Pakistanis recall the valley of Swat as a beautiful, idyllic tourist resort and the Swatis as a mild, peaceful, welcoming and generally non-tribal people in harmony with nature. So what has happened in recent times to transform Swat into a bloody war zone captured by terrorist warlords and militias operating under the banner of “Islam”? Why are tens of thousands of people desperately fleeing their ancestral homes daily and seeking refuge outside the area? And what is the government doing to establish the writ of the state and restore normalcy there?
The “problem” of Swat, like that of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), was created during the reign of General Pervez Musharraf when Taliban-Al Qaeda hoards fleeing from Afghanistan after the post 9/11 American intervention put down roots in safe havens in FATA in 2002. This “policy” was a natural consequence of two factors: General Musharraf’s budding alliance with the MMA; and the Pakistan army’s national security doctrine which viewed the Pakhtun Taliban as strategic “assets” against India’s Uzbek-Tajik “assets” in the Northern Alliance in Kabul. Throughout 2003-07, this military-mullah alliance protected and nurtured these military-religious “assets” with compromising “peace deals” that allowed local wannabe Taliban to set down roots and enlist recruits, nurture their will for resistance over time, and use the new resolve to capture space in the area – a classic guerilla war framework of trading time for will and using will to enlarge space. In due course, the Taliban naturally spilled over into Swat where resistance from the settled and unarmed population was low against their tactics of fear. Swat is also connected with Shangla in the north, so it is a natural transit for Jihadis and Mujahidin in Azad Kashmir who want to join the fighting in the Kunar province of Afghanistan.
The ANP swept the 2008 elections in Swat because of the Swatis’ fear, loathing and repudiation of the MMA and warlord-militias. More significantly, after the elections the Pakistan Army formally handed over “ownership” of the unpopular “war on terror” to the elected governments of Pakistan in Islamabad and NWFP and retreated from Swat. Unfortunately, however, the ANP then made an opportunistic “peace deal” with the local Taliban in May 2008. Consequently, the Taliban exploited this opportunity to regroup, consolidate and launch fresh attacks to seize the military and political initiative and enforce “Islamic shariah”. The greater tragedy was that the media once again wrongly portrayed the “demand for shariah” articulated by the Taliban as a popular explanation and justification for their reign of terror. Regrettably, the ANP was hoist by its own petard – it was damned if it sought military help and damned if it didn’t oppose the loss of political space to the Taliban.
The marauding Taliban have blundered in enforcing their version of “Islamic shariah” by blasting away schools, denying education to girls, banning women from market places, bombing music, video and barber shops, and destroying all vestiges of civil administration and society. This has provoked a wave of anger and alienation among ordinary Swatis and Pakistanis. Their brutal kidnappings, beheadings and decapitations of innocent citizens and security personnel has provoked further disgust and revulsion and discredited their enforced “shariah”. Questions are now being asked by the confused media about the vanishing writ of the state and the army’s role in enabling the menace of Talibanisation to lay Swat low.
The current situation is characterized by several factors. First, there is an underlying and lingering suspicion among ANP stalwarts that “the Pakistan Army and the Taliban remain two sides of the same coin”. But the ANP is also worried that an army operation would lead to high civilian casualties and mass refugees, which would reflect badly on its ability to protect its citizens.
The second factor is the Pakistan Army’s state of being. One the one hand it is under pressure from the international community and the federal government to fight the war on terror in FATA. On the other hand, popular opinion echoed in the media and parliament is against military action against “fellow Muslims” and “Pathans” because the popular consensus is that this war is not Pakistan’s war. Similarly, on the one hand the army is under fire from the media for not doing enough to save Swat, on the other hand the ANP is suspicious of it and worries that civilian casualties could mount as a consequence of it. This state of confusion and inaction by the organs of the state and its elected representatives only benefits the Taliban. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has muddied the waters further by pointing to a hidden “foreign hand” in Swat and alluding to a “secret strategy” to sort out the problem.
US President Barrack Obama is sending his tough new regional envoy, Richard Holbrooke, to Pakistan in the midst of this confusion and misplaced concreteness on the part of the Pakistan Army, media and political parties. Since Mr Holbrooke’s reputation for not brooking prevarication and double dealing precedes him, and economic aid to desperately seeking Pakistan depends on solutions to the menace of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the sooner Pakistan gets its act together, the better.