Pakistan Caught Between Talking and Fighting
By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 4 2014 (IPS) - Whether to make war or peace with the
Taliban has become a dilemma for the Pakistani government.
Preliminary talks
were scheduled to begin Tuesday between a team nominated by Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif comprising officials and journalists, and a team supporting
the Taliban, comprising mostly religious leaders. But not everyone believes
these are the talks that were needed.
“There is no hope of
peace because the committees formed by government and the Taliban have no power
to negotiate sensitive matters,” says Muhammad Rasool Bangash, a history
teacher at the Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
province in the north of Pakistan.
“The committees should
have been represented by government and the Taliban. Without bringing [the]
Taliban and the government face-to-face it is difficult to have peace.”
The government has
been giving mixed signals. On Jan. 23, at a meeting held under the chairmanship
of Sharif, and attended by the top brass of the Pakistan army, it was decided
that force would be used against the Taliban.
“We cannot surrender
state authority to the Taliban. We will talk to those who want to surrender
before talks,” Sharif said in a statement.
Voices calling for
convincing dialogue are growing louder as international forces prepare to
withdraw from neighbouring Afghanistan by the end of 2014 – a move that is
widely expected to strengthen the militants. Meanwhile, the Tehreek Taliban
Pakistan (TTP) continues to carry out ruthless attacks.
On Feb. 2, a bomb
attack in a Peshawar cinema hall killed five persons. “Continuation of Taliban
attacks means they aren’t serious in talks,” says Shahabuddin Khan, an elderly
man who migrated to Peshawar from North Waziristan. Peshawar is the capital of
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
“The withdrawal of
U.S. forces will give immense strength to the Taliban who can gain complete
control of bordering areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan,” says Shahabuddin Khan.
“The Taliban will get
stronger as U.S.-led forces withdraw from Afghanistan,” Z.A. Hilali, professor
of international studies at the University of Peshawar, tells IPS. “Pakistan
and Afghanistan’s border areas are infested with militants who can pose a
serious threat to the governments in these countries.”
Cricketer-turned-politician
Imran Khan, whose party Pakistan Tehreek Insaf (PTI) is in power in Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa province, is a staunch supporter of peace talks with the Taliban.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,
located near the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan where
the Taliban are very active, bears the brunt of Taliban attacks. The Taliban
along with Al-Qaeda members took refuge in FATA when their government was
toppled in Afghanistan in 2001. Many Taliban members from Afghanistan have
merged with Taliban groups from Pakistan.
Imran Khan says
military operations against the Taliban since 2004 have not brought any success
and the Taliban have only become stronger.
“I have been listening
to statements like ‘the back of the Taliban has been broken’, but the results
are before the nation. Every day we see attacks in which innocent people are
killed. The only way for durable peace is dialogue with militants,”
Imran Khan tells IPS.
His party believes
that making peace with the Taliban is essential for the progress of Pakistan.
“Without peace, we
cannot make progress. There is no investment in the province, and as a result
people will get poorer,” says Asad Umar, member of the National Assembly from
the PTI.
“We have planned
reforms to bring investment to the province. But for that we need to talk to
the Taliban to pave the way for peace,” Umar tells IPS.
The Taliban too have
been asking the government to begin “serious and meaningful” talks.
Political analyst Dr
Abdul Jabbar says talks are important as the government will not be able to
match the Taliban’s might after the withdrawal of international forces from
Afghanistan.
“Only 8,000-12,000
soldiers, most of them American, will remain in Afghanistan to assist Afghan
forces in their fight against the Taliban,” he says. “In that scenario it would
be extremely difficult to battle the Taliban because even at the moment, when
there are about 37,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, along with 19,000 forces
from other countries in the NATO-led coalition, they are very strong.
“The Taliban are
carrying out bomb and suicide attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan at will. And
they can pose a serious challenge to both the militancy-prone countries after
the international forces leave.”
Sharif has come under
much criticism for delaying talks with the Taliban.
Political analysts say
he is banking on his party’s good equations with militant groups based in the
Punjab province, but that this will not help in the long run. Sharif’s younger
brother Shahbaz Sharif has been chief minister of Punjab for the last six
years.
“Lately, we have seen
several attacks in Punjab. The Taliban have targeted police, army and public
places in Punjab, and the situation could get worse,” Jabbar says.
The main opposition
Pakistan People’s Party, whose leader Benazir Bhutto was killed in 2007, wants
the government to take a clear stand on whether it wants to hold a dialogue or
carry out operations against the TTP.
“The entire nation is
united on fighting terrorism and the time has come to arrive at a final decision
to wipe out the elements who take the lives of innocent people,” Khursheed
Shah, PPP member and leader of the opposition in the National Assembly tells
IPS.
Imran Khan says the
government should take the nation into confidence if it opts for a military operation
against the Taliban. Military operations so far have failed to defeat the
Taliban, and have displaced about three million tribal people. Further action
will only spell disaster, Imran Khan says.
“The only option we
have is talks with militants,” Imran Khan tells IPS.
“If the U.S. can talk
to the Afghan Taliban, then why can we not talk to the Pakistani Taliban? It is
time we came out of the U.S.-led war because we have lost 50,000 people,
including 5,000 soldiers and 100 billion dollars in the so-called war.”
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