by B. R. GOWANI
Survivor Ehsan Elahi told how gunmen burst into the auditorium and fired at children for a full 10 minutes PHOTO/Daily Mail
Bodies of militants killed in a military operation in Tirah near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border yesterday PHOTO/A Majeed/AFP/Getty/The Times
At present, things are hopeless
Four years ago, after the Crime Investigation Department (CID) building in Karachi’s high security area was bombed and flattened by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), killing one hundred persons and injuring many more, I wrote: Pakistan: Abandon all hope, ye who live here. Of course, acknowledging that the phrase belongs to an Italian poet Dante Alighieri.
Things have gotten worst.
On December 16, members of the TTP attacked the Army Public School in Peshawar and killed 149 people, 133 of them were children. The intervening period has witnessed a great deal of violence too. To avenge the school attack, the army retaliated by bombing and killing many Talibans. As is usual in such bombings, the innocent lives are lost too.
Dawood Ibrahim didn’t go to school on the morning of the attack because his alarm didn’t go off PHOTO/Daily Mail
Nawaz Sharif
In the wake of such a great tragedy, the next day Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif invited leaders of political parties for a meeting and announced:
“We announce that there will be no differentiation between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban.” “We have resolved to continue the war against terrorism till the last terrorist is eliminated.” “[Pakistan] must never forget these scenes.”
The difference between the good Taliban and the bad Taliban is that the former supports Pakistani establishment and latter opposes it, which as Khaled Ahmed points out is a fiction.
Sharif’s government has also lifted the moratorium on death penalty and, within five days of the massacre, has executed six militants and plans to execute hundreds more.
(Unsurprisingly the United States State Department supports the executions; its Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf said:
“Well, clearly this is an issue for Pakistan – a decision for Pakistan, excuse me. It’s not really ours to weigh in on….”
It sounds so good to the ears to hear that the US understands that it’s Pakistan’s internal matter. It’s a crap. The US refrains from criticizing the death sentences because that’s what it wants. The US loves executions. In 2013, 39 inmates were executed in the US itself.)
Then on 24 December, speaking live on television, Sharif announced 25 new policies to deal with terrorism, including the
“Special courts, headed by the officers of armed forces, will be established for the speedy trial of terrorists.”
Imran Khan
There is a Gujarati saying: When the bulls fight, it’s the tree that gets destroyed. But in case of the Pakistani army, it’s different. Over there, when the politicians fight, the military gets fattened. In August, the breach of the Red Zone, a security area, by the followers of politician Imran Khan and politician cum religious leader Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri to oust Sharif put his government in a terrible position. Once before Sharif had been removed from power by the military in 1999 and he didn’t wanted that to happen again. In recent years, Pakistan had seen civilian governments regaining its rightful power vis-a-vis the military. But Qadri’s and, particularly, Khan’s insistence on Sharif’s resignation on charges of 2013 election rigging forced him to relinquish its powers over security and foreign affairs ; thus the army got back what it has always considered, though very wrongly, its own prerogative. This development once again denies the civilian government the power to pursue its own independent foreign policy, especially, improving relations with India. (But the way Narendra Modi‘s Hindutva government is acting, it seems it is in no mood for good relations with Pakistan. From a sarcastic point of view, one can say that, as far as India is concerned, Sharif has not lost much.)
The crisis Pakistan is going through has forced Khan to call off his sit-in in Islamabad.
The army
Those in the army whose children or their relatives’ children died in this school must be hell bent on eliminating the Taliban, unless they’re also into this nonsense of good/bad Taliban and the “strategic depth” rubbish.
General Raheel Sharif, the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), visited Afghanistan and asked the Afghan government to hand over the TTP or Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan chief Mullah Fazalullah who he said was hiding in Afghanistan. He also shared classified details with the Afghan authorities.
Any hope?
The reasons for being hopeful are not the blind bombing of Taliban hideouts or of hanging to death of the Taliban in a medieval fashion. Pakistan should discontinue the death penalty. Only the following things could could create an atmosphere of hope and bring some decent changes.
The major political parties should apologized to the Ahmadi Muslims and take them back in the fold of Islam.
They should take an oath of not mixing religion with politics.
They should promise to maintain a secular outlook.
They should change the textbooks which are full of hatred and lies about India, Hindus, etc.
They should repeal the blasphemy law.
In short, the entire culture needs to be freed from the grip of religion.
And Khan should concentrate on elimination of Taliban power from not only his own state of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa or KP but from the whole of Pakistan, instead of channeling all his energies on the US drone attacks in Pakistan.
The world’s greatest terrorist need to be condemned for its illegal drone attacks, but then one shouldn’t overlook the little terrorists creating mayhem within.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com