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Two articles some have read but never bothered to comment on.
Why too difficult to understand or is it a case they cut to close to the truth?
I have noticed that many like making nationalistic comments about many valid posted articles on the current war against the terrorists, but sometimes when it comes to looking at the mirror most shun the reflection.
http://www.defence.pk/forums/pakistans-war/28534-analysis-good-bad-ugly-salman-tarik-kureshi.html
http://www.defence.pk/forums/curren...rning-wrong-lessons-chalinda-weerasinghe.html
For those that find flicking to other posts while reading one, these articles are listed below.
The article, view: Learning the wrong lessons, has some interesting salient points. Unfortunately the writer has managed to cloud then by the depth of detail re Sri Lanka and the LTTE
Firstly the current battles with the Taliban are not going to be just a military one. This is something that should be obvious.
In many cases governments have looked at insurgencies and being solved by the military in one way or the other. Wrong. Many of these insurgencies stem from bad governess. What the writer is endeavouring to point out is that the LTTE insurgency is based on that, ie bad governance by various Sri Lankan governments not listening.
If one looks at many of the issues that are in NWFP, FATA, and also Balochistan there are many underlying social matters that are at the root of the problems.
The Taliban promoted themselves as a solution to all these social ills. Yes they failed due to their methods, but they got a foot in the door. Something the Government of Pakistan or Provincial government had not managed to do.
To get the Taliban out and regain the veneer of Government writ military action will be required in FATA and NWFP. Now Balochistan may hold other surprises yet to be uncovered. Wait and see.
What the current battles in FATA and NWFP have doe is create a large number of displace persons. This is a big concern for any government. There has to be solutions to dealing with this.
Now while the military campaign progresses there must be well defined support plan in place. This plan has to deal with the displaced people and the aftermath of the conflict. So far there appears to be little that has been really done in this quarter. This does not imply the Government of Pakistan must deal with this by itself. But the Government must have constructed a workable and realistic plan on how to deal with the situation. Has it really done this?
Now I say the Government of Pakistan does not have to do the reconstruction by itself I mean simple the government must develop the plan, decide what structures, ( for a start buildings as schools, hospitals and court houses, police stations), have to be built or rebuilt, what infrastructure, power, water and roads to rebuild or build, and what social needs the areas need.
With this plan the government must then clearly outline what they need to be provided from those that have offered aid in this massive rebuilding.
That plan is one not only covering the current handling of displaced persons and their rehabilitation home but what happens socially and within the realms of justices and governance, the main areas which allowed the Taliban to get a foot hold.
One important aspect is the need to deliver effective and honest government administration. Though that may be something needed everywhere.
Governance is one of the critical issues and it is time that all of Pakistan realised that it can not continue with federal administered areas any more.
The nation must either go forward or stagnate.
Stagnation leads to collapse.
Pakistan has virtually been running as a stat within a state with the way the NW has been governed. It is now time to make huge changes to the nation and become one, not one inside another.
It is time to realise that one province cannot be stripped for the benefit of the others.
These are the things that so far Sri Lanka is not doing. Dont follow that path.
Reread
http://www.defence.pk/forums/curren...rning-wrong-lessons-chalinda-weerasinghe.html
And make sure your nation progresses not stagnates.
This may require you do more than just write comments on a web forum. That literally does nothing as far as your government is concerned. I doubt they even read your posts.
There is still one critical aspect to the Taliban that few have bothered to talk about.
Yes everyone knows that is the so called good Taliban and the Bad Taliban.
First what is a good Taliban? From what I can gather it is someone who does not wage battle against the state of Pakistan but lives in Pakistan.
How ridiculous is that. That literally means the Government of Pakistan houses people who are conducting militancy against another nation. That is terrorism. Does Pakistan what to still be called the house of terrorists? I doubt that.
Give up the misguided notion of good and bad Taliban.
None are good for Pakistan.
From all these battles there are going to be many militants who realise their mistakes in following the Taliban. What are you going to do with them?
Throw them back to their villages, back to nothing, back to doing nothing, back to militancy at a later date?
That is a waste of a good resource.
The article
Article link: http://www.defence.pk/forums/pakistans-war/28534-analysis-good-bad-ugly-salman-tarik-kureshi.html
makes and interesting point on this.
"Maos government understood, back in 1949, that the presence of all the leftover weaponry from the war and the revolution would pose critical challenges to the Chinese state they intended to build. Therefore, they set about absorbing their own partisans, as well as the many other arms-wielding Chinese citizens, into the Red Army.
Similarly, the countries of Europe, replete with former Resistance fighters after World War II, carefully absorbed them into various arms of their government. The Americans used their GI Bill to fund university education for demobilised soldiers. And so in Vietnam. And in Cambodia.
In the aftermath of great wars and/or revolutions, which have left behind an enormous detritus of weapons and armed, militarily experienced persons, the means of absorbing those weapons into the states armoury and those persons into remunerative employment have been vigorously pursued and implemented by most countries.
We, too, live in a country bristling with guns and bulging with bombs left over, we are told, from the jihad in Afghanistan. And it is the armed and trained remnants of the partisans who fought that war whether as mujahideen or as Taliban that are responsible for the disorder and terrorism in our country."
If other nations realise this important aspect why has this never bee applied in Pakistan?
Is it belief that these groups will be a third force against the big enemy?
Or is it a real case of blatant crass arrogance by select controlling groups?
Or a case of the four monkeys, see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing and do nothing?
(Apologies to the three monkeys)
The article ANALYSIS: The good, the bad and the ugly makes the following comment:
Minimal common sense and at least some honesty of purpose would have suggested precisely the kinds of prescriptions that have been followed elsewhere. But our elites beyond even the bounds of ordinary common sense further equipped these warriors, made deals with them, pampered them as intelligence assets and sought to use them to project the force of the Pakistan state beyond our borders
So why were these so called assets allowed to become a third undeclared, disorganised and not beholden to the government arm of the strategic plan. They were acting as terrorists and the government was housing them.
Pakistanis cry foul about India and RAW doing the same, but how can you cry foul if your government does it?
This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Make sure this big plan of reconstruction of these are being currently battered by conflict also includes a sound manner to involve these returning fighters.
Do not leave them out to dry because if you do they will come back and haunt you again.
Look at China; look at what other nations have done. They absorbed them into their armed forces, or paid them to learn something useful; eg, trade or skill; to re enter the social mainstream.
Absorb them into the Army or the FC.
Do not ignore them again.
Articles AGAIN.
view: Learning the wrong lessons Chalinda Weerasinghe
Make no mistake, neither Sri Lanka nor Pakistan faces purely a military threat. Although there is much discussion that the military is only part of the solution, there is no indication that any other aspect of the solution is being considered seriously
Just as the Pakistani military advances towards the Taliban stronghold in South Waziristan, the Sri Lankan Army is busy celebrating its military victory against the LTTE. The Sri Lankan experience contains a number of pertinent lessons for the Pakistani authorities. These lessons must be heeded if Pakistan is to retain its democratic and moderate values and institutions.
I wish to point to the negative aspects of the Lankan experience to illustrate the potential pitfalls Pakistan must guard against.
Amidst the euphoria in Sri Lanka over the perceived end to the LTTE menace, we must not forget that Sri Lankas victory has come at an unacceptable price. I am not even sure if it can be called a victory. There are no indications that the root causes of the Sri Lankan conflict are being addressed and political realities are in fact nudging the government to see the military victory as an end-game.
Sri Lanka has had a lamentable past. It degenerated into an illiberal quasi-police state where successive governments (the present one included) have engaged in overt and covert intimidation of dissidents, journalists and human rights workers, and dismantled the independent judicial system in the name of national interest. They carried out extra-judicial killings and torture, conducted human rights violations, and suppressed all forms of dissent. Communal fires were stoked and civil liberties were suspended for the most part; Colombo became a prime example of majoritarianism gone wrong.
It is in light of this context that we need to understand the current victory against the LTTE. The present administration is led by ultra-right nationalists who were, for the first time since Tamil militant uprisings, as hard-line and resolute as the terrorists they were fighting. This fact, coupled with new strategic and tactical operational expertise, enabled the government to achieve a military victory that had eluded its predecessors.
In doing so, however, they went to unprecedented lengths to control the general population and generate support for the war. They also showed callous disregard for Tamil civilian lives, epitomised by their behaviour towards the end of the war. They did not possess a plan for a lasting political solution to the problem after the military victory.
The reason Velupillai Prabhakarans ruthlessness did not dent his hold on his people is that his aspirations were widely shared by Tamils when the militant movement first started gaining traction in Sri Lanka. The LTTE wanted a separate homeland but also at times advocated a federal solution to solve the conflict. Neither of these demands were seriously discussed and entertained by successive governments.
As in the 1950s, when the seeds of the conflict were first sown, nationalist parties are the driving force in the current government and they have always maintained that Sri Lanka is a Sinhalese country above all. Even the army has made similar comments.
Quite worrisome is the fact that talks of more autonomy to the Tamils in the wake of the military victory over the LTTE have been shot down by those sympathetic to the government and its nationalist proponents. The government has already ruled out the LTTE as a negotiating partner in a peace process but there is no viable independent Tamil party or voice to articulate the needs of the Tamils.
The only Tamil parties are beholden to the majority Sinhalese-led political parties for survival. Hence, there is little reason to be optimistic that a lasting, satisfactory political solution is forthcoming from this administration.
The discriminatory practices of subsequent Sri Lankan governments aided the LTTE and other radical groups in their recruitment and mobilisation. These terrorist groups tapped into the marginalisation felt by the Tamil community in the north and the east of the country. Likewise, although the Taliban are not reflecting Pashtun or Swati aspirations, they are tapping into the resentment and marginalisation felt by these groups economic, political and otherwise.
Amidst waves of suicide bombings and indiscriminate violence orchestrated by Tamil groups in Sri Lanka, the people turned a blind eye to the extreme measures undertaken by the government. There is evidence that Pakistanis are similarly desperate. Articles in the Pakistani press have been exhorting Pakistanis to accept collateral damage, just as Sri Lankans were repeatedly told to do (which they did with little opposition) through the years by their leaders.
Therefore, should Pakistan emulate Sri Lanka and lose its way by resorting to terrorism, intimidation and tyranny to fight an enemy who poses an existential threat to the state?
Certainly not. Once you go down the path that Sri Lanka embarked on, there is very little room to turn back. Institutions, precedence and incentives will take hold such that illiberal, tyrannical tendencies will be reinforced.
No state should resort to terrorism to defeat terrorists. They should not disregard human rights and violate conventions and norms regarding non-combatants and refugees. They should not deny civil liberties to their own people, curtail and censor the free media, suppress dissension and violate judicial independence.
The Pakistani Army so far seems to have taken great care in reducing collateral damage. Yet there are signs that no concrete plan exists for dealing with the massive IDP presence. No permanent socio-political solution has been debated. There are no plans on how to incorporate amenable Taliban foot soldiers into the mainstream.
Make no mistake, neither Sri Lanka nor Pakistan faces purely a military threat. Although there is much discussion that the military is only part of the solution, there is no indication that any other aspect of the solution is being considered seriously.
Pakistan needs to see the Taliban threat as a governance problem. Simultaneous efforts must be initiated to deal with the real reasons behind the disaffection of a large number of people in the country. On the military front, fighting a war with a conscience and restraint will only make it easier to bring disaffected citizens back into the mainstream.
Chalinda Weerasinghe is a political economist at the University of Maryland, College Park. He wrote this article exclusively for Daily Times
ANALYSIS: The good, the bad and the ugly Salman Tarik Kureshi
The distinction between good and bad insurrectionists is meaningless. To do deals with the good ones, as opposed to the bad ones, will only be a repetition of past tactics. And will bring us that bit closer to a final collapse into anarchic state failure
In a previous article, welcoming Prime Minister Gilanis announcement of military action against the insurgency in Swat, three questions were raised by this commentator:
First: is this meant only for Swat? What about the rest of the NWFP; what about FATA, particularly the two Waziristans; what about the alleged Taliban GHQ in Quetta; what about the killer squads, arms caches and sleeper cells scattered all over Pakistan, from Islamabad to Karachi? Will these all be taken out by our men in khaki?
Since then, of course, our armed forces, following formidable initial success in the Swat/ Malakand campaign, have announced preparation for a major assault on South Waziristan and Baitullah Mehsud of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan. We also learn that a Mr Turkistan Bhittani, another formidable warlord, has broken away from the TTP (perhaps not unlike some of our parliamentarians, known for forming forward blocs when changing allegiances) and will now be fighting on our side. Thus, Mr Bhittani is no more amongst the ranks of the bad anti-state terrorists, but will join the ranks of the good anti-state terrorists. And this is a development we are expected to applaud as a portent of the forthcoming victory of the state!
Now, I do not know whether there are accusations against Mr Bhittani and am unwilling to consider anyone guilty until proven so, but there is surely a principle here. Good Taliban or bad Taliban, both factions stand accused of extreme violence, of cold-blooded mass murder and of waging war against the state of Pakistan. There are no accusations more heinous than these: the most vicious kind of murder and the highest kind of treason and given that these criminals regularly misuse the sacred name of Islam the most sacrilegious blasphemy.
Is there then any distinction between the good Taliban and the bad Taliban? Are they not equally ugly? Equally deadly for our state and society?
One realises that selective amnesties and tactical battlefield alliances are necessary parts of serious counterinsurgency campaigns. But and this is the point such adjustments need to be highly selective and well thought through. Otherwise, one is simply unleashing a further species of monster to fight the monsters one has already unleashed.
Let us remember that, as the great Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong said, Power grows from the barrel of a gun. Mao therefore proceeded to capture the guns, first from the Japanese occupation army and then from the Kuomingtang government of Chiang Kai-Shek. After his revolution came to its conclusion and the Chinese state was re-established, his enormous country was still awash with guns and those who had wielded them.
Let us be clear of the truism that the nature of states is such that they must enjoy a quasi-monopoly of armed force within their territory. If a state is not to collapse and fail, if a society is to not to become critically dysfunctional, it is necessary for the military, the paramilitaries and the police to establish and rigidly assert exclusive control over serious weaponry. Side by side, those individuals who are adept at the use of such weaponry must be subject to the disciplines of the security organs of the state.
Maos government understood, back in 1949, that the presence of all the leftover weaponry from the war and the revolution would pose critical challenges to the Chinese state they intended to build. Therefore, they set about absorbing their own partisans, as well as the many other arms-wielding Chinese citizens, into the Red Army.
Similarly, the countries of Europe, replete with former Resistance fighters after World War II, carefully absorbed them into various arms of their government. The Americans used their GI Bill to fund university education for demobilised soldiers. And so in Vietnam. And in Cambodia.
In the aftermath of great wars and/or revolutions, which have left behind an enormous detritus of weapons and armed, militarily experienced persons, the means of absorbing those weapons into the states armoury and those persons into remunerative employment have been vigorously pursued and implemented by most countries.
We, too, live in a country bristling with guns and bulging with bombs left over, we are told, from the jihad in Afghanistan. And it is the armed and trained remnants of the partisans who fought that war whether as mujahideen or as Taliban that are responsible for the disorder and terrorism in our country.
Minimal common sense and at least some honesty of purpose would have suggested precisely the kinds of prescriptions that have been followed elsewhere. But our elites beyond even the bounds of ordinary common sense further equipped these warriors, made deals with them, pampered them as intelligence assets and sought to use them to project the force of the Pakistan state beyond our borders.
There are three kinds of persons, other than the legitimate state actors, who bear arms: straightforward criminals; the armed brigades associated with certain political parties and movements; and the insurrectionists and terrorists lumped together under the rubric of Islamic militants.
Now, all societies have their criminal underworlds and Pakistan too is richly endowed with such. Whether Karachis car and cell-phone snatchers, the dharels of interior Sindh, the badmashes of Punjab, ordinary murderers or the drug peddlers universal in our pious country, there is a colourful variety of armed law breakers to be found in our towns and villages. After all, every society, every country, has its dark underside. Crime pays (or not) everywhere in the world. And everywhere criminals are organised and armed.
But Colombia and the United States and Russia and Italy and all the other countries with armed criminal gangs are in no way threatened with state failure or social collapse. Do criminals erode the foundations of a society or a state? Not really; they are too marginal in the wider sweep of social processes. Society does not collapse; the state does not fail.
But it is something else that has happened in Pakistan. The proliferation and arming of certain, fitfully favoured political groups most prominently in the 1980s, but prevalent before and continuing thereafter and the establishments failure to adequately confront them is where the serious destabilisation of Pakistani society began. It was a short step from there to todays large-scale militias of armed militants and terrorists, against whom the Pakistani authorities claim to be fighting their war on terror.
Let us also be clear. The distinction between good and bad insurrectionists is meaningless. They are all guilty of the same, incredible level of criminal behaviour. To do deals with the good ones, as opposed to the bad ones, will only be a repetition of past tactics. And will bring us that bit closer to a final collapse into anarchic state failure.
The writer is a marketing consultant based in Karachi. He is also a poet
Why too difficult to understand or is it a case they cut to close to the truth?
I have noticed that many like making nationalistic comments about many valid posted articles on the current war against the terrorists, but sometimes when it comes to looking at the mirror most shun the reflection.
http://www.defence.pk/forums/pakistans-war/28534-analysis-good-bad-ugly-salman-tarik-kureshi.html
http://www.defence.pk/forums/curren...rning-wrong-lessons-chalinda-weerasinghe.html
For those that find flicking to other posts while reading one, these articles are listed below.
The article, view: Learning the wrong lessons, has some interesting salient points. Unfortunately the writer has managed to cloud then by the depth of detail re Sri Lanka and the LTTE
Firstly the current battles with the Taliban are not going to be just a military one. This is something that should be obvious.
In many cases governments have looked at insurgencies and being solved by the military in one way or the other. Wrong. Many of these insurgencies stem from bad governess. What the writer is endeavouring to point out is that the LTTE insurgency is based on that, ie bad governance by various Sri Lankan governments not listening.
If one looks at many of the issues that are in NWFP, FATA, and also Balochistan there are many underlying social matters that are at the root of the problems.
The Taliban promoted themselves as a solution to all these social ills. Yes they failed due to their methods, but they got a foot in the door. Something the Government of Pakistan or Provincial government had not managed to do.
To get the Taliban out and regain the veneer of Government writ military action will be required in FATA and NWFP. Now Balochistan may hold other surprises yet to be uncovered. Wait and see.
What the current battles in FATA and NWFP have doe is create a large number of displace persons. This is a big concern for any government. There has to be solutions to dealing with this.
Now while the military campaign progresses there must be well defined support plan in place. This plan has to deal with the displaced people and the aftermath of the conflict. So far there appears to be little that has been really done in this quarter. This does not imply the Government of Pakistan must deal with this by itself. But the Government must have constructed a workable and realistic plan on how to deal with the situation. Has it really done this?
Now I say the Government of Pakistan does not have to do the reconstruction by itself I mean simple the government must develop the plan, decide what structures, ( for a start buildings as schools, hospitals and court houses, police stations), have to be built or rebuilt, what infrastructure, power, water and roads to rebuild or build, and what social needs the areas need.
With this plan the government must then clearly outline what they need to be provided from those that have offered aid in this massive rebuilding.
That plan is one not only covering the current handling of displaced persons and their rehabilitation home but what happens socially and within the realms of justices and governance, the main areas which allowed the Taliban to get a foot hold.
One important aspect is the need to deliver effective and honest government administration. Though that may be something needed everywhere.
Governance is one of the critical issues and it is time that all of Pakistan realised that it can not continue with federal administered areas any more.
The nation must either go forward or stagnate.
Stagnation leads to collapse.
Pakistan has virtually been running as a stat within a state with the way the NW has been governed. It is now time to make huge changes to the nation and become one, not one inside another.
It is time to realise that one province cannot be stripped for the benefit of the others.
These are the things that so far Sri Lanka is not doing. Dont follow that path.
Reread
http://www.defence.pk/forums/curren...rning-wrong-lessons-chalinda-weerasinghe.html
And make sure your nation progresses not stagnates.
This may require you do more than just write comments on a web forum. That literally does nothing as far as your government is concerned. I doubt they even read your posts.
There is still one critical aspect to the Taliban that few have bothered to talk about.
Yes everyone knows that is the so called good Taliban and the Bad Taliban.
First what is a good Taliban? From what I can gather it is someone who does not wage battle against the state of Pakistan but lives in Pakistan.
How ridiculous is that. That literally means the Government of Pakistan houses people who are conducting militancy against another nation. That is terrorism. Does Pakistan what to still be called the house of terrorists? I doubt that.
Give up the misguided notion of good and bad Taliban.
None are good for Pakistan.
From all these battles there are going to be many militants who realise their mistakes in following the Taliban. What are you going to do with them?
Throw them back to their villages, back to nothing, back to doing nothing, back to militancy at a later date?
That is a waste of a good resource.
The article
Article link: http://www.defence.pk/forums/pakistans-war/28534-analysis-good-bad-ugly-salman-tarik-kureshi.html
makes and interesting point on this.
"Maos government understood, back in 1949, that the presence of all the leftover weaponry from the war and the revolution would pose critical challenges to the Chinese state they intended to build. Therefore, they set about absorbing their own partisans, as well as the many other arms-wielding Chinese citizens, into the Red Army.
Similarly, the countries of Europe, replete with former Resistance fighters after World War II, carefully absorbed them into various arms of their government. The Americans used their GI Bill to fund university education for demobilised soldiers. And so in Vietnam. And in Cambodia.
In the aftermath of great wars and/or revolutions, which have left behind an enormous detritus of weapons and armed, militarily experienced persons, the means of absorbing those weapons into the states armoury and those persons into remunerative employment have been vigorously pursued and implemented by most countries.
We, too, live in a country bristling with guns and bulging with bombs left over, we are told, from the jihad in Afghanistan. And it is the armed and trained remnants of the partisans who fought that war whether as mujahideen or as Taliban that are responsible for the disorder and terrorism in our country."
If other nations realise this important aspect why has this never bee applied in Pakistan?
Is it belief that these groups will be a third force against the big enemy?
Or is it a real case of blatant crass arrogance by select controlling groups?
Or a case of the four monkeys, see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing and do nothing?
(Apologies to the three monkeys)
The article ANALYSIS: The good, the bad and the ugly makes the following comment:
Minimal common sense and at least some honesty of purpose would have suggested precisely the kinds of prescriptions that have been followed elsewhere. But our elites beyond even the bounds of ordinary common sense further equipped these warriors, made deals with them, pampered them as intelligence assets and sought to use them to project the force of the Pakistan state beyond our borders
So why were these so called assets allowed to become a third undeclared, disorganised and not beholden to the government arm of the strategic plan. They were acting as terrorists and the government was housing them.
Pakistanis cry foul about India and RAW doing the same, but how can you cry foul if your government does it?
This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Make sure this big plan of reconstruction of these are being currently battered by conflict also includes a sound manner to involve these returning fighters.
Do not leave them out to dry because if you do they will come back and haunt you again.
Look at China; look at what other nations have done. They absorbed them into their armed forces, or paid them to learn something useful; eg, trade or skill; to re enter the social mainstream.
Absorb them into the Army or the FC.
Do not ignore them again.
Articles AGAIN.
view: Learning the wrong lessons Chalinda Weerasinghe
Make no mistake, neither Sri Lanka nor Pakistan faces purely a military threat. Although there is much discussion that the military is only part of the solution, there is no indication that any other aspect of the solution is being considered seriously
Just as the Pakistani military advances towards the Taliban stronghold in South Waziristan, the Sri Lankan Army is busy celebrating its military victory against the LTTE. The Sri Lankan experience contains a number of pertinent lessons for the Pakistani authorities. These lessons must be heeded if Pakistan is to retain its democratic and moderate values and institutions.
I wish to point to the negative aspects of the Lankan experience to illustrate the potential pitfalls Pakistan must guard against.
Amidst the euphoria in Sri Lanka over the perceived end to the LTTE menace, we must not forget that Sri Lankas victory has come at an unacceptable price. I am not even sure if it can be called a victory. There are no indications that the root causes of the Sri Lankan conflict are being addressed and political realities are in fact nudging the government to see the military victory as an end-game.
Sri Lanka has had a lamentable past. It degenerated into an illiberal quasi-police state where successive governments (the present one included) have engaged in overt and covert intimidation of dissidents, journalists and human rights workers, and dismantled the independent judicial system in the name of national interest. They carried out extra-judicial killings and torture, conducted human rights violations, and suppressed all forms of dissent. Communal fires were stoked and civil liberties were suspended for the most part; Colombo became a prime example of majoritarianism gone wrong.
It is in light of this context that we need to understand the current victory against the LTTE. The present administration is led by ultra-right nationalists who were, for the first time since Tamil militant uprisings, as hard-line and resolute as the terrorists they were fighting. This fact, coupled with new strategic and tactical operational expertise, enabled the government to achieve a military victory that had eluded its predecessors.
In doing so, however, they went to unprecedented lengths to control the general population and generate support for the war. They also showed callous disregard for Tamil civilian lives, epitomised by their behaviour towards the end of the war. They did not possess a plan for a lasting political solution to the problem after the military victory.
The reason Velupillai Prabhakarans ruthlessness did not dent his hold on his people is that his aspirations were widely shared by Tamils when the militant movement first started gaining traction in Sri Lanka. The LTTE wanted a separate homeland but also at times advocated a federal solution to solve the conflict. Neither of these demands were seriously discussed and entertained by successive governments.
As in the 1950s, when the seeds of the conflict were first sown, nationalist parties are the driving force in the current government and they have always maintained that Sri Lanka is a Sinhalese country above all. Even the army has made similar comments.
Quite worrisome is the fact that talks of more autonomy to the Tamils in the wake of the military victory over the LTTE have been shot down by those sympathetic to the government and its nationalist proponents. The government has already ruled out the LTTE as a negotiating partner in a peace process but there is no viable independent Tamil party or voice to articulate the needs of the Tamils.
The only Tamil parties are beholden to the majority Sinhalese-led political parties for survival. Hence, there is little reason to be optimistic that a lasting, satisfactory political solution is forthcoming from this administration.
The discriminatory practices of subsequent Sri Lankan governments aided the LTTE and other radical groups in their recruitment and mobilisation. These terrorist groups tapped into the marginalisation felt by the Tamil community in the north and the east of the country. Likewise, although the Taliban are not reflecting Pashtun or Swati aspirations, they are tapping into the resentment and marginalisation felt by these groups economic, political and otherwise.
Amidst waves of suicide bombings and indiscriminate violence orchestrated by Tamil groups in Sri Lanka, the people turned a blind eye to the extreme measures undertaken by the government. There is evidence that Pakistanis are similarly desperate. Articles in the Pakistani press have been exhorting Pakistanis to accept collateral damage, just as Sri Lankans were repeatedly told to do (which they did with little opposition) through the years by their leaders.
Therefore, should Pakistan emulate Sri Lanka and lose its way by resorting to terrorism, intimidation and tyranny to fight an enemy who poses an existential threat to the state?
Certainly not. Once you go down the path that Sri Lanka embarked on, there is very little room to turn back. Institutions, precedence and incentives will take hold such that illiberal, tyrannical tendencies will be reinforced.
No state should resort to terrorism to defeat terrorists. They should not disregard human rights and violate conventions and norms regarding non-combatants and refugees. They should not deny civil liberties to their own people, curtail and censor the free media, suppress dissension and violate judicial independence.
The Pakistani Army so far seems to have taken great care in reducing collateral damage. Yet there are signs that no concrete plan exists for dealing with the massive IDP presence. No permanent socio-political solution has been debated. There are no plans on how to incorporate amenable Taliban foot soldiers into the mainstream.
Make no mistake, neither Sri Lanka nor Pakistan faces purely a military threat. Although there is much discussion that the military is only part of the solution, there is no indication that any other aspect of the solution is being considered seriously.
Pakistan needs to see the Taliban threat as a governance problem. Simultaneous efforts must be initiated to deal with the real reasons behind the disaffection of a large number of people in the country. On the military front, fighting a war with a conscience and restraint will only make it easier to bring disaffected citizens back into the mainstream.
Chalinda Weerasinghe is a political economist at the University of Maryland, College Park. He wrote this article exclusively for Daily Times
ANALYSIS: The good, the bad and the ugly Salman Tarik Kureshi
The distinction between good and bad insurrectionists is meaningless. To do deals with the good ones, as opposed to the bad ones, will only be a repetition of past tactics. And will bring us that bit closer to a final collapse into anarchic state failure
In a previous article, welcoming Prime Minister Gilanis announcement of military action against the insurgency in Swat, three questions were raised by this commentator:
First: is this meant only for Swat? What about the rest of the NWFP; what about FATA, particularly the two Waziristans; what about the alleged Taliban GHQ in Quetta; what about the killer squads, arms caches and sleeper cells scattered all over Pakistan, from Islamabad to Karachi? Will these all be taken out by our men in khaki?
Since then, of course, our armed forces, following formidable initial success in the Swat/ Malakand campaign, have announced preparation for a major assault on South Waziristan and Baitullah Mehsud of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan. We also learn that a Mr Turkistan Bhittani, another formidable warlord, has broken away from the TTP (perhaps not unlike some of our parliamentarians, known for forming forward blocs when changing allegiances) and will now be fighting on our side. Thus, Mr Bhittani is no more amongst the ranks of the bad anti-state terrorists, but will join the ranks of the good anti-state terrorists. And this is a development we are expected to applaud as a portent of the forthcoming victory of the state!
Now, I do not know whether there are accusations against Mr Bhittani and am unwilling to consider anyone guilty until proven so, but there is surely a principle here. Good Taliban or bad Taliban, both factions stand accused of extreme violence, of cold-blooded mass murder and of waging war against the state of Pakistan. There are no accusations more heinous than these: the most vicious kind of murder and the highest kind of treason and given that these criminals regularly misuse the sacred name of Islam the most sacrilegious blasphemy.
Is there then any distinction between the good Taliban and the bad Taliban? Are they not equally ugly? Equally deadly for our state and society?
One realises that selective amnesties and tactical battlefield alliances are necessary parts of serious counterinsurgency campaigns. But and this is the point such adjustments need to be highly selective and well thought through. Otherwise, one is simply unleashing a further species of monster to fight the monsters one has already unleashed.
Let us remember that, as the great Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong said, Power grows from the barrel of a gun. Mao therefore proceeded to capture the guns, first from the Japanese occupation army and then from the Kuomingtang government of Chiang Kai-Shek. After his revolution came to its conclusion and the Chinese state was re-established, his enormous country was still awash with guns and those who had wielded them.
Let us be clear of the truism that the nature of states is such that they must enjoy a quasi-monopoly of armed force within their territory. If a state is not to collapse and fail, if a society is to not to become critically dysfunctional, it is necessary for the military, the paramilitaries and the police to establish and rigidly assert exclusive control over serious weaponry. Side by side, those individuals who are adept at the use of such weaponry must be subject to the disciplines of the security organs of the state.
Maos government understood, back in 1949, that the presence of all the leftover weaponry from the war and the revolution would pose critical challenges to the Chinese state they intended to build. Therefore, they set about absorbing their own partisans, as well as the many other arms-wielding Chinese citizens, into the Red Army.
Similarly, the countries of Europe, replete with former Resistance fighters after World War II, carefully absorbed them into various arms of their government. The Americans used their GI Bill to fund university education for demobilised soldiers. And so in Vietnam. And in Cambodia.
In the aftermath of great wars and/or revolutions, which have left behind an enormous detritus of weapons and armed, militarily experienced persons, the means of absorbing those weapons into the states armoury and those persons into remunerative employment have been vigorously pursued and implemented by most countries.
We, too, live in a country bristling with guns and bulging with bombs left over, we are told, from the jihad in Afghanistan. And it is the armed and trained remnants of the partisans who fought that war whether as mujahideen or as Taliban that are responsible for the disorder and terrorism in our country.
Minimal common sense and at least some honesty of purpose would have suggested precisely the kinds of prescriptions that have been followed elsewhere. But our elites beyond even the bounds of ordinary common sense further equipped these warriors, made deals with them, pampered them as intelligence assets and sought to use them to project the force of the Pakistan state beyond our borders.
There are three kinds of persons, other than the legitimate state actors, who bear arms: straightforward criminals; the armed brigades associated with certain political parties and movements; and the insurrectionists and terrorists lumped together under the rubric of Islamic militants.
Now, all societies have their criminal underworlds and Pakistan too is richly endowed with such. Whether Karachis car and cell-phone snatchers, the dharels of interior Sindh, the badmashes of Punjab, ordinary murderers or the drug peddlers universal in our pious country, there is a colourful variety of armed law breakers to be found in our towns and villages. After all, every society, every country, has its dark underside. Crime pays (or not) everywhere in the world. And everywhere criminals are organised and armed.
But Colombia and the United States and Russia and Italy and all the other countries with armed criminal gangs are in no way threatened with state failure or social collapse. Do criminals erode the foundations of a society or a state? Not really; they are too marginal in the wider sweep of social processes. Society does not collapse; the state does not fail.
But it is something else that has happened in Pakistan. The proliferation and arming of certain, fitfully favoured political groups most prominently in the 1980s, but prevalent before and continuing thereafter and the establishments failure to adequately confront them is where the serious destabilisation of Pakistani society began. It was a short step from there to todays large-scale militias of armed militants and terrorists, against whom the Pakistani authorities claim to be fighting their war on terror.
Let us also be clear. The distinction between good and bad insurrectionists is meaningless. They are all guilty of the same, incredible level of criminal behaviour. To do deals with the good ones, as opposed to the bad ones, will only be a repetition of past tactics. And will bring us that bit closer to a final collapse into anarchic state failure.
The writer is a marketing consultant based in Karachi. He is also a poet