ISLAMABAD – Pakistan voted last year to merge its borderlands’ territories,once known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), into thecountry’s political and legal mainstream. At a stroke, the move assignedthe region’s five million residents — the vast majority of them from theethnic Pashtun minority — the same constitutional rights as otherPakistanis, including access to the national civilian justice system.
Earlier, theses territories had been run under a harsh frontier code set uplong ago by the British colonial masters that had placed tribal regionsunder the near-absolute powers of provincial Governor. Residents weredenied basic rights like access to lawyers or normal trials, and collectivepunishment to entire tribe for the crimes of an individual was common. Thenthere was no ManzoorPashteen or the likes of Pashtun Tahaffaz Movement(PTM).
ManzoorPashteen, the dubious leader of the PTM said that the recentcampaign by the security forces had made a lie of last year’s abolition ofthe old colonial justice code. “It is very obvious now that FATA and itsadministrative strings are still in the hands of the army,” he said, “Inthe current authoritarian governance of the army, we don’t think justicecould prevail”, he added. Nothing could be farther from truth.
Discrediting Pakistan’s military is a well-known international agenda.There is a nexus of those counties who are likely beneficiaries ifPakistani military gets weakened. Media of such counties operate in asyndicated way. Articles which criticise Pakistan’s military get prominentplacing and longer display times. Such material goes viral at a phenomenalpace. Well financed writers are employed to weave fabricated pieces byfalsifying the facts. There are well-connected writers, reporters andanchors making a lot of money just by painting Pakistani military black.
One Pakistani-American columnist, Mohammad Taqi considers FATA as a mediablack hole, as according to him “FATA area even today remains a no-go zone– as it has been for nearly two decades – for independent media”. And stillhe claims that he has filed a true story, what a contradiction indeed.
In his recent article captioned “What’s Next for Pakistan’s PashtunMovement After a Brutal Army Crackdown”, carried by a number of outletsincluding The Wire, a multilingual Indian news website. Writer has tried togive prominence and credence to PTM’s narrative of an incident in which amilitary check post was attacked PTM workers. Taqi has portrayed that:“Tension boiled over on May 26, when the security forces shot into a crowdof protesters in the North Waziristan tribal area as they travelled to asit-in, leaving at least 13 dead. PTM activists and witnesses said thedemonstrators were unarmed. The authorities say that demonstrators openedfire first, hurting several officers, though video clips of thedemonstration have not shown that”.
He has claimed that Pakistan army shot and killed at least 13 civilians andinjured dozens or more at a sit-in staged by the PTM as previouslythreatened by DG ISPR. Taqi’s story says: “The Pakistan army shot andkilled at least 13 civilians and injured dozens more at a sit-in staged bythe PTM, in the tribal North Waziristan district of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa(KP) province.
The Director-General of the Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) MajorGeneral AsifGhafoor, swiftly alleged that the PTM had attacked an armycheck-post and the soldiers acted in self-defense. What was even moremalicious in the unfounded allegation was the army spokesman’s claim thePTM’s two parliamentarians MohsinDawar and Ali Wazir had led an armedassault on the army”. Just in one go all the facts have been falsified byTaqi.
Taqi has refuted that PTM workers led by Ali Wazir and MohsinDawer hadattacked army check-post; “Within 24 hours, however, video clips hademerged indicating that other than raising their voice and slogans, theprotesters had not launched any assault – armed or otherwise – on the armypositions. In one clip, a few lads are seen trampling on the tin roof of adeserted sentry’s cabin, but not a single frame shows the crowd pelting asmuch as a stone at army personnel”. Belittling the state effort on missingand displaced persons, writer says: “A judicial commission had beeninvestigating the disappearances without much to show for results”. Writeralso contests the official statements that PTM was peddling an Indo-Afghanagenda and receiving foreign funding.
Writer takes an erratic line that “army was simply carrying out the threat,which the DGISPR had arrogantly issued a few weeks ago, when he hadproclaimed: “they [the PTM] have taken as much liberty as they could; theirtime is up”. And goes on to pours the venom: “When all one has is a hammer,everything looks like a nail, and that has been true of the Pakistan armyon dozens of occasions from dealing with East Pakistan’s Bengalis, to theBaloch nationalists, to the pro-democracy Sindhis, to the Muhajirs ofKarachi, and even the Punjabi tenants of its farms”. This is a too familiarnarrative often pushed forward by Indian government.
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Taqi goes on to make his story more and more anti-Pakistan by compressingin as many anti-Pakistan issues as he could to some one’s pleasure:
“But why is the world’s sixth largest army, with the fastest growingnuclear arsenal, worried sick about a ragtag civil rights movement from thePashtun backwaters?” See how nuclear issue has just been brought in whilethe issue is just of law and order. To please his Afghan string pullers, headds on: “For decades, the army has kept FATA under tight control.
The army essentially carried on with the British policy of a doublefrontier where the Durand Line formed a working boundary between the FATAand Afghanistan but a second, internal boundary separated the FATA frommainland Pakistan”. Writer’s Afghan funding is so evident as he is scaredof using the word “international border” for Duran Line. Actually, Army hadnever been deployed in such areas until beginning of post 9/11 counterterrorism operations by international forces under the UN mandate.
He adds on that: “Many of the displaced tribal people are still languishingin refugee camps. And those who have returned, face constant humiliation atthe hands of the army at scores of check-points dotting the region. He isoblivious to the fact that over one million people were displaced for suchoperations. Rehabilitating them back is essentially a gigantic situation,that too when the general area is not yet free of trouble maker, of thelike whose cause writer pretends to champion.
Presenting PTM as innocent grouping, writer falsifies the facts by saying;“The PTM became the voice of these voiceless people and championed allthese issues, and more. It has remained unequivocally nonviolent andconsistently demanded full implementation of the Pakistani constitution andlaws in the former FATA regions.
He shamelessly adds “those of us familiar with the movement’s finances knowvery well not a single Afghani has been given by the Kabul government. Themovement is run by donations from Pashtun and non-Pashtun supporters withinand outside Pakistan”. Overall, Taqi’s article is like a charge sheetagainst Pakistan army; written by a Pakistani stooge in exchange for lavishIndo-Afghan funding. Much like such other anti-army articles, this piecealso got an unexpectedly immense mainstream and social media coveragethrough a premediated and well executed plan.
BY: Iqbal Khan (Iqbal.khan9999@gmail.com)
