LAHORE: The much-trumpeted peace deal reached between the government and the leader of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (Movement for Enforcement of Islamic Laws, Maulana Sufi Mohammad, to stop the Taliban-sponsored violence in the Swat valley by enforcing Shariat in the Malakand region has been taken by the country’s liberal and progressive circles as an abject surrender to the forces of militancy and obscurantism.
There seems to be a general consensus across Pakistan that the deal between the TNSM and the NWFP government indicates among other things a measure of desperation on part of the ruling elite, both civilian and military. The government, having simply failed to defeat the Taliban militants in Swat [which is often compared to Switzerland for of its scenic beauty]finally announced a truce with the militants, pulling away the army and allowing Shariah to be implemented in the region as the supreme law. The Taliban in Swat had declared a unilateral 10-day cease-fire the night before their talks with the provincial government of the ANP commenced. Earlier, on Feb 14, the Taliban had released a Chinese engineer Long Xiaowei as a good will gesture, who had been abducted on August 29, 2008.
The chief minister of the ANP-PPP coalition government in NWFP Ameer Hider Hoti formally announced on Feb 16 the implementation of Shariah, known as Nizam-e-Adal Regulations 2009, in the Malakand Division and Kohistan District. “I announce the promulgation of the Nizam-e-Adal Regulation (Amended) 2009 which will be implemented in Malakand following the return of peace and restoration of the writ of the government. A week later, on Feb 23, Maulana Sufi officially endorsed the peace deal with the NWFP government at a press conference by asking the military and the militants to release each other’s prisoners for restoration of durable peace in Swat. Unveiling a nine-point peace plan, he urged the government to withdraw troops from schools and health centers to ease the hardship of the people of Swat.
The new regulations institutionalize a framework of Islamic laws and henceforth cases would be heard by religious authorities (Qazis) and decided in accordance with Islamic injunctions in the Malakand Division, comprising seven districts of Swat. The implementation of the new judicial system is conditional to restoration of peace in the Swat valley. The government argues that the new judicial system had been devised to provide easy and speedy justice to the people of Malakand and that both the Qazi and Police departments would be held accountable for any delay in delivering justice.
The government plea is, the implementation of Shariah is the demand of the people of Malakand division. However, the critics of the move say the masses had not voted for Shariah but for secular, liberal and nationalist parties in the general elections of 2008. The fact of the matter is, the ANP and the PPP [which defeated the six-party religious alliance – the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal]had contested the last elections on the stand that they would fight to eliminate militancy and extremism. Therefore, it is a bit ironic for many that both the secular and liberal political parties being led by the son-in-law of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and the grandson of Bacha Khan have done just the opposite and kowtowed before the extremists.
Strange are the ways of politics in Pakistan because one day someone is dubbed by the establishment a killer and the next day he is labeled a hero. The government’s decision to sign a peace deal with Sufi, who is well known for his pro-Taliban extremist views, constant defiance and innate liking to challenge the writ of the state, has clearly revived the lost glory of this terrorist of the past besides legitimizing his TNSM which was banned by the Musharraf regime in Jan 2002 for its involvement in anti-state terrorist activities. The 77-year-old cleric, who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of young men of Malakand in 2001 while trying to assist the Taliban regime by taking 10,000 Swat youths to Afghanistan to fight out the US-led Forces, was inexplicably released from prison and his crimes of the past were conveniently forgiven.
As for Maulana Fazlullah alias Mullah Radio, whose private army literally rules the roost in Swat, he had been accused of killing hundreds of the military and paramilitary troops as well as the police personnel in Swat in a brutal manner. His group bombed schools, targeted social, political and moderate figures and journalists in the district, killing many and compelled thousands to leave Swat. Therefore, it is abominable for many 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.
Therefore, the country’s liberal and political circles as well as the English media, both print and electronic, have castigated the so-called pact while describing it as Islamabad’s duplicity and desperation. As pointed out by a leading English daily The News editorially, a day before the Swat deal, President Zardari had warned that his government was bent upon uprooting terrorists come what may, adding that the Taliban was trying to take over the state of Pakistan, after having established its presence in huge amounts of land. “We are fighting for the survival of Pakistan”, he had added. His declaration came even while the Swat deal was being hammered out with the extremists. Strategic confusion is now, inevitably, pervasive. Within three days of declaring that force was the only option against the rising militancy, Asif Zardari told Chinese journalists in Beijing, on February 16, that the fight against terrorism could not be won with guns and bombs alone.
According to Imtiaz Alam, the secretary general of the South Asian Free Media Association, the peace deal in the NWFP is a part of the Taliban’s strategic game-plan in its advance across Pakistan. As in the past, he said, the Taliban will use this cease-fire to regroup, re-arm and consolidate its position in territories under its control, even as it works to extend its influence in contiguous territories. “The so-called peace deals between the military and the militants had only helped the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces to secure safe havens and to expand the sphere of their jehad in the past”.
For people like Imtiaz who are away from Swat, it amounts to surrendering to the Taliban. However, for the desperate people of Swat, the peace agreement has brought peace for the time being and they are content with it for the time being. However, lasting peace in Swat is a distant possibility keeping in view some recent developments that took place after the Feb 16 peace pact. The Feb 22 kidnapping of the Swat district coordination officer Khushhal Khan, and three other people, who were released after six hours of talks, by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan is a clear indication of just how rocky the road to peace in Swat is. Muslim Khan, the TTP’s spokesman in Swat, initially denied the DCO had been taken hostage but later admitted to having swapped the provincial official and his bodyguards for militants in state custody.
This was not the only transgression by the TTP even after the deal was made public: several locals belonging to the ANP have been kidnapped from Mingora. Given that Fazlullah’s militants had declared a 10-day ceasefire before initiating peace talks, the kidnappings showed that the militants remain conflicted about peace in the region. At the very least, it can be surmised that Fazlullah has been wrong-footed by the government’s pledge to implement Shariah in the region more effectively. Fazlullah has acknowledged that the new regulation is in line with what the militants have been demanding, but what he can’t say is that their agenda goes beyond simply introducing a better legal system, and includes territorial control.
According to an editorial by Daily Dawn, having camouflaged their fight against the state as a quest for justice, now that the state has acted to strip away the militants’ fig leaf, they are resorting to accusing the state of artifice and deceit. The paper quotes the TTP spokesman Muslim Khan as justifying the kidnapping of the DCO by saying: “The government violated the ceasefire by arresting our men in Peshawar and killing one in Dir. Therefore, we had to do this”. In the days ahead, the editorial adds, the TTP may well keep upping its demands and imposing new conditions for peace that the state will find difficult to accept. Top of that list would be the withdrawal of all troops from Swat and the release of all militants in state custody…. However, the state must remain firm: legitimate demands for a better justice system should be met but control of the area should be taken back and the terror infrastructure dismantled.
In a related development, a few days after the government and the Taliban inked the peace deal in Swat following an 18-month long failed military operation, three major Taliban groups formed a new alliance – Shura Ittihadul Mujahideen (Council for Unity of Holy Warriors) – in the twin tribal agencies of North and South Waziristan, declaring the fugitive ameer of the Afghan Taliban Mullah Mohammad Omar as their supreme leader and al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden as their role model. Known as the divided house of the Taliban movement, the three warlords, Baitullah Mehsud, Maulvi Nazir and Hafiz Gul Bahadur issued a pamphlet on Feb 24 that vowed targeting of the Al-Qaeda’s three main enemies: “Obama, Zardari and Karzai”.
According to an announcement made by the Pakistani Taliban, the three leaders met at an undisclosed location and decided to resolve their differences to foil the nefarious designs of the external forces for dividing the multiple Taliban groups based in Pakistan. “As Jews, Christians and Hindu infidels stand united against Muslims under the leadership of the United States, Mujahideen have set aside internal differences and joined hands, the Taliban announcement said. The very next day, on Feb 23, Mullah Omar reportedly directed the militants in North and South Waziristan agencies to immediately stop their attacks on Pakistani security forces. In a letter to the militants, who had forged the new alliance, Mullah Omar admonished them not to fight the Pakistani security forces and kill their Muslim brethren. “If anybody really wants to wage jehad, he must fight the occupation forces inside Afghanistan,” the letter stated, adding that attacks on the Pakistani security forces is bringing a bad name to Mujahideen and harming war against the US and Nato forces in Afghanistan. Our aim is to liberate Afghanistan from the occupation forces and death and destruction inside neighbouring Pakistan has never been our goal.
These developments suggest that the peace deal has significant implications for Washington, especially on how it can prosecute the campaign against terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Therefore, special US representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke pointedly declared in a recent interview that 9/11, the Mumbai plotters and the Swat Taliban have the same roots and that the US was troubled and confused about the development in Swat valley. But a senior defense analyst Dr Ayesha Siddiqa maintains that one of the reasons that the deal was negotiated is – it suits Islamabad, Washington and the Taliban to have a ceasefire. “While the Taliban get de facto recognition, Pakistan, Nato and the US forces get some breathing space. It is argued that the reason why US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was not eager to denounce the deal was that this was considered a way of dividing Al-Qaeda-controlled Taliban and the Swat Taliban. However, the bottom line is that while conflict might be arrested for the short term in one part of the country, it might escalate in other parts where groups of people acting like the Taliban could impose their will on the rest of the population in the name of changing the judicial, economic or political system. Ultimately, this could come to redefine Pakistan’s identity completely”.