Round The World

New Delhi, 8 April 2009

 Taliban Influence

PAK RUNNING OUT OF TIME

By Monish Tourangbam

(Research Scholar, School of International Studies, JNU)

How safe is Pakistan? As recent events indicate, not much is left to doubt. Fear looms large and there is complete chaos and unrest within the country. The report of the Taliban flogging a girl in the Swat district of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has raised basic questions: of freedom and security of the people and the potency of the government under the agreement to adopt Sharia court in the region. The probable repercussions of such high-handed extremism in the rest of the country need to be debated.

The “peace for Sharia” deal was made in February between Sufi Muhammad, leader of a Taliban associated Islamist group, Tehreek-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, and the NWFP authorities. Under the terms of the deal, the Taliban would stop a two-year armed campaign in the region in return for the establishment of new religious courts. Muhammad, a 70-year-old kingpin of the Swat valley and an active campaigner of the Sharia law, told reporters in an interview that the new court would formalize penalties including flogging, chopping off hands and stoning to death. The provincial authorities struck a deal with him in the hope that he would influence the local Taliban leader, Mullah Fazlullah, who happens to be his son-in-law. But, the “peace deal” is far from settling the situation.

The Swat valley once the country’s favourite honeymoon destination has descended to violence and chaos since the Taliban takeover in 2007. The Taliban have been actively involved in a violent campaign to seize control of the valley, shutting girls’ schools and prohibiting women from shopping. Under the “peace deal”, things are supposed to have improved relatively but the atmosphere is uncertain and still too early to pass a verdict. Recently, the Taliban forcefully occupied the house of a member of parliament and overran an emerald mine. Also, the deal required the Taliban to stop displaying weapons, not disarm or surrender. Moreover, things could be back to square one, if Muhammad walks out of the deal, as he has pledged to do if the new courts are not fully operational soon.

Human rights’ activists and women’s groups in Pakistan held countrywide protests against the flogging. A large number of people turned out in protest describing it as a shame on Pakistan, Islam and on Pashtuns. Condemning the incident, Asma Jahangir, chairman, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said it had exposed the kind of deal that had been reached in the Swat valley. Chief Justice Iftikar Chaudhary took suo motu notice of the incident, summoning top officials in the federal and provincial NWFP authority to the court. But, the uncertainty and lack of transparency was heightened when the girl declared she was not flogged. Thus, for the time being the Chaudhary has ordered “further investigations” into the incident, an opinion shared by the Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

Other than this, Pakistan is walking a tightrope between keeping the US pleased and satisfying the nationalist sentiment at home on the issue of drone attacks in the Tribal areas. On his second visit to Pakistan, the US special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, is witnessing a country further in decline. It is descending more and more into the hands of militants since his first visit in February. Owing to the “peace deal” in large part, the Taliban has virtually legitimized itself as the ruler of the Swat valley.

The extent of Taliban influence in other parts of the country is seen with the South Waziristan warlord Beithullah Mehsud claiming responsibility for a militant siege of the police training school on the outskirts of Lahore. This was within a month of the terror attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team. Mehsud justified the siege saying it was in retaliation to the American drone attacks, which have begun targeting him of late.

Hakimullah Mehsud, one of the deputies of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud, also claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on a Frontier Corps camp in the heart of Islamabad. Suicide attacks in well-guarded places in the country have raised questions over the effectiveness of security measures in Pakistan. More so, as the Taliban has warned of carrying out two attacks a week to avenge the US drone strikes.  Following this threat, a red alert has been sounded in Islamabad with the US embassy, the UN and the World Bank offices suspending operations.

What about US President Barack Obama’s strategy? Well, it is geared towards offering Pakistan a partnership in defeating the insurgency on its own soil. But the success of this plan entails an ambitious programme of virtually remaking the nation’s institutional structure and even the national psyche, something the Pakistani politicians and people are ill-prepared for. Officially, the Pakistan government seems to be more than happy with the US aid money flowing.

However, large sections of the public, political class and the military are highly skeptical of it. They maintain that the US has over-estimated the urgency of the threat that both the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban pose. As far as the Pakistani military is concerned, it will be a challenge for the US administration to shift the former’s focus from India as top priority to fight an ever-expanding Islamic insurgency threatening to engulf the country.

As some analysts in Washington and Islamabad put forward apocalyptic timetables for Pakistan, the US administration faces an uphill task of helping Islamabad strengthen its weak civilian institutions, updating political parties rooted in feudal loyalties and recasting a military fixated on yesterday’s enemy and stuck in the traditions of conventional warfare. “We are running out of time to help Pakistan change its present course towards increasing economic and political instability, and even an ultimate failure,” says a recent report by a task force of the Atlantic Council led by former Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Sen.John Kerry of Massachusetts.

A former interior minister of Pakistan, Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, has raised apprehensions whether the Obama administration’s promise of $1.5 billion in aid for each of the next five years, coupled with Zardari’s backing can change the mood in the country. Fighting insurgency is commonly seen in Pakistan as an American cause, and not a Pakistani one.  

The situation is worsened by the trust deficit, particularly between the US administration and Pakistan’s ISI. The former has charged the ISI with supporting the Islamic militants who pour over to the border to fight US troops in Afghanistan. This has angered the Pakistan military. In addition, India’s growing presence in Afghanistan in reconstruction activities has raised eyebrows in Pakistan. Its officials are asking the US to get India to back off from Afghanistan, as it would help Pakistan’s confidence. The question to be asked is: who can help the Pakistan establishment understand where the country is heading?---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)