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Pakistan faces multi-dimensional threats over war on terror role
* Analyst says external threats include US strikes on Pakistans nuclear assets
* Tribal Areas should be merged into NWFP
By Iqbal Khattak
PESHAWAR: Pakistans role in the war on terror has led to multidimensional external security threats to the country, Area Study Centre director Azmat Hayat said at a two-day workshop on peace and democracy in Tribal Areas on Wednesday.
The threats confronting the country and the nation at the moment are multidimensional, said Azmat Hayat, host of the workshop organised in collaboration with Hanns Seidle Foundation of Germany.
Hayat referred to three external security threats: Al Qaeda and Taliban, direct US military strikes against suspected militants, and US-led military attacks on Pakistans nuclear weapons if they fall into extremist hands.
Internal security threats were the second dimension, he added, and it is the mismanagement of these threats that could actually function as a trigger for the external ones.
Military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas, foreign diplomats, retired army and civil officers and Tribal Areas residents attended the workshop.
As a consequence of the war on terror and the resultant insurgency in NWFP violence across the country has spiralled out of control, Hayat said. The internal dimension of the security threat undermines the writ and credibility of the state on one hand and the security of life and property of the citizen on the other.
Such external and internal security threats have enfeebled the state, which (is) devoid of popular support, relies exclusively on the use of force to fight all political and security challenges thereby exhausting any remaining legitimacy.
Repeated distortion of constitutional rule; deconstruction of the state institutions, creation of a disconnect between the priorities of the state and the interests of the citizen and the pursuit of a security and foreign policy by a majority has undermined the personal security of its citizen.
Former NWFP chief secretary Khalid Aziz and ex-FATA security chief Brig (r) Mehmood Shah also spoke at the workshop.
NWFP: Khalid Aziz insisted a separate province for Tribal Areas was dangerous, insisting FATA should be merged into the NWFP.
When you call it FATA or NWFP it is if no human being lives there. FATA and NWFP is no identity and in absence of identity you cannot progress, he said.
Khalid Aziz referred to Pakistans economy as casino-like. We play and draw the money. The US pays after we play. Brig (r) Mehmood Shah said fallout is far greater now than before of the current situation in Afghanistan. He said the British imperial forces devised the present governance system in Tribal Areas to expand territorial ambition. But Pakistan has no such ambition and therefore, this system does not serve our interests, he told the workshop. He said the only way forward in FATA was democracy.
* Analyst says external threats include US strikes on Pakistans nuclear assets
* Tribal Areas should be merged into NWFP
By Iqbal Khattak
PESHAWAR: Pakistans role in the war on terror has led to multidimensional external security threats to the country, Area Study Centre director Azmat Hayat said at a two-day workshop on peace and democracy in Tribal Areas on Wednesday.
The threats confronting the country and the nation at the moment are multidimensional, said Azmat Hayat, host of the workshop organised in collaboration with Hanns Seidle Foundation of Germany.
Hayat referred to three external security threats: Al Qaeda and Taliban, direct US military strikes against suspected militants, and US-led military attacks on Pakistans nuclear weapons if they fall into extremist hands.
Internal security threats were the second dimension, he added, and it is the mismanagement of these threats that could actually function as a trigger for the external ones.
Military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas, foreign diplomats, retired army and civil officers and Tribal Areas residents attended the workshop.
As a consequence of the war on terror and the resultant insurgency in NWFP violence across the country has spiralled out of control, Hayat said. The internal dimension of the security threat undermines the writ and credibility of the state on one hand and the security of life and property of the citizen on the other.
Such external and internal security threats have enfeebled the state, which (is) devoid of popular support, relies exclusively on the use of force to fight all political and security challenges thereby exhausting any remaining legitimacy.
Repeated distortion of constitutional rule; deconstruction of the state institutions, creation of a disconnect between the priorities of the state and the interests of the citizen and the pursuit of a security and foreign policy by a majority has undermined the personal security of its citizen.
Former NWFP chief secretary Khalid Aziz and ex-FATA security chief Brig (r) Mehmood Shah also spoke at the workshop.
NWFP: Khalid Aziz insisted a separate province for Tribal Areas was dangerous, insisting FATA should be merged into the NWFP.
When you call it FATA or NWFP it is if no human being lives there. FATA and NWFP is no identity and in absence of identity you cannot progress, he said.
Khalid Aziz referred to Pakistans economy as casino-like. We play and draw the money. The US pays after we play. Brig (r) Mehmood Shah said fallout is far greater now than before of the current situation in Afghanistan. He said the British imperial forces devised the present governance system in Tribal Areas to expand territorial ambition. But Pakistan has no such ambition and therefore, this system does not serve our interests, he told the workshop. He said the only way forward in FATA was democracy.
