Pakistan in Media

Editorial, Dawn, Pakistan
By Faizullah Jan and Syed Irfan Ashraf
Saturday, 23 May, 2009

POLITICIANS and analysts are often heard discussing the measures being taken to minimise the collateral damage resulting from the Swat and Buner operations.

But their words come across as mere rhetoric to those who are actually experiencing a living hell. While the IDPs in camps have their own set of difficulties where the provision of necessities is involved, those who are still in the Swat valley are facing dire food shortages, a prolonged curfew and Taliban militancy. A phone call from the trapped people in the scenic town of Bahrain on the main Kalam-Mingora road indicates the measure of desperation. “We have been under curfew for the last three weeks. There is no wheat flour, no rice, no sugar, no medicine,” says Iqbal Khan. “Today we eat only peas and potatoes. Soon we will be foraging for leaves in the woods.”

Starvation also stalks the vales of Matta, Odegram, Hazara, Shill Hund, Shah Dheri and Kalam where, as in Bahrain, stocks of food and medicine are fast depleting. Thanks to the curfew, these areas have been cut off from the rest of the country ever since the military operation began. Worried about the looming starvation, a Kalam local, Noor Zada, says over the phone, “We are fighting on two fronts. The Taliban are about to take us to task for defying them while the absence of food and medicine can only kill us.”

While correct figures are not available, it is estimated that over 400,000 people are trapped in the northern belt of Swat stretching from Mingora, Miandam, Madyan and Bahrain to Kalam tehsil. At least 800,000 are believed to be stranded in Kabal, Aligrama, Hazara, Shah Dheri, Shill Hund etc. The plight of thousands living in the main town of Mingora and its outskirts is scarcely any different. While many are unwilling to leave because they are unsure of conditions in camps and the security of their families en route, some have chosen to stay back for other reasons.

In an essentially agrarian society like Swat, families cannot afford to abandon their hearths and homes. Their chattel, standing crops and orchards are their lifeline and looked upon as extensions of their body and soul. The poor farmers of upper Swat invest a whole season of their lives to plough fields and prune orchard trees.

When they lost tourism to the medieval mentality of the jihadists, potatoes and turnips were their only source of sustenance and revenue. They sold their yields down-country to make ends meet, also storing some of the produce for their own use in the harsh winters. But protracted hostilities in the valley have left them with no cash, and supplies in storage are virtually exhausted. Thus starvation awaits the population of Swat if the military operation does not rectify matters. The situation in lower Swat, including the outskirts of Mingora and Bari Kot, is equally alarming.

Operation Rah-i-Rast caught Swat residents unawares. They had little time to pack up and leave for a safer place. Only half the population of Swat managed to leave the valley of death. Even then, a majority left behind one or two family members to guard homes and keep an eye on standing crops and chattel. Others, including scores of families in upper Swat, could not flee due to non-availability of transport or simply because they could not afford the travel expenses. Children are missing in hundreds while families in Peshawar wait for male members to turn up, expecting them to have taken refuge with their relatives in upper Swat — although nothing is certain.

The stranded people face a bizarre situation: death is staring them in the face from three directions. If the military operation is a protracted one, they face starvation because of curfew and the consequent closure of supply routes; if the operation intensifies there is bound to be great collateral damage; and if the Taliban face defeat they may turn on the residents for not being on their side. Their fears are justified.

In November 2007, 60 militants with heavy weapons marched on Kalam tehsil in Swat. However, they left when a local jirga told them to implement Sharia in lower Swat first and then extend it to Kalam. Many Taliban took this as defiance. After two years, over 50 Taliban armed with sophisticated weapons reached Kalam to settle past scores. This led to a clash in which six Taliban were taken hostage. The issue was resolved on Thursday, when the elders of Kalam, fearing a Buner-like situation in which suicide bombings and brutal punishments were imposed on the people for defying the Taliban, offered to free the captured militants in return for the release of 150 of their own people in Taliban custody.

Meanwhile, hospitals in these areas are not functioning. There is no electricity, no medicine, no doctors. Collateral damage does not simply mean death by a stray mortar shell and carpet bombing — it can also include fatalities caused by starvation and disease. This is what analysts and strategists are not factoring into their discussion about civilian casualties in Swat.

With many Swat residents wanting to move out of the area, they need to be supported by the government. The first thing that the government can do is to provide them safe passage — in Kurram Agency people were airlifted although there could be technical difficulties in doing so where Swat’s larger population is concerned — before they end up as the Taliban’s human shields. But before that food and medicine must be airdropped, especially in areas where the militants have not reached.

Today the people of Swat loathe the Taliban and look towards the government to rescue them. They are ready to fight alongside the army against the extremists. But if the government’s apathy and the people’s agony persist — as exemplified at the time of writing by a procession from Bahrain marching towards Madyan chanting ‘atta do ya raasta do’ (‘give us bread or safe passage’) we can end up counting Swat residents among the Taliban.

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By KATHY GANNON – 1 day ago

AMBELA, Pakistan (AP) — Waiting at a checkpoint Tuesday under the searing sun, Amina rocked her baby, wrapped in a heavy black burqa. "You'll be home soon," she whispered. But the thud of exploding shells deadened her hopes — and raised questions about military claims the area was clear of Taliban militants.

"What is this government doing? They are telling us to return. Listen to that fighting," said Wasim Khan, who was among the hundreds of refugees waiting to return to their homes in Buner, a district seized by Taliban fighters last month.

A strategic piece of territory, Buner provides the most direct link to the rest of Pakistan from the Taliban-dominated Swat Valley.

Despite army assertions that soldiers have cleared the district of Taliban forces, more troops and heavy artillery poured into the area on Monday, according to Ghulam Bacha, a policeman who suggested the Taliban were dug in deeper than the military originally suspected.

The Taliban overran Buner after a peace deal soured last month, streaming down from their Swat Valley strongholds to within 60 miles of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and triggering alarm in the United States.

An army offensive to oust the Taliban has so far caused 1.5 million people to flee. The military claims to have killed about 1,000 Taliban fighters, a figure that cannot be independently verified, and says 50 soldiers have also died in the 3-week-old operation.

Amina and Khan were among some 500 people seeking to return to their villages in Buner Tuesday after the provincial government urged residents to come back, saying the area was safe and the Taliban had been routed.

They waited for hours in a mile-long line of battered trucks piled high with bedding, bundles of clothing and ancient-looking threshing equipment. Whole families perched atop the vehicles' roofs, baking in the sun: women hidden behind burqas, crying children and scores of bearded men.

But they made it only as far as Ambela, a village at the foot of Bela Pass, a winding five-mile-long road that links Buner to the rest of Pakistan.

The refugees were expecting authorities to open the road deeper into Buner, but the shelling put an end to that. A couple of vehicles tried to inch up to the barbed-wire checkpoint blocking the narrow pass, but soldiers fired warning shots to keep them out.

One rickety flatbed truck was carrying a coffin. Zaffar Ali had died the night before in Peshawar, the frontier provincial capital, and his family was trying to take him home to their village to be buried.

"What choice do we have? We will spend the night here and hope tomorrow we can return to our village to bury him," the dead man's nephew said.

Among those around him, there was a mixed reaction to the military operation to rid the area of the Taliban. But all were united in their criticism of the government's failure to help those forced to flee the fighting.

Most of the displaced have sought shelter with relatives or friends, but more than 100,000 remain crowded into camps run by the government and international aid organizations.

Whether Pakistan's will to take on the militants will falter depends in part on whether people like Amina and Khan can quickly return to their homes. A protracted refugee crisis could undercut public support for the battle.

Packed into the back of a flatbed truck with nearly a dozen other women, their faces all hidden beneath burqas, Amina said: "We just want peace." The small portion of her face that was visible was dripping with sweat; her 1-year-old son squirmed beneath the folds of cloth.

Shah Bahauddin, who was shepherding 40 members of his family back to Buner, was critical of all parties in the conflict __ the government, the Taliban and the army.

"No one has given us anything in the camps and nothing to help us return," he said. The Taliban slipped into his village of Chamla several weeks ago, seizing houses and confiscating cars. "For three days they even had their own government," he said.

Bahauddin and his family sought shelter from the fighting with relatives in nearby Swabi.

"But they are poor. When we heard that Buner was open, we had to leave. They helped us so much, but we couldn't stay if we could go home," said the 65-year-old farmer, whose son sat in a wheelchair precariously positioned in the back of the family truck.

"What are they doing telling us we can come back?" he asked bitterly, interrupted by the sound of shells exploding.

Like most of the men in the convoy, Bahauddin had hoped to get home soon to harvest wheat that will soon rot in the fields. "We are poor farmers. We will lose everything," he said.

At Ambela's police station, Bacha, a 28-year veteran, said the station had been wrested from Taliban hands just two weeks earlier.

Bacha, who said the Taliban were nearby despite government claims to the contrary, said he worried about another attack and recalled last month's Taliban takeover.

It was April 28, and there were just 10 policemen in the two-room station. The best weapon among them was a Kalashnikov assault rifle, he said.

Nearly 80 Taliban emerged from the mountains, armed with rocket launchers and automatic rifles.

"They had lots of weapons. We just left," said Bacha, his gray-flecked shalwar kameeze hanging loosely on his thin frame, unbuttoned and tattered, a silver police insignia pinned crookedly on his shoulder. "What else could we do?"

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