The Pakistan-Taliban peace blunder

NY Times:

The Taliban and the Pakistani Army signed a truce last month in Swat, the once popular tourist area just an hour north of the capital. But far from establishing peace, the pact seems to have allowed the Taliban free rein to expand their harsh religious rule.

Just days after the truce was signed, a member of a prominent anti-Taliban family returned to his mountain village, having received assurances from the government that it was safe. He was promptly kidnapped by the Taliban, tortured and murdered.

The militants then erected roadblocks to search cars for any relatives who dared travel there for his funeral. None did.

This week, two Pakistani soldiers who were part of a convoy escorting a water tanker were shot and killed because they failed to inform the Taliban in advance of their movements.

On Wednesday, the provincial government signed an accord with the local Taliban leader that imposes Islamic law, or Shariah, in the area, and institutes a host of new regulations, including a ban on music, a requirement that shops close during calls to prayer and the installation of complaint boxes for reports of anti-Islamic behavior. Local residents are skeptical that girls’ schools will be allowed to reopen.

Previous accords with the militants in Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal areas have effectively created ministates with sanctuaries for Qaeda and Pakistani militants. The Pakistani government argued that the truce in Swat would free up the Pakistani Army, reduce civilian suffering and satisfy popular dissatisfaction with the local judiciary.

Hundreds of thousands of people who have fled in the past six months to camps in surrounding districts or to relatives’ homes are staying put, unsure what they would encounter if they dared to return. “The militants have not laid down their arms,” said Sher Mohammed, a lawyer, who splits his time between Swat and Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province. “Once you get power in your hands, it is very difficult to withdraw from that intoxication.”

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The government said it saw the truce as a way to separate what it considered to be more approachable militants, like Mr. Muhammad, from hard-line Taliban leaders like Maulana Fazlullah, his son-in-law, who is a young warlord flush with money and weapons. Mr. Fazlullah, backed by the main Pakistani Taliban group and Qaeda fighters, led the fight in Swat against the Pakistani Army in the past year.

Critics of the deal say that it has accomplished nothing like that, and that it has simply handed Swat, once a tolerant, princely kingdom, to the Taliban.

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Despite the truce, most people remain terrified of the Taliban, said Mohammad Amad, executive director of a private aid group, the Initiative for Development and Empowerment Axis. Militants continue to hunt down anyone who backs the government and the army.

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It is hard to find a rationale for this agreement on any basis for the government of Pakistan. It looks like a completely craven submission to a terrorist organization that wants to impose cruel and unusual punishment on its citizens. No one in their right mind would want to live under these conditions so it is understandable that people would be reluctant to return having escaped from the Taliban savagery and brutality.