Pakistan today faces biggest security threat from within by militias allowed to be formed, housed within its territory
LAHORE: Through the process of political evolution, it was established that the state alone shall organise, finance and arm a disciplined army, which will then be in the service of the state. After the bitter US Civil War, where private militias raised by warring states clashed and fought a bloody conflict, the country adopted a constitution banning all private militias from functioning. This same principle has been adopted by every country, whether functioning as a parliamentary democracy or under a presidential system of governance, irrespective of what the ideology or state religion is. The wheel has been invented and any country that allows private militias to be raised and funded by religious-cum-political parties or groups, with an agenda to fight any war, or as vigilante groups, it has always ended up seeing these militias turning against their mentors.
Pakistan, today, faces the biggest security threat from within by militias allowed to be formed and housed within its territory by former rulers who allowed individual mercenaries to brainwash and recruit young men, training them to wage a war in a neighbouring country, financed by a superpower eager to avenge its defeat in Vietnam. After the US had achieved its objective, these young men, trained only to use weapons, were left stranded, without any financial security or plans for relocation, becoming easy recruits to fight for any agenda funded by enemies of Pakistan and a few fundamentalist outfits, for whom peace was unacceptable, since their funding depended on a continued state of warfare. Ziaul Haq promoted the growth of sectarian, ethnic and regional nationalist groups in order to prevent a unified political opposition from challenging his illegitimate rule. The lure of billions in the criminal earning of these private criminal militias in Karachi attracted the Taliban to have a share of this tax.
Until and unless the Pakistani state, with all its power and resources, cracks down on all private militias, terrorism can neither be curtailed, nor eliminated.
Malik Tariq Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, June 18th, 2014.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
