The forgotten war

As the battle for political survival of President Pervez Musharraf rages in Islamabad and the provincial capitals, a war centring on the territorial unity of state goes on in the troubled tribal region of Pakistan, but it seems to be a forgotten war.
In terms of reporting, very little is coming through from the North and South Waziristans, or even from Swat where the Talibanised militants are enforcing their own code of life and conduct, marginalizing the writ of the federal or provincial authorities. The Bannu Frontier region is yet another emerging battlefront, where the militants are exerting pressure to break into the settled areas of the NWFP. A bomb explosion carried out by a Burqa-clad suicide bomber in Bannu city on Monday killed 16 and wounded twice that number.
The same evening around two dozen, security personnel went missing following an attack on the Frontier Constabulary fort in FR Bakakhel, Bannu. According to media reports, the besieged FC men withstood the assault, but, quite strangely, no reinforcement reached them during the three-hour stand-off. As to what happened to the FC men, there is very little real information.
Not much is also known about two other assaults at the FC check posts the same evening, excepting that in each of the three assaults 'hundreds' of militants were involved. Glued to the wall to wall media coverage of the presidential election race the people in urban centres of Pakistan tend to lose interest in what is happening in the tribal areas. Astonishingly, there is not much realisation of the gravity of the situation even among the official quarters. Most people may be oblivious of the fact that the unrest in the badlands in the north-west of Pakistan have cost the Pakistan army and other security outfits some thing like 750 lives, in addition to many more wounded.
The local populace must have suffered many times but we have no figures. Then, there are over two hundred, possibly more, security personnel held prisoner by the militants. And, most tragically, there is no light at the end of the tunnel: the peace agreements are in tatters and peace parleys have collapsed. Frankly speaking, large swathes of the tribal region in Afghanistan are no-go areas for the Pakistani forces.
While the battle for Islamabad rages, nothing seems to be going on in terms of seeking a solution to the trouble in the tribal region where the on-going insurgency has acquired the portents of a civil war. If at all some negotiations take place, these are primarily in terms of seeking release of hostages taken by the militants or the government troops, and the interlocutors are low-level local leaders or officials often having no mandate to make any worthwhile commitments.
The highest level for interaction was the NWFP governor, but of late he too seems to have become inactive. While the gravity of the crisis demanded that negotiations with the militants be held at the highest level, the government limited its options to seeking a military solution. But as the ground situation evolves, the success of this approach is becoming increasingly doubtful. Meanwhile, the danger that outside powers would intervene is looming large over the horizon.
The recent upsurge in claims by the western media and think-tanks that Osama Bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders are hiding somewhere in the rugged mountains straddling the Pak-Afghan border, further complicates the tribal situation.
Likewise, the offer of cooperation to the United States in its hunt of al Qaeda leaders intermittently made by the PPP chairperson, Benazir Bhutto, makes no sense because she is in no position whatsoever to deliver on her words. Her latest assertion that if voted to power she might allow the US to strike inside Pakistan has caused nothing but embarrassment to her own party - as she did last week by pledging access by the IAEA to Dr A.Q. Khan.
In fact, the ongoing imbroglio in the tribal areas of Pakistan is too big a challenge to the unity of the Pakistan state to be overlooked or trivialised in the electoral heat.
The time to undertake a proactive approach by the federal government in finding an amicable solution keeping in view the historical and cultural facts is fast running out. Mind you this forgotten war in the tribal region is more consequential to the future of Pakistan than any of the candidates in the presidential race.