It’s time for politicians to wake up; don’t let your country to become a base camp for a post-2014 Afghan civil war.
JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: Pakistani politicians have once again failed the nation. They did this at the recently-held All Parties Conference where they agreed to negotiate with the Taliban, in effect accepting them as a force beyond the control of the state. The APC was a complete capitulation as compared to earlier such meetings. This time we agreed to peace talks without any pre-conditions, not even asking for an interim ceasefire and the stopping of the ongoing mayhem unleashed by the militants all across Pakistan.
We left it to the Taliban to lay their pre-conditions for the talks such as release of terrorists held in jails. Apparently, the concessions have already started, with a recent swap of prisoners, though the military has denied this. One would have thought that politicians would lead the nation and take a just path to tackle the menace of terrorism, but they seem to have, for now, preferred to go by the populist route. And in doing so, they have blamed everyone for terrorism, except of course the Taliban.
Who is responsible for the deaths of nearly 50,000 Pakistanis after the Afghan Taliban and other foreign mercenaries crossed into Pakistan’s tribal areas? Who killed hundreds of Maliks (tribal leaders) under a wave of terror in Fata? The APC has taken a very dangerous route; if peace talks mean releasing terrorists, withdrawal of army and paramilitary forces from tribal areas, handing over of Pakistan-Afganistan border to the Taliban, establishment of courts of their choice, that means officially recognising the ‘Islamic Emirate of Taliban’.
It’s high time for politicians to wake up; don’t let your country to become a base camp for a post-2014 Afghan civil war.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, September 15th, 2013.
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