ANP has called for national consensus on fighting the scourge of militancy.
There has been no party which has suffered as much at the hands of the Taliban as the Awami National Party (ANP). Its leaders have been assassinated and continually targeted and yet, the party has remained steadfast in the fight against militancy. Now, however, that may be about to change. At an all-parties conference (APC) convened by the ANP, two dozen political parties agreed that holding talks with the Taliban should be made an urgent priority. For the ANP to not just agree to this but be at the forefront of the initiative is disappointing. The party, which has lost more of its members to Taliban attacks than anyone else, should recognise that this is not an enemy you can negotiate with. That point was rammed home by the fact that the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) itself ruled out any negotiations initiated by the ANP. Moreover, it is humiliating for the government to have to be rejected by the militant group in this manner, and just goes to show exactly what the militants think of the state, even as they offer to talk.
For the Taliban, negotiations are not simply an end in themselves; they are merely a way to take a breather from the fighting and regroup. Previous talks with the Taliban failed precisely because the militant group took a break in fighting and then simply ignored the terms of any agreement. To go through that rigmarole again is simply pointless. That the TTP is willing to talk right now, and indeed, has initiated the idea of negotiation, simply means that it is on the back foot and suffering tremendous losses. The military needs to ram home the advantage and the political parties need to keep up the pressure. Now is no time to take the Taliban at their word and pursue a negotiated settlement.
Parties that have expressed themselves as eager to talk to the Taliban seldom explain just what outcome they are hoping for. The entire point of negotiations is that both sides have to give in a little and accept a few of their opponent’s demands. What exactly are we willing to give to the Taliban? Holding talks with the militants means that we may possibly accept their territorial gains in the tribal areas and make them official. In return, at best, we will get a promise of disarmament and non-violence but this promise will be broken as soon as it becomes convenient for the TTP to do so.
We also need to realise that there is simply no point in talking to the Taliban until they eschew violence. Even now, the Taliban are continually attacking our cities and constantly trying to assassinate politicians, especially from the ANP. In fact, the convoy of the chief minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa was attacked by a suicide bomber a day after the ANP-sponsored APC. This is not the behaviour of a group that is willing to negotiate in good faith. Until the TTP are willing to give an assurance that they are going to cease and desist with their violent ways and then follow through with that promise, there is simply no point in talking to them. All that will happen is that the Taliban will simply invent another excuse to indulge in murder and mayhem. The ANP, instead of lending its considerable anti-terrorism credentials to the idea of negotiations, should recognise this reality about the Taliban.
Political parties like the PML-N, the PTI and various religious parties have always either secretly supported the Taliban or, at least, felt that the militants have legitimate grievances. They will now leap at the opportunity presented by the ANP to make their appeasement strategy a reality. The ANP should realise that it is going to be used by these parties and refuse to be a part of this charade. The party has suffered such tremendous losses at the hands of the Taliban that it probably feels like there is nothing else it can do other than negotiate with the enemy. It needs to realise that there is a better path to victory. That involves convincing the army that full-scale military operations are badly needed at a time when the Taliban are depleted enough to seek negotiation. This is a time when we need to ram our advantage home and not give the Taliban an opportunity to regain their strength.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 17th, 2013.
COMMENTS (6)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
An apt editorial. It would be most unrealistic to expect Taliban to shun violence and start talks. As a matter of fact they have offered talks at the point of gun and simultaneously mocked at those who welcomed their offer. They continue to kill at will challenging writ of the state almost on daily basis. The talks can only be meaningful after this deadly outfit has been sufficiently weakened by the military which surprisingly is not happening as the latter has taken a strange stand of national consensus whereas the whole world knows that it takes all decisions independently without taking civilian govt into confidence. Due to this stalemate, the situation in Pakistan would worsen further.
Our policy should be very simple no talks with terrorists, Shoot at sight, after killing more then 35000 civilians 15000 plus police and armed forces men they want to talk peace, and our retarded politions are consedring that option, shame on them
While your military may use the lack of political consensus as a convenient excuse for not defeating the Taliban the reality is that the military has never cared what the elected officials have to say when it comes to who/when they fight. As such this Editorial ignored the elephant in the room - the govt can talk or not talk to the Taliban and it isn't going to have any influence on whether the Generals decide to fight.
The editorial lost all its credibility with this line
"Political parties like the PML-N, the PTI and various religious parties have always either secretly supported the Taliban or, at least, felt that the militants have legitimate grievances."
May be the editor can remember PTI & JI has rejected APC so why accusing them of something they not even part of? Its the liberal parties who are calling for dialogue.
I cannot believe that this option is even on the table. At least not in the manner that it is being presented. Pakistan has time and again capitulated to the Taliban under the guise of "talks" and not once in our history has talking to the taliban resulted in anything that can be described as peace. It's really quite simple. The fundamental credo of the Taliban is armed jihad against the infidels. Their very reason for being is not the spread of Islam (as many would claim). There are numerous groups and individuals in the country that consider the spread of Islam their core objective. What separates the taliban from everyone else is the means they adopt to achieve their objective. The taliban fundamentally believe that Islam must be IMPOSED upon the world and that this is only possible through 'holy warfare" i.e Jihad. They have no capacity for governance, for development, or indeed for any progress of thought or spirituality. They know not what the women of their societies desire nor need. They have no thought for the plight of minorities and they cannot even begin to forge any consensus by any means other than violence and bloodshed. THe Taliban can only preach jihad and they can only act with violence. So when they express the desire for "peace" they are essentially asking for peace to preach jihad. That means they want a cessation of fighting in order to preach warfare. Again, i fail to comprehend why nobody in this country can see the obvious contradiction in the thought of the taliban negotiating peace. Peace is by its very nature consensual, non-violent and inclusive. These things are fundamentally antithetical to the taliban credo and as the author rightly points out, a complete and utter waste of time.
At this stage when Taliban are suffering from heavy loss and election is due in the country, they want to get political shelter being offered by parties like PTI and PML N ?. They have to be eliminated for ever to save the Pakistan .