Afghanistan — the troubled border

With attempts being made to create protocols, there are independent players who have no interest in peace

When a country is created by the dissection of another as has been Pakistan and also Bangladesh then borders are a potential bone of contention. Add in the arbitrary border created by the British in Afghanistan by the drawing of the Durand Line and it can be seen that Pakistan is hedged by difficulty. The border with Afghanistan has in the last year proved to be particularly incendiary, with firing by both sides and a steady stream of military and civilian casualties. Sunday, April 15^th, saw the latest such clash when skirmishing along the border between Kurram Agency and the Afghan border resulted in the deaths of at least two on the Pakistan side and the wounding of many others.

Incidents such as this ensure that the managed instability of the border never drops below a simmer and sometimes come close to a rolling boil. It never actually overtops the pan and descends into small-scale warfare with incursions on the ground by both sides. Somebody on both sides applies the brakes and the border settles back into mutual animosity. Both sides have of late attempted to reduce tensions and there has been recent agreement that bilateral ties can and should be strengthened. Border officials swiftly established contact and dialled back the confrontation.

Guns do not fire by themselves, and somebody somewhere has to give the order to pull the trigger on both sides of the border. That order will have been handed down from above and so on up the chain of command which in theory at least begins and ends with the apex bodies and individuals of both countries. With attempts being made to create protocols to better manage border incidents, there are independent players who have not the slightest interest in peace and stability and some of those players will be in the pockets of vested interests on both sides of the border. So-called ‘irreconcilable elements’ — miscellaneous iterations of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network — will do all in their considerable power to frustrate whatever mechanisms of peace are brokered bilaterally. The border is not going to cool any time soon.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 17^th, 2018.

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