The political system as it stands, as well as any move forward politically in the broader sense is ill served by endless (and expensive) rallies that achieve nothing. PHOTO: NNI/FILE
ISLAMABAD: A tribal council of elders on Monday issued a 17-page declaration in an embarrassing thumbs-down for a government committee report that recommended wide-ranging reforms in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas.
“The jirga has vowed to start a protest with the help of the tribal people if the president, the government and state institutions do anything against the opinion of the people of Fata,” the tribal council of elders said in the declaration.
The Fata Reforms Committee had proposed a set of ‘parallel and concurrent’ political, administrative, judicial and security reforms, as well as a massive reconstruction and rehabilitation programme, to prepare the tribal areas for a ‘five-year transition period’ for a merger into Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Scores of tribal elders attending Monday’s day-long jirga, organised by the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) in Islamabad, pressed the government, state institutions and the reforms panel to publicly declare that the tribal people are the masters of Fata and all decisions would be taken in accordance with their wishes.
The report, which was prepared by the committee last year and approved by the National Assembly, was left unendorsed by the federal cabinet after the JUI-F and the PkMAP expressed reservations on it. Both the parties insisted they were not taken on board.
The tribal elders also demanded an unconditional apology from the government for describing tribal people in the report as rebels in the context of the US-led Nato military operations in Afghanistan in 2001.
“The people in the tribal areas should decide the reforms and determine their future,” the joint statement said. The jirga called for the immediate abolition of the British-era Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) which the speakers described as a black law.
“The people of Fata should be given the right of legislation in line with the contemporary requirements that ensure their human rights and democratic principles.”
The jirga called upon the government to restore durable peace in Fata with the support and cooperation of the tribal people.
“All displaced people should be compensated, repatriated and rehabilitated and in their respective areas,” said the statement, read out by PkMAP Senator Usman Kakar in a jam-packed hall.
The tribal elders called for spending foreign aid for the development of the tribal areas and demand that a package of Rs200-300 billion should be given to Fata and that all spending should be monitored by its elected members.
The speakers also called for increasing the quota in government jobs for the people living in Fata, adding, “Tribal students should be given foreign and local scholarships”. Moreover, they demanded that a tribesman be appointed as Fata governor.
They demanded setting up of tertiary education centres, including a women’s university and an engineering university and medical college in Fata. “Fata should be given its own identity, own election commissioner and a local government system should be introduced,” the joint statement said.
Moreover it demanded construction of motorways, industrial zones, energy projects, vocational centres and laying down of optic fibre cable in the tribal areas under the CPEC. Besides, it demanded construction of an expressway from Bajaur up to Wana in South Waziristan.
The jirga rejected a suggestion in the joint statement about women and minorities representation from Fata in the National Assembly and the Senate. PkMAP chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai told the jirga that a wrong message has been conveyed to the world that the Pashtun are terrorists.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 31st, 2017.
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