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Not the will of the people
By S Iftikhar Murshed
The resolution unanimously adopted by the All-Parties Conference (APC) on September 9 is much more than a document of surrender. It not only violates the constitution, which the prime minister and parliamentarians have solemnly sworn to preserve and protect, but is also completely at variance with the injunctions of the Quran relating to war. Events since then have proved how ill-founded the starry-eyed illusion of peace was.
The last two Sundays since the APC have been startling. The first, on September 15, witnessed the cold-blooded assassination of Major General Sanaullah Khan Niazi and two members of his staff. The general was returning from a visit to a remote outpost in Upper Dir near the Afghan border when he and his companions were killed in a coordinated, perfectly timed IED detonation. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) gleefully announced that it had masterminded the attack.
The three men were buried with well-deserved military honours. But the civilian leadership could do no more than issue vague cliché-saturated statements condemning the attack. The prime minister, for example, assiduously refrained from naming the TTP for the outrage even though it had proudly claimed responsibility. He did not want to jeopardise the initiation of peace talks with the killers. This was feckless appeasement carried to a giddy extreme.
The next Sunday September 22 saw the entire country reeling with shock when twin suicide bomb blasts devastated the All Saints Memorial Church in Peshawar in which 83 worshippers were killed and more than 170 were seriously injured. The leadership of the country, who are bending over backwards to initiate negotiations with the TTP, are probably not even aware the earliest injunction of the Quran urging believers to fight was in the context of protecting all places of worship.
The Quranic passage reads: ...For, if God had not enabled people to defend themselves against one another, (all) monasteries and churches and synagogues and mosques in (all of) which Gods name is abundantly extolled would surely have been destroyed ere now... (22: 40). The unmistakable purport of the verse is that the defence of religious freedom and this applies to all religions is the foremost cause for which taking up arms is obligatory.
The Quran allows fighting but only in self-defence: And fight in Gods cause against those who wage war against you, but do not commit aggression for, verily, God does not love aggressors (2: 190). The fighting must continue till the aggressor sues for peace only then all hostility shall cease, save against those who (wilfully) do wrong (2:193).
The leaders who participated in the APC must, therefore, ask themselves whether peace negotiations with the TTP are at all permissible in terms of the clear injunctions of the Quran till such time as the outfit and its factions do not renounce violence and lay down their arms. This has to be the starting point of the dialogue with the TTP that the prime minister has been authorised by the APC to initiate.
The end objective of the TTP is the capture of political power through its terrorist outrages. The APC resolution has given it the legitimacy that it desperately craves. In order not to squander this gain, the TTP disassociated itself from any involvement in the heart-rending tragedy that visited Peshawar last Sunday. Its spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, telephoned a foreign news agency from an undisclosed location in the tribal regions and said: We havent done this nor do we attack innocent people. Whenever we carry out an attack we claim it, but the Taliban are not involved in this attack. It was an attempt to sabotage the atmosphere of the proposed peace talks.
This was belied by one of the TTP factions, Jundullah, which claimed responsibility. Though a segment of the print media has described the group as relatively new and unknown, it masterminded the attack on the ISI regional headquarters in Sukkur on July 24; the previous month it was involved along with the Jundul Hafsa of Asmatullah Muaviya the leader of the Punjabi Taliban in the killing of foreign mountaineers in Gilgit-Baltistan; in February last year it was responsible for the ruthless massacre of Shias in Kohistan; and, on June 10, 2004, it carried out an abortive assassination attempt on the corps commander in Karachi. After the attack on the All Saints Church, its spokesperson, Ahmed Marwat, declared that Christians were the enemies of Islam, therefore we target them.
What emerges is that the TTP operates through linkages with scores of terrorist outfits spread across the country the estimated numbers vary from three dozen to more than 60. Although the TTP has a core group at the centre, the command and control mechanism is largely ineffective, and, as a consequence, its leadership, like that of Al-Qaeda, is compelled to allow considerable autonomy to its affiliates. Despite this, all groups are uncompromisingly wedded to the objective of transforming Pakistan into an Islamic emirate.
Against this background, it would have been tactically stupid for the TTPs core leadership to own the suicide bombing of the All Saints Church. The reason is obvious. It has already been thoughtlessly accepted in the APC resolution as a stakeholder that is entitled to have a say in determining the future of the country although it does not recognise the constitution, which it is determined to abrogate, and replace with its perverted interpretation of Islam.
In this context two articles of the constitution are relevant. The first is Article 6 which clearly enunciates: Any person who abrogates or attempts or conspires to abrogate, subverts or attempts or conspires to subvert the constitution by use of force or show of force or by any other unconstitutional means shall be guilty of high treason. This leaves no doubt that the TTP and its affiliates, which have been referred to in the APC resolution as our own people in the tribal areas, are guilty of high treason, and cannot therefore possibly be considered as one of the stakeholders in the affairs of the country.
The next clause of the same article asserts that any person aiding or abetting the abrogation or the subversion of the constitution shall likewise be guilty of high treason. A Supreme Court lawyer said the other day that one of his cranky clients who is in the habit of filing writ petitions at the drop of a hat had asked him whether the provisions of this clause could be invoked against the APC participants because of their description of the TTP as a stakeholder even though its objective was to subvert the constitution.
The unnamed client must have hit the ceiling after Imran Khans preposterous statement on Wednesday urging the government to declare a unilateral ceasefire and allow the TTP to open a political office in the country!
The second is Article 256 which unambiguously affirms: No private organisation capable of functioning as a military organisation shall be formed, and any such organisation shall be illegal. The TTP has demonstrated time and again that it is capable of functioning as a military organisation and, therefore, in terms of Article 256, it cannot be allowed to exist till it disarms and abandons its violent agenda. For this reason, the outfit has also been proscribed under Pakistans anti-terror law.
Yet despite the injunctions of the Quran and the stipulations of the constitution, the government is determined to forge ahead with the initiation of talks with an illegal entity. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan explained earlier in the week that this was in accordance with the APCs consensus decision. A majority of Pakistanis, however, think differently.
This is evident from a recent Pew survey conducted in eleven Muslim countries which shows that Pakistan has the highest disapproval rate of any form of violence in the name of Islam. An impressive 89 percent of those surveyed rejected suicide bombings and 65 percent sternly disapproved of the Taliban. The implication is that the TTPs ambition of establishing an Islamic emirate is unacceptable and, in this sense, the dialogue the government is so eager to start may not be in accord with the will of the people.
The writer is the publisher ofCriterion Quarterly.
Email: iftimurshed@**********
Not the will of the people - S Iftikhar Murshed
By S Iftikhar Murshed
The resolution unanimously adopted by the All-Parties Conference (APC) on September 9 is much more than a document of surrender. It not only violates the constitution, which the prime minister and parliamentarians have solemnly sworn to preserve and protect, but is also completely at variance with the injunctions of the Quran relating to war. Events since then have proved how ill-founded the starry-eyed illusion of peace was.
The last two Sundays since the APC have been startling. The first, on September 15, witnessed the cold-blooded assassination of Major General Sanaullah Khan Niazi and two members of his staff. The general was returning from a visit to a remote outpost in Upper Dir near the Afghan border when he and his companions were killed in a coordinated, perfectly timed IED detonation. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) gleefully announced that it had masterminded the attack.
The three men were buried with well-deserved military honours. But the civilian leadership could do no more than issue vague cliché-saturated statements condemning the attack. The prime minister, for example, assiduously refrained from naming the TTP for the outrage even though it had proudly claimed responsibility. He did not want to jeopardise the initiation of peace talks with the killers. This was feckless appeasement carried to a giddy extreme.
The next Sunday September 22 saw the entire country reeling with shock when twin suicide bomb blasts devastated the All Saints Memorial Church in Peshawar in which 83 worshippers were killed and more than 170 were seriously injured. The leadership of the country, who are bending over backwards to initiate negotiations with the TTP, are probably not even aware the earliest injunction of the Quran urging believers to fight was in the context of protecting all places of worship.
The Quranic passage reads: ...For, if God had not enabled people to defend themselves against one another, (all) monasteries and churches and synagogues and mosques in (all of) which Gods name is abundantly extolled would surely have been destroyed ere now... (22: 40). The unmistakable purport of the verse is that the defence of religious freedom and this applies to all religions is the foremost cause for which taking up arms is obligatory.
The Quran allows fighting but only in self-defence: And fight in Gods cause against those who wage war against you, but do not commit aggression for, verily, God does not love aggressors (2: 190). The fighting must continue till the aggressor sues for peace only then all hostility shall cease, save against those who (wilfully) do wrong (2:193).
The leaders who participated in the APC must, therefore, ask themselves whether peace negotiations with the TTP are at all permissible in terms of the clear injunctions of the Quran till such time as the outfit and its factions do not renounce violence and lay down their arms. This has to be the starting point of the dialogue with the TTP that the prime minister has been authorised by the APC to initiate.
The end objective of the TTP is the capture of political power through its terrorist outrages. The APC resolution has given it the legitimacy that it desperately craves. In order not to squander this gain, the TTP disassociated itself from any involvement in the heart-rending tragedy that visited Peshawar last Sunday. Its spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, telephoned a foreign news agency from an undisclosed location in the tribal regions and said: We havent done this nor do we attack innocent people. Whenever we carry out an attack we claim it, but the Taliban are not involved in this attack. It was an attempt to sabotage the atmosphere of the proposed peace talks.
This was belied by one of the TTP factions, Jundullah, which claimed responsibility. Though a segment of the print media has described the group as relatively new and unknown, it masterminded the attack on the ISI regional headquarters in Sukkur on July 24; the previous month it was involved along with the Jundul Hafsa of Asmatullah Muaviya the leader of the Punjabi Taliban in the killing of foreign mountaineers in Gilgit-Baltistan; in February last year it was responsible for the ruthless massacre of Shias in Kohistan; and, on June 10, 2004, it carried out an abortive assassination attempt on the corps commander in Karachi. After the attack on the All Saints Church, its spokesperson, Ahmed Marwat, declared that Christians were the enemies of Islam, therefore we target them.
What emerges is that the TTP operates through linkages with scores of terrorist outfits spread across the country the estimated numbers vary from three dozen to more than 60. Although the TTP has a core group at the centre, the command and control mechanism is largely ineffective, and, as a consequence, its leadership, like that of Al-Qaeda, is compelled to allow considerable autonomy to its affiliates. Despite this, all groups are uncompromisingly wedded to the objective of transforming Pakistan into an Islamic emirate.
Against this background, it would have been tactically stupid for the TTPs core leadership to own the suicide bombing of the All Saints Church. The reason is obvious. It has already been thoughtlessly accepted in the APC resolution as a stakeholder that is entitled to have a say in determining the future of the country although it does not recognise the constitution, which it is determined to abrogate, and replace with its perverted interpretation of Islam.
In this context two articles of the constitution are relevant. The first is Article 6 which clearly enunciates: Any person who abrogates or attempts or conspires to abrogate, subverts or attempts or conspires to subvert the constitution by use of force or show of force or by any other unconstitutional means shall be guilty of high treason. This leaves no doubt that the TTP and its affiliates, which have been referred to in the APC resolution as our own people in the tribal areas, are guilty of high treason, and cannot therefore possibly be considered as one of the stakeholders in the affairs of the country.
The next clause of the same article asserts that any person aiding or abetting the abrogation or the subversion of the constitution shall likewise be guilty of high treason. A Supreme Court lawyer said the other day that one of his cranky clients who is in the habit of filing writ petitions at the drop of a hat had asked him whether the provisions of this clause could be invoked against the APC participants because of their description of the TTP as a stakeholder even though its objective was to subvert the constitution.
The unnamed client must have hit the ceiling after Imran Khans preposterous statement on Wednesday urging the government to declare a unilateral ceasefire and allow the TTP to open a political office in the country!
The second is Article 256 which unambiguously affirms: No private organisation capable of functioning as a military organisation shall be formed, and any such organisation shall be illegal. The TTP has demonstrated time and again that it is capable of functioning as a military organisation and, therefore, in terms of Article 256, it cannot be allowed to exist till it disarms and abandons its violent agenda. For this reason, the outfit has also been proscribed under Pakistans anti-terror law.
Yet despite the injunctions of the Quran and the stipulations of the constitution, the government is determined to forge ahead with the initiation of talks with an illegal entity. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan explained earlier in the week that this was in accordance with the APCs consensus decision. A majority of Pakistanis, however, think differently.
This is evident from a recent Pew survey conducted in eleven Muslim countries which shows that Pakistan has the highest disapproval rate of any form of violence in the name of Islam. An impressive 89 percent of those surveyed rejected suicide bombings and 65 percent sternly disapproved of the Taliban. The implication is that the TTPs ambition of establishing an Islamic emirate is unacceptable and, in this sense, the dialogue the government is so eager to start may not be in accord with the will of the people.
The writer is the publisher ofCriterion Quarterly.
Email: iftimurshed@**********
Not the will of the people - S Iftikhar Murshed
