- Need to learn from past
Within a couple of days after the Eid, two heart rending incidents of terrorism took place —one in Balochistan, the other in North Waziristan. In Ziarat, two Hazara tourists from Karachi died and seven others were injured in a blast targeting their vehicle with an IED. The same day, three army officers and a soldier embraced martyrdom in the Kharqamar area of North Waziristan when their vehicle was targeted through an IED.
Terrorist attacks started on a large scale in Balochistan as a consequence of then President Gen Pervez Musharraf’s fateful decision to take out Nawab Akbar Bugti who was a pro-Pakistan mainstream politician. Instead of settling his differences with Bugti through talks, General Musharraf wanted military action, ignoring the warnings from opposition leaders, human rights activists and responsible sections of the media that the action would open the floodgates of terrorism in an otherwise peaceful Balochistan. Overconfident of the military assets at his disposal, General Musharraf went ahead with the operation that estranged the entire province and provided the hostile countries an opportunity to use the situation in Balochistan in their favour, which they have continued to do for more than decade.
The Army won back North Waziristan, which had turned into a terrorist hub, at the expense of great sacrifices on the part of both itself and the local population. Various terrorist groups, some working at the behest of Pakistan’s enemies, are now trying to stage a comeback in the region. As revealed in the North Waziristan District Commissioner’s report last month there were several attacks on the Army during April and May alone. “Security forces have regularly been targeted either in the form of physical attacks, ambushes, fire raids, rocket attacks or IEDs.”
There is a need on the part of the government to learn from the past. A differentiation needs to be made between the dissidents and the enemies in the tribal districts. The dissidents who believe in using Parliament to resolve outstanding issues, need to be won over rather than pushed into the enemy camp, which the foreign agencies are eagerly looking for. There is a need to change the policy towards the PTM legislators who are presently in jail.
