FATA and the FCR

Letter December 09, 2010
At the very least, the government should amend the draconian legal code, the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR).

ISLAMABAD: This is with reference to your editorial of December 9 titled “Another suicide attack”.

The people of the Tribal Areas have been suffering for the past many decades. I should point out that over the years people from Fata have contributed in large measure to the armed forces of Pakistan and have fought many a war for the country. However, they have got little in return given, that to date, their region is severely underdeveloped. This can only mean one thing; that successive governments at the centre have given development of Fata very low priority.

This lack of interest is not understandable especially if one considers the fact that poverty is one of the primary reasons why the extremists and militants in the region are able to get recruits to their side. For years, the Tribal Areas have been under the administrative rule of what can only be called a draconian legal code, the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR), which is based on the flawed concept of collective responsibility for crimes or misdeeds of individuals.

This may have made sense when the British were trying to control the region but has no place in the twenty-first century.

Since 9/11, millions of dollars have come from donors, ostensibly for Fata’s development but clearly this money has not been put to any use for the area itself since the region is as backward and poverty-stricken as ever. At the very least, the present government should, in an effort to regain the trust and confidence of the people of Fata, amend the FCR to bring the political agent under some system of accountability and also to allow the people of Fata to have the right of appeal in a high court against a decision given by the political agent.

S Khan

Published in The Express Tribune, December 10th, 2010.