Pakistan faces backlash on tribal reforms

Tom Hussain, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: September 08. 2009 12:21AM UAE / September 7. 2009 8:21PM GMT

ISLAMABAD // Government proposals to integrate Pakistan’s militant-infested tribal areas into the national mainstream have been cautiously welcomed by residents, but face fierce opposition from a powerful nexus of chieftains and clerics, analysts say.

The proposals, unveiled on August 14 by Asif Ali Zardari, the president, would authorise political parties to set up shop in the seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan for the first time since independence in 1947.

Elections to seats in the National Assembly have been through direct enfranchisement of adult males since 1997, but candidates have only been allowed to contest as independents.

Independent analysts said the entry of mainstream political parties would undermine the existing power structure in which about 35,000 tribal chieftains and politicians affiliated with religious political parties act as interlocutors between residents and the government.

“Underlying the proposals is a realisation that you have to open up the tribal areas and, in particular, open them up to the mainstream parties. The rise of the Taliban is a direct consequence of the absence of political freedoms,” said Imtiaz Gul, the author of the book, The al Qa’eda Connection: The Taliban and Terror in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas.

Cleric-politicians from the tribal areas said they opposed the introduction of political reforms because of their timing, during military operations against militants in all seven tribal areas, and the effect it would have on the region’s culture.

“The political parties are all based in settled areas, not tribal areas. Members of parliament elected on a party basis would be compelled to follow the directions of their respective leadership, but those decisions would inevitably be against tribal traditions because they would be misinformed about our traditions of collective decision-making,” said Maulana Mohammed Saleh Shah Qureshi, a member of the Senate, the indirectly elected upper house of parliament.

However, the government is standing its ground, saying it is duty bound to meet tribesmen’s demand for change.

“The days of monopoly of the religious parties to play politics from the pulpit to the exclusion of major secular political parties are over forever. This is the first step towards integrating the tribal areas into the mainstream of national life,” Farhatullah Baber, the president’s spokesman, told the Associated Press of Pakistan.

Analysts said the reforms were ultimately aimed at integrating the tribal areas into Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), both dominated by ethnic Pashtun. But residents say they favour a gradual process of integration because of the failed experience in Swat, where a sudden change in administrative status in 1969 from a state run by a hereditary prince to settled district had failed to address such social issues as access to justice, leading to the rise of religious radicalism in the 1990s and ultimately the Taliban uprising.

“We want the same rights as every other Pakistani citizen. The collective tribal system is already failing and being replaced by individualism, but slow and gradual change is appropriate because abrupt change would create a vacuum like it did in Swat,” said Aziz ur Rehman, an unemployed university graduate from South Waziristan, the stamping ground of Baitullah Mehsud, the late militant overlord.

Parallel to political reforms, the proposals also envisage the curbing of government officials’ powers under the Frontier Crimes Regulation, draconian laws enforced in the 19th century by the British colonial government under which clans were made collectively responsible for law and order in their territory.

Major changes would include an end to the sweeping and arbitrary powers of administrative officials, known as political agents.

They would no longer be able to detain tribesman without charge or trial for three years. Instead, detainees would have to be indicted or released by officials within 24 hours of arrest and have the right to bail. Girls and boys younger than 16 would no longer be liable to arrest under collective punishment of a clan.

Administrative and judicial rulings by political agents would also become subject to appeal to a tribunal with powers similar to Pakistan’s high courts.

The political agents would also have to account for their spending to Pakistan’s auditor general – another first that would undermine such existing practices as political agents’ awarding of government contracts to tribal chiefs in return for their complicity in administrative and political decisions, residents said.

They also said the effectiveness of the reforms, which are yet to be enacted into law, would be largely contingent upon the government’s ability to initiate infrastructure development and job-creation schemes in the war-torn region.

“Our issues are human and social. We need education, development and job opportunities,” said Shehryar Khan, the president of the Waziristan Education Welfare Society, a local non-governmental organisation.

Analysts said economic development would be nearly impossible as long as militants held sway over large tracts of tribal territory, but said the government could gain ground by focusing on the estimated two million of the areas’ five million residents who have sought refuge in adjacent settled areas of the NWFP since conflict broke out in 2004.

Said Gul, the author: “The best thing to do would provide social services to the refugees in the southern NWFP districts to create a stake in society for the affected people.”

foreign.desk@thenational.ae