Let Durrand Line be a line of peace

Let Durrand Line be a line of peace

After full fighting in Swat Valley Pakistan Army has moved into South Waziristan to carry on final assault against Pakistani Taliban head Mr. Baitullah Masood and his men whom they accuse of number of suicide bombings and killings in whole of Pakistan including assassination of late Prime Minister, Mrs. Benazir Bhutto. However, fighting has not been so easy for the Pak Army and allied forces. There seems to be no end in the fighting as there are news reports that the other Pakistani Taliban groups with whom Government had done peace pacts have become wary after Government of Pakistan announced operation against Mehsud Tribes. Mullah Nazir and Mr. Gul Bahadur the other leaders of Pakistani Taliban have announced snapping of peace pacts with the Government and have declared war against Pakistani forces stating reasons that they have snapped ties because American Drones have not stopped attacking the tribal areas. However, analysts believe this is because of internal pact between the different factions of Pakistani Taliban i.e., between Mullah Nazir, Gul Bahadur and Baitullah Mehsud who had vowed that if any of them will be attacked they will reciprocate.

Daily there is news that certain numbers of militants, people and army personnel have been killed in suicide bombings, ambushes or army action. These incidents have now spread across the length and breadth of the country. Starting from tribal areas it has spread to Peshawar, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi and more recently in Pak Administered Kashmir. Besides it is estimated that approximately 25 million people have been dislocated because of this conflict. Even most sacred of all places, Mosques, have not been spared.

Going on the other side of Durrand line, Taliban is believed to have intensified its operations against American and Karzai’s forces in which besides killing of American and Afghan forces lot of unarmed civilians get killed. On the other side American and Afghan forces have been accused of killing innocent people in the garb of Taliban. American forces have been alleged for disproportionate bombing of civilian targets in which at times scores of people have been killed including people in marriage parties and at funeral sites. As the Afghan elections are coming nearer more violence is expected to take place.

This war is now on for more than eight years and day by day it seems to spread its tentacles rather than getting squeezed. With the coming of Obama administration it was hoped that other than war some olive branch will be used to scrap this unending agony. Mr. Obama’s recent speech at Cairo University in Egypt which was seen as a positive beginning had nothing sound so far it relates to the problem viz-a-viz Taliban in Pakistan & Afghanistan except war rhetoric.

As is evident that no one is seemingly winning this war and people are continuously being killed, injured and dislodged for none of their sins. Parties of this war should understand that life of human beings should be given prime importance overall other things whether it is a life of an unarmed Pakistani / Afghan or armed American/ Afghan / Pakistani people, life is precious and cannot be given back. There should be a re-thought over whole of this war. It is beyond our comprehension why comprehensive peaceful methods are not being adopted to solve this burning problem which is consuming lives like firewood. If people can talk with organizations like LTTE of Sri Lanka, IRA of Ireland, Sudanese Liberation Army of Sudan, Hezbollah in Lebnon, Maoists in Nepal etc what is harm in talking with Taliban. Americans share a major responsibility in this conflict as they are a major power and no peace effort can have firm ground except their support which is clear from recent peace pacts by the Pakistani Government and partial efforts of Afghan Government to get liberal Taliban in, have failed in toto. Let there be a cease-fire across the Durand Line on the part of Government / American forces as a goodwill measure first and talks be held directly with the real stakeholders whether it is Baitullah Mehsud in Pakistan or Mullah Omar in Afghanistan rather than involving middlemen. This on the one side will help in reducing the killing of people on side and on the other hand will help in finding middle ground where the two sides could meet. Nothing is impossible in this world if the intent is sincere and I hope that a day will come when these two nations including Taliban and others alongwith US will flourish.

Let Durrand Line be a line of peace.

Hamid Nilnagi