihad. This Phase II might well be a long and complex process but, eventually, a Taliban victory cannot be ruled out. If this materialises, then the main question is: what will Afghanistan be like under a new Taliban government? Will the Taliban leadership show any sign of wisdom compared to their previous stint in office? Will there be a sustainable process of nation-rebuilding or will this most beautiful country continue to suffer from unending internal strife?

The next generation of Afghans is already a broken generation, living under constant threats, insecurity, manipulation, and a schizophrenic social, economic, and cultural climate. Afghan youth is being pulled in too many different directions right now and even if a more cohesive government emerges within the next decade, that government would still have to face the Herculean task of rebuilding a nation out of disoriented men and women--the generation that is now growing up in Afghanistan.

The real jihad for that new government of Afghanistan would be to rebuild the spiritual, cultural, social, and economic fabric of Afghan society on principles and customs which have remained central to their lives for over a millennium. This would require not only a clear vision, but also tremendous patience, wisdom, and prudence. Those who are currently fighting to get rid of the occupation army cannot be expected to pay attention to these matters, but there must be some amongst the senior members of the underground Afghan leadership who can and should think about the state of their country after the departure of the occupation army.

The writer is a freelance columnist. Email: quantumnotes@gmail.com

Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/editorial_detail.asp?id=199099

Fallacies of a Playboy turned, Cleanshaven, English speaking Talib

2009-05-08T16:31:00.004-04:00

Fallacies of a Play Boy turned, Clean -Shaven , English Speaking Talib

fatimakhan76999@gmail.com

In a recent article published in the 'The News'on 7th of May titled ' How to clear this mess' , the Chief of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) has attempted to do a diagnosis and suggest certain prescriptions for dealing with the issues of religious extremism, terrorism and Talibanisation, which threaten to tear apart the Pakistani State. Imran Khan's veiws on the subject are well known and thus do not bring anything new to the table. The article is full of anti-American rheotoric, a line of thought overtly taken by the PTI, JI, JUI and the like for quite sometime, and covertly believed by the Pakistani establishment and the security institutions as well as intelligence agencies. This article does not bring anything new on the table to reslove the issues, however, ironically Imran khan has gone a few notches ahead in confusing the issues further by stereotyping the entire Pakhtun nation as cultural terrorists. In his article, Mr Imran khan suggests that terrorism in the FATA and Malakand Division including Swat is spearheaded by Pakhtuns as an expression of their nationalist feelings aimed at the Americans and the American supported Pakistan army. Talibanisation and religious extremism, in his usual myopic veiw thus doesnot exist while the insurgency, according to him is an expression of the Pakhtun nationalist aspirations and rural Pakhtun culture. His article can be accessed using the following link:-
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=173817
Just this last week, on 29th april, Mr Imran Khan tried to drive the same point home, while taking part in a discussion with Hamid Mir on his programme, " Capital Talk", which also involved an American analyst Mr Brian Douglas. Here Mr Imran Khan on a number of occasions asserted to portray the Talibans as a true reflection of Pakhtun rural culture. Put simply, his point was that the religious extremists are only in AlQaeeda , which are very few in numbers,while the Taliban were neither a threat to Pakistan nor to the society in general. Moreover, that Talibanisation as a routine and normal cultural behaviour of the rural Pakhtuns and their actions as simple reaction to the US and Pakistan Army operations. This is a very dangerous, false and inaccurate diagnosis of the situation which must be vehemently rejected by all Pakhtuns as well as other Pakistanies for the simple reason that it is false and accusative of an entire nation of more than 60 million. Anybody who has had a bit of exposure to the rural Pakhtun culture will certify that there is no similarity in the Pakhtun culture and what characterise the Taliban. The rural Pakhtun culture is a fine balance of liberal and conservative expressions. While there is regular prayers in the mosque by most people, yet the music with Rubab and Sittar at the Hujra goes side by side. The same people when they come out of the mosque will sit till late night in the Hujra to sing and enjoy music- an expression which is immoral and un-Islamic to the Taliban. The weddings are as colourful and full of music as the those in urban Punjab or Sindh if not more. The ladies might not join the gents to watch the music and functions in the same courtyard but would definitely have seperate arrangements or would watch from the rooftops. Many of us are witness to this usuall routine. The local folklore is full of songs about the girls going to the local spring ( Gudar) to fetch water- and they don't have to be accompanied by their fathers, brothers or husbands. The local young are likely to be fond of Rubab, Flute and a gun alike, but his love for religion would be restricted to offering the prayers as regularly as possible behind the local Mullah. Their love for sending girls to school is proved by the fact that in every sizable village of Swat, you could see a yellow double storey school building for the girls , much earlier than there were schools in Punjabi or Sindhi rural areas - though unfortunately most of them have now been destroyed by the Taliban, whom Mr Imran Khan portray as samples of Pakhtun culture. I vividly remember the days back in the early 80s, when we used to walk 2 Km on a hill track to our primary school in rural Swat, while the village girls had a primary school just on the outskirts of the village. And lastly, the world would certify that a Pakhtun would most likely shoot his enemy a dozen times, that being an honourable thing; but beheading humans and slitting throats is completely alien to the Pakhtun culture. So how can Mr Imran describe Talibanisation as an expression of the rural Pakhtun culture.
In fact, Mr Imran khan is the new face of Taliban. For decades the ISI and Pakistani establishment has been making use of the bearded mullahs of JI, LeT, Dawwa, Hizb, Jaish etc to recriuit youth for use as proxies in their war in Afghanistan and Kashmir. That strategic asset in the old shape is no more tenable due to the current despise of the international community of the stereotype Mujahid.Thus the new tactic is to market the Talib or Mujahid as a clean-shaved English speaking idol, the likes of Hamid Guls, Imran Khans, Shirin Mazaris, Ahmed Qureshi and company to continue the proxie war. The aim is the same- to retain the strtegic assets of religious extremists under the guise of modern religiousity.He is a hypocite to the core and is as condemnable as the Taliban and their other supporters like JI, JUI and the various forms of Lashkars and Jaishes.Just consider the height of his hypocracy..."There are many groups operating in the country under the label of "Taliban". Apart from the small core of religious extremists, the bulk of the fighting men are Pushtun nationalists." This is hypocricity...pur and simple. Mr Imran simply wants to shield the extremists, fundamentalists and terrorists by painting the drastardly Taliban as Pakhtun nationalists and the Talibanisation phenomena as a movement in the nationalist cause of the Pashtuns. This blind Talib simply ignores the fact that the biggest victims of Talibans as well as the Pak army, US, NATO etc are Pakhtuns themselves.Hundreds are being killed on daily basis by all sides, yet he calls it Pakhtun nationalism. He even ignores that for decades the nationalist feelings of the Pakhtuns have been expressed by the ANP and PMAP, whose leaders and members have been at the top of the hit list of the Taliban.He conveniently ignores the links that the AlQaeeda has developed with the Taliban and other terrorist Jihadi organisations.What is more, this biggest hypocrite was at the forefront of the movement for restoration of the same judiciary in the Punjab to get political milage,which he now cites as the reason for the insurgency. While he protests for the rule of law and justice in Punjab..he advoctaes "Penchayats and village juries in Swat and Malakand...", as he writes in his article:-
"First and foremost we have to give our people access to justice at the grassroots level - that is, revive the village jury/Panchayat system"

Now what do you call such a person.......obviously a hypocrite to the core. Mr Imran, himself a Pakhtun by blood but brought up in Lahore, is a disgrace to all intelligent Pakistanies but specially the Pashtuns....While most of those who matter across the world knows, including the overwhelming majority of Pakistanies, that ISI and even CIA has had close strategic links to the Taliban till very recently. Even the army admits now that it has had links with the Haqani and Mullah Nazir groups in FATA, and have been ignoring their operations across the Durand line till very recently. Saner elements in Pakistani establishment and Army as well as political parties admit it and repent it.Yet the Clean-shaved Talib, Mr Imran Khan simply ignores to make a mention of this fact. He convenietntly forgets that none of the Taliban leadership has been targeted so far by the army or even the US/NATO , for example Fazlullah in Swat when who could have been arrested by a single SHO was allowed to gain strength and tacitly supported by the intelligence agencies, till he became the threat that he is.Imran Khan's assertion that Talibanisation is essentially a Pashtun rual cultural and nationalist expression should be condemed in the strongest possible words by all Pakhtuns. He should be taken to court by the Pashtun nationalists for branding the whole Pakhtun nation as terrorists - at least in the eyes of the world at large. This flumsy blame to confuse the issue of religious extremism, fundamentalism and terrorism by linking it with Pashtun nationalism is an agenda being pursued intentionally for some time now. Mr Imran must be reminded that most of the religious extremist iideologies originates in the Punjab - in place like Muredke, Mansura, Jhang and there are countless Punjabi Talibans, Uzbeks, Chechens, Arabs and others among the Talibans. The Pakhtun culture has been a liberal culture in which the Talib and Mullah has had only a marginal role. His assertion proves that he hasn't got even a clue of the Pakhtun culture..If he has an iota of intelligence he should go and visit a Pakhtun village Hujra and mosque to see what is the role of Mullah and Talib in Pakhtun society. Here is a link to his talk with Hamid Mir on capital Talk.

http://thecurrentaffairs.com/index.php/capital-talk-29th-april-2009-imran-khan/

Taliban influence in bureaucracy

2009-04-22T01:17:00.000-04:00

By A. Ameer

DAWN Saturday, 18 Apr, 2009 | 01:21 AM PST

THE growing threat of violent extremism in different parts of Pakistan including Fata and Malakand Division is a matter of serious concern.

The harrowing factor is that the writ of the Taliban is solidifying both in the north and the south not only in the Pashtun belt but also in the heartland of Pakistan.

That a high-level provincial official posted in Swat should write a letter to the NWFP home department implying the complicity of the commissioner of Malakand Division in the ever-expanding influence of the Taliban in the region is an illustration of what is happening and how.

An alliance of extremist forces in Kashmir, Punjab, Fata and the NWFP and their strategy for Pakistan’s disintegration in the near future have virtually paralysed the administrations in the different settled districts of the NWFP — not to mention the threats made by extremists to invade Islamabad very soon. After the February peace deal between the NWFP government and the banned Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM), the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) chapter of Swat started a three-pronged assault on the state.

Firstly, the Swat chapter of the TTP started recruitment and the construction of bunkers on a large scale in different parts of Swat while the military and security establishment and the government maintained control in different ways. The security establishment and the Pakistani government seem to be oblivious of the fact that the Taliban movement is far more agile than the security establishment’s response to their onslaught from different directions.

Secondly, the Swat chapter of the TTP, in line with the Taliban alliances in Fata and the rest of Pakistan, were readjusting and relocating therein and have started expanding their assaults from the north to the south of the NWFP. The present onslaught by the Taliban on Buner and Dir is part of this strategy.

Thirdly, the Taliban have started consolidating their positions vis-à-vis the security establishment by controlling strategic passes and side valleys of Swat, Buner, Shangla and Dir. In this scenario, reports that a part of the civil bureaucracy in the NWFP, Fata and elsewhere in Pakistan facilitates the process of Talibanisation is likely to be a worrisome factor for elements within and outside the country.

The present commissioner of Malakand Division is said to have been posted in lower Dir in the early 1990s when the TNSM was in the process of becoming a formidable extremist organisation with a jihadi ideology. The commissioner was said to have been a frequent visitor of Maulana Sufi Mohammad’s madressah and allegedly worked behind the scenes with the initial support of the local khans for the TNSM in 1994 when it brought the whole administration of Malakand Division to a standstill.

Many who saw the 1994 uprising of Malakand Division bear testimony to the fact that the present commissioner of the latter provided all-out help to the insurgents coming from Dir to Swat.

In the early era of Fazlullah’s rise in Swat, again the present commissioner of Malakand Division was posted as the district coordination officer. He was the one, according to local residents, who facilitated the establishment of Fazlullah’s FM radio. He was the one who convinced the local jirga of Mamdherai and Mingora to allow the FM radio to function. It was reported in 2006-07 in the local press that when the Taliban in Swat started destroying CD shops and barber shops and the owners would go to the DCO office for complaints, the DCO would tell them to close the shops because, according to him, running the business was un-Islamic. The present commissioner was also seen by the locals visiting Mamdherai markaz (centre) for Friday prayers frequently.

On April 5, 2009 a battalion of the Taliban militia with heavy weaponry crossed over the hills from Swat to Buner to avowedly supervise the implementation of the Nizam-i-Adl. The local residents of Buner had been resisting the inflow of the Taliban for a long time. The local elders intervened and tried to convince the Taliban to return but the latter opened fire at them, leaving several injured. Later the Taliban captured three policemen and two civilians, and killed them.

The local residents, the people of lower Buner and Sultanwas, gathered to move upward to face the Taliban while the people of upper Buner provided reinforcements. Fighting began and in the ensuing gun-battle some 17 members of the Taliban are said to have been killed. The questions on the minds of the local people were: why would the Taliban come with heavy weapons if they did not want to control Buner? And why were the Taliban allowed by the commissioner to move from Swat to Buner with heavy weapons?

On April 6, a delegation of the TNSM along with the commissioner Malakand Division went to Buner to negotiate with the local elders. They tried to convince the local elders to allow the Taliban to enter the valley. While the delegation engaged the local administration and the elders of Buner, the Taliban started getting reinforcements. In the context of the Taliban expansion to Buner, it is interesting to note the ideological role played by the relatively less known Jamaati Ashaatutoheed WaSunna, the creation of Maulana Tahir Panjpiri, the father of the infamous Major Amir, a well-known IB and ISI operative in the past and allegedly behind the notorious Operation Midnight Jackal. Major Amir, Syed Mohammad Javed (the present commissioner Malakand Division) and Maulana Sufi Mohammad are said to have been quite close since a long time.

According to eyewitnesses, during the recent stand-off between the Taliban and the people of Buner, the commissioner of Malakand Division made efforts to convince the people to allow the Taliban to enter Buner. The commissioner is said to have become annoyed with the superintendent of police in Buner for informing the people about the impending onslaught by the Taliban on the former.

The present commissioner of Malakand Division belongs to a religious family in Shergarh, Malakand Agency. The provincial government of the NWFP deemed it a better solution to the problem to ask for his services during the peace deal with the militants of Swat recently. This seems to be a matter of concern for all those who want to resist the Taliban and preserve a modern civilisation as opposed to adopting a mediaeval way of life.

The fact is that parts of the civilian administration in Fata, the NWFP and the rest of Pakistan is infested with the jihadi ideology and connected to the sympathisers of the Taliban in one way or the other.

The writer works with a research organisation.

The retreat of Jinnah's Pakistan Wednesday,By: Dr Maleeha Lodhi Share

2009-04-22T01:16:00.001-04:00

Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Dr Maleeha Lodhi

The writer is a former envoy to the US and the UK, and a former editor of The News.

An event in the life of a nation sometimes has deeper significance than what appears on the surface. The accord by which the government all but ceded administrative and judicial control to militants and their Taliban affiliates in Swat is such a development. This has profound implications for the country that have been obscured by the facile discussions on many TV talk shows. It may well mark a turning point in the country's struggle with rising militancy.

The Swat deal signifies several things all at once. First and foremost it represents a retreat for Jinnah's Pakistan. Whatever the apologists of the deal may claim, it is the very antithesis of the vision and ideals inspired by the country's founder, the core of which was a modern, unified Muslim state, not one fragmented along obscurantist and sectarian lines. Several times during and after the struggle for freedom, the Quaid-e-Azam emphatically ruled out anything resembling a throwback to obscurantism or any variant of theocracy. His leadership rested on principle and according to one of his biographers, he preferred "political wilderness to playing to the gallery".

Today the country's erstwhile leaders do not lead but are led by their dubious interpretation of what the "people want" in Swat, an act of monumental self-deception as any climate of 'opinion' created at gunpoint represents coercion, not consent. Rattled by more aggressive actions by militants, the political and security establishments caved in to the challenge rather than confront it. The Swat deal signalled weakness and bankruptcy on the part of the ruling elite that chose appeasement as the pathway to address the country's mounting internal security challenges. While the government showed no leadership or capacity to govern, the country's security institutions failed to protect its citizens, and legislators (save for the MQM) preferred expediency to principle. Can any of these actors claim to have upheld Jinnah's ideals or legacy?

The agreement forged between the ANP government and Sufi Mohammed, head of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), on February 16 was effected through a presidential edict on April 13, and endorsed by a hastily contrived parliamentary resolution. This followed months of policy chaos, on again, off again peace accords and stop-go military operations, accompanied by rising violence and the virtual collapse of any civil administration in Swat. Indeed this backdrop of rudderless, directionless rule at the centre reinforced the state of national disarray and created the conditions for the eventual Swat surrender.

Amidst this policy confusion, political leaders seemed bereft of any vision or the courage needed to steer the country in a clear direction, and preferred instead to strike a Faustian bargain with little regard for the consequences. Just as government figures were portraying the latest financial bailout from the international community as a triumph of its hat-in-hand diplomacy, Islamabad was conceding ground to militants in Swat.

A combination of factors, including political short-sightedness and expediency, pursuit of narrow agendas and fear of reprisals by militants, has resulted in choosing a course in Swat that will have serious ramifications for the country. This indicates, above all, a loss of nerve and will by the political and military leadership that seems to have convinced itself that it can contain militancy by conceding to it. But it has set the dangerous precedent of state power surrendering to a local militant force on the dubious premise of 'peace at any price'.

Advocates of the deal in and outside the government marshal a number of arguments to justify it. A major rationale adduced for the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation is that it is no different from the agreements reached in 1994 and 1999 by the Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif governments and is sanctioned by the special status enjoyed by the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas in the constitution. The verdicts of Qazi courts provided in the Adl Regulation will in any case be subject to appeal in the High and Supreme Courts and so will ultimately be consistent with the laws in the rest of the country.

Moreover, it is argued, that the regulation is in consonance with the wishes of the people of Swat who want the restoration of peace above all else. Trading a form of Sharia justice in return for peace is not being lily-livered but pragmatic. As the NWFP governor and assorted ANP leaders have declared, this regulation was "the only way to bring peace." The deal in fact aims to separate the moderates from the militant Taliban.

These claims ignore the political context in which the deal has been forged, with whom and on what terms. Invoking the parallels of 1994 and 1999 is spurious logic as 2009 represents a vastly transformed environment in which the militants entrenched in Swat are affiliated with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which, officials themselves say, poses a threat to the country's security. How this agreement de-couples Sufi Mohammed's TNSM from these allies no one has cared to explain. It is the TTP militants who hold sway behind the figure of Sufi Mohammed, who was the mediator between the government and the Swat Taliban.

Nor does the argument hold up that the system instituted in Swat will be consistent with Pakistan's constitution. The fig leaf of the state's writ overseeing the Nizam-e-Adl implementation has already been ripped apart by Sufi Mohammed who announced last Sunday that the decisions of the Qazi courts will be final and not subject to appeal in the High and Supreme Courts which he denounced along with the constitution and democracy as un-Islamic. He also declared that judges to the Qazi courts will be appointed with the consent of his organisation. This has thrown into sharp relief the reality of a parallel law being established.

The argument trotted out about Swat's 'special status' overlooks the fact that modern statehood requires that laws are unified whereas the regulation fragments the system of law and justice. And as the people who will administer the new regulation are no experts in Muslim jurisprudence or even theology, this cannot even be considered a move toward Islamisation. It is little more than surrender to a medieval form of obscurantism practised by the Taliban.

As for the rather rich claim that the regulation has been promulgated in deference to the popular will in Swat, this confuses coercion with consent. If the men of violence are able to create a climate of fear and intimidation and the army too fails to come to the people's rescue, local inhabitants will obviously want a cessation of violence. But this is fundamentally different from people becoming instant converts to the worldview espoused by the TNSM and the Taliban.

Few will take issue with a peace agreement if it is forged with those prepared to renounce violence and predicated on an explicit acceptance of the writ of the state. The Swat deal doesn't meet this criterion. Negotiated in haste and under duress, the agreement has not been accompanied by any explanation as to the obligations agreed to by the TNSM, much less about how these will be enforced. Even an undertaking of decommissioning weapons is shrouded in mystery, contrary to official claims that the TNSM will ask its Taliban allies to surrender their arms.

The Swat deal marks a dangerous precedent for several reasons. One, it sets up a parallel justice system that has been 'won' in the shadow of the gun. One-third of NWFP, which the Malakand division represents, has been placed under this parallel law. Two, it cedes space to the militants who wreaked violence, killed at will, burnt girls' schools and spread mayhem that led to the exodus of tens of thousands of people from the valley. Virtually handing over Swat in this backdrop is tantamount to the state acceding to a form of Taliban warlordism. Far from halting creeping Talibanisation, Islamabad's concession has unintentionally conferred legitimacy to their agenda.

Three, it serves to embolden militant forces to advance further and beyond Swat. Already Sufi Mohammed has vowed to spread the system he calls the 'sharia' to the surrounding region and the rest of the country. The demonstration effect is also evident in the call given by the recently released cleric of Lal Masjid, Maulana Abdul Aziz, for the Swat success to be replicated in all of Pakistan. What is to stop a small band of militants from seizing territory, coercing the inhabitants and holding them to ransom until their cries for peace are responded to by Islamabad with another dose of 'pragmatism' and deference to public wishes? And four, the Swat experiment risks stoking sectarian tensions which will have further deleterious effects on the social fabric and the body politic.

Finally it is worth recounting what an Afghan friend once told me as she recalled her country's experience: "They don't have to seize the capital to take over the country". The sense of distance and complacency that is bred by the atmosphere of power and privilege in Islamabad should not blind the government to the looming threat of militancy which its own missteps have heightened.

http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=173613

TO THE Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in regard to recent media bias against innocent Pashtun

2009-04-08T22:18:00.003-04:00

Online petition - CBC - STOP the Media Bias against Innocent Pashtun

Background (Preamble):
On Friday April 3rd, 2009, CBC broadcasted a documentary regarding the presence of Pashtun Taliban in Karachi, Pakistan. The claims, comments and conclusions made in this video report lack substance, and factual analysis. The report wholly subscribes to the views and opinions of MQM- an ethnic local political Party. Pashtun Community of Canada was outraged to watch this documentary, unfairly and untruthfully portraying Pashtuns in Karachi as Terrorists.

Karachi is a multi-ethnic and the biggest city of Pakistan. Approximately Two million (2,000,000) Pashtuns are living in Karachi who have gradually settled there since long. These Pashtuns have established businesses and are contributing the much needed workforce for the development of this metropolitan city. Over the past 50 years the Pashtuns have established themselves as successful entrepreneurs, business owners and dignified residents of Karachi. Ever since its economic and political interests started clashing in early 80s due to emergence of middle class Pashtuns, MQM has adopted anti Pashtun policy based on racial discrimination and ethnic killings.

Like the producer of CBC, we too are worried about the increased influence of Taliban across the region, but the CBC made a journalistic error by focusing only one side of the story and ignoring the consequences of this one sided documentary for the two million plus Pashtuns in Karachi; particularly for the newly arrived refugees forced by the Taliban and the military out of their homes and towns in the North.

Petition:

We the undersigned demand CBC to stop this media bias against innocent Pashtuns who are themselves victims of terrorism. We need media support to eliminate Talibinization from our region, however by portraying all Pashtuns as a Taliban will damage the anti Taliban struggle initiated by Pashtuns around the world.

US admiral cultivates Pakistani army chief

2009-04-07T21:35:00.003-04:00

WASHINGTON: For the United States, much may be riding on an unlikely relationship between America’s highest ranking military officer and Pakistan’s powerful army chief.
Over cups of tea and the occasional cigar, the avuncular American admiral and the reserved general talk about terrorist threats and sensitive military operations in a region President Barack Obama deems the ‘central front’ in the fight against al Qaeda.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he has gone out of his way to build a rapport with his Pakistani counterpart, General Ashfaq Kayani, speaking to him regularly and holding 10 face-to-face meetings since November 2007.

‘I’m a big believer that the worst time to try to get to know someone is during a crisis, so this constant dialogue I have with General Kayani is vital,’ said Mullen, responding to questions from AFP by email.

Although the two come from different worlds – the US admiral is the son of a successful Hollywood publicist and Kayani comes from a working-class family headed by a father who was a non-commissioned officer – a bond of trust has begun to form, Mullen’s spokesman Captain John Kirby said.

The meetings are conducted with few aides and far from public view.

‘Typically we meet alone with no note takers,’ Mullen said.

As arguably the most powerful man in nuclear-armed Pakistan, Kayani is a pivotal figure for the Obama administration as it seeks to contain insurgents linked to al Qaeda who are challenging the Kabul government and Islamabad’s authority.

Kayani and the country’s political leadership face growing demands from Washington to take decisive action against the militants who are alleged to enjoy support from the country’s intelligence service.

Mullen praised Kayani for taking ‘bold steps’ against the insurgents, saying he has moved troops to the Afghan border, cracked down against militants in Bajaur and equipped the paramilitary Frontier Corps in the northwest.

‘I believe the relationship I have with General Kayani has been very productive,’ he said.

‘I’ve been encouraged by what he has done and, quite frankly, by what he has not done.’

The admiral said Kayani and the Pakistani government did not allow recent tensions with India over attacks in Mumbai to distract them from ‘the real struggle they face right now deep inside their borders.’

Kayani is not the first military chief in Pakistan with a reputation for competence to raise hopes in Washington.

Musharraf’s promised crackdown against extremists failed to materialise.

Musharraf ‘is a deceitful man who led us up the garden path,’ said Simon Henderson, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The American experience with Musharraf serves as a cautionary tale as US officials try to court Kayani.

Once a military assistant to the late prime minister Benazir Bhutto as well as a trusted protégé of her rival Musharraf, Kayani has proven himself a ‘chameleon’ in surviving Pakistan’s treacherous political waters, Henderson said.

Although Mullen credits him for his role in defusing last month’s political crisis between President Asif Ali Zardari and his rival Nawaz Sharif, it remains to be seen if Kayani is able or willing to carry out the kind of crackdown that Washington wants.

As recently as 2007, Kayani served as director of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, the spy service at the heart of Western anxiety over Pakistan.

Mullen said he was realistic about his talks with Kayani.

‘I’m not saying we take everything at face value – we remain concerned over the degree to which there are still linkages between ISI and the Taliban, for instance – but we have to better appreciate what they are up against in terms of their own troubled past,’ he said.

Kayani insists the ISI has washed its hands of the militants and that its influence has been wildly overstated.

‘He claims the ISI has been purged of hardliners and the leadership is consciously looking out for people within the organisation who might be undermining the entire anti-terror effort,’ said Imtiaz Gul, chair of the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) in Islamabad.

When talking about Kayani, Mullen refers to the best-selling book ‘Three Cups of Tea,’ by Greg Mortenson, the American rock climber who has dedicated his life to building schools in remote villages along Pakistan’s border.

‘It is said in that part of the world, after one cup of tea, you are strangers. After two cups you are friends. And after three cups of tea, you become family,’ Mullen said.

‘I’d like to believe I am working on at least my second cup of tea with him.’

--AFP

Top Stories

NWFP govt to establish centre for Pashto poets, artists
Read Full Story...

US admiral cultivates Pakistani army chief
Read Full Story...

Pakistani woman among 14 killed in Friday’s N.Y. shooting
Read Full Story...

17 killed in Chakwal suicide attack
Read Full Story...

John Solecky released: Ban Ki Moon hails release
Read Full Story...

50 dead recovered from container in Balochistan
Read Full Story...

Eight died, 12 injured in suicide attack at FC Check post
Read Full Story...

Mehsud claims US shooting
Read Full Story...

US strike kills 13 in North Waziristan: officials
Read Full Story...

© 2009 All rights reserved

NWFP govt to establish centre for Pashto poets, artists

2009-04-07T21:35:00.001-04:00

PESHAWAR: NWFP Minister for Sports, Culture, Tourism and Youth Affairs Syed Aqil Shah has said a centre for Pashto poets, artists, writers and scholars will be established so that they could contribute their valuable work for promotion of Pashto language.

He was talking to a delegation, headed by World Pashto Congress Chairman Prof Jehanzeb Niazi and made up of its Provincial Coordination Syad Ullah Jan Burk, Senior Vice President Shahabuddin Advocate, Secretary Information Hamidur Rehman Nadan, General Secretary Faridoon, Organizing Secretary Abdul Wahid Afridi, Dr Muhammad Alam Yousafzai, Riaz Khan and Mir Ahmad Lala and others.

The minister said history of Pashtoons was 5780-years-old and Pashto grammar was complete in all ways.

-APP

Pakhtun Culture and Talibanization: Soiling the Esteemed Tradition, Psychoanalysis and the Crossroad

2009-04-07T21:33:00.001-04:00

By Farhat Taj

Taliban are a group of mix groups of different ethnicities- Pakhtun, Punjabi, Uzbek, Tajik, Chechens, Arab etc. Together they have unleashed death and destruction on Afghanistan and Pakistan, especially on the Pakhtun areas of both counties, in collaboration with Al-Qaida. They are all involved in acts of utmost savagery and barbaric torture, like beheading, throwing the dead bodies of the perceived enemies in ditches or in the wild to be eaten up by wild animals, using children in suicide bombing, kidnapping of children for jihadi purposes, assaults in public on women, kidnapping of women, threats to women, bomb attacks on jirgas and funeral ceremonies etc. Pakhtun Taliban are very much part and parcel of such savage acts of cruelty.
By involving themselves in beastly acts of torture, assault on women and humiliation of dead corps of the perceived enemies, the Pakhtun Taliban are insulting an important tradition in the history of armed conflicts conducted by the Pakhtun, i.e. the Pakhtun code of honor. The code of honor dictates this: no attack on women, children, the old and the weak, no attacks on innocent people, no attack on the enemy when in prayers, no attack on the enemy in jirga, no attack on the enemy when there are cultural celebrations like marriage, funeral, Eid, no attack on places of worship like mosque and places where a jirga is taking place, no disrespect to dead bodies and graves of the enemy etc.

I do not rule out the possibility of individual Pakhtun violating the code for personal reasons. There could have been such people in the past and there could be more in the future. But as far as I know of the history, the Pakhtun by and large have followed the code in their intra and inter tribal feuds and in their armed conflicts with the foreigners, like the Moghal, the British etc.

Once I asked Frank Leeson, the former British Khassadar Officer who worked in Waziristan in 1940’s, whether he could remember any events in Waziristan of that time where the tribesmen had used children in their hostilities. Frank Leeson answered: ‘children in Waziristan were children- just playing around, having care free time. I do not know of any event in which the Waziristan tribesmen had used children in the armed conflicts among themselves or in their hostilities towards the British’. The Taliban,on the other hand, kidnapp children for jihad and brainwash or force them to be suicide bombers. I also asked Frank Leeson whether he heard or saw any attacks on, kidnapping of or threats to women in Waziristan. He said as far as he can remember he never saw or heard women being attacked, kidnapped or threatened in the tribal feuds or in conflicts with the British in Waziristan.

Frank Leeson describes in his book, the Frontier Legion, that Miss Ellis, the daughter of a British staff officer in Kohat was kidnapped by five Afridi tribesmen and taken towards Tirah valley of the Khyber agency. The kidnapers knew that the ‘whole countryside would be against them for Pathan chivalry towards women is a by word and they traveled only by night’, writes Leeson. The girl was recovered with help of other Pakhun, including a mullah, and the kidnappers fled to Afghanistan ‘with an avenging party of their own indignant tribesmen hard on their heels’, narrates Leeson. This worldview of the Pakhtun looks very different from the worldview of the Taliban Pukhtun, who have publicly assaulted, murdered and kidnapped women.
The Taliban have attacked at least three tribal jirgas, one each on Darra Adam Khel, Orakzai agency and Bajur agency, a funeral ceremony in Swat and Eid celebrations, including the celebration in the guesthouse of the ANP leader, Asfandyar Wali Khan. The Taliban have been extremely brutal with the perceived enemies they captured, i.e. soldiers, both Pakhtun and non Pakhtun, of Pakistan army, police officers, civilians (alleged US spies) mostly all Pakhtun. The Taliban have been utmost disrespectful with the dead bodies of their perceived enemies. They put their mutilated bodies on public display to spread fear among the besieged Pakhtun population.

The present generation of the Pakhtun, in my view, is unfortunate in the sense that it is in their life time that their centuries old and respected tradition got insulted at the hands of ‘their own Pakhtun brothers‘and they cannot do much to stop the insult. The balance of the lethal power is so drastically in favor of the Taliban and their non Pakhtun ‘Mujahid brothers’ that the non Taliban Pakhtun cannot help the situation, much as they would like to do. In this context, the Salarzai tribe of Bajaur agency is showing great courage. The tribe has stood up against the brutalities of the Taliban. Similarly, some other Pakhtun in some other areas of NWFP and FATA have done the same, despite their negligible resources in terms of weapons and money vis-à-vis the Taliban. Their courage is commendable and they are the heroes. But the savage determination of the Taliban knows no bounds and their resources (weapons, finances etc) seem to be unlimited. Therefore, despite the utmost courage of the Salarzais and other Pakhtun the Taliban continue to brutally insult the Pakhtun code of honor.

What does that insult to the code of honor mean in terms of posterity? Does it have any implications for the future generations? In my view it does. Future generation of the Pakhtun will hang their heads in shame for the Taliban’s atrocities. In a sense the situation will be like the present generation of the Germans. I have seen Germans becoming uneasy at the mention of the Nazis. They are embarrassed by the fact that their elders- the Nazi Germans- committed so much brutality against the Jews, gypsies and other Europeans.

Psychoanalysis

The Pakhtun are under attack- their lives, livelihoods, culture, tradition and history. There are dead bodies, injured people, crippled human beings, widows and childhoods lost. The situation across the border in Afghanistan is even worst. Still there are people who do not appreciate the full scale of this devastation for the sake of their interpretation of Islam. Once I had a heated argument with a non Pakhtun Norwegian-Pakistani couple. The argument was: should Usma Bin Laden be handed over by the Afghans to the Americans or not. I said he should be. They said never. I said look at the death and devastation in Afghanistan. Is Usama worth it? They said yes. Such people prefer to live in the comforts of the West and are always all too ready to sacrify the Pakhtun for their understanding of the religion. There are plenty of people of this kind in Pakistan as well, politicians, journalists, media commentators and folk among the masses at large. For them foreign jihadis are ‘guests’, there should be negotiations with Taliban-Al Qaida without the writ of the state being restored, root cause of the problem is the US, 9/11 was fabricated by the Jews, Usama is innocent and so on. Such people would not even like to experience the atrocities befallen on the Pakhtun in their nightmares. They seem to condone the atrocities in the name of their interpretation of Islam as long they (the atrocities) do not touch them.

In my view such people need a deep psychoanalysis undertaken by a good team of psychoanalysts. No sane human being can be so insensitive to such a scale of devastation in the name of any religion. They must be sick. What is in their mind? The Psychoanalysts should find out.

The Crossroad

The present generations of the Pakhtun have to do a lot. They have to get rid of the foreign jihadi mercenaries; they have to deal with the home grown Taliban; they have to take care of the families destroyed in the jihad of the Taliban-Al Qaida; they have to rebuild their economy, their educational and health institutions sabotaged by the jihadis; they have to reach out to the world to ensure the world of their aversion of religious extremism and so on. They stand at a crossroad. If they succumbed to Talibanization, they will be pushed centuries backward. If they overcome Talibanization, they will emerge as stronger people, more in tune with modernity and more active in give-and-take with the wider world. This will also earn them the respect of their future generations, who will view them as courageous people who subdued the evil of Talibanization. Thus the present generation of the Pakhtun must succeed. Because failure is no option and there is no middle way.

Farhat Taj is a femal Pashtun researcher based in Norway. She wrote a series of articles for Khybernews on different aspects of Pashtuns and Talibanization. This piece is the last of a series of four articles.

Top Stories

NWFP govt to establish centre for Pashto poets, artists
Read Full Story...

US admiral cultivates Pakistani army chief
Read Full Story...

Pakistani woman among 14 killed in Friday’s N.Y. shooting
Read Full Story...

17 killed in Chakwal suicide attack
Read Full Story...

John Solecky released: Ban Ki Moon hails release
Read Full Story...

50 dead recovered from container in Balochistan
Read Full Story...

Eight died, 12 injured in suicide attack at FC Check post
Read Full Story...

Mehsud claims US shooting
Read Full Story...

US strike kills 13 in North Waziristan: officials
Read Full Story...

Top US Officials In Islamabad

2009-04-07T21:30:00.001-04:00

ISLAMABAD: The visiting US Assistance Secretary of State for South Asia, Richard Boucher and the new chief of US Central Command, General Petraeus called on President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar and Chief of Army Staff, General Pervez Ashraf Kayani.

Both sides discussed different issues pertaining to the war against terrorism, Pak-US relations, situation along the Pak-Afghan border and other matters of mutual concern.

Issues regarding the US drone attacks also came under discussion.

Later, the Defense Minister, Ahmad Mukhatr said that they discussed the problems which Pakistan is presently confronting. He said that the US side was very receptive.

The minister said that the American officials believed in our government because previously there was more rhetoric than action but now there is more action than rhetoric.

The minister said that the US officials appreciated that we take it as war against Pakistan, adding that its is our war, which we are fighting for our survival.

Commander US CENTCOM, General David Petraeus also visited General Headquarters in Rawalpindi and called on the Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.

The two generals exchanged views on bilateral relations, Pak-US Defence ties and present regional situation.

Richard Boucher and General Petraeus arrived in the federal capital on Sunday night.

Later, General Petraeus also called on the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Tariq Majid and discussed matters of mutual interest with him.

NWFP To Covene Jirga To Restore Peace

2009-04-07T21:29:00.001-04:00

By Lehaz Ali

PESHAWAR; The NWFP government has decided to call a major political Jirga to explore ways to resolve the issue of terrorism.

This was announced by the provincial information minister, Mian Iftikhar Hussain while addressing a news conference in Peshawar today.

Khyber news correspondent, Lehaz Ali reports that according to the minister, leaders and representatives of all political parties of the country would be invited to the jirga.

Iftikhar said the government believe in negotiations and the ongoing Swat operation is only a reaction to the activities of the militants. He said that this operation can be stopped immediately if the militants agree to lay down their arms.

The minister asked the federal government to take the provincial government into confidence before taking any step in the tribal areas.

Mian Iftikhar Hussain also took a serious exception to the allegations of Jamiat-e Ulema-e Islam that Awami National Party was struggling for a greater Pukhtoonistan with the support of the United States.

He said this was a baseless propaganda, claiming that the ANP was a patriotic party. He criticized what he called the double standards of Jamiat-e Ulema-e Islam, saying that the party was a member of the ruling coalition and was also playing the role of opposition. He asked the JUI leaders to refrain from unleashing baseless propaganda at the present critical juncture.

'Let Us Talk To Resolve The Crisis', Moulvi Omar

2009-04-07T21:28:00.000-04:00

Khyber News Report

ISLAMABAD: Tekrik-e Taliban Pakistan has expressed its readiness to hold negotiations with the government.

This was stated by TTP spokesman, Maulvi Omar while talking to Khyber News today. He said that Taliban are not rebels and they have never refused to hold talks for solution of problems. He said that they would never abandon the path of negotiations because problems can only be resolved through talks.

Maulvi Omar said that even the United States has come the conclusion that problems can never be resolved through the use of force.
He said that issues between Tehrik-e Taliban and the Pakistani government could be resolved through negotiations but in the past such talks have not proved successful due to interference of foreign powers.

He categorically called upon the United States to end its interference in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Pak-Afghan To Continue Talks To Ensure Stability

2009-04-07T21:27:00.002-04:00

KN Monitoring Desk

ISTANBUL: Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to continue talks for cooperation in political, security fields to ensure peace and stability in the region.

This was stated in a Joint Declaration after a meeting between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani under the mediation of the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Istanbul.

Both the countries agreed to continue the trilateral summit process with the help of Turkey.

The meeting had been planned when Turkish President Abdullah Gul met President Asif Ali Zardari on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York.

Prime Minister Gilani stressed that regional stability was vital for prosperity of the region, particularly of Pakistan.

The leaders agreed that global cooperation was essential for fighting terrorism and extremism.

He said Turkey would extend full cooperation to Pakistan and Afghanistan to resolve their disputes for overall development in the region.

The Turkish prime minister said the process initiated by his country had been disconnected in the past and now it was being revived.

The meeting welcomed the process of mini-jirga and expressed the hope that it would contribute to peace and reconciliation.

The participants decided that the second trilateral summit would be held at the earliest convenience of the presidents of the three countries.

Reading out a joint declaration, Mr Erdogan said President Karzai and Prime Minister Gilani had expressed satisfaction over contacts and cooperation between their countries and agreed to take the dialogue process forward.

He said both the countries had agreed to enhance cooperation in all fields to achieve stability and prosperity of their people.
The meeting was the follow-up of the Ankara Declaration of a trilateral summit held on April 29-30.

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani says, Pakistan has taken bold and effective steps to fight extremism and terrorism to ensure world peace and security.

Addressing the preliminary session the World Economic Forum meeting on Europe and Central Asia in Istanbul, he sought the support of the international community in achieving the goals of peace and development.

He said Pakistan's soil will not be allowed to be used to attack its neighbours and the international community should also ensure that Pakistan's sovereignty is not violated.

Earlier, the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his opening remarks urged the world to work collectively to face the economic and security challenges.

He also called for the resolution of regional disputes through negotiations.

US State Department Defends War On Terror

2009-04-07T21:27:00.001-04:00

Monitoring Desk

ISLAMABAD: The US State Department has defended its war on terror policy and said that Washington has to make tough decisions to protect American lives in the region.

Commenting on the summoning of US ambassador to Pakistan by the Foreign Office in connection with the US drone attacks in tribal areas, the State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the call-in of the U.S. envoy was not an unusual occurrence and that overall U.S.-Pakistan cooperation in fighting violent extremists has been very good.

He said President Bush and his administration have had to make a lot of tough decisions to protect American lives in the anti-terrorism fight, adding that it will be no different for the next U.S. president elected next week.

McCormack said he believes Pakistani authorities know it is in their best interests to address the threat from violent extremists, whose agenda he said is as much a danger to Pakistan as the United States.

Pakhtun Culture and Talibanization: Some Fantasies From Abroad (Part-III)

2009-04-07T21:26:00.003-04:00

By Farhat Taj

How the Pakhtun are seen by people in far away lands across the seas? I will present some examples to show a glimpse of how the ‘others’ abroad view the Pakhtun.

Sarajevo, Bosnia, July 2007

Bosnia is a beautiful Muslim majority country in Europe. The society is secular in line with the wider European practice. There was a war in Bosnia in the 1990’s when it broke away from the former Yugoslavia. Jihadis from many parts of the Muslim world, including Pakistan, flocked to Bosnia to ‘help’ the Bosnian Muslims against the Orthodox Christian Serbs. The war is over now. What happened to the Jihadis? Did they go back to their countries or did they stay put in Bosnia? To find this, I traveled to Bosnia.

There in Bosnia I met three bearded ethnic Bosnia men who I will call the Bosnian Taliban. I sat with them in a café downtown Sarajevo, the beautiful capital city of Bosnia. They were angry young men in 20’s. Angry at their society, which they said was too secular and miles away from the’ true Islam’. ‘True Islam’ in their view was the narrow, extremist and puritan Wahabi version of Islam. They rejected with disdain the Islam prevalent in Bosnia- the peaceful Turkish Sufi Islam, a very different Islam from the extremist version of the religion that they up held and that people in Pakistan and Afghanistan confront violently.

We talked about the international jihadi activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They supported such activities. It was the time when the Lal Masjid Operation was in full swing. They told me they hate Gen. Mushaaraf for ordering the raid of the mosque.

One of them said he really likes the Pakhtun women (he was especially referring to the Pakhtun women in Afghnaistan). He gave this explanation:

‘The Pakhtun women are very different the Bosnia women. The Bosnian women violate the limits of Islam prescribed for women. They chase worldly luxuries. They do not care for the life after death. The Pakhtun women fully subscribe to the limits prescribed by Islam. They do not interfere with the world outside homes, which is the men’s prerogative under Islam. The Pakhtun women support Jihad. They urge their husbands to go for Jihad and fight for Islam’.

The last two sentences that he uttered had me swing from one state of mind to another in the space of just one second. First I became angry, then stunningly surprised and then rational. I thought to myself he had said such an absolute non sense that he does not even deserve a serious response. So I made up a joke then and there.
I said:

‘brother, actually you are right. The Pakhtun women do urge their husbands to go to Jihad. But I am afraid you do not know why they do this. They do this because they are in love affairs with other men outside marriage. They see no other ways to get rid of their existing husbands. Therefore, they urge their husbands to go to Jihad hoping that they would perish in Jihad and they (the women) will be free to go to their lovers’.
One of the three men laughed. The other two remained serious. Expression on their faces told me they did not like the joke.
One of the three men said:

‘I always pray to Allah to give enough power to a Mujahid brother in Pakistan to kill Benazir Bhutto’.
I became angry again, but soon restrained the anger. I thought to myself I am a guest in this country. I have no business getting angry with people here. I have to be responsible in whatever I say. So I said:

‘do you have any ideas how deeply offensive is that thing you said about BB. It is not just BB’s right to life (a right fully protected under the Islamic teachings) that you have insulted but also the right of millions of people in Pakistan to vote her in or out of power?’

He said democracy is un-Islamic; Mohtarma BB Shaheed violated Islam by becoming a woman head of the government in Pakistan and so did those people of Pakistan, including the Pakhtun, who voted her in power.

In the sad days following her assassinations I often thought of that Bosnian Talib. I thought he and his Mujahid brothers all over the world must be happy men now. They have silenced a very defiant voice of our country against the dictatorship and religious extremism. The Mujahid brothers knew what she was up to.

Addressing the Norwegian-Pakistani community in Oslo on 8th May 2007, she spoke in details about the dangers posed by the religious militants to, what she called, ‘peace loving hardworking decent people from FATA to Karachi’. She said she had faith in the ability of the Pakhtun people to defeat the religious militancy in their areas. She said when her party came to power she will make sure all the necessary government support is given to people in FATA and NWFP for the purpose. Before she could reach that point she was physically eliminated by some Mujahid brother.

Sometimes I think who could that Mujahid brother be. The Pakhtun Mujahid brother- Baituallah Masud- who was accused for her assassination by the government of Gen. Musharaf? The Punjabi Mujahid brother- Gen (rtd) Gul Hamid- the former spy chief who she herself nominated as her would-assassin in her letter to Gen. Musharaf before her arrival in Pakistan or some other Mujahid brother(s)? I hope the proposed UN investigation of her assassination would provide some answers.

UK

In the 2nd part of this article I said that the British colonizers romanticized the Pakhtun. It seems that the new generation of the British people is distancing itself from the romanticism of their elders and is seeing the Pakhtun through the lenses of a stereotypical orientalism. Consider for example a report published in the Daily Telegraph dated 15, November 2001 titled as ‘How the British Empire Failed to Tame the Terrorist Fakir of Ipi’. Several points raised in this report are a gross distortion of the Pakhtun history and culture. The report compares the Fakir of Ipi, the man who led the resistance to the British colonial in Waziristan, with Osama Bin Lade. The comparison is preposterous. The Fakir was a Pakhtun son of the Pakhtun soil, Waziristan. Osama Bin Laden is an alien to the Pakhtun soil. Osama Bin Laden ran way from his own country, is a fugitive from the law of his own country and from many other countries. The Fakir lived and died on his own soil, Waziristan. Osama Bin Laden is fighting for the utopia of a global Islamist Khalafat. The Fakir, as the report admits at one point, was pursuing the aim of an independent Pakhtunistan. Unlike Osama Bib Laden, who unleashed death and destruction on the US cities on 9/11, the Fakir never ventured near the British islands. He was resisting the British colonization of his ancestral area, Waziristan. How does that makes his terrorist, I fail to understand.

The report quotes parts of an interviewed with Frank Leeson, the British Khasadar Officer who worked in Waziristan in 1940’s. Frank Leeson, age 82 years, now lives in a peaceful rural area of UK.

What struck me most in the report is this information.
‘The Fakir’s men also fought dirty. Captured and wounded enemy troops would be killed by having boiling water poured on them or be castrated by womenfolk.’

Did this really happen in the Pakhtun history of armed conflicts with foreigners? Well, the todays’s Pakhtun Taliban who lowered themselves to utmost savagery by torturing their captives in the most uncivilized manner. But did such acts, the boiling water and that thing about women, did they really happen? I do not rule out the possibility of individual Pakhtun lowering themselves to such mean and brutal acts of violence.

But as per my knowledge of the Pakhtun history of armed conflicts, the Pakhtun fighters did not adopt such means of torture in the conduct of their resistance to the British colonization. But to confirm it for sure, I needed to bury myself in the books of Pakhtun history of battles. Due to my own going commitment with the University of Oslo, I did not have time for this. So, instead I followed the easy road to confirm or otherwise this information: I traveled to UK to meet Frank Leeson. I asked him:

‘please recall all your memories of Waziristan and tell me did you ever hear or see such things (the boiling water and the thing about womenfolk) happening to the captured British or British-Indian soldiers’.
I showed him the news report. Frank Leeson said he never heard or saw such things happening to the British or British-Indian soldiers captured by the Wazir,Masud or Dawar in Waziristan.

The reason I picked this report from the Daily Telegraph is that I wish to tell the concerned Pakhtun that they should be on guard. They should have an eye on what is being said about their history and culture and cross check that with facts in their history and culture. They should challenge everything that is fabricated. If that which is reported in the Daily Telegraph had really happened (the boiling water and the thing about womenfolk) in the Waziristan’s history of resistance to the British colonization, the Pakhtun researchers and historians must described the full context under which that happened. If that did not happen, they must prove with evidence that this is a fabricated story and also try to expose the possible motives of those who spread such stories about the Pakhtun history.

The Kindom of Norway and Kingdom of Denmark

The image of Pakhtun in Norway and Denmark seems to be an extension of the image of the Pakhtun in Pakistan,i.e. the Pakhtun are very religious. When the PPP and ANP won the Feb. 2008 election in NWFP, I heard and saw many Norwegian/Danish Pakistanis (non Pakhtun Norwegian/Danish Pakistanis) expressed their surprised. They were expecting that Jamiat Ulama Islam of Maullana Fazal Rehman and Jumaat Isami will make a landslide victory in the Pakhtun areas. ‘Musharaf must have fixed up this election to please the Americans’,I heard some people saying. Unfortunately, I heard even an ethnic Danish scholar expressing almost a similar view. My answer to all such people has been this:

‘religion is important for the Pakhtun. But please do not over blow the importance of religion for them. The Pakhtun are human beings with human needs. Like people everywhere they need education, health, jobs and above all peace. They thought the religious parties would provide for those needs and voted for them. The religious parties failed to deliver on those things. The Pakhtun dumped the religious parties and picked up the PPP and ANP. If now the PPP and ANP fail to deliver on the promises they made, the Pakhtun will dump them as well’.

My answer got different reactions from different people. Some people agreed with me, some just kept silence and some did not agree- they continue to romanticize the Pakhtun as ‘very religious’ people (so religious that they are ever ready to slaughter their human needs for education, health, jobs and peace for the sake a religious cause everywhere in universe, be it in Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnia, Moon, Mars, Saturn or Ploto!).

Unfortunately to the Pakhtun, their land has become the central battle ground of the war of terror. Because of this reason, the world, it seems, is hungry for information about Pakhtun, their history, culture, current situation, almost everything Pakhtun. There are not many information coming from the Pakhtun themselves (at least this is what I have observed). The world turns to any sources that it thinks might have information about Pakhtun. Such sources often provide wrong information, some unintentionally and some on purpose.

The Pakhtun must reach out to the world and let the world know them better. How that can be done? I don’t know the details. But a general idea would be that Pakhtun from different background must network, discuss and make plans to interact with the wider world. Such exercise must be time consuming, intellectually intensive and financially expensive. Therefore, some Pakhtun should put their many into it (I understand there are many affluent Pakhtun, both in the mainland and in diaspora), some their time and expertise. This may mean less sleep at least some nights a week/month and less time with friends/family. Because such activities may have to be adjusted within the established responsibilities- work, time with family/friends/ sleep-rest at night. I understand such activities/ exercises have to be taken by the Pakhtun, if they wish to dismantle some of the fantasies constructed about them by the ‘others’ around the world.
(To be Continued)

Farhat Taj is Ph D Researcher at the University of Oslo. She can be contacted at bergen34@yahoo.com

Pakhtun Culture and Talibanization: the Romanticism and the Clash of Values (Part II)

2009-04-07T21:26:00.001-04:00

By Farhat Taj

Professor Bakhshi Opendra is a philosopher of Indian origin based in a UK university. Once I asked him why the British colonizers had romanticized the Pakhtun, especially when the British had look down upon almost all natives in other areas they colonized. His answer was: ‘simple. The Brit was tall and well built. The Pakhtun was tall and well built. The Brit was good fighter. The Pakhtun was good fighter. The two clashed. The Brit got beaten up. Instead of admitting his mistake that it was the he (the Brit) who intruded into the Pakhtun’s territory and not the otherwise, the Brit began romanticizing the Pakhtun. The Pakhtun is so brave; such a natural fighter is he etc!

Colonization of major portion of the earth must have made the British arrogant. It must have been too much for their arrogant pride to admit to their mistake of attacking the Pakhtun territory and therefore they rationalized their defeat by attributing super human qualities to the Pakhtun. This is understandable.

But why do the Pakistani intelligentsia, journalistic circles certain political leaders, even ordinary people, like students, teachers, other professionals and housewives romanticize the Pakhtun by attributing to them too much religiosity? When the Pakhtun voted for PPP and ANP in Feb. 2008 elections, I thought this is it! The Pakhtun have chosen the parties that are closest to whatever level of democracy and secularism Pakistan has ever been able to achieve. So thought the ANP leader Asfandyar Wali, who in a post elections interview declared that the Pakhtun have sent have a powerful message to the world that they reject religious extremism. Unfortunately, even this affected no change in the attitude of the wider Pakistani society and the Pakhtun continued to be identified as Taliban or pro Taliban and their culture compatible with Talibanization.

Now this is not to suggest that Pakhtuns are not religious at all. Most Pakhtuns have deep respect for their religion, Islam. But at the same time they have worldly pursuits in life that are very important for them. Whether they would give up their worldly pursuits for the sake of religion as interpreted by their fellow Pakhtun-the Taliban- at the gunpoint is a big question mark. To explain it better I will give an example. Many Pakhtun businessmen are notorious for taking heavy interests on the loans they make to people. Once I asked an Alhaj (a person who had visited the holy Muslim site in Saudi Arabia many times) Pakhtun who also happened to be quite regular in saying five times prayer that why he takes so much interest on the loans when the Quarn forbids it. His answer was: ‘That (Quran) is my religions and this (taking interest) is my business. I do not mix them up. But I keep both. I need both’.

In the fist part of this article I tried to show how Talibanization is incompatible with the Pakhtun culture. Now I will try to depict how Talibanization is violently clashing with Pakhtun values. For example, sectarian diversity is one of such values. Most Pakhtun are Sunny Muslim. A significant minority is Shiite. Expect minor and sporadic troubles (which many believe were more tribal than theological) the Sunny and Shiite Pakhtun have been living in peace.

There have always been mix Sunny-Shiite Pakhtun communities and even families, with father Shiite, mother Sunny or otherwise. Sunny Pakhtun have been participating in Ashura celebrations, not in the actual rituals (some did this as well) but extending a helping hand in the arrangements for the celebrations, like keeping sabil of water, sweet drinks etc. Call it superstitious, but many Sunny Pakhtun believe (I personally know several) that if you have a longstanding unfulfilled wish, you go to the Ashura procession; make the wish to God there and the wish will be realized. There have always been Sunny Pakhtun going to the Ashura processions for fulfillment of their wishes. The Taliban is eliminating this diversity. For Taliban a Shiite is kafir and a Sunny who interacts with Shiite is also Kafir. Both must be killed.

On Peshawar-Parachinar road, Shiite passengers were dismounted by the Taliban in the areas under their control from the public transport and brutally beheaded just because they happened to be Shiite. The Taliban checked out ID cards of passengers. Anyone having Ali, Hassan, Hussain in their name were assumed to be Shiite. They also did body search and those with marks of Zanjirzani (a ritual when Shiite Muslim beat on their backs with a bunch of chains until the flush wounds and bleeds during the Ashura celebration) were recognized to be Shiite and dismounted to be beheaded. This brutality forced the Shiite from Parachinar to travel via Afghanistan to come to Peshawar and the rest of Pakistan.

The Taliban especially beheaded the Shiite among the captured of soldiers of Pakistan army and put their graphic videos on U Tube. The Taliban so traumatized the Shiite Pakhtun that they sent SOS calls to Shiite across the border in Afghanistan. The help came from Afghanistan but as a result innocent Sunny in the Shiite majority areas were murdered in cold blood or banished from their homes. Agreed that Shiite-Sunny conflict in the Pakhtun areas began due to past international and national events(Iranian Revolution, Afghan War, Zia’s Islamization etc). But now the tension is at its highest. Sunny Pakhtun Taliban have confronted their Shiite fellow Pakhtun with an impossible choice: they must perish or convert to the Taliban’s style Sunny Islam.

The Taliban are attacking the family values of the Pakhtun. A woman’s clothing and mobility in the public sphere are the absolute right and privilege of the family. Unrelated men interfering with those two issues are seen as violating the family honor, which can easily lead to honor-related crimes. Now, unrelated Taliban men openly order women to wear burqa or face consequences. If they did not abide by the order, Taliban publicly beat them- a scene unthinkable in the Pakhtun society. Such incidents have been reported from the Taliban control Swat and other area. In cities across NWFP the Taliban have threatened women to not to go shopping and stay in doors. They have publicly killed women, some for working with NGO’s, some they accused of prostitutions and some of adultery. So, it’s not the family but unrelated Taliban men controlling the women.

The British may have romanticized the Pakhtun for their bravery and honor. But now the Taliban are openly violating the norms of family honor of the Pakhtun and not much honor related crimes are happening! The Reason: the ordinary Pakhtun are no match to the heavily armed, indoctrinated and battle hardened militant Taliban Pakhtun. In the Taliban worldview a woman can only be a prostitute or bigger in the public. When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, they banned women from jobs , including war widows who were the only breed winners of their families. Resultantly the women had no option but to beg or prostitute themselves.

Another Pakhtun value that the Taliban have been so violently insulting is the reverence for Jirga- the council of tribal elders. Evolved in centuries of the Pakhtun history, the institution of Jirga has always been respected by Pakhtun in all circumstances. Even the blood thirsty warring parties would temporarily cease hostility during Jirga and under the instructions of Jirga. The Taliban have attacked with suicide bombings at least two grand Jirgas, one in Darra Adam Khel and the other in Orakzai agency, killing that entire tribal leadership of the areas. The Taliban have even been attacking funeral ceremonies, an extremely disgustful act in any culture.

The apologists of the Taliban have been saying on media that attacks on Jirga and funeral ceremonies have been the handiwork of spy agencies of the enemy countries-India and Israel. Well, India and Israel may or may not be providing money or weapons to the Taliban. But before accusing them we got to see that the Pakhtun Taliban are tearing apart the social order of their own society through violence. They are determined and this is the problem. Any real or perceived help from India or Israel, in my view, is of secondary importance. Even if there is no Indian or Israeli help (real or perceived) the determined Taliban may get it from elsewhere.

The apologists of Taliban also argue on media: ‘did the Taliban do this before the military operations in FATA?’Yes they did. Remember, even before 9/11 Muallana Sufi Mohammad of Tehrik Nifaz Sharia Mohammadi in Malaknad openly asked her followers to capture and take in Nikah then and there any female NGO worker that they spotted in the Malakand agency. The NGO’s workers of the area were terrified. In another incident of before 9/11 female activists of the pro-Taliban Jumaat islami attacked in a girls’ college in NWFP the participants of a Mina bazaar and forced the administration to close down the event because some of the girls were wearing kurta pajama that the Jumaat activists said was ‘Un Isamic Hindu culture’.

The reason such bizarre incidents happen more frequently now is that earlier the Taliban’s savagery was focused on Afghanistan. Now they have turned their eyes to Pakistan. Their acts of terrorism in Afghanistan were wrong, just as they are wrong in Pakistan. It was wrong of the establishment of Pakistan to back the Taliban in Afghanistan while fully knowing how savage they were.

People in the wider Pakistani society must understand that the Pakhtun are under attacks by the ferocious religious extremist Pakhtun supported by the global forces of the violent Jihad. They deserve help and support of the rest of the Pakistani society, not just for moral reasons, but for their own interests. Non-Pakhtun Pakistanis must remember if the Pakhtun society collapsed under the weight of Talibnization, the rest of Pakistan will follow shortly and probably more swiftly.
(To be continued)

Farhat Taj is a PhD Reasearcher at the University of Oslo.

Militancy, Displacement and the Future of Peshawar

2009-04-07T21:25:00.001-04:00

Syed Irfan Ashraf

The provincial capital city of Peshawar is facing severe problems of over-population party due to the influx of displaced people from the tension-ridden tribal belt and adjacent settled districts of the NWFP and mainly due to lack of employment opportunities and basic facilities in the rural areas of the province and tribal belt.

Taking a start from South and North Waziristan some four years back, the strong wave of militancy tripped Pushtun dominated seven tribal agencies along Pak-Afghan border and drifted downwards to enflame the adjoining settled districts of the North West Frontier Province.

According to rough estimate a total of at least 1.5 million people have been displaced during the last four years of confrontation between the security forces and militants. Over and above, sectarian conflict in Kurrum agency and its negative impact on Orakzai agency and Hangu District has further added to the wave of displacement. Almost the entire belt towards the West of Kohat leading to Parachinar has turned insecure for peace loving people. This compelled denizens of these areas to look for safer places in other part of the country.

The population shift-over from the restive rural peripheries towards relative peaceful urban centers has put extra burden on main cities of the province in general and the capital city of Peshawar in particular. Peshawar being nucleus of the province and darling of refugees in the past was considered secure by the IDPs for affordable start. However, this penchant has confronted the city with unnatural population growth carrying alarming future consequences.

Economic experts say the city has capacity and resources to accommodate at the most 1.2 million people, however, during the last three decades about three million people crushed gates of the city as refugees. Latter, most of the Afghan refugees' camps were closed, however, sizable numbers settled illegally in the city giving tough time to the local people by sharing their limited business and employment opportunities. The city was still garbled with refugees' problems; when militancy emerged take the province by tide. Since then about one million internally displaced people from Swat and the tribal belt has adjusted themselves in Peshawar.

This displacement has complicated the situation leading to severe economic insecurity and lawlessness. Though the NWFP government adjusted IDPs in 13 camps set up across the province, however, "about 70 percent of the displaced people are still avoiding living in camps and are staying with their relatives in Peshawar and Karachi," says Afshan Chishti, UN representative at Kacha Garhi IDPs camp.

In the face of challenges like growing militancy, the city fathers are blamed for lacking effective planning to overcome future complications related with displacement. What if these ongoing conflicts around and inside the province continued for long and international community did not come to help of the NWFP government? If we go some thirty years back and study the influx of Afghan refugee into the provincial capital, it was soothing to find that donors were much active in supporting rehabilitation of refugees. But today the internal nature of displacement has not yet attracted foreign donors to share the burden with NWFP government.

In view of the grim situation, the growing rush of displaced people during the last couple of years has further added to the already present sense of insecurity in Peshawar. This partly contributed to the economic countdown. The already insecure business community started shifting their capital abroad. "In the absence of protection to property and growing insecurity around the city, the business community has taken out millions offshore to Dubai and western countries," says Businessmen Zahid Shinwari. "The rest are also worried as kidnapping for ransom incidents are on the rise and businessmen are looking bleak future for their investment," added Zahid.

Apart from dealing with challenges of galloping Inflation; worsening traffic problems; and all time high crime rates, the NWFP government is desperately in need of a management plan to handle the settlement of displaced people. Apart from this, the city fathers also needed concentration on developing infrastructure of the city especially roads to over-come problems related to growing population. If left unattended, this problem might take more severe turn in the near future as conflicts around the city see no end in sight, at least till the presence of US led allied forces across the border.

Mr.Syed Irfan Ashraf is a Peshawar based Freelance journalist. He can be reached at syedirfanashraf@gmail.com

Top Stories

NWFP govt to establish centre for Pashto poets, artists
Read Full Story...

US admiral cultivates Pakistani army chief
Read Full Story...

Pakistani woman among 14 killed in Friday’s N.Y. shooting
Read Full Story...

17 killed in Chakwal suicide attack
Read Full Story...

John Solecky released: Ban Ki Moon hails release
Read Full Story...

50 dead recovered from container in Balochistan
Read Full Story...

Eight died, 12 injured in suicide attack at FC Check post
Read Full Story...

Mehsud claims US shooting
Read Full Story...

US strike kills 13 in North Waziristan: officials
Read Full Story...

Film on Ghaffar Khan to premiere in New York next month

2009-04-07T21:24:00.003-04:00

NEW YORK: A documentary film on the life and mission of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, leader of the Khudai Khidmatgar movement who opposed the British rule and partition of India, is set to premiere in New York on November 8.

The Khudai Khidmatgar was founded on a belief in the power of Hindu leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s notion of Satyagraha, a form of active non-violence.

Titled “The Frontier Gandhi: Badshah Khan, a Torch for Peace,” it is the work of filmmaker and writer T.C. McLuhan, daughter of the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan, who spent 21 years to bring the story to the screen.

The film will be screened at the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival in a local theatre.

The Los Angeles Times says that filmmaker McLuhan, a restless, determined woman, made numerous trips to Afghanistan and other places where the Badshah Khan story unfolded, even as American bombs fell in Taliban-held Afghanistan after 9/11 and through the dangerous times that followed. She shot the film in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province, giving this story of filmmaking persistence a geopolitical dimension not many can match, the paper said in a preview.

Ms McLuhan said that she made six trips over the Khyber Pass. She dug into archives Afghan film officials sheltered from the Taliban, according to The Times. She managed impossibly smooth tracking shots on rutted streets using a makeshift dolly her Indian cinematographer built with skateboard wheels. A warlord became her guide and appears with her in production stills, standing in a rugged Afghan gully. She had her equipment thrown into the street by police. And she kept going back, using her Canadian citizenship and a widening network of connections to make her account of Ghaffar Khan.

For McLuhan, 62, the finished film completes a journey that started in September 1987 in Berkeley, when an acquaintance gave her “Nonviolent Soldier of Islam,” a book by the late Eknath Easwaran, who knew Ghaffar Khan, according to the paper.

Associated Press Of Pakistan (APP)

Compatibility: The Pakhtun Culture, Talibanization and Obscenity

2009-04-07T21:24:00.001-04:00

By Farhad Taj
One of the good things that have happened to Pakistan is the free media. The media’s educative and informative role in the society is commendable. The media, however, disappoint when it exhibits biases most probably unintentionally or when it promotes a particular view without even cross checking the facts on the ground.

Such views constitute constructed realities in the public eye that are based on ideological fantasies or vested interest or ignorance of some people whose voices are reflected in the media. Solutions are then recommended based on the constructed realities to critical problems of national level.

The solutions, disconnected from t facts on the ground, can affect no change.

In their zeal to be seen as ‘expert’ or at least ‘informed commentators’ on the Pakhtun culture, scores of discussants in media depict that Talibanization is somehow compatible with the Pakhtun culture. That confinement of women to homes, compulsory wearing of burqa, ban on female mobility in public sphere, minus those accompanied by related men, ban on girls’ education, ban on music, compulsory beards, killing people by slitting their throats, preference of madrassa over school education , compulsory punishments for not saying the daily five time obligatory Islamic prayers, and above all, going mad in revenge spree and eliminating innocent and perceived enemies without discrimination, all is Pakhtun culture.

They argue the Taliban’s Islam is not Islam, it is Pakhtun culture. The key premise seems to that a religion, especially a text based religion like Islam, is interpretation and interpretation is affected by culture. So, Islam, when seen through the lenses of Pakhtunwali turns out to be Talibanization.

One of those who project this view of Pakhtun culture is the ex-ISI chief General (Retd) Hamid Gul. His credential as pro-Taliban, pro-religious extremists in general and his role in Afghan Jihad that brought destruction of Afghanistan and the rise of radical Islam in Pakistan is beyond doubt. Still, surprisingly, the media anchors do not put him questions to investigate his view of the Pakhtun culture.

A journalist, Orea Maqbol Jan, in a TV talk show, Kalam Kar, claimed that even a Hindu woman in Pakhtun culture will have to wear shuttlecock burqa. To my utter disappointment, even Salman Ahmed of Junoon, one of my favorite musicians, displayed a similar distorted view of the Pakhtun culture. Addressing a gathering in Denmark he referred to his talk with the mullah ‘electricity’ in NWFP. Salman Ahmed said that ‘this (rejection of music) is his(mullah’s) culture’.

The mullah ‘electricity’ is presumably mullah Bijli ghar. A laughing stock among Pakhtuns, one wonders since when mullah Biji Ghar became a symbol of the entire Pakhtun culture.
Equally disappointing is the self-proclaimed voice of the Pakhtuns, Imara Khan of Tehrik Insaf Party. He argues that the Taliban’s spree of death and destruction is caused by the revengeful Pakhtuns, whose family members were supposedly killed in the on going military operation in FATA and other areas of NWFP. He rejects that religious extremism, systematically spread in FATA by the state agencies, may have anything to do with the atrocities committed by the Taliban in Pakistan (and Afghanistan).

Imran Khan’s argument portrays the Pakhtuns as savage and uncivilized people who can be so blinded by revenge that they become stripped of any capacity to differentiate between the innocent and the ‘guilty’. It implies that Paktuns can be driven so mad in revenge that they would bomb their own educational and health institutions, destroy the livelihoods of the fellow Pakhtuns and murder innocent people, both Pakhtun and non-Pakhtun, across Pakistan. Although, I have yet to see a Pakhtun so maddened by revenge, I still suppose there may be some people of this kind. I argue this is the personal decision of those people and has no justification in the code of Pakhtunwali for the purpose. Moreover, people so maddened by revenge may exist in any culture of the world.

These are but a few names who present such a false view of the Pukhtun culture on media. There are scores of other. These people show disrespect to the Pakhtun culture, some out of ignorance (like Sulman Ahmed, I guess), some for ideological reasons (Gul Hamid), some for professional reasons (just to be seen as expert on the something, like the journalist) and some for petty political reasons (like Imaran Khan) . In addition to the disrespect to the Pakhtun cultures, these people display utter disregard to some of the established notions of the social science.

Most social scientists all over the world agree that human cultures are internally diverse, flexible and adaptable. There are dominant norms in a culture and also less dominant norms. They coexist side by side. Even the expression of the dominant norms can be diverse. Cultures are not written in stone. They are flexible: members of the culture may mange to push the limits of the culture within the framework of that culture. In line with the changing requirements of the time cultures may adapt new ideas and norms from other cultures and societies. All this holds true for the Pukhtun culture. I will try to explain with some examples.

Shuttlecock burqa that many identify with Pakhtun culture is diminishing norm in some Pakhtun communities or localities. It is not a universal norm all over the Pakhtun land. A nearly universal norm is chader. But length of chader varies from area to area, family to family and even woman to woman. The way it is worn by women also varies: some may cover their faces with chader, some may not.

Most Pakhtun communities stand for girls’ education: this is precisely the reason why the Taliban, whose worldview has not room for girls’ education, are destroying girls’ schools and colleges. One can name tens of girls’ schools and colleges in the Pakhtun area that government of Pakistan would have simply ignored to build. But thanks to the Pakhtun elders of the areas, mostly fathers and grandfathers, who pleaded with the government to build those girls educational institutions in their area and their requests finally moved the government in building those institutions.

The Taliban have now destroyed or destroying those institutions. In almost very city and town of the Pakhtuns there have been growing number of communities and individual families, who have had exposure to education and modernity. Women in such communities and families have taken up non traditional roles in the public sphare. Before the rise of the Taliban no one had ever heard of any Pakhtun community or individuals violently reacting the women who have broken the confinements of the traditional gender roles.

Taliban bans music, which is an integral part of the Pakhtun traditions. Before the rise of the Taliban no one ever heard of attacks on musicians and music shops. There have always been men with and without beard among the Pakhtuns. Those with beard never forced the others to grow beard. There have always been Pakhtun who were regular in saying daily prayers and those were not so regular and even those who hardly say any prayers for years and years. Before the Taliban, it was unheard of that those who are regular in saying daily prayers would force the other to be regular.

Imran Khan’s assertion that the Taliban unleashing the reign of terror on Pakistan are Pakhtuns driven by revenge essentionilizes the notion of revenge to the Pakhtun culture. Essentionalism has been greatly challenged by social scientists all over the world. Essentionlaism is the belief that people have an unchanging 'essence' that wipes off the possibility of changeable human behaviour. Most social scientists will disagree that each and very Pakhtun would take to violent means in the name of revenge. Agreed that revenge is an important notion of the code of Pakhtunwali, but, nevertheless, this a notion. When put in practice it may take different forms, not necessarrly the violent forms.

There is nothing in the code of Pakhtunwali that sanctions or even justifies indiscriminate use of violence in revenge. Revenge is a qualified notion in the code. There are clear limits to who can be targeted for revenge. Such limits are not respected by the Taliban. Innocent people, women and children (even from the enemy’s family) are never the targets of revenge killing according to the code of Pakhtunwali.

The Taliban’s world view is rooted in the narrow interpretation of Islam that has international connections with religious extremists across the globe. This worldview is unified, inflexible and violently resistant to adaptability. This is the exact opposite of the Pakhtun culture. Unlike Talibanization, the Pakhtun culture is rooted in the centuries old human history and traditions that evolved in a geographical location.

During an interview with Fredrik Baarth, a famous Norwegian scholar of the Pakhtun culture, this writer asked him whether he sees any compatibility between the Pakhtun culture and Talibanization. His answer was: ‘in terms of Pakhtun culture, Talibanization is obscenity’. So, there you have it! Anyone who knows the Pakhtun culture and is not motivated by a vested interest would reject any notion of compatibility between Talibanization and the Pakhtun culture.
(To be continued)

Farhat Taj is a PhD research fellow at the Centre for Women and Gender Studies, University of Oslo.

Top Stories

NWFP govt to establish centre for Pashto poets, artists
Read Full Story...

US admiral cultivates Pakistani army chief
Read Full Story...

Pakistani woman among 14 killed in Friday’s N.Y. shooting
Read Full Story...

17 killed in Chakwal suicide attack
Read Full Story...

John Solecky released: Ban Ki Moon hails release
Read Full Story...

50 dead recovered from container in Balochistan
Read Full Story...

Eight died, 12 injured in suicide attack at FC Check post
Read Full Story...

Mehsud claims US shooting
Read Full Story...

US strike kills 13 in North Waziristan: officials
Read Full Story...

15 Killed In Suicide Bomb Attack On Tribal Jirga By Our Correspondent

2009-04-07T21:23:00.001-04:00

AURAKZAI: Fifteen people were killed and fifty others injured in a suicide bomb explosion in Aurakzai agency this evening.

The incident took place at a tribal Jirga in Khudezai area of the agency. About six hundred elders of different tribes were considering ways and means to curb the Taliban when the suicide attacker struck them.

Death tool can increase as condition of most of the injured people is stated to be critical. Further details are coming.

Meanwhile In Bajaur agency, the miscreants have beheaded five members of the tribal peace Jirga. The incident took place in Charmang area of Mamoond Tehsil, today.

The Tribal Lashkar is reported to have launched massive hunt for the miscreants in different areas of the agency.

On the other hand, four militants were killed and several others injured during the operation of security forces in the area.

Official sources say the security forces also destroyed the hideouts of miscreants in Tangkhata, Rashkai, Khazana, Bicheena and Kausar.

Meanwhile, Salarzai tribe arrested two armed militants.

In Swat district of North West Frontier Province, the security forces started a massive operation to recover the District Naib Nazim, Malik Siddique, who was earlier kidnapped by the terrorists.

The security forces carried out raids in different areas to recover the missing Naib Nazim. However, there are no reports about the whereabouts of the official.

Meanwhile, the miscreants burnt one boys and one girls school in Kabbal Tehsil.

KURRAM:As clashes continue between Shiite and Sunni tribes in Pewar area of Kurram Agency, elders from both sides were flown to Islamabad for another round of talks.

Senior leaders of both the warring tribes had held successful talks in Islamabad last month at which they agreed to hold a ceasefire in the area.

However, clashes again erupted in Pewar area of Upper Kurram yesterday, which continued today.

According to sources, both sides used heavy and automated weapons against each other.

One hundred senior leaders of both the warring sides will hold another round of talks in Islamabad and discuss the prevailing lacunae in the peace process.

Are We Losing The Frontier? By Syed Irfan Ashraf

2009-04-07T21:21:00.002-04:00

Militancy is fast creeping into the settled districts of the NWFP and its cordon is narrowing in on the economic hub and the capital city of Peshawar. The shift-over from the tribal belt has increased the pace of terror activities inside the settled districts of the NWFP, which carried grave social and economic implications for the province in general and Peshawar in Particular.

With the exception of Hazara Division, almost all 19 districts of the NWFP are reeling under the effects of terror related activities. Though the five district of Hazara Division is out of the ambit of terrorists’ attacks, however, it has been observed that militants sneaking from Shangla District are increasing their influence in the neighbouring District Batagram, This might help leading militancy down country to the strategically important terrenes of Abbotabad.

God forbade, if this happened the extreme North-south of Frontier province will get restive including Karakorum Highway and military town of Abbotabad. This, of course, will be a real loss for the province and the country as a whole vis-a-vie its ongoing battle against militancy.

Tehrik Taliban Pakistan Spokesman Molvi Omar has admitted in one of his media statement that they have office bearers in 40 self-styled administrative units of the tribal areas and the settled districts to follow the TTP agenda plan. If we believe this statement, it shows the well-equipped militants are strong enough to challenge the law enforcing agencies and take hostage the entire civil society in almost all the administrative units of the NWFP and even beyond.

Many NWFP districts adjoining the tribal areas such as Charsadda, Tank, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Lower Dir, Upper Dir and Hangu are already getting their share of lawlessness from the tribal belt while the rest also are no exception to it.

Presently, custodians of the province have focused their energies on protecting the provincial capital. Check posts have been established around the city and police patrolling got regularized. Raids against miscreants are also carried out off and on. But still there is lack of counter-terror-strategy to root out the menace in a comprehensive way. Only tit bit actions are taken sufficient enough to give legitimacy to the miscreants as a force to reckon with.

Militants are ruling peripheries of the town sharing borders with Khyber Agency and Mohmand Agency. On the extreme outskirts of the Peshawar, they are operating their own courts to dispense prompt “justice” and in some areas collecting taxes through covert ways to meet their expenses. It is widely believed that gangs of criminals have also joined hands with the militants to kidnap businessmen and high profile targets. Sometimes these militants enter the city areas along with heavy weapons to threaten people and conduct show-off march on roads.

This dwindling writ of government in the city outskirts has given message to the people that the state is finding hard to defend them against militants. Unfortunately, due to the absence of proper counter-terrorism-plan, police operations against miscreants in the rural areas of Peshawar such as Mattani, Regi Lalma, Shahkas etc carried little impact. After few hours of fight, the miscreants flee to the adjoining tribal areas to return again after the operation.

This sorry state of affairs has almost halted social and economic progress of the provincial capital. Music and CD shops have almost been closed and business activities are not thriving due to fear factor. Universities are considering implementing dress codes for female students to avoid wrath of militants. Hundreds of industrial units in Hayatabad Industrial Estate, lying on the border of Khyber agency, have become victim of uncertainty due to lack of protection to owners and labourers. Kidnapping for ransom and attacks on police check posts have become almost routine affairs.

Weary of such situation, now common man has started believing that a time has come to lose Peshawar to the militants like rest of the settled areas of NWFP. Amid fear and uncertainty, common people are trying to adjust to the emerging realities. However, those who can afford fleeing the city are weighting their wings for a flight to safer areas.

Industrialists affiliated with Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industries openly admit that majority among them have already shifted capital to Unite Arab Emirate and other safer areas. If this trend remain continued, then time is not far away when unemployment, illiteracy, and uncertainty will further strengthen ranks of the militants, who desperately need all these factors to turn Talibanisation into insurgency. This off course will be a dooms day for the province and the country.

Time To Rethink War Against Terror Photo Courtesy The Medialine By Shaheen Buneri

2009-04-07T21:21:00.001-04:00

Peshawar, Pakistan] After seven years of the United States’ War against Terror, the situation in Pakistan’s Pashtun-dominated North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Pakistan’s seven tribal regions along the Pakistani-Afghan border has reached the point of no return.

The social and cultural basis of Pashtun society has been completely shattered by intensified Taliban insurgency. Utter confusion, uncertainty and loss of trust in the government machinery is leading the conflict-ridden society to a state akin to civil war.

Taliban insurgents who fled Afghanistan in the wake of U.S. attacks on the Taliban regime in 2001 found sanctuaries on the lawless tribal border. The region, which has been badly neglected in terms of socio-economic development by successive governments, proved an ideal place for different Taliban groups to recruit unemployed and poverty-stricken youth to their folds and strengthen their position by promoting an extremist version of Islam.

The first thing the Taliban did was to challenge the traditional tribal structure by killing about 600 tribal elders, commonly known as Maliks, in different parts of the tribal region.

The Maliks were experts in day-to-day tribal affairs and were instrumental in resolving feuds through tribal councils (Jirgas). They were an integral part of the political administration introduced by the former British rulers of the Indian sub-continent.

“By killing the tribal elders, the Taliban destroyed the social basis on which Pakistan’s central government was administering the region,” says Rifat Orakzai, a Peshawar-based tribal analyst, who added that it would take considerable time and energy for the Pakistan government to re-establish its authority in the region now controlled by Taliban groups.

“Once the tribal structure was eliminated, the whole administrative system was dashed to the ground,” Orakzai says.

The administrative vacuum was soon filled by Taliban commanders such as Baituallah Mehsud in South Waziristan Agency, Mangal Bagh Afridi in Khyber Agency, Faqir Muhammad in Bajaur Agency, Omer Khalid in Mohmand Agency, and Maulana Fazlullah in Swat district of the Frontier Province.

The Taliban exploited the U.S. presence in neighboring Afghanistan and the sense of economic deprivation among the tribal people to promote a version of Islam that was totally contrary to the social traditions and cultural values of the people of the unfortunate region.

This extremist approach towards religion is the legacy of the Cold War when the American CIA and the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) established hundreds of religious seminaries with generous funding from the Saudi government and encouraged “jihad” by the tribal people against the USSR.

“The region has always been a laboratory for different imperialist powers through the ages,” says Malik Shah Dauran of Khyber Tribal Agency. “Different powers ruthlessly used the region and its people for their geo-strategic interests and imperialist designs and then left them in the lurch.

“Now, when the Bush administration complains it has become a safe haven for terrorists, no one asks who is responsible for this,” he adds.

The military and political establishment of Pakistan incorrectly thought that Taliban activity would only be restricted to the tribal belt and the rest of Pakistan would continue going about its usual business. But the reality on the ground resulted in a completely different scenario.

Using established terror techniques, the Taliban has now spread its influence to the settled districts of NWFP and parts of the Punjab province.

Under pressure from the Bush administration Pakistan’s then military regime used both excessive military might and negotiations with militant commanders to halt the rising tide of militancy, but failed to achieve the desired results.

The conflict between Pakistan security forces and Taliban fighters displaced millions of people from the tribal areas and the Swat Valley and rendered thousands jobless.

Political squabbling between Pakistan two major political parties, coupled with the deteriorating law-and-order situation resulted in more poverty, a power crisis, price-hikes and poor economic performance.

“Pakistan is faced with a real dilemma. On the one hand it has to honor its international commitment in the war against terror, and on the other it has to manage an ever-increasing anti-American sentiment,” observes Syed Irfan Ashraf, a Peshawar-based political analyst.

He adds that U.S. drone attacks inside Pakistan and strained relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan is threatening the alliance against terror as well as maximizing opportunities for the Taliban to regroup on both sides of the border and intensify its attacks on U.S. and NATO forces inside Afghanistan.

“If the three important countries in the war against terror don’t take immediate steps to remove misconceptions and build trust, there is every possibility that the Taliban will emerge as a formidable force and defeat the heavily funded campaign against terror,” Ashraf maintains.

A well-thought-out reform process in the administrative system of the tribal areas and initiating socio-economic development projects could play a major role in discouraging the menace of terrorism.

It is also an encouraging development that the newly elected Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)-led government considers the war against terror as its own war and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani repeatedly says that his government will never talk to Taliban militants and will continue with the war against terror.

While it is true that officials of the Bush administration have expressed their frustration with the discouraging results of the seven-year-war against Al-Qa’ida and the Taliban and are facing a 40 percent rise in Taliban attacks in Afghanistan, the reality is that no effort has been made to win the hearts and minds of the millions of people who are the direct victims of this war.

Increasing numbers of civilian casualties in U.S. air attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan are drastically changing people’s perception of the war, and different religious groups are garnering support to threaten the recently formed civilian government in Pakistan with country-wide protest demonstrations.

Military operations over the past three months against Taliban militants in Bajaur Tribal Agency and Swat Valley of the Frontier Province have displaced more than 600,000 people from their homes. Local media have reported that a number of religious groups with Jihadi credentials arranged relief camps and collected donations for these people in order to win their loyalty.

“The Taliban is killing our elders for not supporting them; the military is bombing our homes for nothing. We are in the midst of a humanitarian tragedy with no way out,” Farid Khan, a 27-year-old primary school teacher, who along with his family was forced by the military operation in Bajaur Tribal Agency to flee to Peshawar, the capital of NWFP, told The Media Line.

A private TV channel telecast interviews of the displaced people who were talking of revenge against the U.S. and the Pakistani governments for the atrocities committed against them in the name of military action against the Taliban.

The question is, is militancy being eliminated or is it being further strengthened?

There are reports that some of the banned Jihadi groups that went underground are resurrecting and forging alliances with fellow militant organizations on both sides of the border.

The U.S. should work with the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan to devise a comprehensive strategy to find long-term solutions to the menace of terrorism.

A grand Jirga between the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan for comprehensive discussions on the evolving situation in the region, relaxing tensions between Pakistan and India on the issue of Kashmir, and a vigorous media campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of militancy for the region and its people could halt the rising tide of militancy and create an environment where defeating Talibanization would become a relatively easier task.

Indiscriminate use of military might could breed nothing but more violence, more uncertainty and more chaos for millions of people on both sides of the Pakistani-Afghan border and might jeopardize the much-touted reconstruction process in Afghanistan.

Courtesy: The Medialine

Afghanistan After Seven Years of War: You Call This a Good War?

2009-04-07T21:20:00.001-04:00

The drug-running warlords who have controlled Afghanistan with the US blessing since 2001 have no interest in either democracy or women’s rights.

By SHARON SMITH

In early September, the Pentagon closed its investigation into allegations that U.S. bombs killed 92 Afghan civilians, including as many as 60 children, as they slept peacefully in the village of Nawabad on the night of August 21st.

Despite protests from the UN, human rights organizations and the villagers themselves, Pentagon officials insisted for weeks that only seven civilians had been killed, along with 35 Taliban fighters, during a legitimate military operation aimed at capturing Taliban commander Mullah Sadiq. Indeed, they claimed that the attack, which included bombardment with a C130 Specter gunship, was a necessary response to heavy fire emanating from a meeting of Taliban leaders in the village.

In its defense, the Pentagon cited evidence from an embedded Fox News correspondent who had substantiated its claims.

Unfortunately, that correspondent turned out to be Veteran Marine Corps Lieutenant Oliver North, who has been known to bend the truth in the past. North’s military career was cut short after his role was revealed in the Iran-contra scandal in the 1980s. At the time, North admitted to having illegally channeled guns to Iran while funneling the profits to the CIA-backed contra mercenary force fighting to overthrow Nicaragua’s democratically elected Sandinista government--and then lying to congress about it. In recent years, North has nevertheless cultivated a lucrative broadcasting career at Fox.

Although North assured Fox viewers, "Coalition forces…have not been able to find any evidence that non-combatants were killed in this engagement,” video footage taken on the scene by a local doctor showed scores of dead bodies and destroyed homes, documenting a civilian death toll at Nawabad that is the largest since the U.S. began bombing Afghanistan nearly seven years ago. Thus, the U.S. military was forced to reopen its own investigation on September 8th, only days after it had exonerated itself. A red-faced official told reporters that “emerging evidence” had convinced the Pentagon to investigate the matter further.

On that same day, Human Rights Watch issued a report that U.S. and NATO forces dropped 362 tons of bombs over Afghanistan during the first seven months of this year; bombings during June and July alone equaled the total during all of 2006. The rising civilian death toll in Afghanistan rattled even the normally placid New York Times, which argued, "America is fast losing the battle for hearts and minds, and unless the Pentagon comes up with a better strategy, the United States and its allies may well lose the war."
* * *

As news of the Nawabad massacre unfolded, another atrocity was also gaining media attention, further exposing the gangster state installed and maintained by U.S. forces to run Afghanistan since 2001. President Hamid Karzai, the U.S.’ hand picked puppet, reportedly pardoned two men convicted of brutally raping a woman in the northern province of Samangan in September 2005.
At the time, Mawlawi Islam, the commander of a local militia, was running for a seat in Afghanistan’s first parliamentary elections. “The commander and three of his fighters came and took my wife out of our home and took her to their house about 200 meters away and, in front of these witnesses, raped her,” the woman’s husband told the Independent. The couple has a doctor’s report that the rapists cut her private parts with a bayonet during the rape, and then forced her to stagger home without clothes from the waist down.

Mawlawi won a seat in parliament in September 2005, as the U.S. media celebrated the elections as proof that democracy was flourishing in Afghanistan thanks to U.S. occupation. But Mawlawi was assassinated, mafia-style in January of this year. His past had caught up with him. Mawlawi had first fought as a mujahedeen commander in the 1980s but switched sides to become a Taliban governor in the 1990s. He switched sides yet again when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and re-joined the former mujahedeen, which had morphed into the “Northern Alliance”--the group of warlords installed by the U.S. to run Afghanistan as a collection of private gangster fiefdoms.

Karzai issued a press statement expressing his “deep regret” in response to Mawlawi’s death in January. Bypassing the rape charge, he expressed nothing but praise: “Mawlawi Islam Muhammadi was a prominent Jihadi figure who has made great sacrifices during the years of Jihad against the Soviet invasion.” Mawlawi’s three subordinates were finally convicted for the rape this year, and one died in prison. But although they were sentenced to 11 years, Karzai reportedly issued a pardon for the other two in May, claiming the men “had been forced to confess their crimes.”

The drug-running warlords who have controlled Afghanistan with the U.S.’ blessing since 2001 have no interest in either democracy or women’s rights. Indeed, it is not uncommon for poor poppy farmers who cannot repay loans to local warlords to offer up their daughters for marriage instead. Gang rapes and violence against women are on the rise, according to human rights organizations.

As a member of parliament, Mir Ahmad Joyenda, told the Independent, “The commanders, the war criminals, still have armed groups. They’re in the government. Karzai, the Americans, the British sit down with them. They have impunity. They’ve become very courageous and can do whatever crimes they like.” In this situation, Afghan warlords again produce 90 percent of the world’s opium, without legal repercussion.

Women’s prisons, in contrast, are teeming once again. As Sonali Kolhatkar, the author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence, argued on Democracy Now! “Women are being imprisoned in greater numbers than ever before, for the crime of escaping from home or having, quote-unquote, ‘sexual relations’--‘illegal sexual relations.’ Most of these women are simply victims of rape.”

Despite the appalling conditions that seven years of U.S. occupation have produced for ordinary Afghans, the two U.S. ruling parties came together in August to plan the escalation of that sordid war with the goal of adding 10,000 more U.S. troops in the coming year.

Barack Obama chided his Republican rival during his acceptance speech at the Democratic Party convention on August 28, using a page from Bush’s playbook: “John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell--but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives.”

Obama did not utter a word of criticism about rising civilian casualties, rampant corruption, the flourishing drug trade or women’s oppression in U.S. occupied Afghanistan during that historic speech.

On the contrary, he continued, “I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.” Ending the war in Iraq “responsibly” will allow a long-term U.S. military presence there--and the redeployment of 10,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan to “finish” the job started by George W. Bush.

In one fell swoop, the candidate who slogan is “change” laid out a strategy bearing striking similarity to that of the neocons who invaded Afghanistan in 2001. This hawkish turn was not a surprise.

Obama first expressed his willingness to bomb Iran and Pakistan in 2004, when he told the Chicago Tribune, "surgical missile strikes" on Iran may become necessary. "On the other hand,” he continued, “having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons is worse.” Obama went on to argue that military strikes on Pakistan should not be ruled out if "violent Islamic extremists" were to "take over."

Obama represents the dissenting ruling class view since 2003, which regarded the Iraq war as a “distraction” from the real war the U.S should pursue. That war has little to do with al-Qaeda, but much more to do with Afghanistan’s strategic location in Central Asia, and its borders with Iran, Pakistan, Russia and China.

The Russia-Georgia conflict this summer surely reminded U.S. rulers that they cannot afford to ignore their long-standing aim to establish U.S. military bases in this key region, a goal which long pre-dated 9-11. As the BBC News reported on Sept. 18, 2001, “Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by mid-October.”

The antiwar movement in the U.S. can no longer afford to ignore the war in Afghanistan without fading into irrelevance. The original aims of the war on terror have been resuscitated, and as Obama has repeatedly emphasized in recent months, its “central front” is shifting back to Afghanistan. The Afghan people have endured seven long years of misery thanks to U.S. occupation, and it is high time to take a principled stand against U.S. imperial aims in Central Asia.

The war on Afghanistan is no more justified than the war on Iraq.
Sharon Smith is the author of Women and Socialism and Subterranean Fire: a History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States.

Courtesy: Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
Website: www.rawa.org

Talibanization of paradise Spin khwar Lake Swat valley By Shaheen Buneri

2009-04-07T21:19:00.001-04:00

Swat that has always been the paragon of beauty, a land of colors, roses and gushing rivers, an embodiment of history, home of thousands of Buddhist stupas, and an ideal place for glorious Pashtun traditions of love, peace and hospitality, has been made to lose everything in the recent past. A Paradise on earth is eventually lost. "There was a time when women and girls of the valley would travel from Mingora town long way on their feet over the high and Legendry Mountains of Elum to visit the mausoleum of famous saint Pir Baba in down town Buner to offer prayers for meeting with their lovers and would sing folk songs of separation and pathos. We were poor but happy. God knows better who cast an evil eye on our land that it turned into a hell", Shaukat Sharar, a local intellectual told me in Mingora town, the capital of scenic Swat district in the North of Pakistan, with a ray of nostalgia in his eyes.

TNSM-the first pro-Taliban Movement:

Swat valley, that fell to pro-Taliban militants in July 2007, and was consequently transformed into a valley of death and destruction, was the most beautiful and scenic valley in South Asia. The people were liberal in their attitudes and ways of life. They had culture, traditions and hope. It is not a far past that people in swat would work in their orchards and rice fields and would earn sufficient amount of corn and money to live with honor and dignity. There was a Music Street where beautiful Swati girls would dance to the tune of artistically rich Pashto music for the greater delight of their visitors. Even the former Wali (Ruler) of Swat state married a famous dancer to bless her community with respect in traditions-ridden Pashtun society. It was in 1992 when Maulana Sufi Muhammad, an extremist cleric launched "Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi Movement". TNSM (Movement for the enforcement of Islamic legal system) in Malakand region and occupied government buildings and schools to press the government for the acceptance of their demand. His supporters blocked the main Peshawar-Mingora highway and killed a member of the provincial assembly along with scores of others in adjoining districts. In 1994 the then Government of Benazir Bhutto curbed the movement but for the appeasement of the people introduced "Nizam-e-Adal regulation" (Islamic judicial system) in Malakand. But leaders of the movement were suspicious of the government decision and continued with their struggle to introduce "A true Islamic order" to the region. Further, on September 6, 1998, the TNSM threatened to attack American property and also to abduct American citizens in Pakistan unless the USA apologized to the Muslim world for the August 1998 missile strikes in Afghanistan. " Came US attacks on Taliban government in neighboring Afghanistan in 2001 and the hardliner clerics in the leadership of Maulana Sufi Muhammad started recruiting people for Jihad against infidels (US and its allies) on the Afghan soil. About 10000 people with traditional guns in their hands were taken to the border to fight the high-tech war planes of United States", Shah Dauran, a local resident recalled. Qazi Ihsanullah, a TNSM spokesperson, said in Bajaur on October 27, 2001: "We will resist if the authorities try to stop us. The jihad (holy war) will start here…Initially Mullah Omar advised us to wait and come to Afghanistan only when necessary but we have told them that we will stay in Afghanistan as a reserve force." Muhammad Iqbal, a 40-year old leader of the movement said that on the call of Maulana Sufi Muhammad the supporters collected 60 truck-loads of food and clothes along with Rs.1.7 million and handed them over to senior Taliban commanders in Qandahar (Afghanistan). But as Sufi Muhammad's fighters were untrained and completely unaware of the modern warfare majority of them were either killed or arrested by forces of Northern Alliance. Along with few leaders Maulana Sufi Muhammad made his entry into Pakistan where he was arrested by Pakistan security forces in January 15, 2002 and sent to jail. After spending seven year term in prison he has recently been released by the government and admitted to a hospital in Peshawar for treatment of diabetes. The government of President Parvez Musharraf has also imposed ban on the movement and termed it as a terrorist organization. During the last seven years TNSM remained dormant however later on its leaders formed another militant movement in the leadership of Maulana Fazlullah, son-in-law of Maulana Sufi Muhammad and a strong opponent of western socio-political ideals.

From tourism to terrorism:

After the arrest of his spiritual leader and father in law, Maulana Fazlullah, 31, gave new impetus to the movement with a novel and effective manner. He launched a network of illegal FM channels in the whole Swat valley and started his fiery speeches against girls' education, anti-polio drops, music shops and pro-US policies of President Parvez Musharraf. In June 2007, during an interview, the firebrand cleric told me that on his advice people burnt TV sets, VCRs and computers worth one million Rupees." This was the first blow to the liberal values of the area and the first step towards obscurantism", Khurhsid Khan, coordinator of a local NGO said. Gradually his network start broadcasting in 40 KM radius and thousands of people would listen to it after night prayers with great veneration. The waves were changing. Parents stopped sending their girls to schools. The illiterate women of the area, considering Maulana Fazlullah as a true leader of Islam, donated their gold made jewelry for the construction of Imam Dheri religious seminary along the bank of river swat.Maulana Fazlullah also termed administering polio drops to children as un-Islamic. In October 2006 Pakistan's air attack on a religious seminary in Bajaur Tribal agency, which the locals believed was carried out by US forces, killed 82 people including its administrator Maulvi Liaqat Ali. Laiqat Ali was very close to Maulana Fazlullah and he would call him as his brother. After the incident Maulana Fazlullah very openly started a militant campaign and motivated the people to join him against the invading US forces. "We will teach them a lesson. We will avenge them for the killing of our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan and Bajaur Agency", he said in one of his broadcasts immedialy after the incident. In July 2007 when Pakistan government launched operation silence against Hafsa seminary in the country's capital-Islamabad-Maulana Fazlullah seized it as a golden opportunity to strengthen his support base and called on the people to take arms and fight against the US and its allies. Explosion in girls schools, music shops and suicide attacks on police and security forces became order of the day. His "Shaheen force", in the command of Siraj-ud-Din and with support from foreign militants occupied schools, hospitals and government offices in the upper Swat valley. Pakistan flag was replaced with black and white flag of the militant movement. This time when a caretaker government was in the office the government sent in 25000 Pakistan regular army forces to fight against Maulana Fazlullah militants in Swat. Pakistan central government officials said that earlier the six-party religious alliance that was in government in the North West Frontier Province opposed the military action but now they will fight until the valley is cleared of militancy.

Paradise lost:

In the ensuing fight the security forces suffered huge casualties and more than 13 security personnel were beheaded by militants in Matta and charbagh areas of the district. Among 1.5 million population of the valley about 0.4 million were displaced by the fighting. In Jehandabad areas the militants blew up a 700 old statue of Buddha-a symbol of peace and humanity. Zahid Khan, president of Swat Hotels Association said that 1200 hotels were closed in the area and the owners had suffered loss of 4 billion rupees. Later on the government claimed that the area has been cleared of militants and the infamous FM channel of Maulana Fazlullah had been closed. But ironically after a few days break Maulana Fazlullah appeared on his Radio and threatened the security forces of dire consequences in return for killing his militants and occupying the seminary which he had built with Rs.8 million. "They say we are hiding. This is wrong. We are not hiding; this is just a war strategy. We will teach them a lesson as our brothers did to the forces of USSR in Afghanistan", he boldly said in his latest radio broadcasts. The last five months fighting between Pakistan security forces has rendered the whole area into a virtual hell where fear prevail and the locals have serious reservations about the military action. They say the government is not able to cut the evil in the bud. "First they allowed Maulana Fazlullah to function and recruit and train people, then he was a small leader but the government allowed him to become a monster. Now they are not able to rein in him", Sher Ali, a college professor in Mingora said. Zia-ud-Din, Secretary of the Swat Private Schools Association said that due to closure of schools thousands of students were not attending their classes. "They are frightened, lost and utterly confused. Many of the children are suffering from psychological trauma", he explained. People in the area want to see concrete results for the military operation that killed many civilians and destroyed the infrastructure but realities on the ground shows that this beautiful and scenic valley of Gandahara civilization is lost for ever. The current wave of violence in other parts of the country has further deepened this pessimism.

Is United States planning to attack Pakistan?

The spread of terrorist activities by pro-Taliban militants from Waziristan tribal agency to the settled district of Swat valley has prompted US security officials to attack Alqaeeda targets in Pakistan. In 2007 Frances Townsend, homeland security adviser, told CNN that if the United States had "actionable targets, anywhere in the world," including Pakistan, then "we would pursue those targets.""There are no options that are off the table," she said. Responding to US officials concerns about Pakistan nuclear installations and the spread of militancy President Parvez Musharraf of Pakistan warned in an interview that any unilateral attacks by the United States against Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in his country's tribal areas would be treated as an invasion.Political analysts say that US attack on Al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan will further worsen the already volatile situation in the region and would divert those who currently oppose militancy to the folds of Al-Qaeda. In Pakistan, religio-political parties' alliance of Mutahida Majlas-e-Amal (MMA) won a landslide victory in the previous elections by exploiting anti-American sentiments in Balochistan and North West Frontier Province. Now it will further strengthened militancy."Any such act will further inflame the situation. It will destabilize the whole region. Peace efforts in Afghanistan would derail in case US attacks Pakistan", says Khadim Hussain Amir, a political analyst and professor at Bahria University Islamabad.Khadim Hussain adds that United States has economic and strategic interests in the region and Pakistan military is working for the protection of these interests. "President Bush says that Alqaeda's war is against American freedom and democracy while Alqaeda and Taliban say that the US war on terrorism is actually a war against Islam. On the other hand nationalist forces are of the opinion that the current war aims at Pashtuns genocide. These are the ideological foundations of the present crisis. In my view this war is against the people and their resources just to promote capitalist interests. Militancy and militarism both end in the large scale sufferings of the already marginalized people", Khadim argued.He suggested that political parties, especially secular and progressive parties can and must play a role to take forward peoples' agenda by creating spaces for negotiations and dialogue among all stake holders including the US.

Pakhtun Culture and Talibanization: A Hypothetical Scenario By Farhat Taj

2009-04-07T21:11:00.000-04:00

Here I share with the readers a hypothetical scenario that has been emerging in my thoughts for some time. The scenario needs further empirical and theoretical information to be substantiated or rejected. But I still share it with the readers because the thought of this scenario has kept me disturbed for some time. Here is the scenario.

Extremism, Economy, Women and Rejection

In the part III of this article I mentioned my talk with three Bosnian Taliban. Further discussions with them and some other people including some other Bosnian Taliban, in Sarajevo revealed two important things about those extremist Muslim young men. One, they were rejected by the economy of their country. They told me they sent around job applications. Everywhere the applications got rejected. The Bosnian employers, it seemed, were not keen on taking those ‘Wahabis’ as those extremist Muslims were called in Bosnia, in their staff. I am still in contact with one of the three Bosnain Taliban through phone calls.

Some weeks back he told me he finally got a job. But how? After he shaved off his long blond beard and presented himself to the employer as clean shaven ‘normal’ Bosnian man.
Two, they were also rejected by women in their society. Without going into the gender dynamics of the Bosnian society from a feminist perspective, what I can safely say is that the Bosnian women are general educated and empower to the extent that no one could force them into marriage. Because they were free to choose, they were opting for more ‘normal’ Bosnian or other European men, both Muslim and non-Muslim, rather than the ‘Wahabis’.

A similar discussion with some other people outside Bosnia revealed that there are young extremist Muslim men in other Muslim societies around the world who are rejected by both economy and women in their countries. I do not have the statistics. But it seems there are a considerable number of such Muslim men around the world. Where do they go now?

Towards the Central Battle Field of Jihad- the Pakhtun Main Land
Such men will naturally turn their faces towards the Pakhtun main land where the international and local Jihadis have waged their Jihad against the ‘wayward’ local people, their ‘rulers who are supposedly more loyal to the US than their religion’, against the non-Muslim NATO and US forces in Afghanistan and the West in general.

This land holds a promise that they cherish the most: martyrdom in Jihad- a direct ticket to paradise, if they got killed in the Jihad. If they did not get killed, there is enough room for them in the Jihad economy that is flourishing in the area to absorb those jobless indoctrinated young men. There are reports that the Jihadis are paid much better than the soldiers of Pakistan army.

What about women now? Educated autonomous women do not fit into the Jihadi worldview. The Jihadis want perpetual reproduction from woman so that there is a constant supply of foot soldiers for Jihad. This becomes difficult with educated women. Social scientists all over the world have established that there is a strong link between female education and fertility.

The more educated a woman, the more she is likely to have less children. Moreover, women in the Jihadi worldview must be moldable to the Jihadi agenda: if needed on road, running high on raw passion, so they must be on roads; when needed to be home, they must be home. Remember the burqa-clad women of Jamia Hafsa on rampage on roads of Islamabad.

Thus women in this worldview must be pliant obedient servant (domestic and sexual) and perpetual reproductive machines or at best they must be educated in jihadi madrassas where they are taught to believe that subjugation to men and continuous reproduction are the ideals the women must long for. Thus in the Pakhtun main land the extremist Muslim men from all over the world find the Jihad economy open to them and the Pakhtun women forced under terror to be subservient wives of them.

Moreover, this also explains why the Taliban have destroyed girls’ schools in their controlled areas or have converted some girls’ schools in female Jihadi madrassas. Deprived of education and confined in homes under terror, the Taliban are ‘grooming’ the Pakhtun girls to be future wives and even concubines of the Jihadis, both local and foreigners, and mothers of the future foot soldiers of Jihad.

I heard in a Dawn TV news report some weeks ago that Taliban in their controlled areas in Bara, Khyber agency have been asking (read pressuring) people to ‘give’ their daughters in marriage to the ‘Mujahidin’. I said pressuring because I know at least one example of this kind.

There is an Afghan refugee woman in Norway. Once she cried to me and said she was missing her daughter who she and her husband married off in the tender age of 12 years. I said why. She said at that time they were in Afghanistan in an area under control of the Taliban, who used to take away young unmarried girls from their families. Afterwards no one in the community happened to know the whereabouts of the girls. Seeing this, she said, she and her husband decided to marry off their daughter to one of their relatives- the point was that married to the relative, we will see her; taken by the Taliban we would never know where she disappeared.

Reproductive Violence, ‘Filthy Jihadi Blood’ and the Long War on Terror

The Pakhtun women will be made to suffer a worst kind of sexual and reproductive violence. They will be made to constantly produce children for the wrong fathers- the Jihadi fathers. Over the time a generation of ‘filthy-Jihadi blood’ will come into being among the Pakhtun. The generation of ‘filthy Jihadi Blood’means a generation made of Pakhtun maternal blood and filthy Arab Jihadi paternal blood or filthy Chechen Jihadi paternal blood or filthy Uzbek Jihadi paternal blood and so on. It is not for racial reasons that I say that the blood (Arab, Chechen, Uzbeg etc) is filthy.

It is filthy because it is Jihadi-blood flowing in the body of a Jihadi father. Constant reproductive violence on the Pakhtun women will make sure a perpetual supply of foot soldiers and suicide bombers for a protracted Jihad on the Pakhtun land.

On the other hand the US has been warning that the war on terror is going to be a long war. The former US Vice-President Dick Cheney has been saying that the US must prepare itself to fight the war on terror for decades. Visiting the US Central Command area in Afghanistan the US Joint Chief of Staff, the Marine Gen. Peter Pace also said that the ‘war on terror is going to last at least another 20 to 30 years’. So, it seems that both Jihadis and the US are aiming at long drawn war on the Pakhtun land at the cost of the Pakhtun blood and socio-cultural values.
A Possible Nuclear attack on the Pakhtun Main Land

When the generation of filthy Jihadi blood comes of age, the world will get even more uneasy about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. The possibility of the weapons falling into the hands of the Jihadis will look ever more real to the West. The Jihadis fight for paradise in the life after death. So, I do not see any war fatigue befalling them. The US on the other hand may encounter a war fatigue.

With the Jihadis threats to the US security looming large as ever, the US, on the other hand, will not like to leave the war on terror unfinished. In such case the US will hit the Pakhtun main land with nuclear weapons to put an abrupt end to the filthy Jihadi generation and their international Jihadi allies on the main land and thus to the war on terror.

The US has used atom bombs to put an abrupt end to the protracted II World War. What can stop the US from using the weapons of mass destruction again if the ‘right’ combination of circumstances came into being? The Pakhtun people, their land and culture, all will burn to ashes in such an attack. Neither the international Jihadis nor the US will give even a hoot about the destruction of the Pakhtun people and land. The Jihadis would say: ‘congratulation to the Pakhtun- Lucky they- their ‘sacrifices’ will surly win them a place in paradise. The US will ignore them as ‘collateral damage’.

One thing that may deter the US from a nuclear attack on the Pakhtun main land is that the attack may affect the near by countries, India and China, where the US have vital economic and other interests. For that the US may use ‘smart’ nuclear bombs to attack the Pakhtun main land.

A ‘smart’ nuclear bomb is a bomb whose scale of destruction can be limited to the target area. Does the US possess such ‘smart’ nuclear bombs? Is the construction of such bombs scientifically possible? I don’t know. But even if they do not exist in the world today, can they be made in the next 15-20 years? Is this scientifically possible in the next 15-20 years? I don’t know. I think a person who has the scientific know how of the subject, like Dr. Hoodbhoy , the Professor of Physics at the Qaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, can educate us on the issue.

Reality Analysis of the Hypothetical Scenario

I said in the onset that this is a hypothetical scenario. More theoretical and empirical evidence is required to substantiate or reject it. But I am still putting across this scenario to the readers, especially the concerned Pakhtun. As I look at the events and phenomena unfolding in the Pakhtun main land in the context of the war on terror between the international Jihadis and the US, this hypothetical scenario is emerging in my mind. This scenario has kept me disturbed for quite some time. I, therefore, share it with the readers.

I will invite the readers, especially the Pakhtun to discuss the scenario and put forward more empirical and theoretical evidence to reject or substantiate the likelihood of such a scenario. If they concluded that such a scenario is unlikely, I will be very happy. If they concluded that there is some likelihood of such an eventuality, then, the Pakhtun must be very concerned. They must start thinking of strategies to prevent such an eventuality right from today.

What can that strategies be? I don’t know. But a key strategy should be girls’ education. The Pakhtun must rebuild all the girls’ schools destroyed by the Taliban. They must build girls’ schools and colleges in the area where there have never been such institutions. They must press the government of Pakistan for that. Where the government is unwilling or unable or even too slow to build, the affluent Pakhtun must come forward to finance community schools and colleges in the areas.

Due to its geography, the Pakhtun land has always been exposed to foreign invasions and onslaughts. The conduct of Pakhtun resistance to such foreign invasions and onslaughts has been men’s business. Although we have yet to fully research the women’s full role in such resistance, let for the time being we take what appears in the up front for the whole, i.e. assume that the resistance has been men’s work. The dynamics of the resistance have dramatically changed in the context of the war on terror. The Pakhtun women,it seems, have to be an up frontal part of this resistance.

If the Jihadis are eyeing on the Pakhtun women, they (the women) must have the necessary skills to play their role in the Pakhtun resistance to the Jihadi agenda. Education is the bases of all such skill. Girls’ education is important in its own right for social development and well being of any human society.

But in the context of the war on terror the Pakhtun must take the girls’ education as strategy for their national survival. I am sure these young girls when armed with education will prove to be an excellent defense against the Jihadi designs of leading the Pakhtun people, culture and land towards a complete catastrophe as seen in the above hypothetical scenario.
(To be continued)

Farhat Taj is Norway based Ph D researcher. She can be reached at bergen34@yahoo.com

Facebook | Pakhtunkhwa Peace Forum

2009-04-01T23:20:00.000-04:00

Facebook | Pakhtunkhwa Peace Forum

Canadian House of Common discussed the Swat-Pakistan issue

2009-03-22T03:39:00.000-04:00

Pashto Speech by Shahi Syed

2009-03-17T23:43:00.000-04:00

A Letter From Mother to All Musafar Pukhtoon Brother's

2009-03-16T21:42:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8i7lYnTBpM

A PAKTHOON SON'S LETTER TO HIS MOTHER

2009-03-16T18:03:00.000-04:00

A Very Nice Song of Pashto for Unity of all Pashtuns

2009-03-16T17:20:00.000-04:00

President Obama's Policy Options in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) Hassan Abbas, ISPU Fellow

2009-03-09T15:20:00.001-04:00

Who Will Save Pakistan? (The Guardian)

2009-03-04T16:59:00.001-05:00

The attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore shows the folly of politicians like Imran Khan who placate the Taliban

Guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 3 March 2009, Simon Tisdall

The audacious attack on Sri Lanka's cricket players as they travelled through Lahore has underscored fears that politically fractured, economically destitute and militarily challenged Pakistan, if not already a failed state, is heading rapidly towards the status of international outcast.

The virtual certainty that Pakistan's days of hosting Test cricket are over for the foreseeable future is the least of the country's problems. The attack in the heartlands of the Punjab, the army's traditional stronghold and the most populous province, looked like a deliberate throwing down of the gauntlet to army chief of staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

It is barely six months since the democratically elected civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari succeeded in ousting General Pervez Musharraf, a Kayani predecessor who had ruled the country for nearly a decade following a 1999 coup d'etat. But Zardari and his Pakistan People's party (PPP) are mired in domestic controversy and appear increasingly unable to manage Pakistan's multiplying problems.
Kayani has vowed to keep the military out of politics, a pledge he reportedly renewed during talks in Washington last week on a new, combined military and political strategy for what the Americans call "Afpak" – Afghanistan and Pakistan. But the Obama administration's confidence in Zardari, as with the Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, is wearing thin.

If Kayani and his fellow generals felt obliged to step in "for the good of the country", then Washington, more concerned about defeating the Taliban and al-Qaida than preserving a democratic system that daily appears to be more and more of a travesty of itself, might well go along. After all, it wouldn't be the first time.

Like other Pakistani commentators, author and journalist Ahmed Rashid pinned blame for the attack against the Sri Lankan team squarely on Islamist militants with whom Pakistan is fighting a spreading battle along its north-western flank. Involvement of Baluchi separtists or Tamil Tiger renegades from Sri Lanka itself was largely discounted.

There was also broad consensus about the purpose of the attack, which was widely compared, in terms of tactics and aims, to that carried out by the Punjabi group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, in Mumbai last November. "I think this is a deliberate attempt to undermine the government at the time when there is a huge political crisis in the country," Rashid said. "They are trying to create a vacuum of power in which eventually they can take over."

If internal chaos is the aim of the jihadis, they are being ably aided and abetted by Pakistan's mainstream politicians. It is only a year since civilian governance returned to Islamabad, with the principal parties promising to work together.

That was then. The vicious infighting now under way between Zardari's PPP and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League is strongly reminiscent of the epic battles between Sharif and Zardari's murdered wife, Benazir Bhutto, that led directly to Musharraf's coup. If unchecked, it may not only encourage the militants; it may also open up a path to power to Pakistan's religious parties, in alliance with or separate from Sharif.
Last week's supreme court ruling barring Sharif, and his brother, Shahbaz, chief minister of Punjab, from elected office, was widely seen as a political putsch engineered by Zardari. His decision to sack Punjab's government and imposed direct rule recklessly upped the ante even further. Now the Sharifs and their angry supporters are planning to lead a massive protest march on the capital on March 12.

The march will commemorate the dismissal two years ago of the chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who Sharif says should be reinstated. It is being organised by a lawyers movement but will also be supported by Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist party which wants sharia law adopted throughout Pakistan. This is an unholy alliance, even by Pakistani standards. The potential for a violent confrontation, and for a further, possibly fatal weakening of Zardari's grip on power, is not inconsiderable.

The president's authority is already under fierce fire on several other fronts, not least the impenetrable north-western tribal areas where Pakistani Taliban groups are variously reported to have formed an alliance to fight Nato in Afghanistan, to be in the process of reneging on a recent truce, or to be giving up the fight in agencies such as Bajur.

This confusion is typical in a region where alliances shift as quickly as the winds blowing off the Hindu Kush. But one thing is certain: the government in Islamabad is not in control of events and, more often than not, is a victim of them. For instance, Washington's anger at the peace deal in Swat allowing the introduction of sharia law there is tempered by the expectation that, like previous agreements with the ungovernable Pashtun hill tribes stretching back to the days of the Raj, it will not stick.

The US is offering massive new infusions of economic aid, in addition to conditional military assistance, to help root out the jihadi menace. But at a time of growing febrility, there's little doubt US pressure, increasing under Barack Obama, is also making matters worse, at least in the short term.

The rise in cross-border attacks by US forces using Predator drones armed with Hellfire missiles since Zardari took power has further alienated tribal leaders and encouraged radicalisation, Pakistani officials say. Washington argues the policy is necessary in the absence of better answers from Pakistan. Critics say Zardari has secretly sold out the country's sovereignty in return for Obama's support.

Pakistan's economic troubles, compounded by a fast expanding population, chronic poverty, high unemployment, and lack of education, have added to a sense that the country is isolated and in danger of imploding. Islamabad was obliged to accept a $7.6bn emergency IMF loan package in November. It may yet need much more to stave off collapse.

Heightened tensions with India following the Mumbai attacks, friction with Afghanistan's government over security, China's rising alarm over its neighbour's predicament, and international worries about the safety of Pakistan's unregulated nuclear weapons stockpile form the wider context to this dramatic, apparently ineluctable descent.

Pakistan's disintegration, if that is what is now being witnessed, is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, a riveting spectacle, and a clear and present danger to international security. But who in the world can stop it?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/03/sri-lanka-cricket-team-attack-pakistan

Some Comments:

@sumant: "Clearly the intolerant aggressive and poorly educated Pashtuns prefer an austere medieval life style and should be allowed to live in that manner if they so choose."

You are woefully misinformed. The Pashtuns have demonstrated, time and again, that they are secular, liberal and modern in their outlook. In recent elections, they have elected the Awami National Party (which is the oldest secular and liberal party in Pakistan) with absolute majority. You should also remember that Pashtun society has the history of Khudai-khidmatgars : nonviolent freedom fighters of Bacha Khan (who was a close friend of Mahatma, and known as Frontier Gandhi) . Is there any other politician in Pakistan of the stature of Bacha Khan in the struggle for independence. (Jinnah does not even count because he was from India.) Pashtuns are a political minded people and are very amenable to democracy. In fact, they have tradition of republicanism and democracy running back 2000 years.

If Pashtun polity is in a mess, that is purely a result of the meddling of foreign powers. Pakistani army has encouraged fundamentalist Islamists to curb growing nationalist feelings in Pukthoonkhwa. The Pak government has imprisoned Bacha Khan (along with several other nationalist leaders) for 30 long years. If we don't see any democracy flourishing in Pakistan, that is purely a result of their own doing.

Not to be outdone, the Americans and CIA have pumped arms and money to fundamentalists in their covert war against the soviets. Thus, absolute no-names such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar became supreme warlords dripping with money and guns. How can any secular politician stand up against this type of meddling ?

------------------------------------

"Some facts will make the things a bit clear. The President of Pakistan has kept his family and all of his property and business interests in foreign countries. Most of the top politicians including PML N leaders have all their assets in foreign countries. This is also true about Flag Staff of Armed Forces and Top bureaucrats and businessmen. It looks like Pakistan's ruling elite has no faith in the future of the country. They know something which ordinary people do not know. Things are very serious and frightening too."

------------------------------------

"Who will save Pakistan?

Only the Pakistani people can save Pakistan.
They need to rise against the Pakistani Army, ISI and the feudal families who use the Taliban and various other terrorist groups to do their dirty work in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan so that they can play their power games while innocent civilians get killed. They need to see that the Pakistani army and the elite are whipping up anti-American and anti-Indian sentiments to maintain their power and economic might while the rest of Pakistan starves.

Unless the people of Pakistan realise the nefarious and destructive nature of the Islamic terrorists and their backers, they are going to become another failed state"

------------------------------------

Simon Tisdall's words on Pakistan reflects so accurately the western powers approach and response to what is happening in Pakistan at the moment,that a reader of his article could be forgiven for thinking,that he was a spokesman for American foreign policy and it's military commanders.

The west has long meddled in the internal affairs of Pakistan,with a view to installing a sympathetic puppet,who will carry out policies best suited to western interests,regardless of what that might mean for the indigenous population,which very often means being diametrically opposed to what the people want,or their aspirations.

Indeed, Simon admits in his article that the western powers would be better off with a tyrannical despot dictator,totally devoid of any democratic credentials,as long as this despot was sympathetic to the western cause.

When the west operates to such double standards,is it any wonder that western values are being rejected by those that they would want on their side ?.
One would have to imagine what any western country,with the population of Pakistan,a nuclear power,would make of interference in their internal affairs,by a foreign country,do you suppose that this situation would be accepted by the population,without massive social unrest and protest ?,causing a fragmentation of the system that allows for normal governmental control of it's people ?.

Why then is it always read that the normal reactions of a non western country's population,would not be the same as they could expect from their own,when being subjected to the same thing, being so amazed and surprised,when they discover they are not.The arrogance is breathtaking !!.

Hardliners, Moderates, Liberals and the State

2009-03-04T16:54:00.001-05:00

The News, Thursday, February 26, 2009, By Kamila Hyat

It is a telling testimony to the plight of Pakistan that a man such as Maulana Sufi Muhammad Khan, who broke away from the Jamaat-e-Islami in 1989 to form his pro-Taliban, pro-Jihadi Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariah-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) is now seen as a relative moderate by the political forces who have negotiated a truce with him in Swat.

Sufi Muhammad believes: "Those opposing the imposition of Shariah in Pakistan are Wajibul Qatal (worthy of death)." He is also fervently opposed to democracy, and declared when he set up his TNSM that "There is no room for vote in Islam and the concept of democracy, which some religio-political parties are demanding, is wrong." The TNSM has used violence to further its cause since 1994, when it first made its demand for the imposition of Shariah rule in Swat, blocked highways to press this forward and abducted and killed a sitting member of the provincial assembly. The distinct, camouflage waistcoats and sinister black turbans of the TNSM have since become a feared symbol across Swat.

But there are hard facts to be faced in the Pakistan of today. Compared to his wild-eyed son-in-law, Maulana Fazlullah, who assumed growing influence and power after Sufi was imprisoned following his return from Afghanistan in 2002 where he had taken a force of 10,000 young fighters to stage jihad, the TNSM chief remains a relative moderate. Fazlullah has been eager to overtake his father-in-law – who in May 2008 in fact publically disowned him. Sufi had been freed from jail by the ANP at the time in an initial effort to broker a truce in Swat. That effort floundered. Direct talks with Fazlullah, who is said to be strongly inspired by the examples of inhumanity set by the Afghan Taliban – apparently aiming to improve on their performance when it comes to beheadings, whippings, rape and terror – quickly gave way to renewed violence.

The latest peace deal, to which Fazlullah has, over the illegal radio station he continues to run, given a perhaps reluctant ascent, has come under fierce attack – with good reason. Striking accords with militants is a dangerous and highly undesirable business. In the past such truce agreements have been used by them only to regroup and launch new, more powerful assaults on state control. Giving in to their demands encourages others to emulate their example and use similar tactics to drive the government to its knees. In the agreement on Shariah, we do not know what, if any, provisions are contained within it to safeguard the basic rights of people. This is especially relevant in the context of women, who have suffered the most severe atrocities under militant command. There is also no word on whether militants who committed numerous acts of crazed depravity are to go scot free or whether any plan is in place to bring them to justice. Moreover, a dual system of law within the same state is simply unacceptable, leading to all kinds of problems. It also sets a dangerous precedent – with militants in Bajaur now too demanding a similar settlement.

The problem though is that politics, in practice, deals with realities and not ideals. It had become apparent that the military was unable – or unwilling – to win back Swat. The reasons why a force of over 12,000 should have been so completely overwhelmed by some 5,000 militants are for tacticians to ponder. The issue of commitment and will have all been raised at many levels, in Swat, in Peshawar, in Islamabad and in Washington. The NWFP government's decision to arm 30,000 selected villagers and create an elite police force of 2,500 seems to be a bid to break free of complete dependence on the military. But given that, for whatever reason, the militants had won the war in Swat, seizing control even of Mingora with no prospect of their being pushed back, the question is what options remained open to the government. Surely no democratic set up can be expected to allow helpless people to be bullied, bludgeoned, maimed and killed at will or watch silently week after week, month after month as blood flowed in what had become known as 'khooni chowk' in Mingora. What are the options for a government when the military fails against armed insurgents? What does it do when people plead desperately for help? The horrors of life in Swat under the militants are easy to forget in Lahore or Islamabad or Karachi. They are impossible to put aside or reduce to the abstract in Mingora, or Saidu Sharif or Miandam or Besham. The truce has been welcomed by people across Swat. Their opinions cannot be ignored, nor should endless resilience be demanded of them. Sometimes pragmatism, for the sake of people, must over-ride passion.

But principle must not be neglected or shelved indefinitely. It must remain at the centre of strategy. The deal, advocates say, has already driven a wedge between the fanatical forces of Fazlullah, and the TNSM of Sufi Mohammad Khan. The emphatic welcome for Sufi as he arrived in Swat from his native Dir is said to have forced Fazlullah to give in and agree to a 'permanent' truce, apparently after a series of hectic consultations at the expansive madressah complex in his native village of Mamdheray. It seems unlikely that the agreement will hold. The question is if the government can move swiftly to follow up what must be a time-winning strategy with concrete measures to win back Swat. The fact is that, for all the claims made on their behalf, people there do not seek Shariah. Had they done so they would not have voted so overwhelmingly for ANP candidates who virtually swept polls in Swat just over a year ago. In many ways the truce with the TNSM is then a betrayal.

Confusion is created by the constant, strident orders issued to Islamabad from distant capitals. The advice is not based on the interests of the country or its people. But the fact is that even Washington seems to be realizing indefinite war cannot win back Afghanistan. There is talk of truce with the Taliban. The question in Swat is how periods of calm can be used to win back the loyalties of people who have no regard for a state that they believe has consistently failed to offer them anything at all. These feelings in that region are exacerbated by the deep rooted belief that militants work in close cooperation with agencies. The tragic death of journalist Musa Khankhel, in an area controlled by militants, is thought by many to be an attempt by this unholy alliance to dampen the impact of the welcome for Sufi Muhammad.

There are many complexities. The agreement on Shariah rule is terrifying in terms of the implications it has for the rest of the country. It is also an outcome of the failure to bring tracts across the country into the mainstream of nationhood and offer them the same rights offered – at least in theory – to the majority of its citizens under the Constitution. Till 1969, Swat, under it's Wali, was ruled by a code that incorporated elements of Shariah. Failed by a system that has been unable to deliver even basic justice, it is this era that people seem most nostalgic for. The PATA (Provincially Administered Tribal Areas) regulation in Swat, struck down in 1994 by the Supreme Court, also contained aspects of Islamic law.

Dichotomies exist everywhere. Seven out of 24 districts of the NWFP are situated in PATA. These include Upper and Lower Dir, Swat, Chitral, Buner, Shangla and Malakand. There are seven tribal agencies and six frontier regions in FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas). Absurdly, laws that protect people elsewhere do not extend to these territories. One example is the 2005 law banning 'Swara' or the handing over of women to settle a dispute between two parties. The unjust and dangerous precedent of permitting different legal codes to operate in different parts of the country is set by the state itself. The practice must be ended, people all over the country brought into a whole as equal citizens and an effort initiated to win back Swat as a part of Pakistan, not just in terms of control over its territory but also in terms of the loyalty and confidence of its 1.8 million people.

The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=164580

Our Reward for Appeasing the Militants (The Guardian)

2009-03-04T16:51:00.000-05:00

The attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore shows the folly of politicians like Imran Khan who placate the Taliban

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 3 March 2009 17, By Mohammed Hanif

Pakistan's cricket legend and latterly cheerleader for the Taliban, Imran Khan, had recently said that militants will never attack a cricket match or cricketers in Pakistan because Pakistanis love cricket too much. I am not sure whether he based his analysis on militants' respect for people's favourite pastime or on his newfound adherence for orthodox Islam, but he has obviously been proven wrong.

A tragic and terrifying attack such as the one that happened in Lahore on Tuesday is perhaps no time to remind famous people that how naïve they can be in their public pronouncements. People like Imran Khan seem to think that if they slip in a nice word about militants, then the terrorists will reciprocate by showing some restraint, or at least not do things like attacking the only cricket team in the world brave and friendly enough to visit Pakistan during the past 14 months.

Imran Khan made another prediction in his statement. "There will be a severe backlash against the militants if they attacked cricketers, because Pakistanis love their cricketers too much." So perhaps it's not the day either to remind him that Pakistanis also love good education, pop music and an occasional dance performance.

During the past few months, there was no popular backlash when more than 200 schools were demolished by the Taliban in the Swat valley. There was not a squeak of protest when more than 500 music shops were shut down in Mingora, the main town in the valley. There were only murmurs of disapproval when a dancer named Shabana was dragged into the city square and killed. ("Don't slit my throat, just shoot me," Shabana was reported to have said.)

I was desperately hoping that Imran Khan's prediction about a popular backlash would turn out to be true this time.

But looking at the TV coverage of the Lahore attacks, that hope has already begun to fade. Because there is a backlash already underway – but it's not directed at the attackers or the ideological environment that breeds them. It's already spiralling into "Our Mumbai" and "since some of the Mumbai attackers went from Pakistan, so these boys must have come from across the border" arguments. As we watch the looped visuals of young men, barely out of their teens, wearing white sneakers and backpacks, strolling on the lush grass outside Qaddafi Stadium and shooting at an ambulance, a presenter on a very popular news channels discusses the incident. "Which country didn't want the Sri Lankan team to come to Pakistan? Which country was very upset when Sri Lankans decided to come and play in Pakistan?" India, of course. "We don't even need to guess who is behind these attacks," he concluded his argument.

It may be too early to tell who was actually behind these attacks, but we can safely say that pictures of young men wearing sneakers and backpacks and brandishing AK47s, followed by TV presenters demanding revenge, will be the only spectator sport on Pakistani TV for some time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/03/sri-lanka-cricket-pakistan?commentpage=1

A Country Staring Disaster in the Face (The Guardian)

2009-03-04T16:50:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's terrorist attack in Pakistan shocked the world, but we shouldn't be surprised, says William Dalrymple. A volatile mix of US-led military action in the tribal areas and the government's misguided fostering of jihadi groups threatens the stability of the entire region

The Guardian, Wednesday 4 March 2009, by William Dalrymple

Just over a year ago, in February 2008, I travelled by car across the length and breadth of Pakistan to cover the country's first serious election since General Pervez Musharraf seized power in 1999. The rightwing press had been predicting violence and bloodshed, but at the time I travelled in safety throughout the country and was struck by the country's fortitude in the face of adversity. The story I wrote at the time for the New York Review of Books was optimistic.

"Like most other people given the option, Pakistanis clearly want the ability to choose their own rulers, and to determine their own future," I wrote. "The country I saw over the last few days on a long road trip was not a failed state, nor anything even approaching 'the most dangerous country in the world ... almost beyond repair' as the Spectator (among many others) recently suggested ... By and large, the countryside I passed through was calm and beautiful, and not obviously less prosperous-looking than its subcontinental neighbour. It was certainly a far cry from the terminal lawlessness and instability of post-occupation Iraq or Afghanistan."

A year on, however, the situation could hardly be more different, or more grim. In just over a year, Asif Ali Zardari's inept government has effectively lost control of much of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) to the Taliban's Pakistani counterparts, a loose confederation of nationalists, Islamists and angry Pashtun tribesmen under the nominal command of Baitullah Mehsud. Yesterday's ambush of the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, which killed six policemen and injured seven players and officials, combined with the defeat of the Pakistani army in Swat and the subsequent capitulation to the Taliban there, and the recent kidnapping of John Solecki, head of the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Quetta, during an attack that killed his driver, underscores the seriousness of the situation.

Few had very high expectations of Zardari, the notorious playboy widower of Benazir Bhutto. Nevertheless, the speed of the collapse that has taken place on his watch has amazed almost all observers. Across much of the North-West Frontier Province - around a fifth of Pakistan - women have now been forced to wear the burka, music has been silenced, barbershops are forbidden to shave beards and more than 200 girls' schools have been blown up or burned down. From the provincial capital of Peshawar, a significant proportion of the city's elite, along with its musicians, have decamped to what had, until yesterday's attack, been regarded as the relatively safe and tolerant confines of Lahore and Karachi.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of ordinary people from the surrounding hills of the semi-autonomous tribal belt - the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) that run along the Afghan border - have fled from the conflict zones, blasted by missiles from unmanned American Predator drones and strafed by Pakistani helicopter gunships, to the tent camps now ringing Peshawar.

The tribal areas have never been fully under the control of any Pakistani government, and have always been unruly, but they have now been radicalised as never before. The rain of armaments from US drones and Pakistani ground forces, which have caused extensive civilian casualties, daily add a steady stream of angry foot soldiers to the insurgency. Elsewhere in Pakistan, anti-western religious and political extremism continues to flourish, and there are increasing signs that the instability is now spreading from the Frontier Province to the relatively settled confines of Lahore and the Punjab.

The most alarming manifestation of this was the ease with which a highly trained jihadi group, almost certainly supplied and provisioned in Pakistan - probably by the nominally banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, an organisation that aims to restore Muslim rule in Kashmir - attacked neighbouring India in November. They murdered 173 innocent people in Mumbai, injured more than 600 and brought the two nuclear-armed rivals once again to the brink of war. Now Lashkar is being named as the principle suspect in yesterday's attack in Lahore.

Four months ago, in November on a trip to Pakistan, I tried to visit Peshawar, which functions as both the capital of the North-West Frontier Province and the administrative centre for Fata along the Afghan border. But for the first time in 25 years, I was warned by Pakistani journalist friends not even to attempt going. In one week, an unprecedented series of events made up my mind for me.

On the Monday 11 November, some 60 militants identified with the Pakistani Taliban looted 13 trucks carrying military supplies and a fleet of Humvees going up the Khyber Pass to US troops in Afghanistan. Twenty-six people were kidnapped. The next day, a suicide bomber narrowly missed killing the governor and some of the ministers of the NWFP as they left a stadium. Three people were killed in the attack. On Wednesday of that week, unidentified gunmen killed Stephen Vance, a US aid worker, and kidnapped an Iranian diplomat, who joined the Chinese engineers, Pakistani truck drivers and senior Afghan diplomat being held in Taliban captivity. On the Thursday, two journalists - one Japanese, the other Afghan - were shot and wounded. And this was just one week in one single provincial town. Peshawar suddenly seemed to be becoming as violent as Baghdad at the height of the insurgency three years ago.

All this took place in the vacuum created by the temporary flight from the province of the chief minister and leader of the NWFP's ruling Awami National party, Asfandyar Wali Khan. This followed a suicide bombing on 2 October that killed three guests and a member of his staff while he was greeting visitors during Eid celebrations marking the end of Ramadan. Immediately after the bombing, a rattled Khan fled from the province in a helicopter sent to him by Zardari, then flew straight on to Britain. He was persuaded to return only with some difficulty.

In February 2008, Khan's party had been elected with a huge majority, breaking the power of the MMA Islamist alliance, a coalition of Islamic groups that has been a major force in frontier politics, and that had ruled the province for the previous five years. The election seemed to mark a moment of hope for Pakistani secular democracy; but that hope was soon shattered by the apparently unstoppable advance of the Pakistani Taliban out of Fata.

Since then there have been several more suicide bombings and a number of attacks on US convoys and depots in and around Peshawar, including one that led to the burning of 200 trucks and dozens of Humvees and armoured personnel carriers, and another that led to the capture by the Taliban of 50 containers of supplies.

Far from the frontier, in Pakistan's artistic capital of Lahore, the scene of yesterday's attack, the usually resilient members of the liberal elite were more depressed than I have ever seen them, alarmed both by the news of the Taliban's advances and by the economic difficulties that have recently led Pakistan to seek a $7.6bn loan from the IMF.

The night I arrived, I went to see Najam Sethi and his wife Jugnu, editors of the English-language Daily Times and Friday Times newspapers, who now found themselves directly in the Taliban's crosshairs. Three weeks earlier, they had begun to receive faxes threatening them with violence if they didn't stop attacking Islamist interests in their columns. The two have survived years of harassment by various governments and agencies, but now felt powerless to respond to these anonymous threats.

Another old friend in Lahore, the human rights campaigner Asma Jahangir, had also received faxed warnings - in her case to desist helping the victims of honour killings. Jahangir, who had bravely fought successive military governments, was at a loss about what to do: "Nobody is safe any more," she told me. "If you are threatened by the government you can take them on legally. But with nonstate actors, when even members of the government are themselves not safe, who do you appeal to? Where do you look for protection?"

These events dramatically illustrate the central contention of Descent into Chaos, the latest book by Ahmed Rashid, who is widely regarded as the best-informed writer on both the Afghan Taliban and their Pakistani counterparts. He emphasises the degree to which, seven years after 9/11, "the US-led war on terrorism has left in its wake a far more unstable world than existed on that momentous day in 2001".

Eight years of neocon foreign policies have been a spectacular disaster for American interests in the Islamic world, leading to the advance of Hamas and Hezbollah, the wreckage of Iraq, with more than two million external refugees and the ethnic cleansing of its Christian population, the rise of Iran as a major regional power, and now the implosion of Afghanistan and Pakistan, probably the most dangerous development of all. While laying part of the blame for the current disaster on the "arrogance and ignorance" of the US administration, Rashid is also well aware of the large share of responsibility that must be put at the door of Pakistan's army and its Inter-Services Intelligence Agency, or ISI.

For more than 20 years, the ISI has, for its own purposes, deliberately and consistently funded and incubated a variety of Islamist groups, including in particular Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba. Since the days of the anti-Soviet mujahideen, the Pakistani army saw the jihadis as an ingenious and cost-effective means of both dominating Afghanistan - something they finally achieved with the Soviet retreat in 1987 - and bogging down the Indian army in Kashmir, something they succeeded in achieving from 1990 onward.

The army's top brass were convinced until recently that they could control the militants whom they had fostered. In a taped conversation between then-General Musharraf and Muhammad Aziz Khan, his chief of general staff, which India released in 1999, Aziz said that the army had the jihadis by their tooti (their privates).

Yet while some in the ISI may still believe that they can use jihadis for their own ends, the Islamists have increasingly followed their own agendas, sending suicide bombers to attack not just members of Pakistan's religious minorities and political leaders, but even the ISI's headquarters at Camp Hamza itself, in apparent revenge for the army's declared support for America's war on terror and attacks made by the Pakistani military on Taliban strongholds in Fata. Ironically, as Rashid makes clear, it was exactly groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, which were originally created by the ISI, that have now turned their guns on their creators, as well as brazenly launching well-equipped and well-trained teams of jihadis into Indian territory.

The speed with which the US lost interest in Afghanistan after its successful invasion and embarked on plans to invade Iraq, which clearly had no link with al-Qaida, convinced Pakistan's military leaders that the US was not serious about a long-term commitment to Karzai's regime. This in turn led to them keeping the Taliban in reserve to be used to reinstall a pro-Pakistani regime in Afghanistan once the Americans' attention had been turned elsewhere and Karzai's regime had crumbled.

By 2004, the US had filmed Pakistani army trucks delivering Taliban fighters to the Afghan border and taking them back a few days later, while wireless monitoring at the US base at Bagram picked up Taliban commanders arranging with Pakistani army officers at the border for safe passage as they came in and out of Afghanistan. By 2005 the Taliban, with covert Pakistani support, was launching a full-scale assault on Nato troops in Afghanistan.

As Rashid notes in his conclusion: "Today, seven years after 9/11, Mullah Omar and the original Afghan Taliban Shura still live in Baluchistan province. Afghan and Pakistani Taliban leaders live on further north, in Fata, as do the militias of Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hikmetyar. Al-Qaida has a safe haven in Fata, and along with them reside a plethora of Asian and Arab terrorist groups who are now expanding their reach into Europe and the United States."

The foot-dragging response of Zardari to the attacks on Mumbai last November shows the degree to which the two-faced dual-track policy of courting both the US and the various jihadi groups remains effectively in place with the Pakistani military. For the last decade, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, has been allowed to operate from Muridke, near Lahore. Although Lashkar has officially been banned in reaction to US pressure after 9/11, widely thought to continue to function under the name of Jamaat-ud Daawa, while Saeed is accused of continuing to incite attacks on India and western targets.

Even now, after the mass murder in Mumbai - although Saeed is himself now under house arrest on suspicion of masterminding the attacks (an accusation that he denies) - his organisation's madrasas and facilities remain open and appear to benefit from patronage offered by Pakistan's authorities. Only this year, the Zardari government cleared the purchase of a bulletproof Land Cruiser for him. Zardari does indeed seem to be in what the Indian foreign minister, Pranab Mukherjee, calls "a state of denial" about the involvement of Pakistani jihadi groups in the Mumbai massacres.

Yet, viewed in the light of Pakistani power politics, Zardari's position has a certain dangerous logic. Army insiders say that General Ashfaq Kiyani, the current chief of staff, who is already involved in a full-scale conflict with the Pakistani Taliban in the frontier tribal areas, does not feel sufficiently strong to open a second front with the jihadis in the Punjab; while Zardari, even though he may wish to be rid of Lashkar and the Punjabi jihadis, cannot afford to be seen to cave in to Indian pressure. It is a classic South Asian catch-22, which allows Lashkar to continue functioning with only cosmetic restrictions, whose main function is to impress the US. Yet the fact remains that until firm action is taken against all such groups, and training camps are closed down, the slow collapse of the Pakistani state will continue, and with it the safety of western interests in the region.

Several factors will determine the future. Rashid makes it clear that only a radical change of policy by the US under Barack Obama can hope to begin turning things around. He writes: "South and Central Asia will not see stability unless there is a new global compact among the leading players ... to help this region solve its problems, which range from settling the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan to funding a massive education and job-creation program in the borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan and along their borders with Central Asia." As Obama has hinted, such an approach could be coupled with negotiations with some elements of the Afghan Taliban.

The second factor, of course, has to be reform of the ISI and the Pakistani military. The top Pakistani army officers must end their obsession with bleeding India by using an Islamist strategic doctrine entailing support of jihadists, and realise that such a policy is deeply damaging to Pakistan itself, threatening to turn Pakistan into a clone of Taliban-dominated Afghanistan rather than a potential partner of a future Indian superpower.

A third factor is somehow finding a way to stop the madrasa-inspired and Saudi-financed advance of Wahhabi Islam, which is directly linked to the spread of anti-western radicalisation.

On my last visit to Pakistan, it was very clear that while the Wahhabi-dominated north-west was on the verge of falling under the sway of the Taliban, the same was not true of the Sufi-dominated province of Sindh, which currently is quieter and safer than it has been for some time. Here in southern Pakistan, on the Indian border, Sufi Islam continues to act as a powerful defence against the puritanical fundamentalist Islam of the Wahhabi mullahs, which supports intolerance of all other faiths.

Visiting the popular Sufi shrine of Sehwan in Sindh last month, I was astonished by the strength of feeling expressed against the mullahs by the Sindhis who look to their great saints such a Lal Shabaz Qalander for guidance, and hate the Wahhabis who criticise the popular Islam of the Sufi saints as a form of shirk, or heresy: "All these mullahs should be damned," said one old Sufi I talked to in the shrine.

"They read their books but they never understand the true message of love that the prophet preached. Men so blind as them cannot even see the shining sun."

A Delhi friend who visited shortly before me, the former Guardian Africa correspondent James Astill, met a young man from Swat, in the NWFP, who said he had considered joining the militants, but their anti-Sufi attitude had put him off: "No one can deny us our respected saints of God," he said.

The Saudis have invested intensively in Wahhabi madrasas in the NWFP and Punjab, with dramatic effect, radically changing the religious landscape of an entire region. The tolerant Sufi culture of Sindh has been able to defy this imported Wahhabi radicalism. The politically moderating effect of Sufism was recently described in a Rand Corporation report recommending support for Sufism as an "open, intellectual interpretation of Islam". Here is an entirely indigenous and homegrown Islamic resistance movement to fundamentalism, with deep roots in South Asian culture. Its importance cannot be overestimated. Could it have a political effect in a country still dominated by military forces that continue to fund and train jihadi groups? It is one of the few sources of hope left in the increasingly bleak political landscape of this strategically crucial country.

• A version of this article appeared in the New York Review of Books. ©2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/04/pakistan-terrorism-international-conflict

Pakistan - A Failing State (The Guardian)

2009-03-04T16:48:00.000-05:00

Editorial, The Guardian, Wednesday 4 March 2009

It is often said that two things bind a country as diverse as Pakistan: Urdu and cricket. After yesterday's shootout on the streets of Lahore, the list has shortened further. The attack on the coach carrying the visiting Sri Lankan team spelled not just the suspension of international cricket - or indeed any international sport in Pakistan. Pakistan has also just lost its last great link with the outside world. A link that had survived military dictators, a nuclear standoff and the decades of conflict with India has just fallen victim to an audacious commando-style raid outside a stadium in one of Lahore's leafier suburbs. Analysts are not exaggerating when they say that the attack poses existential questions for the Pakistani state. If the state can not protect a visiting cricket team from well-aimed and well-prepared terrorism, what can it do?

Not since the Munich Olympics have athletes been specifically targeted - and the ramifications of yesterday's attack spread just as wide. No group has claimed responsibility for the actions of 14 masked and heavily armed men who arrived in rickshaws and all escaped. But the similarities with the attack in Mumbai which claimed 170 lives are evident and legion, and the possibility that the second major headline-grabbing hit could be the work of a hardline Islamist organisation like Lashkar-e-Taiba, on which Pakistan has only just started to crack down, is obvious. India lost no time yesterday in saying so.

If this shooting does not galvanise Islamabad to take action nothing will. Asif Zardari has made an inauspicious start as president. He has locked himself into the otherwordly luxury of his official residence with a handful of advisers, while mayhem reigns in the country outside. If there is a government in power, it is not obvious to its citizens. Barely 100 miles away from Islamabad, he has just surrendered a large swath of territory in the Swat valley to the Taliban. Pakistan's foreign minister pleaded in Washington this week that the deal was not as bad as it sounded. The sharia law that Swat will now be subject to is said to be milder than the traditional kind. But acceptance of sharia by the residents who remain in the valley (half have left) should not be viewed as the triumph of Islamist clerics, but rather as a sign of their lack of faith in the state's ability to protect them.

Closer to home, all bets are off with Mr Zardari's former coalition partner and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, after the decision by the supreme court to uphold a ban on Mr Sharif's contesting elections due to a past criminal conviction. Was the supreme court right to uphold the judgment? Its ruling was legally consistent. But was the unreformed court acting independently of the president? Probably not. But by refusing to work with the president, Mr Sharif is also responsible for the fallout. All he will achieve is more popularity in a state which his party already controls, but not in Sindh, Baluchistan or the North-West Frontier Province. Mr Sharif's political ascendancy bodes ill for the unity of the federation.

All of which makes the job of Richard Holbrooke, Barack Obama's envoy to the region, a whole lot more complicated. It is hard enough to devise a multinational plan which involves three nations acting in concert to dampen a growing insurgency. It is harder still when two of the nations, Pakistan and India, are regional rivals and rarely far from conflict. It is next to impossible if one key player, Pakistan, starts to fissure into parallel states. Washington and its previous satrap in the region, the ousted president Pervez Musharraf, are far from blameless. But if a flawed but still democratic ruler in Pakistan cannot seize control - if he cannot be seen to be acting in Pakistan's own interest - then other forces will move into the vacuum. The alternative is oft foretold: regime change scripted or enacted by the army

http://browse.guardian.co.uk/search?search=swat&sitesearch-radio=guardian&N=4294939860

Priority Peace (SWAT)

2009-03-04T16:47:00.000-05:00

The majority in both Swat and Bajaur wants peace and isn't bothered whether making deals or enforcing Shariah achieves this objective

PashtunPost & The News, 01 March, 2009 By Rahimullah Yusufzai

Within a span of a week, the government agreed to a ceasefire and truce with the militants in not one but two trouble-spots. Close on the heels of the Swat deal between the ANP-PPP coalition government in the NWFP and Maulana Sufi Mohammad's pro-Taliban Islamic group, the federal government concluded a peace accord with the Taliban in the Bajaur tribal agency.

It was an amazing turnaround even by Pakistan's standards as President Asif Ali Zardari had declared a few days before the latest peace accords that his government was left with no other option but to carry out military operations to defeat the militants and prevent the takeover of the state by the Taliban. And his Prime Minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, and the NWFP Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti had stated time and again that no peace talks would be held with the Taliban unless they laid down arms. Not a single militant has put down his gun but the peace talks have been going on openly for days and secretly as long as one can remember. And despite President Zardari's assertions, dialogue hasn't been abandoned as a means of ending the conflict in the NWFP and the adjoining Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Rather, the old policy of using both carrot and stick while dealing with the militants is still in place.

Dubbed as the "Shariah for peace" accord, the deal in Swat was made not with the radical militants led by Maulana Fazlullah but with the pro-Taliban and non-violent Islamic group known as Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-i-Mohammadi (TNSM) of Maulana Sufi Mohammad. The two Maulanas happened to be close relatives, the father-in-law Sufi Mohammad being much older and now a man of peace after having embarked on a misadventure to Afghanistan in November 2001 by provoking and leading around 10,000 Pakistanis from the Malakand region to fight alongside the Taliban against the invading US forces and the Northern Alliance. Earlier in the summer of 1994, he had first aroused and then doused the sentiments of his armed followers in Swat and rest of Malakand division during the campaign for enforcement of Shariah. That uprising sowed the seeds for further rounds of violence in Swat, the latest being the one that began in 2007 and forced the armed forces to launch three military actions without achieving a decisive victory.

Son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah, about 33 years old and leader of the Swat chapter of Baitullah Mahsud's Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), negotiated with the TNSM and not with the provincial government. However, it was obvious that Maulana Sufi Mohammad's TNSM was mediating between the two sides and trying to sell the deal that he concluded with the provincial government in return for enforcement of Shariah in Swat and seven other districts including Shangla, Buner, Malakand Agency, Upper Dir, Lower Dir and Chitral in Malakand division and Kohistan in Hazara division. Widely known as Radio Mullah for fiery sermons on his FM Radio channel that made him known and extended his influence in Swat and surrounding areas, Fazlullah has declared an indefinite ceasefire after first agreeing to stop attacks on the security forces and government installations for 10 days. However, his fighters made two violations of the ceasefire by carrying out kidnappings of government officials, including Swat's newly appointed district coordination officer (DCO), Khushal Khan, who was abducted along with six members of his staff and held in Taliban custody for six hours. The violations brought reprimand from Sufi Mohammad, who asked the Swat Taliban to halt all militant activities and remove their roadside checkpoints and at the same time demanded a pullout of Pakistan Army troops from the valley. The army, however, wants to stay in Swat until durable peace returns to the valley.

The Swat peace deal could go wrong on several counts. An exchange of prisoners must take place because this was one of the main issues that caused the collapse of the May 2008 peace accord between the ANP-led NWFP government and the Swat Taliban. The Taliban have already freed four paramilitary soldiers and are planning to free other government employees in their custody. In return, they want the government to release Taliban prisoners and sympathisers. Under the terms of the previous peace agreement, some 19 Taliban prisoners were freed and the fate of the remaining was to be decided on a case-to-case basis.

The issue of granting amnesty to the Swat Taliban leaders is another contentious issue. It was left unresolved in the May 2008 peace accord as the Pakistan Army high command had reservations over offering amnesty to certain top leaders and commanders of the Taliban in Swat. Another important issue is granting compensation to the affectees of the military operation in Swat. The Taliban would like to have some say in distribution of the government money among those who suffered human and material losses as this is a form of patronage that allows an organisation to retain loyalty of the people. In the previous accord, the Swat Taliban had agreed to disarm, accept the government's writ and refrain from setting up a parallel administration. Any new deal should bind them to these terms, otherwise the government would have an impossible task reasserting its writ and disarming the militants.

The government is banking on one man, Maulana Sufi Mohammad, for the success of its strategy in Swat. He can be unpredictable at times even though nobody can doubt his sincerity. He is also a simple person and his announcements that the government had agreed to his demand to enforce Shariah in Swat could haunt him in future as the Nizam-i-Adl Regulation being enforced there isn't complete Shariah. The secular ANP-PPP coalition government in the NWFP is seemingly aiming to sideline the Maulana Fazlullah-led militants by cutting a deal with Sufi Mohammad but this may not be achievable in the short term. Rather, it is Fazlullah who now holds the key to returning Swat to normalcy or keeping it unstable.

Another factor that could sabotage the Swat peace deal is the attitude of the US and, to a lesser extent, its allies. The US could have tolerated the Swat accord and its initial reaction wasn't negative as it considered the peace deal within the limits of Pakistan's constitutional framework. In fact, the US would have preferred to adopt a wait and see approach as it did in the case of earlier peace agreements in Waziristan before proclaiming the deals as a failure and blaming them for the rise in Taliban infiltrations across the Pak-Afghan border and an increase in their attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan. But the Bajaur peace agreement would most likely harden the US attitude and prompt it to condemn both the accords with the militants. Ironically, the peace deal in Bajaur was made public by Maulana Faqir Mohammad, leader of the Taliban in Bajaur Agency and deputy head of the Baitullah Mahsud-led TTP, on the day when Inspector General Frontier Corps (IGFC) Major General Khalid Khan, commander of the forces battling the Bajaur militants since August 6, 2008, declared that his troops would control all the agency by March. The General was confident that both Charmang and Mamond areas, Taliban strongholds in Bajaur, would be retaken by then and the militants defeated. His troops would now wind up operations in Bajaur and observe the ceasefire that was first unilaterally declared by the Taliban militants and reciprocated by the political administration following mediation by a tribal jirga.

The people of both Swat and Bajaur have overwhelmingly welcomed the peace deals as their priority is restoration of peace and an end to the military operations and militants' sponsored violence in their villages. Most of the population in the NWFP also supports the peace initiative as it carries the promise of improved security and revival of economic activity in their areas. The most vocal opponents of the deal making are from outside the NWFP. They too have genuine concerns about empowering militants who employed force to achieve their objectives and forced the government to accept their demands. But the important point to remember is to respond to the wishes of the majority in the conflict-ridden places. This huge majority wants peace and it isn't bothered whether making deals or enforcing Shariah achieves this objective.

Rahimullah Yousafzai is expert of regional affairs and Executive Editor of Daily the News Pakistan

http://www.pashtunpost.com/news.php?news=130&category=1
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/mar2009-weekly/nos-01-03-2009/enc.htm#

سوات ابھی تک طالبان کے قبضے میں

2009-03-04T16:45:00.000-05:00

بی بی سی اردوڈاٹ کام، پشاور

کئی دن پہلے ڈسٹرکٹ آفسر ایف سی کو بھی اپنے تین ساتھیوں کے ہمراہ طالبان نے مبینہ طور پر اغواء کیا جنہیں چوبیس گھنٹے بعد رہا کردیا گیا

سوات میں حکومت اور کالعدم نفاذ شریعت محمدی کی توسط سے طالبان کے ساتھ ہونے والا امن معاہدہ سولہ روز گزرنے کے باوجود بھی کچے دھاگے کے ساتھ بندھا ہوا ہے اور اب بھی اسّی فیصد سے زائد علاقے پر طالبان کی عملداری بدستور برقرار ہے۔
سولہ فروی کو ہونے والے امن معاہدے کے بعد دونوں جانب سے مستقل جنگ بندی کا اعلان تو ہوا لیکن اس دوران کئی ایسے واقعات رونماء ہوئے ہیں جس سے بظاہر یہ معلوم ہوتا ہے کہ جنگ بندی عملی نہیں بلکہ صرف زبانی ہی ہوئی ہے۔

طالبان کے سربراہ مولانا فضل اللہ نے جنگ بندی کے اعلان کے وقت اپنے مسلح ساتھیوں کو ہدایت کی تھی کہ وہ اسلحے کی نمائش، سکیورٹی فورسز پر حملے اور اہلکاروں کو اغواء نہ کریں۔

لیکن عملاً ہوا کیا؟ اگلے ہی دن مینگورہ کی نواح میں واقع طالبان کا گڑھ سمجھے جانے والے قمبر کے علاقے سے سوات کے ضلع رابطہ آفسر خوشحال خان کو طالبان نے اغواء کیا اور دو ساتھیوں کی رہائی کے بدلے میں انہیں واپس چھوڑ دیا۔

دو دن پہلے ڈسٹرکٹ آفسر ایف سی کو بھی اپنے تین ساتھیوں کے ہمراہ طالبان نے مبینہ طور پر اغوا کیا جنہیں چوبیس گھنٹے بعد رہا کردیا گیا۔ لیکن اس سے بھی بڑا واقعہ منگل کو پیش آیا جس نے فریقین کی جانب سے اعلان کردہ جنگ بندی کو غیر اعلانیہ طور پر توڑ دیا۔

سکیورٹی فورسز کا قافلہ تحصیل مٹہ رونیال کے علاقے میں بقول فوجی حکام پانی لانے جارہا تھا کہ مسلح طالبان نے اس پر حملہ کردیا جس کے بعد جھڑپ شروع ہوئی۔ اس جھڑپ میں دو سکیورٹی اہلکار ہلاک اور ایک زخمی ہوگیا ہے۔ اور منگل کو ہی مینگورہ کے قمر سے اینٹی کرپشن آفسر یامین خان کو اغواء کیا گیا جنہیں بھی بعد میں چھوڑ دیا گیا ہے۔

طالبان کا موقف ہے کہ سکیورٹی فورسز ان کے اجازت کے بغیر ان کے زیر کنٹرول علاقوں میں نقل و حرکت کرتے ہیں یعنی دوسرے لفظوں میں طالبان کی اپنی ایک ریاست ہے اور وہ اپنی ریاست کے اندر کسی دوسری ریاست کے قیام کی اجازت نہیں دے رہے ہیں۔ وہ یہ دعوی بھی کرتے ہیں کہ سکیورٹی فورسز نے وعدے کی خلاف ورزی کرتے ہوئے چیک پوسٹیں ختم نہیں کی ہیں۔

طالبان کا موقف ہے کہ سکیورٹی فورسز ان کے اجازت کے بغیر ان کے زیر کنٹرول علاقوں میں نقل و حرکت کرتے ہیں

مقامی لوگ طالبان کے اس دعوے کی تصدیق کرتے ہیں۔اب بھی فضاء گٹ، خوازہ خیلہ ، کانجو ایوب برج ، کوزہ بانڈہ ، کانجو، مریم پل اور ننگولئی میں سکیورٹی فورسز کی چیک پوسٹیں قائم ہیں جن میں سے بعض کے ختم ہونے کا حکومت نے اعلان بھی کیا تھا۔

فوجی کاروائی کے دوران طالبان کو سوات کے جن علاقوں پر کنٹرول حاصل تھا وہاں اب بھی ان کی عملداری ہے۔ صدر مقام مینگورہ کے وسطی علاقے پر سکیورٹی فورسز کا قبضہ ہے جبکہ باقی مینگورہ کے مضافاتی علاقوں طاہر آباد، قمبر، تختہ بند، ملوک آباد میں طالبان کا گشت معمول کے مطابق جاری و ساری ہے۔ تحصیل مٹہ، کبل،خوازہ خیلہ اور چہارباغ وہ وسیع علاقے ہیں جہاں پر طالبان کا ویسا ہی کنٹرول ہے جیسے پہلے تھا۔

ان علاقوں میں اب بھی مقامی لوگوں کے مطابق طالبان لوگوں کو کوڑوں کی سزائیں دے رہے ہیں۔خود طالبان ترجمان مسلم خان نے چند دن قبل بی بی سی کو بتایا تھا کہ انہوں نے اپنے پانچ ساتھیوں کو اس بات پر سزا دی ہے کہ وہ لوگوں کے بال کاٹ رہے تھے۔ لیکن لوگوں کا کہنا ہے کہ یہ سلسلہ اب بھی جاری ہے۔

تحصیل کبل کے ٹال میں اے این پی کے مقامی رہنما ملک احمد، مانجہ کلاگئی میں خورشید خان اور الیاس خان کے بھائی کے گھروں کو نقاب پوشوں نے مکمل طور پر لوٹ لیا ہے البتہ اس بارے میں یہ تصدیق نہیں ہوسکی کہ کیا یہ کارروائیاں طالبان نے کی ہیں یا اس میں کوئی اور گروہ ملوث ہے۔

صوبائی حکومت طالبان سےنمٹنے کے لیے صرف ایک ہی شخص مولانا صوفی محمد پر تکیہ کیے بیٹھی ہے

فضاء گٹ میں واقع زمرد کے کان میں غیر قانونی کانکنی طالبان کے زیرسایہ آج بھی جاری ہے جبکہ مدین، مالم جبہ ، منگلور اور آس پاس کے علاقوں میں مبینہ ٹمبر مافیا اب بھی طالبان کی اجازت سے جنگلات کی کٹائی میں مبینہ طور پر مصروف ہیں۔

صوبائی حکومت طالبان سےنمٹنے کے لیے صرف ایک ہی شخص مولانا صوفی محمد پر تکیہ کیے بیٹھی ہے لیکن اب ان کے لب و لہجہ میں بھی غصہ اتر آیا ہے۔ انہوں نے حکومت کو دھمکی دی ہےاگر وہ معاہدے کی پاسداری نہیں کرتی اور سکیورٹی فورسز کی جانب سے’ طالبان کے علاقوں‘ میں نقل و حمل جاری رہتی ہے تو وہ امن معاہدے سے دستبرادر ہوجائیں گے۔

بظاہر ایسا لگ رہا ہے کہ امن معاہدے کے بعد حکومت نے دفاعی اور طالبان نے جارحانہ انداز اپنا یا ہوا ہے۔ طالبان کی کوشش ہے کہ وہ حکومت پر اتنا دباؤ ڈال دیں کہ وہ اپنے گرفتار شدہ ساتھیوں کو رہا کروائیں اور ساتھ میں حکومت کو انہیں عام معافی دینے پر بھی مجبو کر دے تاکہ اگر کل کلاں شرعی عدالتیں لگتی ہیں تو کوئی متاثرہ شخص انکی قیادت کو عدالت کے کٹہرے میں کھڑا نہیں کرسکے گا۔

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2009/03/090304_swat_analysis_np.shtml

Pakhtunkhwa Peace Forum Posting Guidelines

2009-03-04T16:26:00.002-05:00

Dear Friends,

I just wanted to inform everyone, that we have friends from all over the world including Afghanistan, Canada, France, Germany, UK, USA, etc in our Peace Forum Group. All these individuals (some are even non Pashtoon but wanted to be part of our forum) are concern and want to stop the genocide of Pashtoon in Pakhtunkhwa. Therefore I would like to request everyone please always be polite and respectful to other users. Any behavior that appears to be offensive, unconstructive or inappropriate in anyway will be removed. Any members who do this repeatedly will be banned. Bad language will not be tolerated.

This forum is designed to create a space where users can feel safe and comfortable posting questions or comments that they may have regarding our main objective which is *"to stop genocide of Pashtoon and to create awareness of the issue on international level".* We believe that in general, people who choose to participate in our forums have the best intentions in their postings.

We would like to provide some Basic guidelines to encourage and foster the positive community experience that we hope to build among users of the forums. In the event that you encounter inappropriate language or conduct on this group, please contact any of the forum officer at ppfcanada@gmail.com Thank you!

To visit us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49354742234

Regards,

Moderator

Who Will Save Pakistan? (The Guardian)

2009-03-04T15:58:00.000-05:00

A Peace Rally organized by Pakhtunkhwa Peace Forum in Toronto, demanding to stop the killing of innocent Pashtun people at Toronto on Feb 15th 2009

2009-02-25T19:08:00.000-05:00

What the people of Swat really wanted

2009-02-24T23:06:00.001-05:00

Tuesday, February 24, 2009
By Lakhkar Khan

The writer is a resident of Swat who had to flee his home and is currently living in Lahore.

The Feb 16 agreement hasresulted in the planned promulgation of the Nizam-e-Adl regulation in Malakand division, in which Swat district is situated. The government's plea is that this is the demand of the people of Malakand division. However, those who made this announcement – in particular the ANP chief minister Amir Haider Hoti – should know that the people of Malakand division voted in favour not of Sharia but for secular, nationalist and democratic parties in the general elections of 2008.

The fact of the matter is that the ANP and the PPP contested the election on the stand that they would fight to eliminate terrorism and extremism, so it is a bit ironic that both parties have now done just the opposite. They failed to face the situation in Swat and have gone down on bended knees before the extremists.

The people of Buner, Shangla, Malakand, Lower and Upper Dir and Chitral never voted for the implementation of Sharia and did not rise up against the state for its implementation. In Buner people actually went after and killed some of the militants, and rose together as one against the extremists. And as a result of this, the militants killed over 40 people in one village of Buner alone as revenge. Despite this the people of the area never surrendered to the extremists, so they are going to be right in wondering that if they did not surrender, why has the government done just that? They ask why the state, despite having all the resources to nip this evil in the bud, chose to yield to the extremists.

Sufi Mohammad, someone who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of young men of Malakand, was inexplicably released from prison and his crimes of the past were conveniently forgiven. He is the very person who in 1994 challenged the writ of the state to the extent that his followers killed security personnel and even an MPA. This happened in Swat and Dir but the then Sherpao government ruling the NWFP for some reason withdrew all charges against Sufi Mohammad and his colleagues. In 2001, he declared jihad against the US in Afghanistan and took several thousand of his followers there to fight. Sufi Mohammed led these young men to their deaths in Afghanistan, and was the first to leave the battlefield together with his close followers when the American B-52 bombers came. Hundred of the others who went with him lost their lives and hundreds are still missing. On his return, the political agent of Kurram Agency imprisoned him under the Frontier Crimes Regulations and that was when his son-in-law, Fazlullah, filled the gap and established a foothold in Swat.

Strange are the way of politics in this country because one day someone is a killer and the next day he is labelled as a hero – and this is done by parties that claim to be the most secular and democratic in the country.

As for Fazlullalh, we all know what he did and continues to do. He challenged the state's authority and his followed killed police constables, and army and paramilitary personnel in a most brutal manner. His group bombed schools and bridges, as well as the houses and hujras of many who tried to stand up to them. They deliberately targeted social, political and moderate religious figures and journalists in the district and many were killed and the rest compelled to leave Swat. Hundreds of thousands of people, like myself, were dislodged from their homes, and had to flee Swat. Most are now living a miserable life in other areas of Pakistan, and despite the so-called peace deal they are not sure if they can return to their homes. Not only were people's lives and property were destroyed, the region's whole economy was devastated by the terrorists. Fruit orchards went to waste because people were too afraid to work in the fields, and local businesses suffered immensely because tourism vanished. Over 2,000 innocent people, including many women and children, were killed and thousands were disabled and wounded in indiscriminate shelling and firing by security forces and the militants. As a result of the barbaric actions of Fazlullah and his followers, the centuries-old soft image of Swat and its inhabitants, based on its rich heritage dating back to its Buddhist and Swat-state eras, was lost forever. Did the government consider all this when it chose to capitulate to the extremists? What the people of Swat wanted was for the government to ensure that those behind all these murders and mayhem are held accountable for their crimes.

This brutality and carnage will not be forgotten easily by the people of Swat. It has taken its toll not just in physical terms but also on the mental wellbeing of the people of the area whose minds have been scarred. The mental health of women and children in particularly has been damaged by the actions of the militants and the incessant violence that they indulged in.

It is abominable that the government is actually now going to declare a general amnesty for Fazullah and his men, people who are directly responsible for all these deaths and atrocities that were inflicted on the people of Swat in the last two years. In this instance I would like to quote from one of this newspaper's recent editorials following the so-called peace deal. "Fazlullah's numerous acts of violence, his attempts to stifle learning and the way in which he targeted the most vulnerable citizens, show that he indeed cares nothing for Islam – a religion that advocates kindness for the oppressed, emphasises the significance of learning and lays down rules of respect for women, for minorities and even for enemies…. It seems obvious the ignorant forces of Fazlullah seek only power and are willing to use any means to obtain this." This is precisely what the people of Swat think of Fazlullah and his men, but for obvious reasons were not able to articulate or demonstrate in public.

And what is the end result now? What is one to make of this deal? That Fazlullah has emerged victorious. And that both the federal and provincial governments are taking credit for the promulgation of Sharia in Swat. As for the people, they see this as nothing but an abject surrender to the forces of obscurantism and darkness, a surrender which presents a bleak future for the people of the area.

Sufi Mohammed is now the officially-sanctioned saviour of the people, but what about the people themselves? They have lost everything and gained nothing. And I say this because the deal gives them nothing in terms of holding accountable all those who killed, butchered and slaughtered hundreds of Swatis. Who will heal their bleeding hearts and souls? Certainly not this agreement.

The fear is that the militants will not remain confined to Malakand but will demand the same deal in the settled areas of the NWFP and in FATA as well. And they will use the same tactics and brutal force against the security forces and the people as they did in Swat. What will our politicians do then? Will they bow before them again? Or will they exercise the state's authority? It shouldn't take too long to wonder what the likely option will be, keeping in mind the Swat experience.

The people of Swat ask why the state is silent, rather than ensuring their rights, and why it treats those who are murderers and criminals and those who took up arms against the state as born-again heroes. They ask why this is done. What message is sent to those who abide by the law and want to have nothing to do with these militants and born-again heroes?

The people of Swat also say that financial compensation as is being announced by the government will not help heal the wounds. But what will is an independent high-level judicial probe into what happened in Swat, followed by accountability of those involved in the killings and violence. This is what the agreement should really be providing them – not the space and the legitimacy to the militants which is what they think has happened.

Email: lakhkarkhan51@yahoo.com