Caving in to the Taliban

Saturday, April 18, 2009

The deal reached between the army and the TTP in Swat backed by the ANP has come under heavy criticism. The critics term it a defeat militarily and ideologically: the army could not over-run the militants and the ANP-led government had to facilitate a new regulation in response to an armed and often brutal movement. There is further anxiety because the Taliban appear to lose nothing should they fail to keep their end of the deal.
These concerns are genuine; however, a genuine attempt to propose an alternative solution appears missing. Furthermore, while terming it a military defeat, hardly any article or talk show encompasses the ground situation faced by the army. It appears as if the army has been crushed in an open war in a well-defined battlefield. Little details appear about the difficulties of fighting insurgency in a thickly populated area. In this regard the responsibility also lies with the ISPR and the government for not informing the public proactively. I refuse to be swayed by the 'open letters' from across the border because I believe our armed forces understand our national interests better. However, it's about time that they also communicated better with the people.
Finally, at least now that Nizam-e-Adl regulation has been implemented, I urge the prominent religious scholars in the country to join the civil and military establishment in Swat to secure peace and unequivocally condemn militancy. It is no use proclaiming Islam a peaceful religion when every evidence coming from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is to the contrary.
Dr Raja Muhammad Atif Azad
Limerick, Ireland
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I am crestfallen by the government's caving in to the Swat Taliban. I just cannot seem to understand why the government is so helpless that it needs to give in to such blackmail tactics. At the very least, all those who killed, butchered and beheaded innocent people in Swat during the past many months need to be held accountable for their heinous crimes.

S C Khan
Peshawar

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The only way to make our military establishment understand that the Swat situation is a serious security threat is to establish a defence housing authority in Swat.

M Sultan Omar
Islamabad

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On your front page on April 17, there is a report from Tokyo where President Asif Ali Zardari has asked the world to give Pakistan aid and also that he is determined to fight terrorism. This seems absurd given that what the president is saying comes just days after he signed the Nizam-e-Adl regulation in Swat, an indication that his government had more or less caved in to the extremists.

Syed Mehr Ali Shah
Peshawar