The peace deal with the Taliban in the Swat valley spells doom for the world

There is widespread cynicism in Pakistan in regard to the government’s deal with the Taliban in Swat. They have ravaged the scenic northern valley for over a decade, unleashing a reign of terror. In last year’s election, the people of Swat had rejected all extremism by voting into power the Awami National Party, known for its Pakhtun nationalist and left-of-the-centre, secular politics.

What the ANP had promised the people of Swat and failed to deliver was restoration of peace in the valley, not the imposition of Islamic laws,which is the Taliban’s façade for perpetuating their fascist rule. This belies the government’s rationale for the deal as meeting the popular demand of the valley’s people. The Taliban and their ways are not at all popular; they are neither elected, nor do they have a popular base in Swat.

Thus, the so-called peace deal barters away the people’s right to live and pursue their livelihoods in the tourism industry, the erstwhile lifeline of the valley. The Taliban’s way of life hinges on banditry, arms trade and smuggling. A brief historical overview is in order here.

The genesis of the Taliban movement in Swat can be traced back to the government’s crackdown against smugglers and arms dealers in 1993. Back then, Sufi Mohammad, the founder of the movement for the implementation of Sharia laws, rolled out his madressah goons to block the roads at the behest of the smugglers who promised to fund his jihad recruitment drive in return for his help against the government that they had fallen foul of.

The semi-literate mullah ran a corollary of the Afghan Taliban’s jihad supply line by recruiting village youngsters to fight off the Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban. Under Benazir Bhutto’s government, the army and the ISI threw in their lot with the Afghan Taliban, and encouraged all prospects of destabilising the Bhutto government. The latter responded by meeting the mullah’s demands, promising a Sharia-based justice system. Just then her government was overthrown.

Then, in 1999, the Nawaz Sharif government struck a similar deal with the mullah; weeks thereafter, he too was overthrown in a military coup. With Musharraf’s about-turn on the Taliban after 9/11, 2001, the mullah declared an all-out war on the state. Enriched by the funding from local smugglers and the Taliban’s Al Qaeda financiers, he set up an FM radio station to warn the people against their un-Islamic ways.

Sufi Mohammad was jailed by Musharraf but his mantle was donned by his son-in-law, Fazlullah, a self-styled mullah-commander. Since then a full-blown insurgency has rattled Swat. The tourism industry was virtually shut down as the Taliban blew up hotels and a popular ski resort, Swat airport and other infrastructure. Enraged by the Swatis voting for a secular party in the Feb 2008 elections, the Taliban took on the people. Hundreds of girls’ schools and colleges were blown up; citizens not dressed according to their prescription of an Islamic dress code were murdered and their bodies left to rot in the main town squares to instil terror in the minds of the people. A huge number of the valley’s half a million residents were forced to flee their homes; an inept government stood by and watched.

The military action against the resurgent Taliban began in earnest, albeit reluctantly, only last year after the local police deserted for fear of their own lives.

And now comes the horror of horrors: the failed government strikes a peace deal that will subjugate the people of Swat to the whims of the Taliban. The ANP-led provincial government’s accommodation of the Taliban comes as a result of some 100 of its party leaders having been slain by the Taliban. A taste of their continued terror came two days after the deal was struck. Even as a triumphant Sufi Mohammad marched into the valley, a local journalist was brutally murdered.

The repercussions of this capitulation before the forces of darkness will be felt all around, not least in a city as far as 2,000 kilometres south. In Pakistan’s commercial capital Karachi, the dominant Muttahida Qaumi Movement, as the party backed by the city’s Urdu-speaking residents who are the largest ethnic group, has been crying from the rooftops that their local Pashto-speaking ANP rivals are sheltering Taliban elements waiting to unleash terror in the city.

Whether true or not, the making over of Swat to the Taliban by the Frontier government is likely to give rise to ethnic tensions in this multicultural and politically volatile megacity. Pakistan today is a society fragmented by ethnic divisions,which seem to overrule disparate political leanings as revealed by last year’s election results when most people voted along ethnic lines.

The Taliban are a scourge that must be contained, not appeased; they pose the gravest threat to Pakistan, its neighbours and the world at large.

Murtaza Razvi/ DNA-Daily News & Analysis Source: 3D Syndication