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Mainstreaming Pakistan’s tribal regions: Overdue, but not enough

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Kriti M Shah
Kriti M ShahJul 19, 2018 | 18:53

Mainstreaming Pakistan’s tribal regions: Overdue, but not enough

In May 2018, the National Assembly of Pakistan in an unprecedented show of political consensus passed a constitutional amendment, making way for the merger of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) with the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). FATA, situated along the Afghan border in the northwest part of the country, has long been treated and governed differently than other provinces. Governed by a colonial set of judicial laws and ravaged by the Afghan jihad and Islamic radicalism, FATA is one of the most backward, dangerous places on the planet — home to leaders of global terrorist groups.

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When Mohammed Ali Jinnah first visited FATA after the creation of Pakistan, his vision for the region was to not interfere with the tribal autonomy and he thus retained the British-era legal structures. The Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) is a set of laws that the British enacted in 1901. It was continued by the Pakistani government after 1947. It gave the government and the military the power they needed to virtually rule FATA how they wanted, without any judicial oversight or constitutional congruence.

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They won't be overlooked: Pashtuns chant slogans during a PTM rally against human rights violations in Pakistan. (Photo: Reuters)

Over the years and particularly since the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the military has conducted a number of operations in the tribal region. Residents of the region have, for years, been subjected to large-scale arrests, kidnappings, questionable interrogation techniques, discriminate questioning of Pashtuns and harassments by security officials.

The operations have targeted foreign fighters and groups that are a threat to Pakistani society, and have ignored all others.

This skewed ideology has resulted in operations being ill-planned, poorly implemented and not successful. Not only did they fail to dislodge local militants and stop cross-border infiltration, but they also resulted in militants fleeing to parts of Balochistan, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. All of this has alienated the local population and led to a deep trust deficit between citizens and the state-military apparatus.

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While over the years there have been a number of ideas and proposals for the mainstreaming of FATA, the lack of political consensus and military support for the same has meant that FATA remains backward and underdeveloped. The Pakistan army vision of FATA as a vital region in the country’s skewed and absurd national security policy towards Afghanistan has meant that it has not supported the idea of a major reformation of FATA until now.

The timing of the rare parliamentary consensus on mainstreaming FATA therefore has been noteworthy. Since January 2018, an organic, grassroots movement, fuelled by the extrajudicial killing of an innocent 27-year-old man by the military, has taken shape in FATA.

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Members of the Pashtun community protest the extrajudicial killing of 27-year-old Naqibullah Mehsud. (Photo: Reuters)

The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) has now become a cross-country series of non-violent, peaceful protests.

The PTM asks for an end to the army policy of harassment, and justice for those who have been wrongly killed. Consisting primarily of Pakistani Pashtuns, the ability of the movement to pull large crowds in all parts of the country against the state has demonstrated the power of the Pashtun community — a group that has been stereotyped as militants and terrorists.

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The pressure created by the movement on the army cannot be ignored.

Its narrative, that accuses the military of its forceful presence in FATA, has received a great deal of international attention, while domestic news has remained controlled.

While the merger of the regions is important, it is, by no stretch of the imagination, a final solution for solving Pakistan’s militancy problem.

As FATA and KP become one, the militants and radicals living in the tribal region will become the bane for the provincial security forces.

The government and military have not offered any ideas as to how the engrained militancy in the region, fuelled by the Afghan insurgency, will be dealt with.

The merger does perhaps reflect the idea that the military has realised the best way to deal with militants is in a constitutionally mandated format. And while a merger has the potential to provide the residents with their overdue political representation and civil and judicial rights, it is not any end to Pakistan’s problems until they can confront the root causes of its militancy problem.

(This article was originally published by the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. A longer version can be found here.)

Last updated: July 19, 2018 | 18:53
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