Swat – story and reality

Wednesday, February 25, 2009
This is with reference to the above-titled letter by Lakhkar Khan that appeared in your newspaper on Feb 14. The writer has written about two very sad deaths in Swat -- one of a child killed while peering out of a window and the other of her mother killed in the firing of security men. The writer has questioned the 'bravery' of military men in text books.

I assure the writer that the bravery of a soldier in front of his enemy is always overriding and text books are not really wrong. In most cases, the soldier dies first and gets the award of bravery later. News stories in daily papers can sometimes be wrong but not the ones which find their place in text books. The security forces do not fire unless ordered by the civil authorities and that only in those situations where the peace has been consistently shredded by undesirable elements.

A Q Anjum

Rawalpindi

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This is in reference to Shakir Lakhani's letter in the series "Swat peace deal: right or wrong" (Feb 23). He claims that the UK did not give up any of its territory while negotiating with the Provisional IRA (P-IRA). That is not in fact true.

The Belfast agreement, signed by the British and the Irish in April 1998, inter alia, devolved powers from the British parliament to Ireland under the latter's own constitutional setup. It further included an early release of all P-IRA paramilitary prisoners in Britain's custody and closure of redundant British army bases in Northern Ireland. Furthermore, under the agreement, paramilitary units of the IRA were given over two years to decommission their weapons. Since that agreement, while North Ireland is still part of the larger United Kingdom, it is no longer under Great Britain's control. In return for these concessions, the Irish agreed to bring police reforms and strengthen their administrative and political institutions.

In my initial letter supporting negotiations with the Taliban, I never said that militants in Swat should be given a freehand to run the area's affairs. I only advocated negotiations as the only logical way forward. Enforcement of a Sharia-based judicial system is not tantamount to giving up all rights by the government in the region. Negotiations should obviously include details of an effective post-war political and administrative system, concrete guarantees against vigilante justice by militants and an eventual decommissioning of weapons along with an exchange of prisoners.

Syed Umair Javed

Islamabad

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Signing the peace accord with the Taliban in Swat can only mean one of the two things: either the militants are innocent and it was wrong to start a war with them; or the army isn't strong enough to fight them so it gave in.

So if the militants are indeed innocent, the people who where responsible for starting a war against them should be held accountable. And if they're not innocent then signing a peace accord in Swat means that we're ready to turn Pakistan into another Afghanistan.

Yasir Amanat

Islamabad

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The more I learn of the opposition to the Swat accord by the Americans and the westernised Pakistani elite, the more I am convinced of its usefulness to Pakistan in general and NWFP in particular.

Asif Ali Shah

Abbottabad

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The people of Swat feel that mullahs and the military are two sides of the same coin. As for the agreement itself the happiness shown by the people of Swat shows that they are against the brutal ways of the Taliban.

Some ignorant politicians like Imran Khan and Qazi Hussain Ahmad should be banned in Malakand division because they have supported the Taliban. They never came to see the people of Swat or shared their pain. They make judgments about life in Swat while sitting in their drawing rooms. They are active on the judges' issue and they stand up for Palestine but I would like to ask them why they never stood up for the people of Swat. Imran Khan has said that Talibanisation is a 'Pashtun reaction'. If that is indeed the case then why are Pashtun houses, schools, markets, bridges and so on being destroyed, and why are Pashtuns being killed? Imran Khan says that the Taliban are fighting America but from what we have seen in Swat, the only victims suffering at the hands of the Taliban are Pashtuns -- where are the Americans? Also, if the JI, the PTI and the JUI-F favour implementation of Sharia in Swat why don't they also demand implementation of Sharia in Lahore or Islamabad?

It's almost as if people like Imran Khan, Hameed Gul and Qazi Hussain are like the political wing of the ISI -- and the Taliban are like the terror wing. People like Fazlullah, Muslim Khan and Shah Dowran are nothing without the support of their backers. They are strong only because their backers want to make them strong. Shah Dawran used to own a general store in Qambar while Fazlullah used to be a chair-lift operator.

We are awake now because we know who our enemy is -- and it is our responsibility to educate every Pashtun man and woman so that they also know who their enemy is.

Seena Khan

Swat