By Rizwan Asghar
The death of Hakeemullah Mehsud in a drone strike has resulted in a state of confusion across the country. By and large, the political class is unhappy about the incident terming it the ‘death of peace process’.The majority of people are of the view that the killing of the Taliban leader has dealt a severe blow to peace efforts initiated by the federal government over the past two months. On the other hand, some liberal sections of the society have taken such a kind of reaction very hard. They are accusing the conservative sections of society and some political parties of ‘mourning a villain’.
The federal government also seems beset by uncertainty and confusion. But the attitude of uncertainty and inability to present a coherent message on the part of the PML-N government can be best explained by its efforts to appease its main political rival Imran Khan’s PTI and also refraining from taking any step that may add to strains between Pakistan and the United States. In the opinion of this writer, this state of confusion and wide divergence of opinions on the situation emerging after TTP leader’s death will only result in further weakening the position of Pakistan at a critical juncture when convincing the Taliban to sit on the negotiating table is very important to adopting any kind of future plan of action. Abandoning the peace process at the current point will only strengthen the position of extremist elements.
There is no gainsaying the fact that Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) under the leadership of Hakeemullah Mehsud waged war against the Pakistani state and was responsible for the slaughtering of thousands of innocent people. To state the obvious, Hakeemullah Mehsud was also declared public enemy No.1, by the government of Pakistan. But why the option of talks with the Taliban must be pursued? Why the government must exploit every opportunity of peaceful solution before the military operation? We must not turn a blind eye to a few hard facts in order to adopt a more pragmatic approach towards this issue. It is in the interest of Pakistani government to establish peace in the country not that of the Taliban. The power of militants is gradually increasing and lukewarm response of successive government has only resulted in ceding further ground to the extremists. Another reality not to be forgotten is that our armed forces are already present in all seven agencies of FATA for the past many years but despite their presence militants are still successfully planning all activities from their bases in tribal areas. What if even a military operation against the Taliban fails to achieve desired results? The government will have no option but to surrender its authority to the Taliban.
Last week this writer got an opportunity to visit some areas of South Waziristan, North Waziristan and Khyber agency with a few friends. According to local people in FATA, the Taliban have more than 70 factions of varying strengths which are operating in all agencies of FATA. Out of these 70 militant groups, almost 20 to 25 groups are very powerful with manpower of many hundreds. Almost all these groups pledged allegiance to Hakeemullah Mehsud and respected him as their main leader. After the All Parties Conference (APC), called on in September this year, endorsed the government’s initiative to hold peace, the federal government was trying its best to convince Hakeemullah to come on the negotiating table. Interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, did extensive work to make it possible. All hopes were pinned on these efforts because success of any peace deal with Hakeemullah Mehsud would have meant peace deal with almost 80 per cent of Taliban factions. This would have brought a great respite for Pakistan.
But the death of Hakeemullah Mehsud in a drone strike has not only scuttled all those peace efforts but also provided an excuse to the Taliban to start a bloody war against Pakistan. Some hard-core elements within the Taliban will seize the moment to spread their propaganda that the government is not even serious in holding peace talks. The killing of Hakeemullah Mehsud at a time when he had agreed to start peace negotiations with the government would further strengthen the impression in Pakistan that the US does not want to facilitate the establishment of peace in Pakistan. Since 2004, every Taliban leader who showed the willingness to talk with Pakistani government has been killed in a drone strike. This has also provided a much sought after opportunity to some political parties to pressurize the Sharif government to review relations with the US and even think about stopping the NATO supplies.
The statement of Munawar Hasan, the Ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami, terming Hakeemullah Mehsud a ‘martyr’ shows how some political parties are readily available to cash the anti-US feelings in order to gain the sympathies of militants.
The Taliban leadership is also widely divided, after the killing of Hakeemullah Mehsud, on the issue of peace talks with Taliban. There is no common leadership. So even if they agree to start talks with the federal government, which in itself is a distant possibility, the government will have to approach all the militant groups separately. This will make the success of any peace effort highly unlikely. All these problem are further compounded by the fact that after the killing of Hakeemullah the government is total clueless and is not laying out any concrete approach to tackle such kind of eventualities in the future. Angry rhetoric and boring platitudes best characterize the statements of some federal ministers. This approach may earn them some political favour at the moment but the problem of militancy cannot be solved in such a ridiculous manner.
The incoherent reaction of the political parties in the aftermath of Hakeemullah Mehsud’s killing has made one thing clear that our state machinery is highly incapable of fulfilling its responsibilities. Pakistan, at the moment, is like a headless ship with no one to show the required strength to resolve all the problems faced by the nation. We are hypocritical about what are our responsibilities and always try to indulge in the practice of buck-passing in difficult times.
(The writer is a research scholar and has worked as Visiting Fellow at Monterey Institute of International Studies, California) – Eurasia Review
