During the Cold War, Pakistan became a staunch ally of the United States (US) and became part of the decades-long war between the two world powers and against terrorism. Pakistan protected its national interests during the Cold War but is still facing a number of challenges. Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) – now tribal districts[1] – had become a safe haven[2] for terrorists while suffering from militancy, insurgency, and a lack of peace during and after the Cold War served the interests of both Pakistan and the US. This article focuses on the question, how has this piece of land been misused for so many decades by both the national government and imperial powers?

Being the ally of the US, during the Cold War Pakistan provided every possible aid including ideological and logistical support against communism, and even the use of its territory. No doubt Pakistan also took advantage of the alliance and protected its national interest by strengthening its defence capabilities with the help of Saudi Arabia and the US. However, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, Pakistan was left to tackle the mujahideen, the then freedom fighters, of Afghanistan alone.

In British India and later in Pakistan, the tribal districts – Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram, North Waziristan and South Waziristan – were kept semi-autonomous under a special set of rules known as Frontier Crime Regulation Ordinance (FCR) 1901 [3], which is also locally termed as the “black law”. [4] Under these set of laws, the citizens of the Tribal Districts are not afforded the rights guaranteed to other Pakistani citizens under the constitution of Pakistan, in particular, they are excluded from access to the judicial system. Political Agents (PA) were responsible for the implementation of the FCR with the help of local elites and influential people known as maliks and nawabs. [5] The tribal belt shares a border with Afghanistan to the West and was of great strategic importance during the Cold War and then again after the September 11 attacks and the declaration of the War Against Terror in Afghanistan.

After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the CIA began a covert operation known as “Operation Cyclone”[6], aiming to support Afghan mujahideen through funding, training, and supplying weapons. Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) had been used and became the hub for the mujahideen training camps and were more suitable because of their mountainous nature and geographical location in relation to Afghanistan. The Pakistani establishment also used this tribal belt and nearby districts, particularly Peshawar, to host Afghan refugees in camps which were shut down in 2005 after the Pakistani army launched a series of operations against the Afghan Taliban and later against Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a Taliban-affiliated movement in Pakistan. [7] With the help of the US and Middle Eastern countries, most prominently Saudi Arabia and Egypt, these refugee camps also provided a steady supply of mujahideen for the Afghan guerrilla war against the USSR. [8]

During the Cold War, the US used ‘all means available’ [9] to defeat communism. Firstly, the US accepted help from Saudi Arabia, which supported on the Wahhabi extremist version of Islam. During the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan (1979 – 1991), Saudi Arabia spent $4 billion a year to finance mosques and madrassas in Pakistan. [10] These religious institutions mostly targeted and radicalised illiterate people using extreme interpretations and the Wahhabi version of Islam. Secondly, they used a wide variety of platforms for propaganda purposes against the USSR. From every mosque and madrassa, the extremist clerics gave lectures against the communist ideology and termed the Soviets as sur kafir (red non-believers). The propaganda was not confined to Pakistan; it even reached Europe. Many of the public libraries contained literature and documentaries on the Afghan mujahideen, portraying them as heroes. [11] This extremist version of Islam later became the base for the extremist ideology of Al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan.

After the end of the Cold War, the Pakistani establishment retained close ties to the mujahideen. However, after the attacks of September 11, Pakistan became actively involved in the fight against terrorism supported by the US, while an influx of Afghan Taliban came across the border to the tribal districts. [12] In 2007, Baitullah Masood founded TTP in the tribal districts and soon developed links with Al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, and other local terrorist groups. Soon after its foundation, more than 27 terrorist groups pledged and submitted themselves to TTP. [13]

Furthermore, the Pakistani military launched a series of operations in the region coupled with the drone strikes from the US which were chasing down Al-Qaeda members that had fled to North Waziristan after the US invasion of Afghanistan. It is estimated that between 348 and 374 drone strikes had been launched between 2004–2013, which killed between 400-900 civilians depending on the reference used. However, this is a conservative estimate and should be taken with caution as the real number remains confidential with the US authorities. [14] Similarly, according to the FATA Disaster Management Authority, more than five million people were internally displaced, which also caused significant troubles as other provincial governments declined to host any internally displaced people. [15]

In summary, these tribal districts served the interests of both external powers and the government of Pakistan by violating the basic human and democratic rights of the people. The FCR remains imposed on the region with the purpose of suppressing the locals and protecting national and international interests by depriving Pakistani citizens of basic human and democratic rights. Here a number of questions arise: is it justifiable to deprive one from their basic rights to protect national interests? Are national interests more important than the rights of a specific group, race or ethnicity? And can it be ethically justified to fight an enemy at the expense of the citizens? Now the authorities need to give special attention to the said piece of land and formulate uniform laws -- based on humanity and freedom for all.

Sources

[1] FATA was kept semi-autonomous since 1901 by British India and later by Pakistan. These tribal areas were merged to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan after the 25th constitutional amendment passed by the parliament and then signed by the president of Pakistan on May 28, 2018 Amir Wasim, ‘President Signs KP-Fata Merger Bill into Law’, DAWN.COM, 31 May 2018, https://www.dawn.com/news/1411156.

[2] Frank C. Urbancic, ‘Briefing on Release of 2006 Country Reports on Terrorism’ (Department Of State. The Office of Electronic Information, Bureau of Public Affairs., 30 April 2007), https://2001-2009.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/07/83999.htm.

[3] Fair C. Christine, Nicholas Howenstein, and Thier J. Alexnder, ‘Troubles on the Pakistan-Afghanistan Border: U.S. Institute of Peace’, December 2006, https://web.archive.org/web/20090509031256/http://www.usip.org/pubs/usipeace_briefings/2006/1207_pakistan_afghanistan_border.html.

[4] Waseem Ahmad Shah, ‘Black Law of FCR Continues to Evade Legislators’ Attention’, DAWN.COM, 8 September 2014, http://www.dawn.com/news/1130619.

[5] Benjamin D. Hopkins, ‘The Frontier Crimes Regulation and Frontier Governmentality’, The Journal of Asian Studies 74, no. 2 (May 2015): 369–89, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021911815000030.

[6] Todd Greentree, ‘Afghanistan: Remembering the Long, Long War We Would Rather Forget’, War on the Rocks, 5 February 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/02/afghanistan-remembering-the-long-long-war-we-would-rather-forget/.

[7] Zahid Ali Khan, ‘Military Operations in FATA and PATA: Implications for Pakistan’, Strategic Studies 31/32 (2011): 129–46, https://doi.org/10.2307/48527641.

[8] Robert Pear, ‘Arming Afghan Guerrillas: A Huge Effort Led by U.S.’, The New York Times, 18 April 1988, sec. World, https://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/18/world/arming-afghan-guerrillas-a-huge-effort-led-by-us.html.

[9] Pear.

[10] Greentree, ‘Afghanistan’.

[11] Omar Nasiri, Inside the Global Jihad. How I Infiltrated Al Qaeda and Was Abandoned by Western Intelligence. (London United Kingdom: C. Hurst & Co (publishers) Ltd., 2006).

[12] Rohan Gunaratna and Anders Nielsen, ‘Al Qaeda in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan and Beyond’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 31, no. 9 (10 September 2008): 775–807, https://doi.org/10.1080/10576100802291568.

[13] Qandeel Siddique, ‘Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan: An Attempt to Deconstruct the Umbrella Organization and the Reasons for Its Growth in Pakistan’s North-West’ (København: Dansk Institut for Internationale Studier, 2010), https://www.diis.dk/files/media/publications/import/extra/rp2010-12-tehrik-e-taliban_web_1.pdf.

[14] Amnesty International, ‘US Drone Strikes in Pakistan’, 2013, 76.

[15] Dawn, ‘No Camps for IDPs to Be Set up in Punjab’, DAWN.COM, 31 May 2009, http://beta.dawn.com/news/940913/no-camps-for-idps-to-be-set-up-in-punjab.