This week the BBC reporter Owen Bennett-Jones, who I do not know well but whose work I have long admired (if you want a good and concise read-in on recent history in Pakistan, do yourself a favor and order his book) put out this excellent report from the Northwest Frontier Province.
In it, he quoted locals fleeing Taliban-held areas of Swat, and described what he calls a changing attitude towards the Taliban in Pakistan. Read this section (emphasis mine):
I have come to a place about an hour’s drive from Peshawar, 50 miles (80km) from where there has been intense fighting.
There are many people on the move here who have run away from that fighting and they have brought with them eyewitness accounts of the brutal things they have seen under the Taliban’s control of the Swat valley over the past few months.
“They were beheading people, they were shooting innocent people without any warning, they were terrifying us,” one woman tells me.
“They were stopping our kids from going to school, they were kidnapping young boys.”
A man standing nearby is also eager to talk.
“With my own hands I have buried 18 people who were beheaded, even children,” he tells me grimly.
“They are not friends, they are not our allies, they’re our enemies, they are criminals, they are gangsters.”
Such strong public criticism of the Taliban is new – the mood has changed in Pakistan.
I agree with OBJ that the mood has changed in Pakistan, and I would argue that ordinary people in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas also turned against the Taliban some time ago. Months back, I was chatting online with a friend from Wana, in South Waziristan and he was positively enraged about “gansters,” as he called them, who make up the TTP, the Urdu acronym for the Taliban Movement of Pakistan. I asked why he chose the word “gangsters” and he shot a message back to me: “There is not a crime in the world they have not committed,” and went on to describe widespread robbery, gun battles in the streets, and their engagement in all sorts of smuggling.
The reports filtering out about life in southern Afghanistan are equally disturbing, as I describe in my book. On both sides of the AfPak border people’s lives are being chewed up by a brutal blend of extremism and crime, made worse by endemic corruption and a critical lack of governance.
But as much as this widening insecurity presents an enormous security challenge, it also presents an opportunity for western nations hoping to stabilize the region. Ordinary people both in Afghanistan and Pakistan want nothing more than a secure environment where they can live and prosper. There are widespread misperceptions here in the U.S. that the Pashtun tribes who populate the border areas are ungovernable. I argue that people in the border areas (and in fact people across both Afghanistan and Pakistan — just look at the lawyers movement in Pakistan or the recent protest by brave Afghan women in Kabul) want rule of law and better governance. Our best and only exit strategy for this region is to give that to them — and fast.
“Stability operations,” the new buzz word in Washington for nation-building, is not only the fastest and cheapest option, it is the morally right one, and it will improve our nation’s security too.
True true
I would suggest that, besides talking about the oppressions and the strict laws and system of so called “Taliban”, the writer must also talk about the brutalities, atrocities, and War crimes committed by the invaders, murderers, killers (the U.S and allied forces) who are partners in crimes committed by another gangster Dostum, a Tajik militant commander, now ally of the NATO forces.
I would urge the writer to also bring up the attrocities and War crimes of the so called “champion of human rights (the U.S)”.
They have raped women, massacred civilians while bombing in Afghanistan and Pakistan indiscriminately. Who will prosecute fanatics like Bush, Cheny, and Ramsfield (all war criminals). Please also talk about those who disappeared in Pakistan & Afghanistan including women and landed up in CIA torture cells. The aggression of Irqa, which resulted in over one million deaths and the massacres of Iraqis by the U.S troops including killings of families (women and children) in their homes, atrocities committed through air bombings against civilian populations in Pashtun villages both in Afghanistan and Pakistan even wedding parties were bombed. There should not be hypocrisy. Who would do justice the crimes committed by the NATO.
Excellent you report this fact. After Korea, Vietnam & Iraq americans wonder if it is wise for the USA to go into Afghanistan as a Lone Ranger trying & make law & order…. in someone elses country, only to eventually leave, whatever the outcome, and return home…..
The fact is the enemy knows that time is on their side as the US troops will one day go home….as they did in Korea, Vietnam and now in Iraq….
The report is quite factual, as I have personally visited some of these camps.
I very strongly feel the author should also comment on what Mr Arshad & Mr Vock have written above. Only then it would be unbaised reporting.
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