Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Recently the government of Pakistan has been receiving a lot of flak for
signing the Swat Peace Accord and later the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation.
The media is in a frenzy with no one taking the middle ground. Most of
the English media and so called secular and liberals are against the
signing whereas the Urdu media as well as conservatives are in favor
of it.
All sorts of scenarios have been created to sway the opinion one way
or the other with one side predicting floggings and amputations all
over the country and the other painting a picture of peace and
harmony.
What is conspicuously absent from all these discussions is actual
critique of the agreement or regulations. The purpose of this article is
to have discussion on the letter of the agreement. For the purpose of
this article, I will ignore that Sufi Muhammad or Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-
Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) is backing the regulation. By going
through the agreement, I hope to understand why such secular parties
as ANP which governs NWFP and PPP which rules at the federal level
support the agreement.
Please do not for a moment believe that I am trying to act as an
apologist for Taliban or trying to forward their agenda. Just to make it
clear, I was disgusted by the flogging incident and believe that the way
it was decided and carried out was criminal even under Shariah.
Swat Peace Accord
I have gone through the text of Swat Accord and have reproduced it
below. By reading it, I fail to understand what all the brouhaha was
about. We were told that the government negotiated from a position of
weakness but when I read through the accord, most of the conditions
are imposed on Taliban. Even women are allowed to work under this
agreement, which is incredible as all of us would have believed a
condition contrary to this to be a part of the agreement.
Whether Taliban would have complied with Peace Accord had it run its
course is a different matter. However, that does not take away the fact
that the Accord in itself seems fairly balanced to the government of
Pakistan. I believe it would have done a lot of good had this agreement
been made public at the time of signing. Moreover, if Taliban had not
stuck to their part of Accord, it would have easily swayed the public
opinion against Taliban in the country, something which the media, the
government and secular liberals are trying desperately and in vain to
do.
Text of Swat Peace Accord
1- The Sharia law will be imposed in Swat, including the whole Malakand
division;
2- The Army will gradually withdraw security forces from the region;
3- The government and the Taliban will exchange prisoners;
4- The Taliban will recognise the writ of the government and they will
cooperate with the local police;
5- The Taliban will halt attacks on barber and music shops;
6- The Taliban will not display weapons in public;
7- The Taliban will turn in heavy weapons like rocket launchers and mortars
to the government;
8- The Taliban will not operate any training camps;
9- The Taliban will denounce suicide attacks;
10- A ban would be placed on raising private militias;
11- The Taliban will cooperate with the government to vaccinate children
against diseases like polio;
12- The Madrassa of Maulana Fazlullah in Imam Dherai would be turned into
an Islamic University;
13- Only licensed FM radio stations would be allowed to operate in the region
14- The Taliban will allow women to work without any fear.