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Incorporate Fata into full political life of Pakistan: US By Anwar Iqbal
President Asif Ali Zardari talks with Senator John Kerry before their lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington.AP WASHINGTON: Pakistan should incorporate the Federally Administered Tribal Areas into the full political life of the country, says US special envoy Richard Holbrooke. The argument, made at a recently congressional hearing, is backed by a veteran lawmaker and former US presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry, and another senior State Department official, Richard Boucher. Senator Kerry, while supporting Fata’s merger with the NWFP, admits that ‘we're trying to get them (Pakistanis) to do the very thing that they've never been willing to do and no one's been able to do.’ Assistant Secretary Boucher, who ran the State Department’s South Asian bureau for more than three years, however, believes that the Pakistanis are capable of doing this, ‘but it has to be a Pakistani decision … made through an internal political process’ and not under coercion or international pressure. Selig Harrison, the author of the report ‘Pakistan: The State of the Union,’ based on a six-month study of ethnic tensions in Pakistan, suggests uniting NWFP and Fata, and follow it up by a consolidation of those areas and Pashtun enclaves in Balochistan and Punjab into a single unified ‘Pashtunkhwa’ province that enjoys the autonomy envisaged in the 1973 constitution. The future of Fata is now a hot topic in Washington, discussed regularly at various think-tanks and in television talks shows and newspaper columns. An article in the prestigious Foreign Policy magazine wants the Pakistan army to be ‘ruthless’ in crushing the Taliban in Swat and Fata and advises America to ‘back up that ruthlessness with tactics and firepower.’ The suggestion corroborates a recent Dawn report that American policy planners are urging the Pakistani military to turn their guns on the militants in Fata once the fight in Swat is over. US officials, however, are not yet talking about a military offensive. Instead, they want Pakistani political parties – both in and outside the government – to launch the process for integrating Fata with the rest of the country, at least politically. ‘Many of us believe that one thing that should be done is to take the Federally Administered Tribal Area and incorporate them into the full political life of Pakistan,’ says Ambassador Holbrooke. ‘President Zardari has said he'd like to do that. Nawaz Sharif says he would favour it. I would hope the Pakistani government would consider moving on this. It's been out there for many years.’ Senator Kerry recalls that it were the British who created Fata in acknowledgement of the complications of the Pashtun and tribal presence there. The present border of approximately 1,500 miles between Afghanistan and Pakistan was agreed upon in a treaty signed on Nov. 12 1893, in Kabul by Sir Mortimer Durand, representing British India, and Abd al-Rahman, emir of Afghanistan. ‘Lord Durand drew a line right smack through the Pashtun, sort of dividing them, partly in Afghanistan, partly in Pakistan,’ notes Senator Kerry. ‘And, in effect, the Pakistanis acknowledged, by omission and commission over the years, what they chose not to do, that they were sort of happy to leave it be tribally administered and not centrally integrated into Pakistan.’ He recalls discussing this issue with former President Pervez Musharraf in Karachi a few years ago. ‘And he talked about the complications and how difficult it was and … underscored to me the reticence, on behalf of some folks, to deal with that.’ Senator Kerry notes that Alexander the Great, the British and the Soviets all found enormous difficulty in trying to tame that part of the world. ‘Now, we are sort of at this crucible … how do we keep our interests from being extended beyond what they really are or what is achievable?’ he asks. Ambassador Holbrooke, while discussing sensitivities attached to this issue, notes that the Durand Line is one of those world borders that ‘leave a perpetual dissatisfaction.’ ‘This arrangement … while very romantic for readers of Flashman novels … is not a good way to run that area,’ he adds. The US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan notes that until 9/11, the tribal system ran itself. Then the United States drove the Taliban east, they nested in this area, the US and Pakistan ignored what was happening. ‘And as they nested, they festered, and they realised that not only did they have a nice sanctuary to counterattack Afghanistan, they had a nice place from which to recruit and focus on the East as well.’ While urging Pakistan to initiate the political process for merging Fata with the rest of the country, Ambassador Holbrooke notes that a proposal to triple US aid to Pakistan also provides more funds in one bill than the United States has spent in that area since 9/11. ‘That is one of the reasons we are so enthusiastic about it. It's long overdue,’ he adds. ‘And I cannot offer you solutions today, Mr. Chairman,’ says the envoy while addressing Senator Kerry. ‘But I can offer you a significant redirection in American emphasis and focus.’
Senator Richard Lugar, the senior Republican on the Senate Committee
on Foreign Relations, emphasises the need for the new US policy for
Fata to be ‘different from the in an out business with the military’
approach that Washington adopted after 9/11. A bill now before the US Senate offers $600 million in 2009 alone, for education, health, employment and law enforcement in Fata. ‘It sounds like a lot but it is not, in my view, as much as the problem needs.’ Dawn:May 18,2009
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