Pakistanis in tribal area reject extremism

ISLAMABAD // A rare survey of public opinion in Pakistan's insurgency-racked tribal area has found that an overwhelming majority reject Taliban extremism. But the study also shows that few back the operations of the Pakistan army against Taliban and other fighters who have taken over most of the tribal territory, known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), which runs along the border with Afghanistan.

"These people are squeezed between militants and military. They would just like to resume their lives," said Imtiaz Gul, chairman of the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies, which conducted the survey. As Fata is a base for al Qa'eda, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan's Taliban, the area is central to the battle in Afghanistan. It is also where terrorist plots aimed at the West are reputedly being hatched.

Pakistan's army is engaged in a fitful war with the Taliban in Fata and Swat, a valley in the neighbouring North West Frontier Province. An intertribal war, which has Taliban involvement, has erupted in Kurram, another part of Fata, killed about 440 people in the last three weeks. The battle in Bajaur has forced 300,000 people to flee their homes. They are now living in squalid, unsanitary conditions in makeshift camps in NWFP. The Pakistani government has appealed for aid. The United Nations has started emergency relief work but has warned that an imminent outbreak of disease and shortage of food will follow if the fighting does not stop.

There have been other grim reminders of the stakes involved in recent days. Two suicide bomb attacks, at a hospital in Dera Ismail Khan, in NWFP, and at an arms factory near Islamabad, claimed over 100 lives last week. The Taliban claimed responsibility for both. Yesterday, a provincial member of parliament in Swat escaped a rocket-and-bomb attack on his home. His brother, two nephews and five guards were killed.

The survey found that 91 per cent thought that "the Taliban way is the wrong way" and 86 per cent believed that Taliban activities were hurting Pakistan. Only six per cent believed the Taliban represented "true Islam". "A small minority is holding a very big majority in the oven," said Mr Gul. "Fata has turned into a battle field of conflicting interests." He said the insurgency was being fuelled through external influences, including the drug trade mafia, US and Indian involvement, as well as the presence of Pakistani security forces - which were regarded as alien to the local population.

The research, based on interviews with 945 men representing a cross-section of Fata society, also exposed a surprisingly liberal outlook in this most traditional of societies. About 95 per cent believed that girls should be educated, while 86 per cent thought it was not fair to blow up CD shops, as the Taliban has done. Moreover, 84 per cent said religious-based political parties did not represent the people of Fata.

Until the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, Fata was a remote area, ruled by ancient custom, where men carried arms but the unwritten rules of the society meant that the tribes were able to maintain some form of order. The Pakistan state had a minimal presence, with the writ of the government extending no further than the main roads through the area and where the state's law existed, it was exercised through the draconian "Frontier Crimes Regulations". Under a treaty with the tribes, the Pakistan army stayed out and only the paramilitary Frontier Corps, raised from locals, was allowed to be present. It was in 2004 that, having joined Washington in its "war on terror", Pakistan first sent its army into Fata.

While the population does not support the Taliban, neither do they see the army as their saviour. In the survey, only 12 per cent said that they welcomed the Pakistan army, while 72 per cent thought the soldiers did not carry out precise operations. Mr Gul said this showed that Pakistan must reach out more broadly to the people of Fata. "They have to be integrated into mainland Pakistan," he said. "You have to open up the area to the rest of Pakistan. So that their connection with Pakistan is not just through brute force."

Given the dangers of asking questions and being associated with a non-governmental organisation in Fata, the Center for Research and Security Studies does not claim to have carried out a scientific study, nor does it hide from the fact it did not speak to any women. But the survey is probably the most relevant to the insurgency conducted so far. The research showed how the people of Fata feel victimised in every way, by the extremists and by the Pakistan army. There seems little prospect that they can return to their former lives, with schools and other infrastructure destroyed by the insurgency, along with the decimation of tribal society, as their traditional leaders - the maliks - have either been killed or ran away.

Winning the people of Fata over, isolating the militants and merging the area into the rest of Pakistan is going to require much greater guile and vision than the Pakistan state has been able to show so far. Failure to do so will mean that the tribal territory will remain a danger to Pakistan, Afghanistan and the West. @Email:sshah@thenational.ae