Understand, not punish

December 19, 2013 will always be remembered as the darkest day in the history of North Waziristan. On that day the Khajori check post near Mir Ali in North Waziristan was attacked by militants and in retaliation the security forces responded with indiscriminate firing, using gunship helicopters and long-range artillery, pounding nearby villages and the main bazaar where they (security force) thought the militants were hiding.
Reportedly 35 militants including 10 Uzbeks were killed but no evidence to that effect has surfaced so far. No mention of the civilians killed in the incident was made though eyewitness account puts that figure to more than 70 including seven, women and children of one family of a school teacher and two little children, brother and sister, holding each other’s hands in death.
No one condones attacks on check posts nor commends the indiscriminate firing on innocent people in bazaars and villages. As if that was not enough, curfew was clamped on the area not allowing anyone to come out of their houses to help the wounded and retrieve the dead.
Whether inducting the army into Fata was a right decision or not is yet to be decided for sure but a vast majority of people in the area believe that it was not the right decision and was made in haste without giving due consideration to other options. Not only had the former dictator defied the constitution, he had shattered the commitment of the Quaid also and then tried to prove Lord Curzon wrong by dragging the whole army into this unwanted war. He started the military steam-roller in Fata to eliminate militants but in the process got the security forces bogged down with its own people, a recipe many believe is highly dangerous for a country.
The purpose of this wrong decision as told to the nation at that time, was to guard the western border against militants crossing it at will from Afghanistan into Pakistan and vice versa. How far that objective has been achieved is for people to judge but in the process we caused more harm to ourselves than to the militants since militancy thriving despite claims to the contrary.
Had the use of force, in a conventional way, been the right thing to do the colonial masters would have done that much earlier but they preferred following a better course of action by resorting to the carrot and stick policy – punishing only those who deserved to be punished. We, on the contrary, pursued a policy that has irritated the locals more than pleasing them.
A wrong impression has been created, over the years, that the people in Fata are against the army and would harm it if they could. In other words, that they are potential enemies of the country. That is not true. They consider the army as their own. What they do not like is the way the security forces there treat the locals.
What is happening in Fata is exactly what was happening in East Pakistan much before the situation took an ugly turn there. It did not happen in a day. It was the cumulative effect of the injustices perpetrated on the people there over the years. And when the time came to look for their help to save that wing from ceding away they not only turned a blind eye but took arms against the very force they were serving in for defence of the country.
Let us stop treating our own people in Fata like aliens. Let us not push them to the wall by repeating ugly scenes like that of Mir Ali any more. Let us start understanding Fata, particularly Waziristan, than pounding it on one pretext or the other.
Fata, it may be recalled, was neither conquered nor acquired from another state. Resident of the area decided to join the newly created state of Pakistan of their free will. Not only that but they defended the western border for us for free for decades till the arrival of the army. They were a source of adding territory (Kashmir) to the country rather than taking it away. So let us stop accusing them of any wrongdoing and for others’ faults.
They are as good citizens of this country as anybody else. This is no way to punish residents of an area simply because some miscreants live there too. If that be the criterion then gunship helicopters and long-range artillery should be used in other cities as well from where scores of high-value targest were killed, arrested and handed over to the west.
This is not the first time that indiscriminate firing has taken place in the tribal areas. Similar incidents are still fresh in the minds of the people of Wana, South Waziristan Agency, Shabqadar in Mohmand Agency, Tirah and Bara in Khyber Agency where ordinary civilians, including schoolgoing children and serving doctors became victims of such firing.
Let us begin the new year with a pledge that we will try to set our directions right so that we all are on the same page in solving this complex problem. If fighting the war is in our national interest then let us join hands and fight it with full force but for that to happen we have to take each other (the government, the military and the public) into confidence. And if it is not, then let us reconsider that policy and deal with the people of Fata more humanely then we have been doing for the last so many years.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his interior minister are on record to have termed the policies of the dictator wrong. What they need to do now is correct the situation on an urgent basis. Let us not waste time in recounting events of the past but instead focus on the future and try to find solutions to the problems we face today.
Let us pause and see how best we can get out of this mess without causing further harm to ourselves or denting our relations further with the international community.
The writer is a former ambassador.
Email: waziruk@hotmail.com