Considering how far we have come
The start of 2015 was a year of action for Pakistan with regards to counter-terrorism. The National Action Plan and Zarb-e-Azab were in the fore-front triggered by the brutal attack on the Army Public School (APS) Peshawar. The civil and the military leadership finally came into action and joined hands to curb terrorism. Lifting of 2008 moratorium on executions and creation of military courts was the immediate response of the government. Our leadership seemed all set and ready to get rid of terrorism once and for all.
“The Peshawar tragedy transformed the country. We have to counter the terrorist mindset in order to curtail extremism and sectarianism”, said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif while announcing The National Action Plan (NAP).
The 20 points of the National Action Plan comprehensively addressed ways to counter terrorism. It included preventing banned organisations from operating and/or regrouping under new names; preventing terrorist funding; dismantling terrorist communication networks; prohibiting private militias; acting against sectarian organisations and countering hate speech and the dissemination of hate literature, along with making NACTA effective. NAP also called for regulating the madrassa sector, rehabilitating internally displaced persons (IDPs), introducing administrative and development reforms in FATA, and empowering the Balochistan government to lead in political reconciliation with complete ownership by all stakeholders. It even called for the formulation of a comprehensive policy to deal with the issue of Afghan refugees.
The 20 points of the National Action Plan comprehensively addressed ways to counter terrorism
However, the government has not been as efficient in implementing NAP as it was in devising it. There have been hollow slogans and empty words by the government so far.
A political scientist and military analyst, Hassan Askari Rizvi, shared similar views in a telephonic conversation with DNA.
“Civil governments are implementing NAP but they are doing it slowly. There are political reasons for it. Civil governments have links with these kinds of groups that need to be contained. That is why they are slow and it will remain this way unless the military pushes the Punjab government because basically Punjab has the most extremist and sectarian groups,” he said.
A defence analyst, Maria Sultan, has completely different views on it. According to her the government is not slow. Rather the problem is too big to be solved over night.
“I think we need to be really realistic about it. People have this movie version of counter-terrorism that there will be action and suddenly all terrorists will die. The fact is that you are dealing with a region which is not stable. You are dealing with trans-border terrorism and when you combine trans-border terrorism with regional instability and you combine it with criminality, there are issues at hand.” Maria told DNA.
Terrorism and security have remained a huge challenge for Pakistan every year and so was it in 2015 and so it will be in 2016. The question that arises is how far will we succeed in the coming year?
“I think we will succeed quite a bit but there will be serious regional challenges which we will have,” said Maria.
“First and foremost it will be whether or not Afghanistan will be stable enough. That is going to be the biggest challenge which we are going to face. It would also depend upon how Indo-US relationships will develop. Thirdly it will also depend on how the military alliances and extra regional forces will develop,” she added.
Since terrorism is a global issue, so definitely our foreign relations will have an impact on terrorism within the country, Pak-Afghan relations and Afghanistan’s stability being the most important one. Hassan Askari doesn’t foresee potential developments with this regard.
“There may be a dialogue but the probability of the outcome is low at the moment; an outcome that would show stability in Afghanistan that is very unlikely in the near future,” Hassan Askari told DNA.
Along with military operations, formation of a counter-narrative and bringing madrassa reforms is a crucial element of counter-terrorism. Is the government really reluctant in this regard?
“I do not believe in this. I think Pakistan’s counter-narrative/counter-terrorism strategy is very strong, simple and clear; that all those parties which are creating violence in the state, we will take action against them. Whether they are doing it on religious or political basis. Counter-narrative has been built and that is countering violence.”
Although we haven’t completely mastered counter-terrorism and there are still loopholes in our strategy, the situation is still quite different from what it was before
Hassan Askari believes that to counter terrorism we need to work on our economy as well.
“Terrorism and economics are interlinked. Unless you control terrorism Pakistan cannot come out of its economic constraint. Economic improvement is also means getting a handle on terrorism. The main thing is that at the moment our economy is dependent on foreign loans. Although they are saying that foreign exchange or reserves have increased but most of these are loans. So they will have to pay attention to this.”
Although we haven’t completely mastered counter-terrorism and there are still loopholes in our strategy, the situation is still quite different from what it was before.
“The good news is that we have more clarity in our thinking in terms of what we want. Secondly, I think we seem to be in the third stage of dealing with counter-terrorism. That means we are going after the financial networks, we are going after the facilitators and all these people. So it means that we are dealing with a very different situation than we were in before. That is better. So, right now, counter-terrorism is entering in a much more difficult and much more sustainable area.”
2016 is definitely going to be full of challenges but with a more thorough approach comparatively.
“Yes we will definitely be challenged. Do we know what the challenges are? Yes. We are better equipped now than we were maybe five years ago. It’s a good condition for Pakistan, not an easy condition but a good condition because we have to take action and that is where the strength is,” Maria said.
