PAKISTAN
WAITING FOR PEACE.
The government of Pakistan for the first
time, nominated a negotiating team. Pakistani Taliban are not the same as the
Afghanistan Taliban. The latter consider themselves to be freedom fighters
working to rid their country of foreign occupies.
The Pakistani Taliban on the other hand
are purely local movement. Based largely in the northern western KPK province,
they want to see an Islamic system of government installed in Pakistan. The
reject the Pakistani constitution and the democratic system of Pakistani
government in general. They have waged a campaign of terror over the years.
Their suicide bombers have killed maimed tens of thousands of innocent Pakistan
civilians. They have attacked military bases destroying aircraft and
equipments. Army convoys have been ambushed and bombed.
The current love fest seems to have made
more progress. the general public is watching all this with somewhat bemused
disbelief. They know as would any objective observer with common sense that
there is no common ground. And they also know that in the end of the Taliban
will have to be defeated on the battleground, no in the conference room.
What does Pakistan’s powerful army make
of all this? They have not sensibly expressed their preferences in public. But
it is not hard to imagine that they are raring to have a go at their noir and
would like nothing better than a clean, unrestricted mandate from the civilian
administration to use whatever means necessary to achieve this objective.
The Pak army has proved that it has the
ability will and firepower to extirpate the Taliban. The last time they
received a clear mandate to do so was in 2009 when the Taliban and affiliated
groups had occupied the Swat district. Within a few weeks they defeated and
evicted the occupiers, enforced the government‘s writ and allowed hundreds of
thousands of refugees to return to their homes. But for the time being at least
it seems that Pakistanis are going to have to wait and see the outcome of the
government’s negotiations with the Taliban and what will be discussed?
