http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6BC80BC4-F32D-4FEF-AACC-1A4C4D002B29.htm
Pakistan's Taliban pact criticised
Pakistan's appeasement of Taliban sympathisers has resulted in a base in
its tribal areas that fighters are using to destabilise Pakistan and
Afghanistan, a think-tank says.
"The Musharraf government has tried first brute force, then appeasement.
Both have failed", Samina Ahmed, International Crisis Group's South Asia
project director, says.
The ICG has suggested in a report published on Monday that instead of
appeasing fighters, Pakistan must impose the rule of law in its
semi-autonomous tribal lands on the border, where Taliban and al-Qaeda
sympathisers have sheltered since 2001, disarm the fighters and shut
their training camps.
"Islamabad's tactics have only emboldened the pro-Taliban militants,"
Ahmed said.
The government, which made deals with pro-Taliban groups in 2004 and
2006 in South and North Waziristan respectively, has released militants,
returned their weapons and agreed to let foreign terrorists stay on a
promise to give up violence, the report says.
The ICG states that this has simply given pro-Taliban elements licence
to recruit and arm, resulting in a serious increase in cross-border
attacks against US, Nato and Afghan forces.
Tribal agents
Pakistan's seven tribal agencies have never been brought under the writ
of any government, including British colonialists who saw the
mountainous region as a buffer on the northwestern border of their
Indian empire.
The region, which was a base for US- and Pakistan-backed Afghan
mujahidin fighters in the 1980s, became a refuge for Taliban and
al-Qaeda after US-led forces ousted Afghanistan's Taliban rulers in 2001.
According to ICG, Pakistan, a major US ally in the war on terror,
launched "badly planned and poorly conducted" military operations in
2004 to deny al-Qaeda fighters sanctuary and stem attacks into Afghanistan.
After clashes in which hundreds of Pakistani troops were killed,
Pakistani authorities forged pacts aimed at ending attacks on Pakistani
forces and raids into Afghanistan.
The pacts, however, served only to strengthen tribal fighters, and
"pro-Taliban elements now have a free hand to recruit, train and arm,"
said the report.
"The militants now hold sway in South and North Waziristan Agencies and
have begun to expand their influence not just in other tribal agencies
such as Khyber and Bajaur but also in NWFP's settled districts," it
said, referring to North West Frontier Province.
A lack of control
The seven tribal districts, known as the Federally Administered Tribal
Areas (FATA), are ruled by repressive colonial-era administrative and
judicial systems inherited from Britain, the think-tank said.
"The state's failure to extend its control over and provide good
governance to its citizens in FATA is equally responsible for empowering
the radicals."
The area has to be integrated into Pakistan's system of provincial
governments and its inhabitants given political rights. Broad-based
development also has to be generated, the ICG report says.
The Pakistan government has defended the pacts saying they were struck
with tribal elders and are aimed at reinvigorating tribal power
structures and isolating the tribal fighters.
Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, has spoken about the need for
reform in the tribal areas and the need to promote development.
Recommendation
ICG further stated that the US and EU need to tie economic and
diplomatic support to Musharraf to reform and free, democratic elections
in 2007.
"The US and Europe need to realise that democratic, civilian government,
not military rule, is their best and natural ally against extremism and
terrorism", Robert Templer, ICG's Asia director, said.
Ahmed said: "These border areas are still run under colonial-era laws
that make their people second-class citizens in Pakistan. Unless the
government institutes real democratic change, extremism and terrorism
will quickly overtake the entire region".
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