INSIGHT: Jaw-jaw, war-war
Ejaz Haider
“On the issue of terrorism, critics of General (retd) Pervez Musharraf say that he relied too much on the use of force and too little on reaching out to the people and other stakeholders…..”
In and of itself, there can be no cavil about integrating the tribal areas into the North West Frontier Province and extending municipal law to them. If that could be done, or if it were possible, we would all have reason to rejoice. Unfortunately, the issue is unlikely to lend itself to either good wishes or easy solutions
The new government says countering terrorism is its first priority. It has got that right.
The commitment has also led the government to take two measures: move towards abolishing the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) and promise extending the Political Parties Act to the tribal areas.
A continuation of the previous government’s approach, it signals that important policies may not be scuttled on partisan basis.
The implementation mechanism can of course differ from minor calibrations to major shuffles but the endpoint must remain the same.
A word of caution is in order, however.
On the issue of terrorism, critics of General (retd) Pervez Musharraf say that he relied too much on the use of force and too little on reaching out to the people and other stakeholders. The present government has therefore indicated that it will use a democratic and more participatory approach to tackle the trouble in the tribal areas. Reforming and ultimately abolishing the FCR and extending the Political Parties Act to the tribal areas are two important planks of the new approach.
In and of itself, there can be no cavil about integrating the tribal areas into the North West Frontier Province and extending municipal law to them. If that could be done, or if it were possible, we would all have reason to rejoice. Unfortunately, the issue is unlikely to lend itself to either good wishes or easy solutions.
As most FATA hands know well enough, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the FCR for two reasons: one, it allowed the tribal areas a special status; two, it was merely a codification of riwaj (customs). The FCR created a special arrangement whereby the state would not intervene in the tribal areas and the tribal elders would ensure that the tribesmen would not do anything that militated against the interests of the state.
The compact was sustained through a number of administrative measures and it worked fairly well until recently. That situation does not obtain any more. The presence of foreign elements in the tribal areas and the rise of the Taliban have, in tandem, largely broken down the tribal structures. The quid pro quo on which FCR was based and functioned is no more. Tribal elders, having been upstaged by the new warriors, can no longer guarantee the reciprocity that underpinned the FCR.
What next then? Is this not reason enough for the FCR to go? Not really.
First, the militants, the new power-wielders, want a legal vacuum because for them the movement towards getting rid of FCR is not a matter of bringing in municipal law but Shariah law. They have said it in so many words.
Second, the militants want to control the area fully so they can legally end-run the government and pursue their objective of crossing over into Afghanistan to attack that country’s interests.
Third, while the actual functioning of FCR has been diluted by events on the ground, it still provides the legal code to the state for dealing with trouble in the area. The need is to strengthen FCR while chiselling some of its rough edges rather than jilting it altogether.
Allied with the purported abolition of FCR is the extension of the Political Parties Act to the area. Once again, a good measure may just be a tad off the mark because of the situation on the ground. The militants the army has been fighting are not in the business of contesting elections. The extension of municipal law and the Political Parties Act mean the extension of state writ to those areas. There is no gainsaying that they would oppose these measures whatever it takes.
Essentially, it is about the degree of difficulty and it is very high. Arguments about democracy, participation and dialogue, while commendable, miss out the basic reality — i.e. there is an insurgency going on in the area; it is sustained through linkages on both sides of the Durand Line; it has multiple means of funding for sustenance; it is not a local phenomenon even as the armed struggle may be unfolding in a particular area and so on.
How long will political leaders survive the rigours of the area, especially when the militants begin target-killing them just like they have the tribal elders. Let’s not forget that the militants are not shy of blowing up jirgas and even funeral processions — unthinkable until recently under pakhtunwali.
What the government needs to recognise, just as it has understood the imperative of fighting terrorism, that there are not too many interlocutors left to either push the state’s objectives or even negotiate on the state’s behalf.
Another crucial point relates to the argument that looks at dialogue and use of force as incompatible, if not mutually exclusive. This is flawed. In situations like the one in FATA, dialogue and use of force go hand-in-hand and complement each other. As things stand, what the government wants to do — extending municipal law and the PPA — would most definitely be contested bitterly and thus require use of force.
The catch in all such situations is when to jaw-jaw and when to war-war and in what order. Insurgencies have a way of creating this chicken-egg problem.
In a way it is a problem of timescale and also the fact that this kind of war-war does not lend itself to Clausewitzean victory. The new government will therefore need to be patient and also realise that in some phases of the conflict it would need force to create circumstances propitious for a political initiative.
It is not a coincidence that the army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, gave a briefing Wednesday to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani, Mr Asif Zardari and Mian Nawaz Sharif, and leaders of ANP and JUIF. The briefing indicates that the army chief wants the civilian leadership to get some idea of the difficult terrain ahead. The army has also signalled that it will retain the initiative and that close cooperation between it and the political government is essential for fighting this war — besides, pious wishes alone may not work.
This reality-check was important and it has come upfront which is good. On the plus side, if the political government and the army can tango nicely on this, the two prongs of the policy — military and political — could complement each other and create the necessary synergy.
Ejaz Haider is Op-Ed Editor of Daily Times and Consulting Editor of The Friday Times. He can be reached at sapper@dailytimes.com.pk
A Tribute to President Musharraf 