What price peace?

Govt and its chums plead for “peace, tranquillity, stability and a tolerant and harmonious society” — a distant dream.

Published on June 5, 2013 in The New York Times was a column by Ahmed Rashid, under the heading “Can Pakistan make peace next door”. It opened up:

“In the spring of 1992, as the Communist government in Afghanistan started imploding after the collapse of the Soviet Union, seven Afghan mujahedeen leaders, pumped full of CIA money, gathered in Peshawar, Pakistan, to discuss how to take over Afghanistan and share power peacefully.

“The man who brought them together and patiently sat with them was Nawaz Sharif, then only 43 and in his first term as Pakistan’s prime minister. A simple man, by no means an intellectual, but with enormous patience and a wily street-smart grasp of politics, Mr Sharif wanted to be a peacemaker. He nearly succeeded.”

Rashid went on to tell us how Sharif’s proposed ‘deal’ collapsed due to the Afghan warlords coupled with the ISI playing its well-known double game. That was 21 years ago and Rashid’s thought is that Sharif’s return to the scene may be the best hope for a political solution and another “carefully brokered power sharing deal” once the Americans finally withdraw.

Well, before Nawaz Sharif can make peace next door, surely the point to ponder upon is how he can make peace in his own homeland. How does he ‘deal’ with the Afghan Taliban when he is finding it somewhat of an impossibility to deal with what he and his fellow politicos coyly refer to as “our own people in the tribal areas”? Now, as far as the Afghan Taliban and ‘our own people’ go, there is no difference in the aims and objectives. The Afghan lot are readying themselves for a comeback when the US pull out. ‘Our own’ Taliban, who, as everyone knows, are not only “in the tribal areas” but have a clear run in the country all the way down to the Arabian Sea and as we witness on a regular basis, have an ability to strike when and where they wish. They are waiting for their Afghan brethren to re-establish themselves and for the government of Pakistan to finally cave in and accede to their outrageous demands which have nothing at all to do with democracy which Pakistan now, somewhat erroneously, maintains has finally come its way.

As for the Afghan Taliban, Pakistan’s own chairman of the Senate Defence Committee, the affable Mushahid Hussain (once long ago the “slave of Mian Sahib’s thoughts”), following a recent four-day visit to Kabul, has disclosed that beyond 2014 the Americans will keep 20,000 troops in Afghanistan plus 100,000 ‘contractors’ engaged in security related activities, with the establishment of nine US military bases. If this be so, one must ask how the Taliban up there view a successful comeback. What they can hope for is a role in a coalition government as some sort of take-off point.

Meanwhile, back in this particular ranch ‘our own people’ in and out of the tribal areas must be pretty pleased with themselves. The ridiculous APC has been shown up by last September 15’s events as to exactly what it was — a huddle of so-called leaders paralysed by fear, out to save their own skins. How does one have a dialogue when one party is set on its own course and has clearly stated on many a past occasion that it will not be diverted? There is no mystery as to either the government or the Taliban. The government and its chums plead for “peace, tranquillity, stability and a tolerant and harmonious society” — a distant dream. They are not worried about the dead, the maimed and the bereft. Are they hoping for a Punjab-type arrangement?

The army is smarting, and rightly so. And it is the army that matters in the land. “No one should have any misgivings that we would let the terrorists coerce us into accepting their terms.” So said army chief Kayani after the response given to the shameful APC and the announced Malakand troop withdrawal. Right and proper.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 21^st, 2013.

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