The Politics of Deal Making With the Taliban in Swat

The Nizam-i-Adl Regulation 2009 ( NAR) ( Justice System) for Malakand Division of the North West Frontier Province ( NWFP), which includes the state of Swat, is a hugely controversial system of so-called Islamic laws of justice that is based on a highly dubious “peace accord†between the NWFP government of the Awami National Party (ANP) and a small religious outfit ( Tehreek-i-Nifaz Shariat Mohammad ( TNSM) led by an aging warrior (Sufi Mohammad).

There is bitter controversy over what is Islamic and what is not, what is vice and what is virtue, what punishments can be legitimately prescribed, the speed at which this “justice†can be delivered without abandoning the whole notion of due process, and the process of appeal to constitutional higher authorities outside Malakand. Indeed, it is unclear whether the regulation is even constitutional or not.

The “peace accord†which underlies it is even more problematic. It is between the toothless and unarmed TNSM and the nervous NWFP government, not between the federal government backed by the Pakistan Army and the Tehreek Taliban Pakistan ( TTP) led by warlord Fazlullah, who is the regional warlord Baitullah Meshud’s deputy in Swat.

In other words, the two main protagonists in the war against terror are missing from the equation. Warlord Fazlullah has given the trembling Swat administration “ten days†to implement the NAR, failing which he will revert to war.

A direct “peace accord†between the NWFP government and the TTP in May 2008 fell apart quickly because Fazlullah used the breather to intensify his terrorist campaign, capture space and further erode the writ of the national state.

Indeed, the link between the un-armed Sufi Mohammad and his bristling son-in-law Fazlullah is very tenuous, the latter having openly and frequently tarred his elder with contempt.

The situation of the NWFP government is equally precarious. The secular nationalist ANP swept aside the religious-conservative Muttahida Majlis Amal in the 2008 elections in Swat. It sought to establish its administrative writ via the May 2008 peace accord with the TTP and hastened the exit of the Pakistan Army from Swat after its successful military operations in the winter of 2007-08. Since then, it has progressively lost control of territory and power to the TTP whose mission statement is to seize all of Pakistan and establish an anti- American Islamic Emirate along the lines of the Taliban government in Kabul from 1997-2001. Faced with the prospect of calling the army back to launch full-scale operations — which would have inevitably led to thousands of innocent civilian casualties because of the deployment and use of tanks and artillery as the conventional tools of war in an unconventional guerilla- war zone, and alienated the ANP’s vote-bank — it chose the more opportunist route of parleying with the TTP through the aegis of the TNSM, which has been demanding the enforcement of sharia in the region since 1995 when Sufi Mohammad first raised the banner of Islam under his lashkar.

The ANP’s strategy is to concede a popular version of sharia to Sufi Mohammad, and either drive a wedge between him and his son-in-law, thereby weakening Fazlullah, or to win over and neutralize Fazlullah to Sufi’s side and drive a wedge between him and his leader Baitullah Meshud, thereby weakening the latter.

In the event of the peace accord failing because of the TTP’s intransigence and aggression, the ANP will say to the people of Swat that it tried to enforce sharia and provide swift justice to them but was thwarted by the TTP — consequently, the unleashing of the full military might of the Pakistani state will be justified and naysayers in the media and among the TNSM will be silenced.

This means that hard-nosed politics is in command of the situation in Swat and not controversial notions of Islam or swift justice which are merely the peg on which to restore the writ of the state. This conclusion is reinforced by various statements of different political and religious parties and groups. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government and army are backing the move but President Zardari has been careful to deny any shariah or Islamic link to the peace accord. The PPP information minister, Sherry Rehman, says that President Zardari will not endorse the pact until peace has actually been restored in Swat. The prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, says the use of force should not be the first or only option. The ANP chief minister of the NWFP, Ameer Haider Hoti, insists the army will remain in “reactive†mode rather than be withdrawn or put in “proactive†mode to cater for any eventuality.

The religious parties, in particular the Jamaat-i-Islami, have duly criticized the accord because they can see through its “Islamic†smokescreen.

And clearly, the visiting Australian foreign minister, Steven Smith, has been duly briefed in Islamabad so that he can say with sanguinity that the Swat deal is “welcome†even as the US administration is more cautious and suspicious because Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, was not fully briefed when he visited Islamabad last week because the “peace accord†had not yet been finalized.

On the face of it, the liberals see this as a strategic “surrender†by the PPP-GHQ-ANP troika before the encroaching Taliban.

First Waziristan, and now Malakand has fallen, they say; next it will be Peshawar.

Equally, the conservatives believe that peace, not war, among fellow Muslims is the only way to go since this is America’s war and not Pakistan’s war. But the truth may lie somewhere else. Hard-nosed realists know certain facts. First, the Taliban are linked to Al- Qaeda and have a mission statement: it is war for global Islam and not peace for local justice. Second, this is as much Pakistan’s war as it is America’s. Third, to win this war, the state has to win back the hearts and minds of the people and recruit them in the battle against the Taliban. Therefore, a failed peace accord in which the blame can be duly put on the Taliban followed by a relentless war is a much better way to go than the other way round — warring without giving peace a chance. Politics is, after all, the continuation of war by other means. Under the circumstances, this peace and this NAR will be construed as successful tactical measures if they can help the state and ANP recapture their lost political and geographical space, and a failure if the beneficiaries are the Taliban as in the past.

Expect the blame-game to begin before the ink has dried. On February 18 warlord Fazlullah kidnapped and beheaded a local journalist, Musa Khan, because he had dared to say that if Fazlullah sabotaged the accord it would prove he was not interested in bringing Islamic justice to Swat but acting on the orders of outside agencies!

The author is the editor of The Friday Times

(The Above article appeared in the Mail Today, 20 February 2009)