Sustainable peace in FATA

Lately, there have been declarations and claims from people at the highest helms of affairs in Pakistan that peace has been fully restored in the long-restive Fata and indications are also there that the official contention has substance. However, the situation in Fata historically has been so unpredictable that terms like ‘peace’ and ‘development’ should be very cautiously used. Then the nature of the conflict in the tribal areas, along Pakistan’s western borders, has been so complex that one cannot say with certainty about peace and its sustainability. At the moment we can say that peace may not have been restored but generally order has been maintained. However, the most important question of how to have lasting, sustainable peace in the region remains in place.

During the last two decades it has mainly been a political, legal, administrative and governance vacuum due to the indeterminate status of the tribal region that has led to multidimensional conflict and crisis there. For instance, the 1973 Constitution recognises Fata as part of the country yet the law of the land never governed the region. Instead the Frontier Crimes Regulations introduced during the British colonial era continued to regulate affairs there. Recently, the Senate passed the bill of jurisdictional extension of the Supreme Court and the Peshawar High Court to Fata hence the law of Pakistan is expected to govern the tribal areas. However, this one step may not address the complex crisis in Fata or suffice to address the multidimensional conflict in the region.

The policies of our successive governments and military regimes have been responsible for the mess in Fata. Former strategists lacked farsightedness regarding the region. Due to the incidents in the last two decades these strategists have been proven fundamentally wrong. Militancy and terrorism emanating from Fata had left the entire country insecure and resulted in a big death toll in the country’s war against terror. Consequently, the Pakistan Army had to launch large-scale military operations in the tribal areas.

The British colonial rulers wanted Fata to serve as a buffer region between mainland India and Afghanistan and beyond Czarist Russia and later Soviet Russia. Therefore, it did not institutionalise the region and try to change the tribal character of the people through civilised structures of governance. Unfortunately, successive Pakistani governments adopted the same policy and attitude towards the tribal areas that now needs to be changed with the historical wrongs which our strategists and policy formulators have committed. If we fail this time we cannot be prevented from a disaster of gargantuan proportions, which would make the entire country once against insecure.

Our strategists must understand that the issue(s) of Fata has had large-scale negative consequences for the entire country. Gun-running or smuggling of drugs to patronisation of crimes and criminals and later terrorists and militancy, are a few to enlist here.

Without giving Fata a clear constitutional and political status, it would be impossible to prevent the return of militants and terrorists. The state fortunately is cognisant of the problem as it had formed a Fata Reforms Committee headed by former adviser to ex-PM Sharif, Sartaj Aziz. The committee among other things recommended merging Fata with the K-P province. But this is a recipe for disaster because merging Fata with K-P is akin to sowing the seeds of more conflicts in the future. So the best option for stability and ultimate peace in Fata is to make them a new administrative division or province. This would help provide the much-needed enabling environment for the civilised and modern governing and political structures to be established and serve the people. The second most important step would be to establish elected municipal or local councils in the region.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2018.

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