Analysis of the ongoing military operation

As much as Pakistan has gained in NWA militarily, it has, at the same time, lost goodwill & confidence of the tribals

The commander of Operation Zarb-e-Azb, Major General Zafarullah Khan, during a press briefing on November 15, proudly claimed that the “Pakistan Army has so far cleared 90 per cent of North Waziristan Agency (NWA)”. This, no doubt, is a big military achievement, but at what cost has this been accomplished? While the terrorists did abandon their sanctuaries and are now on the run, the local people did not stay there either. It is being claimed that 676,000 people from the war-torn agency were evacuated. But when the entire population of NWA is said to number 700,000, out of which, according to the UNHCR, more than 200,000 have chosen to take refuge in Afghanistan, is the figure of 676,000 entirely accurate? There has hardly been any mention of those who went to Afghanistan in the top military and government circles.

The ‘organised evacuation’ of the people that has been talked about, frankly, does not seem to be all that organised. If it had been organised, the unprecedented movement of almost a quarter of a million people would not have taken place towards and across the Afghan border. Such movement would have been towards mainland Pakistan.

Why have so many people from NWA chosen to take refuge in Afghanistan? For decades, Pakistan was the preferred destination of Afghan refugees, with this country giving refuge to more than three million of them. Why, then, are Pakistanis living in the border areas close to Afghanistan, choosing to take refuge in Afghanistan? Challenged by this newly emerging contradiction, should we concede that many locals of NWA consider Afghanistan to be safer and its government more welcoming and accommodating than that of Pakistan? Did the people fleeing to Afghanistan make a bad political choice than those who preferred to stay in IDP camps in Pakistan? If, after more than six months of the IDPs’ dislocation and displacement, we are still at the stage of ‘highlighting their plight’ by holding ‘grand jirgas’, then those who went to Afghanistan obviously made the right choice.

Why wasn’t mainland Pakistan the preferred destination for those who went to Afghanistan? Was it because the fleeing refugees from the battle zone considered the Pakistani military and its offensive posture a greater threat than the hospitality on offer by the government of Afghanistan and their tribe-mates across the border? Never before has such a military operation been carried out, in which each and every house in the area was combed for possible militant suspects and the locals given public notice to vacate their houses in a matter of two to three days. In such an environment of fear and panic, people not just fled from their homes, but they fled their country as well.

Could a government, which is preoccupied with using state machinery and resources to fight a battle for its own political survival, do anything substantial for the IDPs’ rehabilitation? Considering the pitiable condition of more than 10 million people in Pakistan displaced due to fighting or natural disasters since 2004, should we be surprised that a large number of people chose to go to Afghanistan? If anything, the recent clashes that took place during food distribution to the IDPs in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, in which the police resorted to firing into air and where more than 50 IDPs were arrested, proves that both the federal and provincial governments simply failed to stay involved in resolving this humanitarian crisis in a responsible manner. Why, then, blame the fleeing Pakistanis in choosing Afghan hospitality over our own governments’ failures and ineptness.

Knowing that the Pakistani military is also empowered under the 2010 Actions in aid of Civil Power law, under which it can detain suspected militants for prolonged periods and hand down punishments, going to Afghanistan to many would have meant staying clear of any trouble in Pakistan. The military operation created a climate of uncertainty and the likely fear of being questioned, tracked, hunted and pursued that must definitely have pushed many tribals to take the decision of moving over to Afghanistan. For many, Afghanistan must have represented a relief away from the battleground in which the Pakistani military was on the offensive and the Taliban and the foreign militants were responding in an existential battle. Being in Afghanistan, to them, must have meant staying away from the battleground where they could avoid being caught in the entailing crossfire and thus, lose their lives. But all this does not absolve the government of Pakistan of its failure. Those who went to Afghanistan didn’t only cross the Durand Line, they also crossed the red line of the Pakistan government’s moral and ethical failure that failed to win their hearts and minds.

For now, the government and the military is busy selling the idea of ‘grand rapprochement’ with Afghanistan. Can such a process of rapprochement envision ending the historic isolation of Pashtun communities living in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border regions? Will Islamabad and Kabul consider enabling many people in these borderlands to legitimately seek dual citizenship? It’s not with an open border, but with an open heart, that the two governments can help the people of the same tribes living across borders, to reunite and stop being termed Pakistani or Afghan whenever they cross the Durand Line. For eventually, the continuity of the use of force alone will only alienate these governments from their people. As much as the Pakistani state has gained in NWA militarily, it has, at the same time, lost the goodwill and confidence of the tribal people. Something needs to be done to alter this situation.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 23^rd, 2014.

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