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Analysis: Brokering peace against all odds
By Aurangzaib Khan
- File photo
A flour mill is an unlikely place for a tribal Jirga, especially one mulling over such grave security concerns as bringing peace to North Waziristan Agency by expelling foreign militants. But these are extraordinary times. A traditional, egalitarian setting such as the village ground is no more an option. Suicide bombings and targeted killings of tribal elders have put paid to it.
The huddle of Uthmanzai and Dawar tribal leaders — dominant tribes in NWA — in the southern district of Bannu last Tuesday was the third since Hafiz Gul Bahadur, the pro-government chief of the local Taliban, revoked the peace accord he signed with the government in 2008.
Sporting gilded crests of pale silk turbans, eminent tribal elders were there to form a united front to deal with foreign militants to avert a full-blown military operation in NWA. Bahadur, in his peace accord with the government, had agreed to expel foreign militants, a promise he had reportedly failed to keep, leading to military intervention.
Among the tribal leaders were some who were reluctant, having doubts about this initiative led by Haji Sher Mohammad, grandson and gaddi nasheen (spiritual successor) of the Faqir of Ippi who led a resistance against the colonial British administration in the 1930s and ’40s.
“There is a change in the government policy that has created a scare among the tribes,” Haji Mohammad told reporters after the meeting. “If the situation created by this change in policy is not managed carefully, it may weaken our [the pro-state tribal leaders’] control over the tribes and the youth. They may go join other powers working against the Pakistani state.”
On Friday, June 6, the 65-member Jirga met Corps Commander Lieutenant General Khalid Rabbani and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan to allow tribal leaders to expel foreigners and restore peace. They got 15 days to do exactly that. If they fail, the army will go ahead and launch an operation.
Divisive dynamics
The decision to allow the Uthmanzai-Dawar tribes to restore peace to NWA came at a time when the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed killing two military officials in a suicide attack on June 4.
The attack suggests foreigners may not be amenable to establishing peace. And on June 6 as the Jirga met the corps commander and the governor in Peshawar, another pamphlet was distributed in NWA stating that Bahadur stood by the announcement made in his earlier pamphlet. It said the people should leave the agency by June 10 and not follow the agreement between the Jirga and the authorities, creating fear that Bahadur may not be willing to side with the Jirga either.
Security analysts believe that with Al Qaeda gone and foreign militants on the run in NWA due to the targeted military operation, the time is right for the tribal leadership — that has long lived in fear — to mobilise local support against militancy.
“It [the decision to allow tribes to restore peace] is a step in the right direction,” says Brig Mahmood Shah, security and defence analyst. “I see a possibility that the government will be able to establish its writ through tribal dynamics.”
The “tribal dynamics” are however subject to tribal relations that are notoriously erratic. The Uthmanzai Waziri Jirga of Haji Mohammad will need Dawar tribes, dominant in the plains of Mirali subdivision, to work with Wazirs in Miramshah subdivision to expel the foreigners. But the Dawar tribe and subtribes are divided and that could affect the Jirga’s efforts to exorcise militants.
A lot depends on the tribal-military equation as well. The army is aggressive in its pursuit of foreigners through operations all over Fata but in South Waziristan Agency, where the tribes would now try and expel foreigners without violence, they would need passages for non-locals and foreigners associated with the TTP to go back to their lands. Will the military open the routes for them to do so? And if they do, what happens if they resort to militancy there?
The Bahadur factor
One of the tasks that the tribes would have to deliver on is to make Bahadur take action against foreigners, something that he apparently doesn’t want to, given the statements in his pamphlets and his inability to flush out foreigners over the years. The reason, says a journalist based in NWA, is his “fear of bloodshed, his preference for fighting in Afghanistan than Pakistan and because he sees the foreigners here as jihadis”.
“Haji Sher Mohammad is no match for Gul Bahadur’s capacity to broker peace with militants like the Mehsud militants under Sajna and others,” says Jan Achakzai, spokesperson for the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazl). “The best course is to keep the treaty with Gul Bahadur alive and support Sajna to chuck militants. In 2007, the government successfully removed militants from South Waziristan within 48 hours with the help of Mullah Nazir.”
The government’s lack of clarity — indeed duplicity, as Achakzai puts it — on dealing with the militants may have created a situation where pro-state `commanders’ like Bahadur are not sure about who is a good or bad militant. “If the policy is zero tolerance towards militants,” says Achakzai, “you can’t have good or bad. This contradictory policy where you favour one and strike the other has left everyone confused, including Gul Bahadur or others who couldn’t follow it to remove foreigners.”
In supporting the Jirga under Faqir of Ippi’s grandson, analysts fear the authorities are dabbling in “social engineering”, creating an alternative leadership to Bahadur that could only undermine peace in the region. The Waziri population is two-thirds of the Mehsuds, they say, with greater mobility inside Pakistan, more funds at their disposal and even more foot soldiers than the Mehsuds. In alienating Bahadur, say analysts, the authorities will be creating a “Waziri TTP” instead of dealing with Mehsud militants and foreigners.
Operation it is, then
According to observers, the Jirga’s commitment to make Bahadur deliver on the conditions spelled out in the peace treaties of 2006 and 2008 doesn’t seem realistic if he hasn’t so far. They see the Jirga’s commitment as “a last-ditch” effort to protect “infrastructure owned by tribal elders who have lands and properties in the agency”.
With the attacks on military officials, the TTP leadership in Afghanistan asking its `commanders’ to prepare for offensive against the Pakistani state, and frequent attacks from across the border, the odds are stacked heavily against the Jirga.
“While the civilian government has yet to make up its mind about a clear strategy to fight militancy, the military, for all practical purposes, have decided that an operation is the only way to deal with foreign militants,” says a tribal elder who does not want to be named.
If the tribal elder is to be believed, it would be the people of NWA that — like those in the south before them, or indeed the rest of Fata — would have “to bear the brunt of a full-scale military operation” then.
“When the operation in South Waziristan happened, it was the locals who suffered,” says the tribal elder. “Even people who left their houses to accommodate security forces came back to find their houses destroyed.”
Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2014
By Aurangzaib Khan
- File photo
A flour mill is an unlikely place for a tribal Jirga, especially one mulling over such grave security concerns as bringing peace to North Waziristan Agency by expelling foreign militants. But these are extraordinary times. A traditional, egalitarian setting such as the village ground is no more an option. Suicide bombings and targeted killings of tribal elders have put paid to it.
The huddle of Uthmanzai and Dawar tribal leaders — dominant tribes in NWA — in the southern district of Bannu last Tuesday was the third since Hafiz Gul Bahadur, the pro-government chief of the local Taliban, revoked the peace accord he signed with the government in 2008.
Sporting gilded crests of pale silk turbans, eminent tribal elders were there to form a united front to deal with foreign militants to avert a full-blown military operation in NWA. Bahadur, in his peace accord with the government, had agreed to expel foreign militants, a promise he had reportedly failed to keep, leading to military intervention.
Among the tribal leaders were some who were reluctant, having doubts about this initiative led by Haji Sher Mohammad, grandson and gaddi nasheen (spiritual successor) of the Faqir of Ippi who led a resistance against the colonial British administration in the 1930s and ’40s.
“There is a change in the government policy that has created a scare among the tribes,” Haji Mohammad told reporters after the meeting. “If the situation created by this change in policy is not managed carefully, it may weaken our [the pro-state tribal leaders’] control over the tribes and the youth. They may go join other powers working against the Pakistani state.”
On Friday, June 6, the 65-member Jirga met Corps Commander Lieutenant General Khalid Rabbani and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan to allow tribal leaders to expel foreigners and restore peace. They got 15 days to do exactly that. If they fail, the army will go ahead and launch an operation.
Divisive dynamics
The decision to allow the Uthmanzai-Dawar tribes to restore peace to NWA came at a time when the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed killing two military officials in a suicide attack on June 4.
The attack suggests foreigners may not be amenable to establishing peace. And on June 6 as the Jirga met the corps commander and the governor in Peshawar, another pamphlet was distributed in NWA stating that Bahadur stood by the announcement made in his earlier pamphlet. It said the people should leave the agency by June 10 and not follow the agreement between the Jirga and the authorities, creating fear that Bahadur may not be willing to side with the Jirga either.
Security analysts believe that with Al Qaeda gone and foreign militants on the run in NWA due to the targeted military operation, the time is right for the tribal leadership — that has long lived in fear — to mobilise local support against militancy.
“It [the decision to allow tribes to restore peace] is a step in the right direction,” says Brig Mahmood Shah, security and defence analyst. “I see a possibility that the government will be able to establish its writ through tribal dynamics.”
The “tribal dynamics” are however subject to tribal relations that are notoriously erratic. The Uthmanzai Waziri Jirga of Haji Mohammad will need Dawar tribes, dominant in the plains of Mirali subdivision, to work with Wazirs in Miramshah subdivision to expel the foreigners. But the Dawar tribe and subtribes are divided and that could affect the Jirga’s efforts to exorcise militants.
A lot depends on the tribal-military equation as well. The army is aggressive in its pursuit of foreigners through operations all over Fata but in South Waziristan Agency, where the tribes would now try and expel foreigners without violence, they would need passages for non-locals and foreigners associated with the TTP to go back to their lands. Will the military open the routes for them to do so? And if they do, what happens if they resort to militancy there?
The Bahadur factor
One of the tasks that the tribes would have to deliver on is to make Bahadur take action against foreigners, something that he apparently doesn’t want to, given the statements in his pamphlets and his inability to flush out foreigners over the years. The reason, says a journalist based in NWA, is his “fear of bloodshed, his preference for fighting in Afghanistan than Pakistan and because he sees the foreigners here as jihadis”.
“Haji Sher Mohammad is no match for Gul Bahadur’s capacity to broker peace with militants like the Mehsud militants under Sajna and others,” says Jan Achakzai, spokesperson for the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazl). “The best course is to keep the treaty with Gul Bahadur alive and support Sajna to chuck militants. In 2007, the government successfully removed militants from South Waziristan within 48 hours with the help of Mullah Nazir.”
The government’s lack of clarity — indeed duplicity, as Achakzai puts it — on dealing with the militants may have created a situation where pro-state `commanders’ like Bahadur are not sure about who is a good or bad militant. “If the policy is zero tolerance towards militants,” says Achakzai, “you can’t have good or bad. This contradictory policy where you favour one and strike the other has left everyone confused, including Gul Bahadur or others who couldn’t follow it to remove foreigners.”
In supporting the Jirga under Faqir of Ippi’s grandson, analysts fear the authorities are dabbling in “social engineering”, creating an alternative leadership to Bahadur that could only undermine peace in the region. The Waziri population is two-thirds of the Mehsuds, they say, with greater mobility inside Pakistan, more funds at their disposal and even more foot soldiers than the Mehsuds. In alienating Bahadur, say analysts, the authorities will be creating a “Waziri TTP” instead of dealing with Mehsud militants and foreigners.
Operation it is, then
According to observers, the Jirga’s commitment to make Bahadur deliver on the conditions spelled out in the peace treaties of 2006 and 2008 doesn’t seem realistic if he hasn’t so far. They see the Jirga’s commitment as “a last-ditch” effort to protect “infrastructure owned by tribal elders who have lands and properties in the agency”.
With the attacks on military officials, the TTP leadership in Afghanistan asking its `commanders’ to prepare for offensive against the Pakistani state, and frequent attacks from across the border, the odds are stacked heavily against the Jirga.
“While the civilian government has yet to make up its mind about a clear strategy to fight militancy, the military, for all practical purposes, have decided that an operation is the only way to deal with foreign militants,” says a tribal elder who does not want to be named.
If the tribal elder is to be believed, it would be the people of NWA that — like those in the south before them, or indeed the rest of Fata — would have “to bear the brunt of a full-scale military operation” then.
“When the operation in South Waziristan happened, it was the locals who suffered,” says the tribal elder. “Even people who left their houses to accommodate security forces came back to find their houses destroyed.”
Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2014
