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Pakistan: A Way Out of the Mess
I R Rehman
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The
US’s ability to win the new Afghan war in coming years seems
doubtful. Neither the US nor Nato has an exit strategy. Only two
possibilities emerge: either the messy war will continue for
another decade, or the Taliban will be brought into the ruling
coalition which they will eventually dominate. In either case,
Pakistan will be buffeted by almost irresistible storms |
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 The
civil war underway in the tribal areas and a large part of the
Frontier province, including Swat, presents the biggest challenge
Pakistan has
ever faced. At stake is not only the integrity of the state but also
the nature of its polity. The odds are heavily stacked against
Pakistan’s survival as a democracy.
This grave situation has been created by a combination of
several factors. The authors of the
Pakistan demand may
not have wanted to establish a religious state, but their argument
was derived wholly from the religious identity of the population of
the designated territory. Soon after the new state came into being,
enforcement of Shariah rule was demanded. This demand has never been
opposed. Instead, the state has been yielding to the clerics
throughout its 61 years.
Between 1949, when the Objectives Resolution was adopted, and
1979, when the
Federal Shariat Court
was established with powers to strike down any law considered to be
repugnant to Islamic injunctions, Pakistan repeatedly affirmed its
constitutional obligation to enforce the Shariah.
In addition, the armed forces were indoctrinated in a
religious context as General Ziaul Haq’s rule to reserve senior
posts for genuine Islamists remained in force for a decade. These
historical precedents are enough to convince a militant in Swat that
he is only asking the state to honour its constitutional pledge.
 On another point, the state chose to avoid integrating the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the Provincially
Administered Tribal Areas (PATA) with the rest of the country. In
1994, when a movement for enforcing Shariah in place of the archaic
Frontier Crimes Regulation began in PATA, the government obliged by
setting up Qazi courts. This did not satisfy the clerics and they
were accommodated further in 1999. Dissatisfied again, the agitators
decided that instead of asking the state to enforce the Shariah,
they would do the job themselves.
Meanwhile, world powers failed to ensure the establishment of
a government of national unity in
Afghanistan after
the fall of the Najibullah regime. The vacuum was filled by
religious militants who had been trained, among other things, to
carry out terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings. Thus, over
the last few years, a vast territory comprising Afghanistan, FATA,
and the former PATA districts, has become a theatre of a war. US and
Nato forces are fighting the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan and
the Pakistan Army is battling with the tribal militants, the
self-styled Pakistani Taliban.
As things stand, the
US’s ability to win
the new Afghan war in coming years seems doubtful. Neither the US
nor Nato has an exit strategy. Only two possibilities emerge: either
the messy war will continue for another decade, or the Taliban will
be brought into the ruling coalition which they will eventually
dominate. In either case, Pakistan will be buffeted by almost
irresistible storms.
If
fighting continues in
Afghanistan,
militants from the tribal areas keep up their fight there alongside
the Taliban. Consequently, militancy in Pakistani territories would
grow. The US pressure on Islamabad to fight the extremists and the
latter’s inability to comply could strain relations to a breaking
point. In that event, the survival test for Pakistan would be tough.
 If Taliban of any hue come into power in
Afghanistan, the
pressure on Pakistan to allow a similar dispensation in the Frontier
region will increase manifold. Even now, the tribal areas are not
prepared to merge with the NWFP. In future, they may claim freedom
to join Pakistan or Afghanistan, and in the latter case, they may
well want to take NWFP along – a possibility many Pakhtuns may not
choose to resist.
Whatever happens in
Afghanistan,
Pakistan will face in FATA and perhaps the NWFP a situation that
resembles the present US predicament. The Pakistan Army may have the
capacity to lay the territory to waste while killing hordes of
people, but it will not – and cannot – do that. For one thing, the
army will risk its unity if it strikes out against ideological
allies and, for another, the state will be overwhelmed in the
aftermath of an unwelcome war.
The sole option will be to buy a truce by separating the
Shariah lobby from the terrorists and creating FATA and PATA as a
Shariah zone, which may quickly encompass the Frontier province. The
question then will be whether
Pakistan
can contain the pro-Shariah forces within the Frontier region.
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In such an eventuality, the hardest task for the
government will be to protect the
Punjab against inroads by militants. Already, religious extremists
have strong bases across the province and sympathizers in all
arenas: political parties, services, the judiciary, the middle
class, and even the media. |
In such an eventuality, the hardest task for the government
will be to protect the
Punjab against inroads by militants. Already, religious extremists
have strong bases across the province and sympathizers in all
arenas: political parties, services, the judiciary, the middle
class, and even the media. For its part, the government is
handicapped because of its failure to offer good governance,
guarantee livelihoods, and restore people’s faith in the frayed
judicial system.
This bleak prospect can be averted only through a bold,
imaginative, and wide-ranging strategy. An order presided over by
clerics will not guarantee deliverance to the Frontier region as
matters have perhaps gone too far to be reversed. The fact is,
people will reject theocracy only after paying the cost of opting
for it.
Pakistan should think of minimizing the damage by granting full
autonomy to FATA and the Frontier province in the hope that this
will douse the fires.
For the rest of
Pakistan, the
government will have to resolve its meaningless row with the
judiciary and lawyers, work by a broad political consensus, and wean
the people away from parallel courts through visible improvements in
the system of justice and policing.
Ultimately, the key to a safe future lies in
Afghanistan. The
war there must be brought to a speedy end. It is posing a greater
threat to Pakistan, Iran, Russia, China, India, and the Central
Asian states than to the
US.
A way must be found to bring all these countries and the US together
at a table to evolve a mechanism by which to bring peace to that
thoroughly ravaged land. The task is not impossible. But one wonders
whether Pakistan has the will and the resources to escape falling
into the well its myopic soldiers of fortune have dug for others.
I. A. Rehman is a leading human rights
advocate, a prominent art critic, and a well-known columnist. He is
also a founding member of the Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for
Peace and Democracy, and a council member of the Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan
18
February 2009
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