Tribesmen pawns in ‘duplicitous’ game

Tom Hussain
Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: November 03. 2009 9:45PM UAE / November 3. 2009 5:45PM GMT

Pakistani tribesmen, fleeing from military operations against Taliban militants in South Waziristan, at a distribution centre in Dera Ismail Khan. Farooq Khan / AFP

ISLAMABAD // Tribesmen from South Waziristan, where Pakistani security forces are battling Taliban and al Qa’eda militants, say they are the perpetual victims of a 30-year-old geopolitical power play that has seen their needs ignored by the state and alienated them from their compatriots.

The older generation of Mehsud and Wazir tribesmen, many of whom fought Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s, say they have grown old watching the ebb and flow of superpower interest in the area.

In a series of telephone and written interviews from the north-western city of Dera Ismail Khan, the launch pad of the current military operation, they said the conflict in South Waziristan was the inevitable outcome of the opposing relationships between competing forces, whose interests sometimes overlap.

They listed the competing forces as the Pakistan military, local and foreign intelligence agencies, and domestic and foreign militants.

“Today’s situation is the result of that duplicitous relationship. On the surface, they are behaving as foes, but underneath they are working together,” said Bismillah Jan Mehsud, a retired policeman living in DI Khan.

“In practice, it is only the public that gets crushed between them,” said Mr Mehsud, whose family originates from the Barowand area in South Waziristan.

The retired policeman, who spent his 30-year career in the southern metropolis of Karachi, said the Waziristan tribes had first been used as a “ready-made fighting force” against the Soviets, and then abandoned and vilified by the Pakistani government as its relationship with the United States grew closer after 9/11.

“America’s mission in Afghanistan has created the terrible situation that persists today in Pakistan. No matter how many operations are conducted, the only losers will be the poor,” he said.

His view is shared by the emerging generation of educated tribesmen, who say they have become disillusioned and embittered by stereotyping. “The state has created a stereotyped profile of us to please foreign interests,” said Mohammed Asghar Khan, a post-graduate student of mass communications at Gomal University, in an essay sent to The National.

“As a result, our fellow Pakistanis view us with suspicion and hatred, as if we are aliens, assuming that we are all militants. Forget others: even our [ethnic] Pashtun brothers from settled districts squint with distrust when they meet us. All that hatred has made me think of myself differently,” wrote Mr Khan, a Wazir tribesman from Wana, a district of South Waziristan.

He likened the plight of the tribes to that of a child abandoned by his family, who is forced to turn to crime to survive, and is then arrested by the police and imprisoned after being reported by his family.

“The tribes have been deprived of social infrastructure, education and opportunities, and been taught that the gun, which has brought nothing but destruction, is their ornament,” he wrote.

“Is it that the tribes are being pushed into joining forces with others [foreign interests]? If not, who then has the cure for our malaise?”

The tribes’ sense of persecution is nurturing an internal debate about their political future.

A proposed package of administrative and political reforms for the seven federally administered tribal agencies, unveiled by the government in June but yet to be tabled in parliament, foresees an eventual merger of the agencies with the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

However, tribal politicians are increasingly leaning towards another option: the creation of a separate province, reflecting the tribes’ distinct identity from their more urbanised Pashtun cousins in the NWFP.

Despite the grinding poverty of the tribal agencies, the politicians believe a US aid programme, approved by Congress in October, would rapidly transform the region.

“The Establishment [civil-military bureaucracy] and NWFP politicians don’t want us to benefit. That is why we plan to launch a movement for a separate province,” said Rehmat Shah Afridi, a newspaper owner and politician from the Khyber agency, also the scene of fighting between the military and Taliban militants.

“I foresee a tribal province that will be part of a free trade zone encompassing neighbouring districts of Afghanistan. We will all be driving Mercedes like your bosses in Abu Dhabi,” he said in an interview.

But for most tribesmen, the harsh realities of the present, and associated fear of persecution, drives their thinking – and keeps them from participating in the debate.

Asked whether they viewed the security forces or the Taliban as the “good guy” in the conflict in the tribal areas, they would rather not pick sides.

To the men from Waziristan who were willing to speak, there is not one, monolithic Taliban with the same goals, but a “good Taliban” waging jihad against Nato forces occupying Afghanistan and a “bad Taliban” who have taken up arms against Pakistan to pursue their personal ambitions.

“If we say the Taliban are wrong, we would place ourselves in peril. If we criticise the security forces, we would again be asking for trouble,” said Ashfaq Mehsud, an undergraduate studying at the Government Degree College in Dera Ismail Khan. “In such circumstances, the best thing is to maintain silence and not get involved in any debate.”

thussain@thenational.ae