FATA: Conundrums galore

It is a highly disturbing situation. The April 24 Shakai agreement with Nek Muhammad, the young former Taliban commander, broke down; Nek Muhammad claimed to the last the still secret agreement between him and the military did not require him to force the foreigners to register; and he was on a war path. There were indications that the usual ploys of Political Department do not work. Nek Muhammad, it turned out, had the assistance of many tough fighters whose numbers could not be accurately known. But the politically savvy people believe them to be enough to cause serious trouble to the security forces.

All in all it is an ugly situation. The American pressure on Pakistan to take out these former supporters of Taliban, some of whom might be linked to al-Qaeda, can only be implemented by traversing a political minefield. Times have changed. There is a new motivating force in FATA areas that the British colonials never encountered or certainly not this kind of Islamic fanaticism. It is the feelings generated by Islamic extremism in the current phase that is threatening to link up the FATA troubles with the general law and order situation in Pakistan, on the one hand, and the al-Qaeda activities throughout the Middle East and Gulf regions, on the other.

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Pakistan actually faces a number of conundrums, the first of which is how to deal with Islamic extremism. It is largely the wages of the Army's sins of commission. It promoted, supported and helped generate successive waves of Islamic fanatics, beginning with 1980s batch of Jihadists. It may have involved up to 300,000 people until the end of Dr. Najibullah's regime -- and then successively in Indian-held Kashmir and again in Afghanistan in the shape of Taliban. Quite large numbers of gun-toting Jihadis are now on the loose. They have their backers, organisations that funded and trained them. A whole Jihadi culture has grown up. Until 2001, Pakistan Army took pride over these large lobbies claiming adherence of many simple religious folks who also became Jihadis. The Army however was interested in its own geo-strategic illusions of greatness. Time has come to pay for those delusions.

Islamic extremism is not a simple phenomenon. These are not simply pious folks trying to live a pure life. They are highly charged fanatics ready to kill or get killed in promoting a certain militant version of Islam that has some new elements, though it remains anchored in the Subcontinent's main version of Islamic orthodoxy -- the Deobandi Maslak of Hanafi Sunnis. Elsewhere in the Middle East the orthodoxy is not necessarily the same Maslak or Deobandi. But what is common to all Jihadists of today, whether al-Qaeda members or of other origins, is the political aim of establishing a pristinely pure Islamic State in all the Muslim countries where the governments are seen to comprise the bootlickers of America. They want to get rid of the lot and insofar as the American overlordship of the Islamic world is concerned, it has to be ejected from the Islamic world. The political motivation is instinct with Islamic fanaticism based on any of many orthodoxies. It is a new phenomenon. It is also a further development of the ideas that originated in Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami and Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. Pakistan's military rulers have made free use of this emerging mentality and helped heighten its emotional content. It was a monster they created, though the US had encouraged the same process for many decades for its own reasons.

It is now revisiting Pakistan, destroying its law and order, reinforcing and getting reinforced by the rising crimes that are sustained by poverty and loss of hope. This witches' brew, this ugly ferment, is still in its earlier stages. Everything points to its intensification as the three part military and one part civilian administration of today is at sea about how to tackle it. The head of the system, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is himself a target of an Islamic militant's bullet or bomb. All he feels is he needs more security.

The point being made is that the government consciously realises the threat it is under but knows not how to fend it off. Its origins having been largely military; it can only think of more force, better coordinated and better equipped force. No one tells it that all this is fire-fighting equipment -- after the fire has risen to a big flame. It is of no use in preventing the fire. In order to put out the fire, you have to douse the inflaming elements first, no doubt. Even this cannot be done in a day or two. The monster has to be asphyxiated by denying it its version of oxygen, probably by administering other elements.

The solution is in fact simple in concept, though difficult to execute by the present set of rulers whose vested interests may stand in the way. It is this administration -- and the real government behind it that spawned the MMA. Did anyone tell Mr. Musharraf that by employing MMA's FATA MNAs as mediators after the military campaign had been stopped long before it could succeed, what was the message to FATA people? The MMA is the most influential set of people to whom Mr. Musharraf looks up to. Was it not adding to the MMA's prestige and power? Why did it have to adopt this method which did not even succeed -- except in promoting MMA's influence?

This government has also chosen a JUI leader, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, as the Leader of the Opposition in a question-raising way. The message is the same: there is an ineffable link between the MMA and the supreme authority that explains MMA's other political behaviour. Until there is a policy in place that allows more enlightened and moderate Islamic forces, such as PPP and PML(N) are, the Islamic extremism will continue to spread. If these parties were to be given free play, the political space they will take up will be so much territory taken away from the extremists. But who can put this simple idea into the firmly closed military minds.

There are other conundrums. FATA area has been kept deliberately backward -- a continuation of the British colonial policy. It has never been brought under Pakistan's laws and normal administration. The Army kept it as its own backyard in which what it did was not known to civilians. It has functional control over the Political Department. What advantages the Army finds in this policy is hard to say. But from around Gen. Zia's time, the Army has used this area as a staging post to meddle into Afghanistan affairs. It has also been used as an area of joint play by western intelligence agencies. Time was when Peshawar used to be the largest MI6 centre in the Subcontinent and now one supposes it is CIA's, with our own outfits hosting all of them cordially.

So far it has been an area where a witches' brew was being cooked, all related to Afghanistan, revisiting the Great Game and other cold war activities. The needs of the poor people of FATA area were neglected. The fact is they actually want normal social services and would gladly accept the few privileges and many liabilities of Pakistan's citizenship. But no one has ever seriously thought of incorporating the area into the rest of Pakistan. The FATA area has been used against foreign powers by foreign powers. Now the foreign powers, in their present orientation, are hurting Pakistan. But Pakistanis have no one else to blame except themselves. Whatever uses have been made of the FATA so far, the time seems to have come when the practice has to be stopped. The poor people of FATA are more sinned against than sinning.

MB Naqvi is a leading columist in Pakistan.