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Pakistans patchy fight against violence sows confusion
MINGORA: At the rehabilitation centre for former terrorists in the Swat valley, the psychiatrist speaks for the young man sitting opposite him in silence. It was terrible. He was unable to escape. The fear is so strong. Still the fear is so strong.
Hundreds of kilometers away in Lahore, a retired army officer recalls another young man who attacked him while he prayed his absolutely expressionless face as he crouched down robot-like to reload his gun. Both youths had been sucked into an increasingly fierce campaign of gun and bomb attacks by terrorists on military and civilian targets across Pakistan. But there the similarity stops.
One is now being de-radicalised in the rehabilitation centre in Swat, the northern region which only two years ago was overrun by the Pakistani Taliban and has since been cleared after a massive military operation. He will be taught that Islam does not permit violence against the state and that suicide bombing is haram or forbidden. The other had attacked the minority Ahmadi sect, declared non-Muslim by the state and subject to frequent attacks in Punjab, where many of them live.
Though he was arrested after being overpowered by the retired army officer, survivors said many of their neighbours celebrated his act of violence with the distribution of sweets. The different responses to the two are symptomatic of Pakistans compartmentalised approach on counter-terrorism and counter-extremism. In some parts of the country like Swat violent extremists are crushed and their beliefs confronted.
Swat is the Pakistan armys success story. After Taliban terrorists imposed a brutal regime of beheadings and killings, the army sent in troops to clear them out and restore order. This week it held an international seminar on de-radicalisation in the main town Mingora and organised tours of its rehabilitation centres to demonstrate its commitment to fighting terrorism.
The turbaned men who brought fear to Swat have been replaced by boys playing cricket in the cool before dusk; women are back out in the streets, some even showing their faces under casually draped headscarves, peace is enforced by a heavy military presence. Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani a man whose position in Pakistan was demonstrated by the alacrity at which the audience at the seminar rose to its feet when he entered the hall insisted in a rare public speech on the need to fight the political, psychological or religious trends which lead to radicalism.
At the rehabilitation centre, a large brick building with high walls and barbed wire set between craggy grassy hills in the Swat countryside, an officer explained that several hundred prisoners had been selected for the removal of radical thoughts. The young man sitting with the psychiatrist he cannot be named for his own safety was a construction worker who ended up with the Taliban and is now being counselled in the hope he can return to a normal life. He still suffers from post-traumatic stress from the violence he witnessed.
In another rehabilitation centre, this one for juveniles aged 12-17, boys dressed in green and white striped shirts, brown trousers and black shoes are given classes about Pakistan. The setting is softer here the boys have neat bunk beds with covers of blue floral print on pale brown, a living room with television and table tennis, a computer room, a small library including a collection of English-language novels.
Some of them were used by the Taliban for menial chores you have to rise one step up the hierarchy to become a suicide bomber, to be injected with drugs and dispatched to kill. The Swat story has less gentle sides in the thousands of hardcore prisoners who visitors are not taken to see, in reports, denied by the army, of extra-judicial executions.
Local people say they fear that the Taliban might yet return to an area mired in poverty and hit anew by devastating floods last year. But at least in terms of trend, Swat is a success. Punjab, having never known the extreme violence seen in Swat and with nothing to shock it into action, is going in the opposite direction. Last year, more than 80 people were killed in Lahore at two mosques of the Ahmedi community. The retired military officer he too did not want to be named and others who survived speak of neighbours distributing sweets in the streets of Lahore.
Only a few mainly in the liberal English media spoke out strongly to condemn the attacks. The same state which is challenging radicalism in Swat has been unable to respond to a similar ideology in Punjab for the countrys divided politicians, the religious right is a powerful force to be either courted or avoided as an enemy. reuters
MINGORA: At the rehabilitation centre for former terrorists in the Swat valley, the psychiatrist speaks for the young man sitting opposite him in silence. It was terrible. He was unable to escape. The fear is so strong. Still the fear is so strong.
Hundreds of kilometers away in Lahore, a retired army officer recalls another young man who attacked him while he prayed his absolutely expressionless face as he crouched down robot-like to reload his gun. Both youths had been sucked into an increasingly fierce campaign of gun and bomb attacks by terrorists on military and civilian targets across Pakistan. But there the similarity stops.
One is now being de-radicalised in the rehabilitation centre in Swat, the northern region which only two years ago was overrun by the Pakistani Taliban and has since been cleared after a massive military operation. He will be taught that Islam does not permit violence against the state and that suicide bombing is haram or forbidden. The other had attacked the minority Ahmadi sect, declared non-Muslim by the state and subject to frequent attacks in Punjab, where many of them live.
Though he was arrested after being overpowered by the retired army officer, survivors said many of their neighbours celebrated his act of violence with the distribution of sweets. The different responses to the two are symptomatic of Pakistans compartmentalised approach on counter-terrorism and counter-extremism. In some parts of the country like Swat violent extremists are crushed and their beliefs confronted.
Swat is the Pakistan armys success story. After Taliban terrorists imposed a brutal regime of beheadings and killings, the army sent in troops to clear them out and restore order. This week it held an international seminar on de-radicalisation in the main town Mingora and organised tours of its rehabilitation centres to demonstrate its commitment to fighting terrorism.
The turbaned men who brought fear to Swat have been replaced by boys playing cricket in the cool before dusk; women are back out in the streets, some even showing their faces under casually draped headscarves, peace is enforced by a heavy military presence. Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani a man whose position in Pakistan was demonstrated by the alacrity at which the audience at the seminar rose to its feet when he entered the hall insisted in a rare public speech on the need to fight the political, psychological or religious trends which lead to radicalism.
At the rehabilitation centre, a large brick building with high walls and barbed wire set between craggy grassy hills in the Swat countryside, an officer explained that several hundred prisoners had been selected for the removal of radical thoughts. The young man sitting with the psychiatrist he cannot be named for his own safety was a construction worker who ended up with the Taliban and is now being counselled in the hope he can return to a normal life. He still suffers from post-traumatic stress from the violence he witnessed.
In another rehabilitation centre, this one for juveniles aged 12-17, boys dressed in green and white striped shirts, brown trousers and black shoes are given classes about Pakistan. The setting is softer here the boys have neat bunk beds with covers of blue floral print on pale brown, a living room with television and table tennis, a computer room, a small library including a collection of English-language novels.
Some of them were used by the Taliban for menial chores you have to rise one step up the hierarchy to become a suicide bomber, to be injected with drugs and dispatched to kill. The Swat story has less gentle sides in the thousands of hardcore prisoners who visitors are not taken to see, in reports, denied by the army, of extra-judicial executions.
Local people say they fear that the Taliban might yet return to an area mired in poverty and hit anew by devastating floods last year. But at least in terms of trend, Swat is a success. Punjab, having never known the extreme violence seen in Swat and with nothing to shock it into action, is going in the opposite direction. Last year, more than 80 people were killed in Lahore at two mosques of the Ahmedi community. The retired military officer he too did not want to be named and others who survived speak of neighbours distributing sweets in the streets of Lahore.
Only a few mainly in the liberal English media spoke out strongly to condemn the attacks. The same state which is challenging radicalism in Swat has been unable to respond to a similar ideology in Punjab for the countrys divided politicians, the religious right is a powerful force to be either courted or avoided as an enemy. reuters
