Troubling narratives

Some time in mid-2009, I had the opportunity to travel to Mardan and meet with IDPs displaced from Swat and other areas in two camps. Without the comfort of their homes, the calm of their fields, or the delight of their cuisine, the restlessness among the IDPs was palpable. Their plight was made worse by the treatment meted out by donor agencies and Jamiat activists – the only ones present and allowed to work at the site: the IDPs had been relegated to second-grade citizens, who should have been grateful for the tents that housed them and the food, poorly cooked as it may have been. But the IDPs were more than just a statistic; in their regular and undisturbed lives, these were people of honour and dignity. In adversity, they had narratives that the media was not being able to report on.

Once we worked through the intense suspicion, convinced them of what our motives were, that we were in no way wired or there to spy on them, a few men opened up. Two narratives stood out: the first revolved around the doings of a major. “A major was stationed in our area,” revealed a resident of Kohat. “On orders from his superiors, he had gotten the locals to organise into companies. These armed units were then to stand guard at night. But the major told us that the Taliban would arrive in the outskirts of the area at night time, perhaps even resort to aerial firing, but would leave. We were told not to return fire,” he said.

“The Taliban did come, not for one day but for a week. We did as the major had asked, but one night, they fired straight at our post. We did not return fire that night. But this continued for two or three nights. One night, tired of taking fire, we retaliated. Two of their men were severely injured. We drove the Taliban out, and then went to capture the injured. Surprisingly, the same major who had formed our company was lying in a pool of blood. He was a Talib.”

Another described how he locked his brother’s dead body inside a room and fled, since there was no time for an “Islamic” funeral. “Our village came under attack from the Taliban. We think some people in the armed forces were involved too. My brother was killed by them. Almost all houses were razed to the ground. I thought that if my house was to be destroyed as well, perhaps my brother will be buried under the rubble,” he said.

Almost two years since that trip, information released to the media claims that people have not only returned home, but also have been helped to rebuild their lives. Except that narratives this time around are not as much about resistance and martyrdom as a result of those battles, but of submissions, of helplessness at the state of affairs, of resilience having been disciplined, of citizens having been relegated to the status of colonised subjects.

“The house of a local malik in Lower Orakzai Agency was attacked by the Taliban. The malik was considered a huge supporter of the army; he would organise reconnaissance and even spying missions for the armed forces. Because of his support, army check posts dotted the hills around our village. But three days ago, his house was attacked by the Taliban with rockets,” a man from Orakzai Agency told me.

“After the attack, the army wallahs came, dragged all the men out of their houses and paraded everyone through the village. They said that the villagers were lying, that it wasn’t the Taliban but locals who had attacked the malik’s house. Everyone is now asking how the malik’s house could have been attacked by men carrying rocket launchers and ammunition despite the check posts. There is a general acceptance that some army officers are supporting the Taliban,” he said.

The narrative from Orakzai Agency is troubling: at a time when bets should be placed on locals to fight militants, they are becoming victims of the “Taliban”. Perhaps, somewhere along the chain of command, orders are not being followed. Or perhaps, the orders are not to kill in the first place. History repeating itself as farce? Check.

The writer is Deputy City Editor, Pakistan Today, Karachi. In Twiiterverse, he goes by @ASYusuf.