Reversal in Swat and the residual state
EDITORIAL: Daily the Times
The militia of Fazlullah, the warlord of Swat, has defeated the paramilitary forces sent in to “bring peace to the people of the valley”. Official spokesmen denied the defeat and the capture of paramilitaries by the militia, but the truth could not be hidden when this time, instead of beheading them, Fazlullah decided to free the 48 captives in Charbagh with Rs 500 notes of “baksheesh” stuck in their hands. The freed men declared they were not willing to fight their fellow-Muslims; some said they would leave their jobs and join the Taliban and fight for Islam instead.
The government troops retreated from Khwazakhela and have camped in Madian. The police stations of Charbagh — which was set on fire by the militia — and Matta were abandoned, effectively passing on the control of the area to the Taliban-Al Qaeda pax of the warlord given as a gift to the people of Swat by the erstwhile government of MMA in the NWFP. The army troops are in waiting. They were supposed to come in to help the paramilitaries, but it now seems too late for a number of reasons, some of them already presaged in the capture of troops in Waziristan earlier in the year. Instead of putting Fazlullah under pressure before talking to him, now the government is under pressure and Fazlullah wants to talk.
To the frog-chorus of politicians and intellectuals recommending “negotiations” with the Al Qaeda-led elements, one can only offer a glimpse into what the warlord in Swat wants. As a topic for discussion, he has put forward three demands: 1) evacuation of Swat so that he can legitimise his occupation of it; 2) enforcement of sharia in the area — which of course means the kind of sharia enforced under Talibanisation; and 3) scrapping of all criminal cases registered against his men. This is what the militant elements in the Tribal Areas would want too. Last time Islamabad negotiated with the Taliban in Waziristan, it agreed to remove its checkposts and virtually leave the territory to those patronised by Al Qaeda.
What Al Qaeda wants is territory from where it can operate freely at the global level. (Already most of the bombers in Europe are trained in Waziristan.) Defeats suffered by Pakistani security forces have created a fait accompli of what in old parlance was called loss of territory. The instrument of control over this territory is sought through the enforcement of a sharia that differs a great deal from the “inclusive” sharia in force in the country. Constitutional amendments have set up a Federal Shariat Court with powers of “reverse legislation” by striking down any law found repugnant to Islam. The MMA government had tried to part company with the constitutional sharia of the rest of the country through what it called the Hasba Bill. This is now the norm that Lal Masjid, backed by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, wants to impose in the capital itself.
That Al Qaeda is in search of a state of its own is known to the world. The last time it tried to gain a foothold inside a state was in Somalia in 2006. The sharia there was of the Arab variety and very close to what the Taliban want. The Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), dispensing a wide variety of adjudication based on differing but legitimate sources of jurisprudence, set up its own legally fractured government, only to arouse alarm in the neighbourhood. The United States got “Christian” Ethiopia to invade Somalia and put the Islamic warriors — some of them hailing from Pakistan — to flight. The case of Pakistan will greatly differ in detail but the general drift is the same. An invasion will target the “lost territories” as the Pakistan army watches.
A number of “failing” states in the Horn of Africa are now allowing international law to develop in favour of invited and uninvited intervention, some of it illegal and some — that organised by the Organisation of African Union — legal. In the case of Pakistan, while the patriotic Pakistanis defiantly oppose the label of “failed state”, there are signs of intervention that we can hardly ignore. Drones flown from the US have been attacking suspected Al Qaeda hideouts inside Pakistani territory. Even at the time of writing North Waziristan reports drones overflying territory that is virtually lost to Pakistan. The little-discussed legal ground is “hot pursuit” because Pakistan is in no position to stop Al Qaeda and its Pakistani warriors from attacking as far inland in Afghanistan as Helmand and Herat.
A number of “failing” states in the Horn of Africa are now allowing international law to develop in favour of invited and uninvited intervention, some of it illegal and some — that organised by the Organisation of African Union — legal. In the case of Pakistan, while the patriotic Pakistanis defiantly oppose the label of “failed state”, there are signs of intervention that we can hardly ignore. Drones flown from the US have been attacking suspected Al Qaeda hideouts inside Pakistani territory. Even at the time of writing North Waziristan reports drones overflying territory that is virtually lost to Pakistan. The little-discussed legal ground is “hot pursuit” because Pakistan is in no position to stop Al Qaeda and its Pakistani warriors from attacking as far inland in Afghanistan as Helmand and Herat.