Urdu Poetry Forum

Time to rethink Swat Saturday, October 04, 2008
by Rahimullah Yusufzai

A recent visit to Swat was once again a sad experience. The once peaceful valley has become a violent place and, sadly enough, most acts of violence are being committed by Swatis. Almost everyone you meet would tell you that people of Swat are peace-loving. One kept reminding them that times have changed and this claim may not be wholly true.

It is true that Swatis used to be peaceful and an overwhelming majority is still averse to violence. But many among them have been radicalized and have joined the ranks of Taliban militants. They are always ready to kill and be killed. The more committed among the militants enrol as suicide bombers. The militants' leadership accord them a special status and refer to them as 'fidayeen' or 'patangan,' the latter a Pashto word.

Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan's (TTP) Swat chapter spokesman and one of its top leaders Muslim Khan described his suicide bombers as those voluntarily offering the supreme sacrifice of their life for the Taliban cause and challenged any regular armed force, including the Pakistan Army, to produce five suicide bombers. He argued that nobody could be motivated, paid or forced to become a suicide bomber. It is not that Swat has lost its natural beauty or its streams and rivers have dried up. The valley is still green and beautiful, its orchards continue to produce the best peaches, apples, apricots, parsimun, plums and other fruits season after season and the air has retained its freshness even if it is now mixed with gunpowder. Nature is bountiful and summers are pleasant. However, there are no tourists to enjoy all this and more. People of Swat too are unable to benefit from the bounty bestowed on them by Mother Nature due to the spiralling violence. Outsiders have stopped coming to Swat and many Swatis have left or are considering to leave in search of peace and safety.

In a way it is the same old Swat in terms of its geography, scenery and good looks of its residents. Its dwellers, though, have undergone a transformation and attitudes have changed. The mild-mannered and tolerant Swatis, not everyone but a significant number, are now killing political opponents and destroying their properties. Scores are being settled and blood-feuds are growing in number and intensity. Unfortunately, the Pashtun characteristic of taking revenge whatever the cost would ensure that revenge killings continue for generations.

Fully armed and trained, the militants do it themselves, avenging every attack on their houses and villages by the security forces through suicide bombings, ambushes and roadside blasts using improvised explosives devices (IEDS) and sometimes resorting to unprovoked assaults on their political rivals. Those opposed to the militants expect the military and the government to fight on their behalf. They are forever complaining that the military operations aren't targeted enough to destroy the militants' hideouts. Some even allege, obviously without any evidence, that the intelligence agencies are secretly assisting the militants. The casualties that both militants and the military are taking cannot convince them that it is real battle in which precious lives are being lost. The anti-Taliban political forces have yet to organize into village defence committees and the concept of lashkars, armed tribal force, being formed with government support in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and certain districts to tackle the Taliban is alien to Swat.

Such is the level of fear created by Taliban militants that all assembly members, many nazims and most khans affiliated to ruling political parties such as the ANP and the PPP have abandoned Swat and taken refuge in Peshawar and Islamabad. Swat's two MNAs, the ANP's Muzaffar-ul-Mulk alias Kaki Khan and the PPP's Syed Allauddin, and all its seven ANP-affiliated MPAs, Wajid Ali Khan, Ayub Asharay, Jaffar Shah, Dr Haider Ali, Waqar Khan, Dr Shamsher Ali Khan and Sher Shah Khan, cannot visit their homes and constituencies due to fear of suicide bombers and target-killers tasked to eliminate them. Waqar Khan was unable to attend the funerals of his brother and two nephews who were killed by the militants and Wajid Khan, despite being a minister, couldn't offer nimaz-i-janaza of a close relative in Swat. Another provincial minister Ayub Asharay was helpless to stop the assault on his house and that of his brother, Tahir Khan, and his three guards died fighting the militants who blew up the property with explosives. Only old nationalist politician and former minister Mohammad Afzal Khan stood his ground, defiantly staying put at his heavily-guarded home despite being attacked a number of times and under threat of an attack every night. The ANP politicians are particularly attacked because the Taliban accuse them of violating their peace accord and pushing the army to launch new military operations in Swat.

Swat's district government is paralyzed. District nazim Jamal Nasir left Swat around one a half year ago after surviving an attempt on his life. Civil and police officers are reluctant to serve in Swat and more than 350 policemen have given up their jobs. Frontier Corps and Frontier Constabulary personnel posted to Swat try to cancel their transfer orders or in many cases prefer to quit. There is no normal life due to long curfew hours, security checkpoints on every road, electricity supply breakdowns, disruption in gas supplies, water and fuel shortages, closure of educational institutions, high prices, strikes and record unemployment. As someone remarked, Swat is like a heaven on earth but life there nowadays is worse than hell.

The feudals, or khans as they are commonly known, are a favourite target of the militants, who mostly belong to low-income families. The militants justify the attacks by alleging that the khans committed excesses on the common and landless people in the past. They also accuse the khans of siding with the military and pinpointing the militants and their homes that were then demolished by the security forces. At times it looks like a class-based battle pitting the have-nots against the haves. But it is obviously more than that as the militants are convinced they are waging "jihad" against the US-backed Pakistan Army and its agents. They have inflexible views and look at everything in black and white. All those opposing them are labelled as pro-US and friends of the infidels. The government, on its part, has unconvincingly tried to link the militants with India and other anti-Pakistan elements. Allegations about the presence of foreign fighters in Swat have been occasionally made but no foreigner, dead or alive, has been found or shown to the media. The soldiers are fighting in tough conditions for almost a year now but most Pakistanis are unaware of or have failed to acknowledge their sacrifices. It is a thankless job as the so-called "war on terror" on Pakistan's soil and against our own people is deeply unpopular.

Beyond Matta town is Taliban area, and so are parts of Swat district in the mountains above Manglawar. The military checkpoint at Vennay outside Matta is the dividing line as across that point there is no government presence. The Taliban roam unchecked the orchard-lined villages and the green forested valleys of Shwar, Gat, Peochar, Namal, Biha and Sakhra and use their not-so-secret hideouts to plan attacks and keep prisoners. On surface, the villagers support them and offer them food and shelter. But once beyond the sight of the Taliban, some of them admit they are helpless even though they don't like the militants and their system of tough and harsh administration and justice. Many villagers complained they were caught in the crossfire between the Taliban and the security forces, unable to confront the militants and unwittingly becoming a target of gunship helicopters and even jet-fighters that sometimes attack their villages and shelling by artillery guns that are fired from distant positions in Kanju and Kabal near Mingora.

The Swati Taliban are different and more radical in their views than their comrades elsewhere in NWFP and FATA. Nowhere else, not even in Waziristan where the Pakistani Taliban first emerged in the early 2000s, have the militants blown up girls' schools and bridges with such frequency and impunity. This happens all the time in Swat. Beheadings have taken place in other Taliban-infested places in Pakistan but the Swati Taliban do it with a certain relish and own such acts publicly. They also claim responsibility for suicide bombings in funerals and at public places even if civilians are killed. Dealing with such radical Taliban won't be easy.

The failure of the peace accord between the Maulana Fazlullah-led Swati Taliban and the ANP-PPP coalition government in NWFP has shown that the conflict in Swat cannot be resolved through conventional methods. As both peaceful and military means have failed to normalize the situation in Swat, it is time to review policies and think of new ideas to bring peace to the heavenly valley.



The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar. Email: rahimyusufzai @yahoo.com

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