Tackling militancy

The garrison town of Rawalpindi seems to be taking more than its due share of suicide-bombing that has been going on in the country with weird regularity over the last two years. On Monday, a motor-cyclist rammed his explosives-loaded vehicle into an army medical corps minibus killing 10, including two senior army doctors and eight others.
The number of wounded, some critically, was around 45 and they included school-going children. The attack took place on a busy road running along the outer wall of the General Headquarters (GHQ) complex, not very far from the site of the suicide attack on an intelligence agency bus last September in which 27 staffers were killed.
In between those two incidents three other deadly attacks took place in the Rawalpindi city, including the one at Liaquat Bagh on December 27 in which PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto was killed. Given the central location of important military installations in populated areas of Rawalpindi city, ensuring fool-proof security is highly problematic.
One may say it is just not possible to secure people and places only by physical means against determined suicide bombers who seem to be not in short supply. There has to be a comprehensive strategy and a multi-pronged approach to tackle the problem of terrorism of the magnitude that has raised its ugly head in Pakistan.
These regular jolts to Pakistan's internal security and stability placed in a broader perspective, one finds international media and public opinion forums not so infrequently tilting at Pakistan's nuclear programme. There is this unending refrain in their reportage that given the fact of rising militancy Pakistani's nuclear assets can fall into wrong hands.
Looking at the issue of militancy we would think that the use of force is being employed as the main instrument to secure settlement with the militant elements. The strategy seems to be that coercion exerted through military means would persuade the militants to come to the negotiating table.
That works sometimes to an extent only, as it did when the NWFP governor could clinch a peace accord with tribal leaders of South Waziristan in 2005. But the agreement collapsed when its signatories failed to completely fulfil their commitments.
That upholds the argument that agreements arrived at under force do not stand the test of time, the reason being that parties to such arrangements act in their individual capacities and in actual fact do not have the popular sanction for the deals they cut. In neighbouring Afghanistan and beyonder in Iraq peace and order is being sought through the barrel of the gun and the result is before us.
Such is the preponderance of military option that whenever there comes up an odd chance of meeting at the table for peace parleys, even for a local arrangement as the British tried with Taliban of Musa Killa in Afghanistan, forces with vested interest in keeping the fires burning intervene to sabotage the effort.
However, with an elected government expected to be in office in the next few weeks a meaningful dialogue with the militants would be hopefully possible. Incidence of terrorism no more confined to the tribal regions of Pakistan, it is seeping through all the security cordons and no place in Pakistan is beyond its reach now. Nor is there any dearth of suicide bombers.
The challenge is thus huge for the next government, as are economic crises which too have not been handled intelligently enough by the previous government. But given the will to confront these challenges and the sincerity of purpose an elected government can always muster the inherent strength to tackle problems that essentially stem from indigenous situations.
The militancy now sweeping Pakistan no doubt can be rightly traced to its origin in Afghanistan as the legacy of the Afghan Jihad, but in its present form it is, with a minor exception, entirely Pakistan-based. These are the angry people of Pakistan, dubbed as terrorists by the foreigners, who are up in arms against the existing system.
There is the need to engage them, not in battles of guns and gunship helicopters but in battles of heart and mind. The truth is that despite both sides having paid prohibitive costs, so far there is no indication that this one-dimensional military engagement has succeeded in any significant manner in toning down militancy.
Over a long haul, the losses suffered by the Pakistan military would be of much more strategic consequence than the defeat of militants, and Pakistan's enemies would want that too.
Putting the military option on the back burner may require heftily cutting into the power-oriented hubris in some quarters but reward for such a change of strategy would be equally gratifying. It is not yet late in the day to widen the options in the war against militancy by initiating peace parleys with militants, investing into their socio-economic wellbeing and conceding them legal and constitutional equality that is available to all other Pakistanis.