http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/july-2004/26/main/top8.asp
No early solution in sight
From Shamim Shahid
WANA, South Waziristan Agency - The economic sanctions on the tribesmen and the security forces operation apart, there seems no sure way-out that could offer easy solution to the ongoing crisis in the South Waziristan Agency.
There is also little role left for the 36-member committee, backed by the administration, after it was criticised by the politically aware and educated tribesmen who strongly oppose steps like demolition of houses and economic sanctions. During a visit by this correspondent to Wana and its adjoining areas, it was observed that poverty, backwardness, unemployment, and harsh policies on the part of political administration are the main reasons behind the ongoing crisis apart from suspected Al-Qaeda fugitives or militants hiding in parts and pockets of the agency. The tribesmen of the agency seem suppressed by the administration and no one could raise his voice for his basic rights. In such conditions even the tribal elders with different approach from the administration can not express their views openly on issues related to action against al-Qaeda.
Like the former colonial rulers, the political administration of the agency has kept divide and rule policy alive in South Waziristan Agency. Even the tribesmen are discouraged to tackle own issues through their traditional jirgas as the administration continues to impose own mind on them. The tribal jirga in consultation with the administration constituted a 36-member committee in. May last to resolve the problems erupted with alleged presence of al-Qaeda. However, the committee, as a result of administration dictations, was unable to complete its assignments and its dissolution was declared early this month by its chief Malik Baa Khan when educated and politically aware tribesmen expressed their disappointment over its performance.
The Political Administration was angered by this move as it was reluctant to welcome the educated tribesmen's move for politically handling the situation. At the moment there exists a gap between the tribesmen and administration. Neither the political agent is willing to talk with tribesmen other than members of 36-member (dissolved) committee nor he allows the educated and politically aware class to help him in handling the situation.
The Ahmadzai Wazir tribesmen even expressed their willingness to recognize the administration patronised (dissolved) committee, if its members convinced the political agent on lifting of the economic sanctions. These days a makeshift market has been established near the main Bazaar of Wana as thousands of shops are sealed for the last two months, thus the tribesmen continue to suffer economically and socially.
The tribesmen on the one hand are selling their locally-produced vegetables and fruits at lowest prices and on the other they are compelled to pay high prices for the daily-use items from other cities and towns of the regions. The sitting political agent Asmatullah Gandhapur is known for his long stay in South Waziristan Agency. Besides serving against other common offices, he remained Assistant Political Agent and Assistant political Officer in Wana and other parts of the agency for a long time. During this period, he on the one hand tightened his grip over the administration and on the other he had earned enmity and anger of the tribesmen, mostly from Ahmedzai Wazir and Mehsud tribesmen.
To many tribesmen Asmatullah Gandhapur has now become a party to the complicated issues of South Waziristan Agency rather than a judge. And it is the main reason why Ahmadzai and Mehsud tribesmen irrespective of their differences wanted replacement of Asmatullah Gandhapur by Azam Khan. Though majority of the suspected foreign al-Qaeda elements and their shelterers have been dented by the ongoing administrative action, some of them have assembled in Santoyee and Mantoyee.
The campaign against the al-Qaeda started from Tora Bora in Afghanistan and after passing through Shahi Kot, Angor Ada, Azam Warsak, Kalusha and Shakai valley, now it has reached Santoyee and Mantoyye. The Ahmadzai Wazirs dominate Santoyee while Mehsuds dominate Mantoyee. And these two areas are very close to the Shawal Mountains, connecting not only North and South Waziristan with each other but also Pakistan with Afghanistan. Though the government has made certain deployment in Shawal, it could become a challenge like Tora Bora or Shahkot.
Some people from within forces believe that a few hundreds of the militants still might be sheltering in the caves, constructed during the Afghan Jihad. Such militants, mostly from foreign countries might start another battle, they said. "They (militants) possess a huge quantity of modern and sophisticated weapons as well as cash amount, sources in military and paramilitary forces said. Even some time the forces face shortage of weapons and other logistics while there is no such problems for the militants. The forces have the only edge over the militants and that is the assistance and support from the Air Force.
Some of the official sources also claim that there is no more al-Qaeda in the region and paid agents are fighting against the security forces at the behest of India and Northern Alliance.
Ironically, in Wana and its surrounding areas no one is able to get a single bread or drinking water but the tribesmen are getting first-hand Audio and Video Cassettes along with Computer CDs every day. Such items contain provocative speeches, poems, songs (without music) and Naats in favour of al-Qaeda, Taliban, late Nek Mohammad and his associates. These activities also highlight torture of the prisoners in Guantanamo (Cuba), Abu Gharib, Bagram Air Base and others.
Beside use of cassettes in vehicles and homes, they are played through mosque loudspeakers and being listened by the tribesmen with great attention.
However, No one know about the source of these cassettes and CDs. "We are unable to understand how the administration allows distribution of these CDs and Cassettes, when they stop us from buying wheat flour for our children," one of the educated tribesmen said. He said it seems militancy is being injected among the tribesmen from South Waziristan Agency under a well-planned ways.
Instead of playing a role of silent spectator, politicians from all over NWFP should force the government for political solution of the matter rather paving way for the emergence of Nek Mohammad like militants.
What came first; the chicken or the egg? (The Taliban ideology has to be removed from the Pashtuns)
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav072604.shtml
EURASIA INSIGHT July 26, 2004
AFGHANISTAN'S TALIBAN UPRISINGS: WHO'S TO BLAME? Afzal Khan: 7/26/04
A EurasiaNet Commentary
By ignoring Afghanistan's majority Pashtun population, President Hamid Karzai's government has laid the groundwork for the Taliban-related attacks that continue to jeopardize the country's fragile security. Though Northern Alliance leaders have blamed neighboring Pakistan for the ongoing violence, that country's responsibility for the insurgencies is far from absolute.
The current unrest in southern and eastern Afghanistan can be traced to the period soon after the fall of the Taliban in December 2001.
In the North, Northern Alliance militias dominated by Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara ethnic groups began to exact revenge on Ghilzai Pashtuns who had supported the Taliban campaign against the rebel fighters. Nearly three years on, suspicion of the Pashtuns, whose Durrani tribe made up the bulk of the Taliban leadership, still persists.
Though Hamid Karzai is himself an ethnic Durrani Pashtun, Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic group, complain that they have been routinely excluded from positions of influence and power, as well as shortchanged from development projects. Currently, four ministers from the 15-member Afghan Cabinet - including the interior and finance ministers - and one of Afghanistan's four vice-presidents are Pashtun. Overall,
the country's majority Pashtun clans make up some 42 percent of Afghanistan's population of 28.5 million.
Consequently, for the past two and a half years, Pashtun warlords in southern and eastern Afghanistan have increasingly been trying to make their presence felt. Firefights routinely flare in the Pashtun-dominated regions surrounding Kandahar, disrupting international aid supplies and voter registration efforts. In one recent skirmish, 11 Afghan militia members and five government soldiers were killed during an ambush not far from the town of Deh Rawood, in the province of Uruzgan, home of Taliban leader Mullah Omar. On July 22, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit announced that it would be withdrawing from southern Afghanistan after killing an estimated 100 fighters believed to be connected with Taliban and al Qaeda forces. Overall in Afghanistan, more than 600 people have been killed this year in insurgency-related violence or battles between rival militias.
Already, the violence has led to the rescheduling of Afghanistan's presidential and parliamentary elections, and still shows no sign of diminishing. The presidential poll is now slotted for October 9 and parliamentary elections have been scheduled for spring 2005. Barnett R. Rubin, senior fellow at New York University's Center on International Cooperation, told Inter Press Service in February that separating the two votes could make the presidential ballot seem like "an all or nothing" for ethnic groups, like the Pashtuns, who are skeptical of the current government.
Karzai has acknowledged the danger of Pashtuns feeling excluded from the electoral process, saying that more must be done to increase their stake in the country's political and economic reconstruction. So far, however, little sign of such an overture has occurred.
Rather, greater attention is being paid instead to disarming the country's private militia, which are believed to have as many as 60,000 troops. In a July 11 interview with The New York Times, Karzai named these armed groups - rather than the Taliban insurgencies - as the greatest danger facing Afghanistan.
To make that point stick, the president signed a sweeping decree on July 12 for the prosecution of any militia that fail to disarm in accordance with the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration program. No doubt hoping to lessen the decree's sting, ten days later the Karzai administration appointed the powerful militia leader General Ustad Atta Mohammad as governor of Balkh province in northern Afghanistan and two other anti-Taliban militia leaders as police chiefs in Nangarhar and Kandahar provinces in the south. All three warlords were also removed from their posts as Afghan army commanders.
But while Karzai points a finger at private militias, Northern Alliance members - among whom are some of the country's most powerful, militia-equipped warlords - are pointing a finger at Pakistan for fostering the Pashtun-related violence that disrupts the South.
After the fall of the Taliban in December 2001, Taliban fighters, some of them linked with al Qaeda, scattered throughout Afghanistan's remote, mountainous border area, eventually spilling into the Pakistani tribal territory.
At least initially, the Pashtun-populated North and South Waziristan tribal districts and the Pashtun belt of northern Baluchistan seemed a welcoming refuge. Many in Pakistan saw the Taliban leaders and senior al Qaeda members as heroes of the Pakistan-backed mujaheddin war against the Soviet Union's 1979-1988 occupation of Afghanistan.
Consequently, even after ending Islamabad's support of the Taliban, Pakistani leader General Pervez Musharraf was forced to do a balancing act. He cooperated with the United States in the war on terror only so far as it did not compromise his standing among Pakistani voters, many of whom were outraged by the US invasion of Afghanistan and its targeting of Islamic militants associated with terrorist organizations.
Northern Alliance members claim this ambivalence allows Taliban fighters to cross effortlessly across the border back into Afghanistan.
Grounds certainly exist for the suspicion.
Ethnic ties between the Afghan Pashtuns and the inhabitants of Waziristan provide one strong link; opium routes running from southern Afghanistan to Pakistan strengthen the bonds with cash. Taliban and al Qaeda cells in Quetta and northern Baluchistan have also reportedly begun to supply young fighters with motorbikes for easy movement into the Afghan provinces of Zabul and Kandahar.
But the Northern Alliance's accusations have lost much of their sticking power. Under pressure from the United States, Pakistan has recently revved up its war against Taliban and al Qaeda supporters in the tribal regions, notably in South Waziristan. Two assassination attempts against Musharraf in 2002 and 2003 have provided an even more urgent incentive for a crackdown.
In March and June, the Pakistan army undertook two large-scale operations in the tribal areas, one of which resulted in the June 17 death of the pro-Taliban tribal leader Nek Mohammed. Economic sanctions have followed, and reports now exist of additional military excursions into the tribal areas of Kurrum and North Waziristan. Meanwhile, Afghan refugee camps not far from Quetta have been closed on suspicion that they are harboring Taliban and al Qaeda supporters, a decision that has sent thousands of refugees spilling back over the borders into Afghanistan.
Millions in US aid money means that these military operations are likely to continue. The US has already supplied $73 million to bolster security along the border with Afghanistan and has named Pakistan a "major non-NATO ally" of the US, a designation that qualifies Pakistan for expedited arms deliveries, loan support for arms exports and participation in defense research programs, among other items. On July 19, the US House of Representatives also approved the allocation of $701 million to Pakistan from a $3 billion, five-year aid package. The bill authorizing the allocation is now before the Senate for approval.
Although the Pakistani army's US-backed operations are meant to rout suspected high-ranking al Qaeda and Taliban members - among them, Osama bin Laden - into the open, the broader impact could well undercut a key line of support for Afghanistan's Taliban.
But even so, making the tribal areas less hospitable for Taliban fighters on the run will only address one part of the problem. As was the case for Pakistan-based mujaheddin during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Taliban-friendly fighters from the tribal regions can only come to support fellow Pashtuns in Afghanistan if they are welcome.
For now, little suggests that that welcome will soon be rescinded. A poll conducted in February and March by the Kabul-based Afghan Media Resource Center suggests the extent of that feeling.
While 62 percent of 804 respondents nationwide evaluated Karzai's performance as "good" or "excellent," that number fell to 35 percent in the Pashtun-dominated South. Similarly, while only 13 percent of Afghans nationwide had favorable views of the Taliban, that number increased to 25 percent for the population in the South and Northeast.
As preparations for this fall's presidential elections continue, it is a statistic the Karzai administration would do well to keep in mind.
Editor's Note: Afzal Khan is a political analyst specializing in Afghanistan and Pakistan.