FATA situation

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz's announcement during his recent visit to Peshawar regarding the lifting of the economic blockade against tribes in South Waziristan and an additional Rs 1 billion for the development of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has made little difference to the security situation in the area.
The Prime Minister was at pains to explain to the grand jirga called at the Governor's House that FATA this year would see development spending worth Rs 8 billion, and 50 percent of the fresh grant of Rs 1 billion would be made available immediately. On the very day of what was seen as the Prime Minister's conciliatory gesture, Wana bazaar's reopening was greeted with a bomb blast.
Almost every day since, there has been a series of incidents involving landmines, rocket attacks and ambushes against the security forces, including regular army units.
The subsequent agreement for cease-fire for 10 days between the government forces and the militants does not seem to be holding either with the militants denying any responsibility for the attack on a government vehicle that killed one and injured five security personnel.
The present government has woken up relatively belatedly to the need to combine military operations against the foreign militants of al Qaeda, Taleban elements and their local supporters, with development efforts to bring the tribal areas into the main mainstream of national life.
The military and security forces claim again and again that their operations are precisely targeted to avoid collateral damage to civilians and ordinary citizens.
They say all those killed in these operations, whether through sweeps on the ground or bombing from the air, are foreign militants. The problem, however, is that since neither the local nor the international media is allowed into the areas of operation, it is difficult to verify these claims.
Even the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which normally requests access in areas where civil wars are raging, has been denied entry. On the other hand, the government forces have failed so far to present a single foreign fighter, dead or alive, to justify their claims.
The absence of transparency and the failure to produce conclusive evidence have aroused suspicions that the claims lack veracity. Surely this is not helping the government's efforts to pacify the area. Also, the claims of avoidance of collateral damage, too, have been questioned by the local tribesmen, who time and again have disputed the government's version and in turn complained that innocent people have been targeted.
The economic blockade of South Waziristan, intended to impose collective punishment for alleged harbouring of the foreign militants and failure to hand over wanted persons, extracted its toll from the whole area.
The military operations and the blockade have reportedly led to the displacement of some 60,000 people, including women and children. There appears to be no government initiative in place yet to look after the needs of these distraught victims of the operations.
The government's good intentions to avoid collateral damage and at the same time accelerate development in the tribal areas to wean any residual support for al Qaeda and the Taleban away from the militants are being subverted by actual or alleged killing of uninvolved tribals and the perception of lack of concern for the hardships the people of the area are suffering as a consequence of the military operations.
One way to avoid this could be to improve the government's case by allowing the media freely to report the situation. In any case, in today's world of the media and information revolution, it is virtually impossible to seal off news from such an important arena of conflict. Far better that the government is seen to be open to a transparent conduct of operations against the foreign militants.
The government's decision to go after these militants enjoys considerable support in the country amongst people who see the continued presence of foreign fighters on our soil as dangerous for our own as well as Afghanistan's security. The government may be able to improve its image if it were to allow access to local and international media and also international organisations such as the ICRC.
At the same time, the Prime Minister's initiative to accelerate development in FATA can only be welcomed, with the slight caveat that the actual implementation of projects on the ground must be undertaken on a war footing to avoid ending up providing the militants with recruits from amongst disgruntled people of the tribal areas.