Analysis: Tormenting of the tribes

By Farhat Taj
The state interfered with the culture of FATA when alien jihadis from all over the world, armed with sophisticated weapons and money, were brought to the area. It was the state — not the FATA tribes — that raised armed militias and imposed them on FATA

This is in response to Rafia Zakaria’s article ‘The trouble with tribes’ (Daily Times, November 28, 2009). The writer compared the tribes of the Philippines and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). I have no knowledge about the Philippines’ tribes, therefore, I would not write about them. I would challenge the fabricated notions that the writer attributed to the people of FATA.

It is not true that the state of Pakistan has had limited control over FATA. Being a resident of Pakhtunkhwa, including FATA, I have observed firsthand that the state had a good control over the area. I have seen people called out in the middle of the night by the state authorities because they hosted someone unwanted by the state. I have also seen that collective punishments were handed out to the entire families, even tribes, for the crimes of one person of the family/tribe. On the other hand, smugglers and criminals from all over Pakistan continue to live in peace in the area with covert or overt support of the state authorities. In short, no one could enter FATA if the state did not wish for his/her arrival in the area. This controlled and fabricated ‘weak’ state authority over FATA was by design by which the world and the wider Pakistani society were made to believe that FATA tribes are fiercely autonomous and hate integration in a modern state structure. This is because the area was made a strategic space by the state to be used against Afghanistan. Jihadis from all over the world were legally brought to the area and based there for onwards assaults in Afghanistan. The tribes of FATA were never even asked whether they wished for so many foreigners on their soil.

Ms Zakaria wrote, “In both cases, local tribes command militias or local armies of hundreds and sometimes thousands of people. The result has been an empowerment of local tribes and warlords leaving the local population completely helpless at their hands.” If the writer had a slight idea of the Pakhtun tribal culture, she would never have used the following words about the FATA tribes.

In FATA there is a centuries old tradition of jirga to maintain social order in the area, besides settlement of other issues. The jirga used to make or break armed lashkar of hundreds, even thousands of tribesmen, if necessary, for maintenance of order in the tribal society. The tradition survived because according to the scheme of things in the strategic depth, the FATA tribes were to be kept out of the integration in the legal structure of Pakistan. The institution of jirga used to peacefully resolve disputes between and within the tribes. The jirga would order the formation of an armed lashkar of the local villagers or tribesmen if a dispute could not be resolved peacefully. The jirga would order the dismemberment of the lashkar after a jirga decision had been enforced and the members of the lashkar would simply go home. Thus making and breaking of armed lashkars have been part of the culture of the FATA tribes and they never became a security problem for the local tribal people or wider society in Pakistan like the Taliban gangs now. Actually in FATA a strong institution of jirga is the permanent feature, not a lashkar. An armed lashkar is made by the jirga, if and when necessary. The tribes used to resolve most of the disputes peacefully. Rarely occasions for the formation of armed lashkars came about. Lashkars, whenever made, were fully under the control of the tribal jirga. Most importantly, these lashkars were made for local objectives within specific areas, often village or villages, within FATA. These lashkars never had a global, regional or even a national agenda. This is exactly what the Taliban embodies: a global jihadi agenda that they want to impose on the unwilling population in FATA and beyond.

The state interfered with the culture of FATA when alien jihadis from all over the world, armed with sophisticated weapons and money, were brought to the area. It was the state — not the FATA tribes — that raised armed militias and imposed them on FATA. These jihadi gangs had never been in control of the local tribes or their jirgas. This weakened the institution of the jirga but still it managed to control order in the tribal society. When the war erupted in Afghanistan after 9/11, al Qaeda terrorists ran into FATA, especially Waziristan, with the full blessing of the state and against the wishes of most people of Waziristan. When the tribal elders of Waziristan resisted their presence on their soil, the terrorists began to eliminate the entire tribal leadership through targeted killing. Over 600 tribal elders, teachers, doctors, government servants, both in service and retired, have been killed only in Waziristan with state collusion according the families of the assassinated people.

Today, the people of Waziristan, for example, inform that even terrorists from Waziristan are in minority in their own land. The majority, they say, is made by the Punjabi Taliban, the foreign terrorists and Pakhtuns from other areas. The same is the view of the people in other tribal areas in FATA. Thus the armed militias that the writer is referring to were never made by the local tribes, but by the state. The tribes never permanently had armed militias. They do not have any permanent armed militias even today. It is also pertinent to mention that international gangs of jihadis now occupying FATA have banned the institution of jirga and the tribal elders have been killed all over FATA.

Like people all over Pakistan, the people of FATA also have grievances against the state. But they never took up weapons against the state due to this and they are not doing so even now. The overwhelming majority of the local tribesmen do not back the international armed jihadi groups in FATA. The groups are occupying FATA and the people of FATA are sick and tired of them. The tribesmen of FATA who have joined those groups are seen as criminals by the vast majority of tribesmen and women and they want the state to kill them all along with the Punjabis and foreign terrorists — the Arabs, Uzbeks, Afghans, Africans and European, both ethnic and Muslim immigrants.

Any society in the world could have criminals. Why is it so difficult to understand that FATA tribes may also have their criminals? Since the institution of jirga has been weakened, it is now the responsibility of the Pakistan Army to kill those criminals.

I would request that writers refrain from justifying or explaining the crimes of the jihadi gangs in terms of grievances of the FATA tribes, because this is just not the expression of grievances of the tribesmen and women. Such pieces of writings are a source of torment to the suffering people of FATA because they mislead the world about the people of the area and thus contribute to the human tragedy in the area. Let’s request the state to crush the jihadis in line with the wishes of the people of FATA and give up the notion of strategic depth for good; the mad pursuit of which has brought death and destruction to FATA and beyond.

The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy. She can be reached at bergen34@yahoo.com