Words, Not Guns, To Be Used On Islamic Militants: Globe and Mail
Wednesday, February 27, 2008 08:04:22 PM

"Party expected to lead new government plans talks with guerrillas linked to al-Qaeda".

PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN — The party expected to lead the new government of Pakistan's terrorism-racked North West Frontier Province plans to follow a radical new policy: opening up peace talks with Islamic militants linked to al-Qaeda.

The Awami National Party, which won the most seats in last week's election in the Frontier province that borders Afghanistan, would abandon the largely military approach of the regime of President Pervez Musharraf that was heavily backed by Washington.

"The war on terror has failed," said Haji Mohammad Adeel, secretary-general of the ANP, in an interview at the party headquarters. "There should be no war. In world history, not a single war against guerrillas was successful. Only dialogue can solve these problems."

The ANP is expected to lead a coalition government in the Frontier, based in the provincial capital of Peshawar, and form part of a federal government coalition in Islamabad that would be led by the Pakistan People's Party. No party won an outright majority, either at the provincial or federal level in the Feb. 18 election. However, the Islamist parties that had governed the Frontier for the previous five years were wiped out in favour of the ANP and the Peoples Party, both secular parties.

While the defeat of the mullahs was welcomed in the West, the policy of the nationalist ANP toward the insurgency is not believed to have yet registered in Washington. The ANP has not governed for decades.

Mr. Adeel said that his party would work through the jirga tradition of the Pashtun people, who are the main ethnic group in the Frontier and neighbouring Afghanistan. Jirgas are meetings of tribal elders to solve problems and dispense justice. He said the new ANP-led government would start a dialogue with the Pakistani Taliban based in the country's tribal belt, known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a strip that lies between the Frontier Province and Afghanistan.

Once the jirga system was established and trust built, the 80,000-plus Pakistani troops currently in FATA, fighting militants and securing the Afghan border, would be pulled out, Mr. Adeel said. He suggested that the Afghan government should also pursue talks with the Taliban there.

"The basic problem is the Pakistan army, the Pakistani establishment and the Americans. You can't fight for another 20 years," Mr. Adeel said. "What are we offering the tribal people? They are not equal citizens."

Under a form of governance dating back to British colonial times, FATA is administered through special laws and tribal codes. Mr. Adeel's party would ditch this system and integrate FATA, where more than three million of Pakistan's poorest live, with the rest of the Frontier and develop the region.

"When there are no jobs, no education facilities, no justice, no rights; what can you expect if people are offered money and guns [by militants]," Mr. Adeel said.

However, such a move would be highly controversial with the fiercely independent tribes and might collide with the interests of the Pakistan army, Mr. Musharraf or the United States. Currently, FATA comes under direct government from Islamabad, formally in the hands of the President, which could partly explain Washington's continued support for the deeply unpopular Mr. Musharraf.

The U.S. administration was highly critical of two past peace deals signed with militants in the Waziristan region of FATA, which, it charged, had simply given the terrorists a free hand to use the tribal belt to launch attacks against NATO forces in Afghanistan. The ANP has indicated that its strategy would be different than the Waziristan accords.

The ANP policy "should not automatically be equated with appeasement," said a Western diplomat who requested anonymity. "But the ANP has come up with no specifics and its approach has not been tested." Militants led by warlord Baitullah Mehsud, accused of masterminding the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, have already offered to talk to the new government, saying that they would end attacks within Pakistan as long as the army pulled out of FATA. Supporters of the ANP were the victims of the fewest terrorist attacks during the election campaign.

Senator Hameed Ullah Jan Afridi, a tribal leader and an independent member of parliament for FATA, warned that the tribes would never accept outside laws, believing that their way dispenses much speedier justice.

"The tribal people will strongly resist it [integration]. It could be like a civil war in Pakistan," Mr. Afridi said. "This is one of the best [administrative] systems in the world; we should preserve it."

Any new policy that further destabilized FATA would obviously alarm Pakistan's generals and Washington. For now, the ANP has plenty of battles ahead before it can even think about implementing its ideas. It must extract a commitment in the coalition talks to its FATA policy.

The ANP is also expected to battle to make its own candidate governor of the Frontier province, the official who exercises power over FATA on behalf of the President. The party's plan to integrate FATA with the Frontier province could turn into a tussle with Mr. Musharraf and Washington for control over the wild tribal region.(Saeed Shah)