AYESHA SIDDIQA - Is Sharif Making A Deal With The Devil?

By Dilip -
The country faces a situation where the police are weary of fighting any form of militancy out of fear that they will be targeted at a later stage. The operation against the Muttahida Qaumi Movement () in Karachi, for instance, was followed by a détente. It was during this period that the  militants reportedly killed around 100 police officers. A similar thing happened with the State’s dealings with the Lashkar-e-Jhangavi during the late 1990s. One can imagine what might be going through the minds of the law enforcement officers who were involved in operations against the  in the past 11 years.
Islamabad finally managed to hold an all-parties conference (APC) on 12 September on the issue of fighting terrorism. Earlier, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazlur) and the Awami National Party (ANP) had also held similar meetings as their concern regarding terrorism seems to be the greatest — their main constituency is Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province in north , where violence is at its worst. The ANP, in particular, has suffered the most due to the number of killings of its leaders in the past five years.
An effort to hold an APC on terrorism earlier by the  Muslim League (Nawaz) had boomeranged due to lack of cooperation from  and his  Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). The cricketer-turned-politician had opted to go to London instead of taking some time to attend the conference. Khan might have chosen to give a cold shoulder to his key rival, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, then purely for political reasons. Otherwise, both Sharif and Khan stand on the same page on parleys with the . In fact, the APC finally held focussed on the sole issue of negotiating peace with the killers of 40,000 people, including around 4,000 military personnel.
The APC was melodramatic in content for four reasons. First, it was presented as a great example of civil-military bonhomie with army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani claiming to follow the civilian leadership’s command. At the APC, Gen Kayani and ISI chief Lt Gen Zaheer-ul-Islam briefed senators on the prevailing terror situation. No one seems to have questioned the fact that the politicians present at the APC, including those from the government, did not have any means to ascertain the efficacy of the military’s claims regarding the threat of terrorism.
Indeed, contrary to what people thought about his urge to correct the civil-military balance, Prime Minister Sharif seems to be capitulating to the military’s pressure. This is denoted by the inaction of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet and the resurrection of the National Security Council in which four senior four-star generals will enjoy an equal status as the civilians. Reportedly, the Sharif government has also outsourced the creation of national security and counter-terrorism policies to the military’s National Defence University.
Second, an image is being created which suggests that talking to the  is solely a civilian idea and that the army is eager to fight the  and launch an attack in North . Many of the Pushtoon intellectuals argue that the army has never intended to attack North  nor will it try to do so in the future. The area holds one of the army’s primary assets, Sirrajuddin Haqqani, with whom the General Headquarters (GHQ), Rawalpindi, does not want to have a battle. Interestingly, the army appears to be now too eager to appease the militants since it undertook a secret exchange of prisoners with the Tehrik-e-  (TTP), which was denied by the army, but confirmed by all sources close to the .
Third, it seems as if all political parties and the military were waiting to endorse the decision to talk to the  without determining the issue on which concessions will be made. In fact, within 48 hours of a decision to talk being made, KPK Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had announced the army’s withdrawal from Swat, Buner and Shangla in the coming months, which was one of the ’s pre-conditions. No one seems to be talking about what will happen to the people when the army — which is currently the only face of the Pakistani State — withdraws from a place like Swat, which has seen a lot of bloodshed in the recent past... read more: http://www.tehelka.com/is-sharif-making-a-deal-with-the-devil/

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