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| Inside Pakistan | | Waziristan or Taliban country? | |
Taliban activists are having a field day in North Waziristan, thanks to the deal entered into between their leaders (tribal elders) and the Pakistan government. They can be seen moving about freely in the areas bordering Afghanistan, particularly Meeranshah and the nearby town of Mir Ali, flaunting AK47s and wearing scull caps.
According to a report in The News of October 24, some of them wear badges on their chest, declaring “Appointed by the Office of the Taliban, the Mujahideen of the North Waziristan Agency.”
The paper reported that the Taliban militants have opened their office in a madarsah near Meeranshah’s main bazaar.They have been functioning as the guardians of law and order since the deal was signed on September 5, and are credited to have brought down the incidents of crime considerably.
Clashes between the Taliban and Pakistani troops have become a thing of the past. This is in accordance with the provisions in the Meeranshah agreement between the two sides. But the militants continue to cross over the porous border to fight against the US-led international coalition forces in Afghanistan. This is in violation of the deal, but they are not taking the clause on Afghanistan seriously.
A Dawn editorial (October 25) says that “militants in North Waziristan are now institutionalising their authority over the tribal agency….The militants’ jurisdiction has lately been formalised by the Taliban council of advisers, with a clearly defined territory in and around Meeranshah demarcated as an ‘area of operations’ where criminal activities are banned.” This is interpreted as the “emergence of a state within a state”, but who bothers?
PPP’s dalliance with Musharraf
The Pervez Musharraf regime tried to make Ms Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) a part of the government after the 2002 elections by releasing her husband from jail. The idea was to instal a senior PPP leader as Prime Minister with Ms Bhutto calling the shots from abroad. The deal, however, could not be clinched because Ms Bhutto saw into the General’s offer a design to weaken her control over the PPP as also her support base.
Yet the two sides have continued to quietly maintain their contacts despite their public postures to the contrary. Nawaz Raza in an article in a recent issue of Urdu daily Nawa-e-Waqt says that their “romance” has been revived as part of a plan to be implemented after the coming elections. Whether the terms and conditions outlined by Islamabad remain the same as earlier is not known. But both sides appear to be willing because they need each other.
General Musharraf is aspiring for Ms Bhutto’s company not only for greater legitimacy but also for weakening the Opposition drive to force him to hang his army uniform. And Ms Bhutto seems to be desperate for power, which is not possible so long as General Musharraf is there occupying centrestage.
The agreement she has reached with former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for the restoration of real democracy in Pakistan may be aimed at bargaining with the General from a position of strength.
In the meantime, the Lahore High Court has released on bail the Senior Vice-Chariman of the PPP, Mr Yusuf Raza Geelani, who had been in jail for a long time. According to Nawa-e-Waqt, efforts are on to discover a link between this development and the silent drive for a deal between the Musharraf government and Ms Bhutto.
Provincial autonomy
It seems the establishment in Pakistan is getting convinced that most of the problems it faces in the provinces are there because of the dominant role of Islamabad in their affairs. That is, perhaps, why there is a move for the devolution of powers from the centre to the provinces. The provinces have had very little autonomy, resulting in a feeling of revulsion against the centre. This has also led to a strong anti-Punjab sentiment in the provinces because of Punjab’s domination in the establishment, including the army.
The move is on in a typical Pakistani style. Read this comment by Dawn: “What is intriguing, however, is that none of these gentlemen (the Prime Minister, the Federal Information Minister, the Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination and the Parliamentary Affairs Minister who have revealed the government’s plan) have chosen to take the people into confidence about the specifics of the proposal being considered by the Waseem Sajjad Committee.”
The paper adds: “The true spirit of devolution requires power to travel from the centre to the provinces and then to the grassroots level. The local bodies system that has been introduced in the name of devolution actually bypasses the provinces, with the centre having extensive powers to meddle in district government affairs.”
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