Geopolitics

The Fragile Af-Pak Policy
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Issue Vol 24.4 Oct-Dec 2009 | Date : 07 Feb , 2011

With each passing day, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the Obama administration’s so-called Af–Pak policy is simply not working. The fraudulent Presidential elections in Afghanistan, coupled by the rampant corruption in all walks of life in that hapless country, have not made the NATO-propped Karzai government in Kabul either stable or popular. And what is worse, the Taliban (and al-Qaeda of Osama bin Laden), the main target of the American intervention are gaining ascendancy in the “war on terror”.

Secure in their safe sanctuaries in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, the Taliban and al-Qaeda have been launching highly successful attacks on the Afghan and NATO troops. President Obama is desperate that Pakistan does something to contain these elements in its territory. In return, he is pursuing the traditional policy of rewarding Pakistan through military and economic assistance, which, over the last seven years, have exceeded 12 billion dollars. That Pakistan is not doing the needful and diverting most of the American assistance towards measures against India is another story.

The army leadership in Pakistan is of the strong opinion that there is a large difference between the situation in Afghanistan and that in Pakistan and if the US tried to implement the same policy in Pakistan then it would not only yield negative results but it will also affect Pak”“US relations.

It is not without substance that many international observers believe that Pakistani intelligence is actually helping the resurgence of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The CIA covert operation that has used armed drones to attack insurgent targets inside Pakistan, the Waziristan region in particular, has become highly controversial in Pakistan. The Pakistan Army leadership has informed the US administration about its reservation over the new US policy regarding the Pak–Afghan region.

The military top brass, including Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Tariq Majid, has made it clear to the US leadership that the same policy for both Pakistan and Afghanistan by the US would not prove successful. The army leadership in Pakistan is of the strong opinion that there is a large difference between the situation in Afghanistan and that in Pakistan and if the US tried to implement the same policy in Pakistan then it would not only yield negative results but it will also affect Pak–US relations.

The fundamental flaw in America’s war on terror in Afghanistan is appearing to rely on belief on Pakistan. A stable and secure Afghanistan is not in the interest of the forces that run Pakistan today. There are many reasons for this, including the so-called strategic depth that Afghanistan provides to Pakistan in its war against India. But the most important one happens to be the fact that once Afghanistan becomes strong, secure and stable, it will demand the return of its territories, particularly Waziristan. And this is something Pakistan will not easily allow. This article intends to highlight this theme.

The problem

Waziristan covers an area of 11,585 square kilometers (4,473 square miles) and is divided into what are defined as North and South Waziristan agencies. The total population today is estimated to be around a million. The region is one of the most inaccessible, has an extremely rugged terrain and has remained outside the direct control of the Pakistani government. Hitherto, it has only been controlled nominally by the central government of Pakistan. The Waziri tribes that inhabit the region are fiercely independent. However, they had not bothered the Pakistani government till the fall of the Taliban government in neighbouring Afghanistan, when the region turned out to be a good sanctuary for the fleeing al-Qaeda and Taliban elements.

Also read: The danger signals from Pakistan

Since there is no clear demarcation of the Pak–Afghan border, the Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters sheltering in the tribal belt under the control of Wazirs, Mehsuds and Dawars, easily cross the border and attack their targets on Afghan soil, using the mountain terrain to strategic advantage, and then melt into the villages located in the Pak–Afghan border areas. The result is that the al-Qaeda-backed Taliban resistance movement in Afghanistan continues to gain strength in the tribal areas of Pakistan, which provide natural strategic depth to Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters.

Since there is no clear demarcation of the Pak”“Afghan border, the Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters sheltering in the tribal belt under the control of Wazirs, Mehsuds and Dawars, easily cross the border and attack their targets on Afghan soil, using the mountain terrain to strategic advantage

No wonder why hardly a day passes when the Karzai administration in Afghanistan does not urge Pakistan to do more to help overcome insurgency in the southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan. The anxiety being expressed by the Karzai administration is understandable and not entirely misplaced, given the fact that much of the trouble along the border areas of Afghanistan happens to be a result of the Taliban militia crossing over from the Pakistani side of the border. In the past, the Afghan mujahideen, too, had bases in the Waziristan region, which they used as launching pads to make frequent incursions into Afghanistan to target the occupying Soviet troops.

Under these circumstances, the Pakistani leadership is often blamed for whatever is happening in Afghanistan, given the quantum of activity within close proximity of the Pak–Afghan border. Many visiting US officials have stated time and again in the recent past that Islamabad should fulfill its international obligations by curtailing the movement of miscreants from its side of the border, as it cannot simply absolve itself by asking Kabul to tighten control on the other side. They have made it clear that the issue is not just placing 80,000 Pakistani troops on the border, but rather how effective that force has been in accomplishing its mission objective.

Of course, there is a theory that many elements in the Pakistani armed forces and the ISI are jehadists by inclination and that they are not sincere in fighting the Taliban. But then, without going into the merits and demerits of this allegation at the moment, the question is whether Pakistan, given the history of Waziristan, can ever be able to rise to the occasion. We may now look at that history.

Lessons from history

It was during British rule that Waziristan came in contact with settled areas on large scale. This had economic, social and political effects on the tribal society. Officially, the area was under Afghan suzerainty, but actually no one had control over the land. Throughout British direct or indirect rule, many expeditions were carried out in the Waziristan area. The main objective of these expeditions was punishment for perpetual continuance of crimes by tribes in settled districts.

Tthe question is whether Pakistan, given the history of Waziristan, can ever be able to rise to the occasion.

The crimes were usually robbery, murder or kidnapping in settled districts, or attack on civil caravans or military convoys in tribal territory. The usual form of punishment was blowing up defensive towers, cutting of crops and burning of villages. When the tribe submitted, they were asked to pay a certain amount of fine and surrender few rifles and the forces would be withdrawn.

In the early part of British rule (starting in 1849 after the annexation of Punjab) the area was totally independent of British authorities. British Deputy Commissioners of settled districts dealt with the tribes adjoining their districts. Deputy Commissioners of Bannu and Derajat dealt with Waziristan tribes. Apart from punishing the tribes for their crimes, the British arrangement also involved   cultivating dominating personalities among the tribes (Maliks).  This arrangement relied on a strong personality who earned the respect of the tribe and could communicate with them. Written agreements were negotiated with tribes.

A tribe was made responsible for the security of their area and controlled the raiders, while the government provided allowances (called muwajibs) to maliks. These intermediaries were the key in this policy called ‘closed border policy’. In these arrangements, the tribes were not subjects and the measures were meant only to prevent looting raids on settled districts. There were many military expeditions during this period but the region was never on an enduring basis.

Of course, during the Second Afghan War (1878) the penetration of Baluch tribal areas was accompanied with increased penetration of Waziristan. But the penetration of Waziristan was never at the scale of Baluch territories. The area remained ‘no man’s land’ until the 1893 treaty with Afghanistan, which was negotiated by Sir Mortimer Durand. This we will discuss at a little length later; for the moment it may be mentioned that Waziristan with the exception of Birmal came under the British sphere of influence. However, the demarcation of boundary (Durand Line) was resisted by Wazirs and the area saw heavy fighting. The Tochi Valley and Wana were occupied and two agencies called North and South Waziristan were subsequently established.

If Pakistan now controls nearly 40 percent territory of Maharaja Hari Singhs Jammu and Kashmir, it is because of the tribals of Waziristan in 1947″“48. But for them, Pakistan would have had no role in the Kashmir problem as it exists today.

After the Third Afghan War (1919), the Mehsud area was penetrated extensively and roads and posts were built. When Maliks were seen as unable to deliver due to the strong independent nature of Mehsuds, for a brief period of time the British tried to introduce a new system where in an allowance was given to whole tribe (called tuman). The Commissioner of Derajat, Merk also started to deal with the whole tribe in mass assembly called ‘the great jirga’. It was impossible to reach any reasonable agreement with an armed crowd of 5000 Mehsuds and after Merk’s departure the system was scrapped and the Maliks were restored.

However, collective benefits were restructured through the establishment of tribal police called Khassadars. At the same time another irregular force composed of tribes, but with a significant non-local component called Scouts was created. The local militia was named Frontier Corps headed by an Inspector General with its headquarter in Peshawar. The South Waziristan Scouts and Tochi Scouts for North Waziristan were operating in Waziristan area.

With further penetration of Waziristan the incentives included the recruitment in tribal militia with its attendant economic benefits. At the same time the punishment scope also increased. A system of collective tribal responsibility for any outrage committed by any member of the tribe was instituted. This included not only the termination of allowances but also sort of econmic blockade of the culprit tribe (called bandish). The tribe members would be prevented from grazing their flocks in the neighbouring districts and excluded from markets. Another method was the arrest of individuals and seizure of animals and property of the culprit tribe in settled areas (called baramta).

The last resort would be a punitive expedition against the culprit tribe or clan, which was usually of a short duration. In 1872 Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) was introduced in tribal areas, which authorized settlement of quarrels, by customary methods conducted by the jirga. FCR also gave Political Agents significant powers that could not be challenged in any court. This system is still operative in tribal areas with very little change and the Political Agent with his administrative staff and militia is the sole representative of the central government in the area.

Operation Curzon

After the partition of India in 1947, the successor state of Pakistan decided to remove regular troops from the tribal areas. The country’s founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah personally took this important decision and the brigade from Razmak was evacuated (the operation was named ‘Curzon’). Since independence, many social, economic and demographic changes have occurred in Waziristan. The Wazirs have come far down into the plains from their hills in adjoining settled districts.

Increasing education facilities have opened new avenues and many of them enlisted in the army and militias.

Increasing education facilities have opened new avenues and many of them enlisted in the army and militias. Similarly, large number of Mehsuds joined the mainstream Pakistani society. When the Hindu traders of Tank left after Partition in 1947, most of their shops were taken over by Mehsuds. Now Mehsuds are employed in militia and regular army, state bureaucracy and are involved in business all around the country. Many of them are now living far away from their native lands.

Incidentally, immediately after independence, Wazirs and Mehsuds were part of the tribal lashkar, which entered Kashmir. They quickly reached the outskirts of Srinagar, defeating the Maharaja’s troops. In fact, if Pakistan now controls nearly 40 percent territory of Maharaja Hari Singh’s Jammu and Kashmir, it is because of the tribals of Waziristan in 1947–48. But for them, Pakistan would have had no role in the Kashmir problem as it exists today.

The Social Change

Be that as it may, the strength of tribes in Waziristan lies in the inaccessibility of their area. The tribesmen have used this to their full advantage. The location – inhospitable mountainous terrain bordering between Afghanistan and Pakistan – has given them the flexibility to maintain some independence from central authorities of both countries. Like all other tribes, Wazirs and Mehsuds cherish their independence and are fully conscious of their reputation of ‘honour’ and ‘bravery’. They use these qualities to convey their ethnic superiority.

Over the last decades, the tribal society is, thus, increasingly attached to the settled area both economically and socially.

Wazirs and especially Mehsuds effort to resist any penetration in their enclave was due to their intense independent spirit which almost borders on anarchy. Every Mehsud considers himself as an equal to the other Mehsud – this sentiment was well expressed by one Mehsud leader, Jaggar, to a British officer Evelyn Howell in these words:  ‘Let it be field. Blow us all up with cannon, or make all eighteen thousand of us Nawabs’, suggesting that all were equal. Similarly, the wife of Viceroy Lord Minto had said after the visit to the frontier tribes in April 1906: ‘They fight for the love of fighting, and though at the moment they are contented and peaceful, they say openly that they must soon relieve the monotony by having a rising’.

Of course, gradual change has occurred in Waziristan due to increased interaction of tribes with the government and settled districts adjoining them. As mentioned earlier, the most significant experiment of the British was raising of militias (later called Scouts) from the area. It gave the tribesman an alternative to a boring life of tending the fields. The system has all the incentives that a tribesman can enjoy. He is clothed, fed and given cash. He is given a good rifle, the prized possession and he lives in his own hills with opportunities to use his rifle.

Also read: Giving away Kashmir?

Over the last decades, the tribal society is, thus, increasingly attached to the settled area both economically and socially. This has limited some of the independence, which the tribesman’s forefathers enjoyed. If he chooses to challenge the central authority, he has to suffer more than his forefathers. On the other hand, the government’s authority to punish the whole tribe is also restricted to some extent due to increased integration of tribesmen into settled districts. And this is precisely what one is witnessing these days in the Swat valley.

Secondly, endowed with this fierce sense of “individual independence”, overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of Waziristan do not consider themselves to be Pakistanis in the legal sense. They simply do not realise that the Durand line has made them Pakistanis. This line for them is artificial in every sense of the term. The other side of the line – “Afghan territory” – is as much their land as this side is (they all are essentially Pasthuns). They have never seen or accepted any restrictions on their movements and the movements of their guests across the Durand line. Nor are they in a mood to accept any such restrictions.

Osama now seems determined to create his own sovereign state comprising Afghanistan, parts of NWFP, Waziristan, Baluchistan and Kashmir as an ideological launching pad for his global terror war.

In fact, going by history and ethnicity, they have more affinity with the people of present day Afghanistan than those in Pakistan. And what is most important, no government in Afghanistan has formally accepted till today that Waziristan is a part of Pakistan. This point needs little elaboration.

The Durand Line

Sir Mortimer Durand, the then foreign secretary of the colonial government of India signed a document with the King of Afghanistan, Abdul Rahman Khan in November 12,1893 relating to the borders between Afghanistan and British India. The line devised was named the Durand Line. The document was to be ratified by the legislative body in Afghanistan. However, it never happened. The Durand Line, which runs though areas inhabited by the Pashtuns, was never accepted by either the Afghanistan government (which signed it under duress) or the Pashtuns (who sought to create their own homeland called Pashtunistan). In fact, In April 1919, Afghan General Nadir Khan had advanced to Tal of Southern Waziristan to reclaim Afghan rights over the region. The area was recovered after a long fight – that killed many – by the British   Brigadier Rex Dyer (of Jalianwala Bagh notoriety).

Besides, Afghanistan’s loya jirga (parliament) of 1949 had declared the Durand Line invalid as they saw it as ex parte on their side, since British India ceased to exist in 1947 with the independence of India and Pakistan. It proclaimed that the Afghan government did not recognise the Durand Line as a legal boundary between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Also read: Defence Procurement: Need for Accountability Audit

This being the situation, every government in Islamabad, military and non-military, has desperately tried to reach a bilateral agreement with successive regimes in Kabul to convert the Durand Line into the international border, but without any success. Even when the Taliban took over Afghanistan, Pakistan, which aided and abetted the Taliban during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, expected, in vain, a favourable response. The then Pakistani interior minister, Moinuddin Haider, called for the revival of the sanctification of the Durand Line, since it had legally lapsed in 1993. It may be noted here that the document between British India and Afghanistan was to remain in force for 100 years. The Taliban regime ignored the Pakistani pleas.

Endowed with this fierce sense of “individual independence”, overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of Waziristan do not consider themselves to be Pakistanis in the legal sense. They simply do not realise that the Durand line has made them Pakistanis.

Similarly, frequent press statements from 2005 to 2007 by President Pervez Musharraf calling for the building of a fence delineating the Afghanistan–Pakistan border have been met with resistance from numerous political parties within both the countries. Leaders of Pashtuns on both sides of the border do not recognize the Durand Line. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has systematically avoided the issue.

Conclusion

Pakistan’s de jure western border has ceased to exist. In fact, this realisation has made it imperative for Pakistan to get even more deeply involved in determining who rules in Kabul. According to one US Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare report, Islamabad has always been anxious to secure a docile Pashtun-dominated government in Kabul. This explains Islamabad’s continuing and increasing involvement in affairs pertaining to Afghanistan. It always wants a dependent government in Kabul that would more likely ensure the de facto preservation of the lapsed and abrogated Durand Line, even if it could not be converted into an international border. Of course, there is the added advantage of a Pakistani-dominated Afghanistan constituting a forward strategic depth on Pakistan’s western flank vis-à-vis India; but that is a different matter.

Viewed thus, Pakistan is facing a peculiar problem in Waziristan, or for that matter, with its Afghanistan-policy as a whole. The aggravation of the crisis in Waziristan is deeply interlinked with the resurgence of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the region. That means that the remedy lies in Islamabad abandoning, once and for all, its policy of engagement, covert if not overt, with the Taliban in the hope of using them to retrieve its lost influence in Afghanistan.

Pakistan is facing a peculiar problem in Waziristan, or for that matter, with its Afghanistan-policy as a whole. The aggravation of the crisis in Waziristan is deeply interlinked with the resurgence of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the region

After all, the situation in Waziristan is a hangover from the past when this area was one of the staging posts for the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan during the 1980s. And when that war was over, many of the Arab and other ‘mujahideen’ had nowhere to go, as their own countries — Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc — were wary of ‘Islamic radicalism’. So they remained behind in Waziristan, some of them even marrying into the local tribes. These “retired” jihadis have now regrouped under the leadership of Osama bin Laden.

Noted Pakistani analyst Ayaz Amir is right when he says that  the Pakistanis, with their better local knowledge, should have been left to handle the Waziristan problem in line with history and tradition. But that has not been done. Old tribal structures, which had withstood the test of time, stand demolished. Pro-government tribal figures have been killed. The army is licking its wounds. Moderate sentiment has been crushed while the Taliban are stronger than ever. Now the Pakistani leadership has woken up to a new refrain, warning western audiences that the Taliban were now a more serious threat than al-Qaeda, conveniently forgetting its own role in making the Taliban powerful in the two Waziristans. It has inflamed tribal sentiments and brought wider support to the Taliban cause.

There does not seem to be an easy solution ahead. Pakistan’s Taliban policy has boomeranged. And now its “military approach” to rectify the situation is not simply working in the absence a of a clear policy and vision of what Pakistan will be. The fact remains that Pakistan is now confronted with a resurgent al-Qaeda that aims at Pakistan’s disintegration. Osama now seems determined to create his own sovereign state comprising Afghanistan, parts of NWFP, Waziristan, Baluchistan and Kashmir as an ideological launching pad for his global terror war.

But then, the problem that Pakistan is facing is a problem that has ominous implications for the United States, Afghanistan and even India. This problem needs to be met in a combined manner by the global community. But for this, Pakistan needs to take extra two steps forward. It must win over the trust of the world community as far as its sincerity in fighting terrorism is concerned, and that, in turn, requires the support of all the Pakistanis. But that is proving illusory.

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The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Prakash Nanda

is a journalist and editorial consultant for Indian Defence Review. He is also the author of “Rediscovering Asia: Evolution of India’s Look-East Policy.”

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