Bara tribesmen: between a rock and a hard place

PESHAWAR:

They came, they protested, and then they were dispersed by the police through tear gas and baton charge. The quest for justice by tribesmen from Bara has landed them between a rock and a hard place. At the end of the day, they have no option left but to bury their dead before the police declare the deceased as unidentified persons and buries them.

“We are going to bury our dead as otherwise these bodies are destined to get an unknown burial at the hands of the state,” said Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Iqbal Afridi. Afridi said at first they refused to bury the bodies until their demands were accepted, but authorities transported the bodies to Sheikhan area on the border of Khyber Agency to bury the dead. This, he said, prompted them to change their minds. “We will continue our protest after a day’s break.” In a sense, the Peshawar protest is a turnaround against the decade-long counterinsurgency (COIN) operations going on in Pakistan’s tribal belt. The local population has decided to take on the country’s most powerful institution. While it cannot be ascertained what the outcome of the protest will be, people have decided to break the 10-year-long silence and speak up. The success of the Alamdar Road protesters in Quetta against the killing of Hazaras has acted as a catalyst in bringing the Bara tribesmen on the streets of Peshawar. Carrying dead bodies in cots, they walked and finally reached the Governor House on Sher Shah Suri Road to register their protest. The sit-in outside the Governor House, perhaps, will also cast doubts on the effectiveness and the utility of COIN operations, if accusations of the Bara’s tribesmen are true. While the COIN strategy adopted in Afghanistan, first under General Stanely McCrystal and later by General David Patreaus, focused on winning the hearts and minds of the local population, it is not clear what model is being followed by the Pakistani military. The military’s heavy-handed tactics against the civilian population makes it easier to lose this war. The Bara protests also highlighted the lack of media attention on the issue. To the dismay of the tribesmen, the media is focused entirely on Tahirul Qadri’s long march in Islamabad. Unlike past protests, the Bara protest was peaceful, indicating that people have realised the power of adopting non-violence in registering their protest. Despite a firing incident, the tribal elders at the protest maintained their calm and cooled down the protestors, asking them to remain peaceful.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 18^th, 2013.