The price of war

Rahimullah Yusufzai
Wednesday, May 20, 2009

So big has been the displacement of people due to the latest military operations in Swat and the rest of the Malakand division that UN officials are already drawing comparisons of the unfortunate situation prevailing in Pakistan with that of Rwanda, the Central African country where genocide in 1994 forced large-scale dislocation of communities. And mind you the figure of 1.5 million displaced people that the UNHCR gave on May 18 and which prompted it to remind the world of the Rwandan tragedy is 500,000 less than the estimated two million provided the same day by the NWFP government.

In fact, the ruling ANP-PPP coalition in the province is already calculating that the figure of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) could rise to 2.5 million because the military action that it enthusiastically recommended is continuing and would definitely last longer than planned or anticipated. And if one were to take seriously the statement by our globe-trotting president about starting new military operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) that includes the two Waziristan, we are bound to have many more IDPs living miserable life in the makeshift camps or in urban slums.

President Zardari may be ready to launch military action in the most dangerous tribal areas, but it is unlikely that the Pakistan Army would want to open new frontlines at a time when it is keen to remain focused on the job at hand. And that job in Malakand division, where military action is now taking place in six out of the seven districts including Buner, Swat, Shangla, Malakand Agency, Lower Dir and Upper Dir and excluding Chitral, is far from over.

There is no way the IDPs could be provided the quality and way of life that they had in their rural setting. As a consequence, there would be a sizeable number of displaced people seething with anger over the human and material losses suffered by them and willing to take up causes that mostly involve the use of force. One doesn't have to go far to witness this happening in real life because we have seen the camps for Afghan refugees on our soil becoming breeding ground for not only the Afghan mujahedeen and the Taliban but also hardened criminals. Imagine most of the Frontier landscape dotted with IDPs' camps and 'no-go' areas that are beyond the rule of law. That could be our fate if the tendency to use force to resolve political problems, whether it was the question of Bengali rights in the erstwhile East Pakistan, Baloch aspirations in Balochistan or Shariah law in Malakand region, wasn't discarded. All sides in the dispute in the above situations eventually resorted to using force and the outcome was a prolonged conflict involving death and destruction on a massive scale.

It is sad to be compared to Rwanda, though it is obvious that there is no genocide in our case. There is no doubt that the ongoing military action in Malakand division enjoys greater public support than the previous operations by the armed forces. The All Parties Conference called by the PPP-led federal government on May 18 also favoured the military operations in Malakand even if the original, strong-worded resolution drafted by the ruling coalition and endorsing the 'Operation Rah-e-Rast' (The Right Path) had to be amended to achieve consensus among political parties with diverse opinions. In the end, the unanimously agreed resolution reportedly "condemned all violent challenges to the constitution and the state of Pakistan" and at the same time criticized the US drone attacks in Pakistani territory. The armed forces have always sought public support to be able to do a better job and have urged the political elite to take ownership of the fight against terrorism and extremism. It is another matter that the politicians have been reluctant to take up this controversial and risky cause.

Armed with such a high level of public and political support, the military command seems to be under pressure this time to achieve greater success against the Taliban militants. The media too is behind the troops and, in fact, has sometimes gone overboard in backing the military campaign. Claims by the military about battleground achievements haven't been challenged and the issue of civilian casualties hasn't been highlighted. Politicians in the past complained about collision between the military and the militants. Now they are praising the military effort as they believe it is more focused and targeted. Having failed to deliver a decisive blow to the militants in the past, the armed forces are expected to fight to the finish this time to complete the assigned task.

The military leadership played its cards well to manoeuvre backing from the public, the politicians and the media. In the process, it helped raised expectations and any failure on the part of the armed forces now would harm its reputation. The army cannot afford this as there is already lot of heart-burning with regard to its frequent forays into politics and on account of the disastrous consequences of military rule in the past.

The military command surely has a better grasp of the situation in Swat, Buner and Lower Dir and it would be having a strategy how to tackle the militants while taking care to minimize civilian casualties and avoid other "collateral damage" such as the damage to private property and the available infrastructure. It would also know that the Taliban militants are a committed guerilla force that would be better tackled through the use of non-conventional means and better intelligence. In the heat of the moment, not much thought is being given to the political, economic and social fallout of such large military operations involving excessive use of airpower and heavy artillery in densely-populated mountain valleys with weak economies and fragile environment. All we hear are statements and slogans demanding more attacks so that the enemy is crushed once and for all. There is little tolerance for divergent opinion and anyone with a different viewpoint is condemned without realizing that we are supposed to be a democratic country.

One witnessed a similar situation during the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa crisis when a vocal and largely privileged section of the society with easy access to the media and political power demanded military action against those holding out in the mosque and madressah located in the heart of Islamabad. Once this was done, the military got little praise and more criticism for its handling of the situation. Besides, no real effort was made to calculate the consequences of the military action against madressah students, or Taliban and Talibat as the male and female seminary students are commonly known. The issue could have been better handled and politically resolved, but General Pervez Musharraf's track record would show that he preferred military solution for every issue, whether it was Balochistan, FATA or Lal Masjid. The fallout of the Lal Masjid action has been horrible and if a study was done it would prove that militancy increased and acts of brutality, including suicide bombings, by the militants received a fillip once they became convinced that young students, including females, were killed in the military assault on the mosque and madressah.

If not properly handled, the military action in the Malakand division and the huge displacement that it has caused would have far greater consequences than Lal Masjid or previous army operations. Those challenging the writ of the state, imposing their will on others and committing atrocities against their opponents need to be sorted out. But equally important is removing the genuine grievances of the common people who suffer due to our unresponsive and unaccountable system of justice and governance. The poor delivery of justice in Swat and the rest of the Malakand division provided a perfect platform to the militants to gain political influence and become an armed force by exploiting the urge of the people for a better law based on Shariah. The Malakand region would continue to be a fertile breeding ground for militancy unless the issues that gave rise to extremism weren't resolved.

The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar. Email: rahimyusufzai@yahoo.com

Courtesy: The News International