Government’s response to the terrorists
In his address to the nation, the prime minister offered dialogue to the terrorists but with a caveat: he also had the force with him. The newly-minted Cabinet Committee on National Security qualified it even further: the government would talk to only those extremist groups that lay down their arms. But Ch Nisar Ali Khan, the federal interior minister, has been quoted to have said: “dialogue, dialogue and dialogue is the only option under consideration of the government” – all preconditions whatsoever chucked out of the window to placate the intractable TTP and its cohorts. Not even ceasefire has been mentioned, though the country has lost anywhere between 40,000-50,000 men, women and children, with the security establishment and the police having borne the brunt of it. Meanwhile, the TTP too has responded to such ‘noble’ Nisar sentiments by sacking Asmatullah Muawiya, the chief of Punjabi Taliban. His offence: showing flexibility and welcoming the prime minister’s call for talks. While this sacking may reflect a bit of a fissure in the Taliban’s ranks, that was expected. The terrorists in Pakistan are divided in many splinters, and operate with diverse motives.
The main point to note is that the PML-N government in its third avatar has already consumed four fifths of its so-called honeymoon phase and it is apparently still undecided on what to with the deadly menace of terrorism. Or why would there be a different stance on it almost every other day? Why can’t the government speak as one? Why is it that the PM shows one direction in his address to the nation, another quite logical one, emanates on the day the CCNS meets and then quite another account is presented by the interior minister? This is inexplicable, for apparently PML-N is the most well versed political party with its loads of experience in government – with Mian Nawaz Sharif having been around in one position of authority or another since the early 1980s.
What is indeed troubling is that this exactly is the kind of environment – confusion and lack of resolve in the ranks of government – in which entities like the Taliban thrive. Ch Nisar’s ‘dialogue, dialogue and dialogue’ mantra is still more perplexing because it forecloses other options, without the sinister and deadly terrorists not even promising the fig leaf of a ceasefire, leave aside the laying down of arms. If this jaw-jaw on the state’s part and fight-fight, kill-kill and destroy-destroy on the TTP and other terrorist organisations under its umbrella and outside it is going to continue where is it going to take us, our law enforcing institutions that are taking the hits almost every day and the hapless people being killed and maimed? What assurances of peace, if any, has Ch Nisar been given on return for his carte blanche to the terrorists? Obviously none or the TTP would not have come down so heavy on its Punjabi affiliate for just acting polite! While one has to concede that the challenge of overcoming the terrorist threat is not by any means easy to overcome, indecision and pusillanimity is only going to prolong this troubled nation’s trauma and ordeal.