Are talks the only panacea?
The terrorist storm remains unabated, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa remains the focus. In the last 24 hours alone, there were three attempts, one of them unsuccessful, but at the deadliest the terrorists succeeded in killing three and injuring eight soldiers when a blast destroyed a security forces vehicle that made a convoy on Sunday in Bannu. While the TTP itself has recently been found shying away from directly owning up to the killing and carnage, it is invariably one of its slightly less well-known subsidiaries that claims responsibility. This latest outrage was by the Ansarul Mujahideen, and its spokesman, Abu Baseer, speaking from an ‘undisclosed location’ presented his rationale: “As long as drone attacks are carried out in Pakistan, we would continue our attacks targeting security forces and the administrative machinery of the Pakistani government”. This is weird logic. The Pakistani forces do not attack through drones, the United States does. The US forces, or to put it more precisely, the American spymasters, make drone strikes because the militants are a threat to American forces. But instead of taking out their vengeance against the US, the TTP and its affiliates keep attacking the Pakistani people and its armed forces.
Despite the talk of talks now for the best part of four months since the leading exponents of the right, the PML-N in the centre and the PTI in KP took control, there has been scant progress. The PML-N succeeded in selling its ‘talks taking precedence over all else’ view, to the extent of making ‘talks as the only solution’ to all political entities of note in the country through the APC. Yet it has failed to initiate the mandate it received with such fanfare, after so many delays and so much procrastination. Meanwhile, the terrorists continue to strike with impunity and deadly impact with no real response from the government or reprisals from the law enforcement agencies.
Enough is enough. The government must move apace. If it still thinks talks are the way out despite relentless attacks by the militants, it should urgently initiate parleys and persuade the militants to stop violence and abide by the constitution. In case this is not possible a well thought out operation should be initiated to get rid of the extremist militants. The mindset that allows only talk of talks and no action has to change. Looking for shortcuts and opting only for the rightist, constituency-based solutions instead of doing what is right for the country and directing all resources and energy towards getting rid of the menace is simply not going to work.