Development and the Battle for Swat Rabia Zafar
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The Fletcher School Online Journal for issues related to Southwest Asia and Islamic Civilization Spring 2011 Development and the Battle for Swat Rabia Zafar This paper examines the story of Swat through the In the early summer of 2009, world attention prism of human development, taking a narrow focused on Pakistan as Taliban militants gained a view of the ongoing unrest among Taliban foothold just 70 miles outside of the nation’s militants, the central government, and the capital, Islamabad, challenging the country’s disaffected people of the area. The paper begins nascent civilian government. The government by questioning the notion that the lack of responded with a strong show of military force, development and economic opportunities has pummeling the Swat Valley and surrounding been a significant impetus for religious extremism areas with tanks, heavy artillery, and helicopter and violence in Swat. It then evaluates other gunships. In the process, some 2 million people potential causes for the rise of Tehrikh-e-Taliban were internally displaced leaving Pakistan on the Pakistan (TTP) as a political force in the area. 2 brink of a large-scale humanitarian crisis. By late Next, the paper considers the Taliban’s strategy of June however, the military operation had started attacking symbols of modernity, such as girls’ yielding results and the government claimed that schools, infrastructure, and development-focused the Malakand Division, including Swat, had been NGOs, as a means to exert its control and cleared of the Taliban. 1 Most of the displaced establish a monopoly on governance. Finally, the civilians began returning to the area and paper concludes with an assessment of the post- international observers seemed satisfied that this conflict needs of the people of Swat, looking story had come to an end. Yet, this battle, with its within the development framework for long-term seemingly existential consequences and high-level remedies and ways to secure a lasting peace in the human drama, was only one episode in a long scenic valley. chronicle of insurgency, extremism, and frustration in Swat. A Theoretical Perspective While there is by no means an academic consensus regarding the effects of poverty on the Rabia Zafa r is a doctoral student at the Fletcher rise of political violence, insurgency, terrorism, or School of Law and Diplomacy, concentrating in extremism, many well known studies suggest a Human Security and Southwest Asia. Prior to link. For example, in his seminal work, Why Men Fletcher, she was researching the relationship between Rebel , Ted Robert Gurr put forth the theory of development and extremism in Pakistan. Rabia relative deprivation as a driver of political received a BA at the University of Virginia and an violence. 3 According to Gurr, the disparity MIA from Columbia University’s School of between what people expect to have and what International Public Affairs. they are capable of actually achieving creates © The Fletcher School – al Nakhlah – Tufts University 160 Packard Avenue – Medford, MA 02155-7082 USA – Tel: +1.617.627.3700 2 al Nakhlah frustration which, when coupled with a number from a disparate collection of opinion polls, of other factors can lead to aggression and newspaper editorials, and human development collective violence. A salient observation that data. This evidence suggests that the case of Swat comes from the relative deprivation theory is that fits better within a theoretical framework linking people’s economic, political, or even social “social cleavages” rather than poverty to the onset expectations are not absolute. Instead, of terrorism, insurgency, and/or civil war. One expectations are shaped by their environment and such framework is James Piazza’s “rooted in the experiences of those around them. More poverty hypothesis,” which tests the significance recently, a number of academic works focusing on of poverty, malnutrition, inequality, civil wars and insurgencies have attempted to unemployment, inflation, and poor economic find a causal relationship between growth as predictors of poverty and the onset of political A salient observation terrorism. 6 Using data from violence. Most notable among this terrorist incidents and casualties body of work is James Fearon and that comes from the in ninety-six countries (including David Laitin’s study, which finds relative deprivation Pakistan) from 1986 to 2002, poverty to be a positive indicator theory is that people’s Piazza finds no significant of violent domestic conflict. 4 In economic, political, or relationship between any of the addition to these empirical studies, even social measures of economic many western and Pakistani development and terrorism. policymakers and practitioners cite expectations are not Instead, he finds that “variables anecdotal evidence to support the absolute. such as population, ethno- notion that terrorism is a symptom religious diversity, increased of economic scarcity and the lack of education, state repression and, most significantly, the healthcare, food security, and general societal well structure of party politics…” are better predictors being. of terrorism. 7 The conflict in Swat, however, is not easily Although informative, Piazza’s work like explained by theories linking poverty and other academic works discussed earlier, does not political violence. Historically, Swat has been fully explain the onset of violence in Swat. Part of home to a lucrative tourism industry, attracting the problem is that the violence in Swat is difficult both domestic vacationers and “adventure to define. Its perpetrators have been described tourists” from abroad. Until recently, this variably as miscreants, terrorists, and insurgents– bolstered Swat’s local economy and garnered leaving observers to ponder whether Pakistan greater attention from the provincial and federal was fighting against criminal activity or battling a governments. Relative to other Pakistani cities, civil war in Swat. Whatever the characterization especially in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, most local experts agree that economic Swat was generally in the upper range on a development played a minor role, if any, as a number of development indicators. Table 1 on driver of the Swat conflict. 8 What was significant, page 10 is a comparison of four select however, was the constant and growing call for development indicators for Swat relative to speedy justice and better governance that for too border areas. The overall provincial numbers for long went unanswered. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are also listed. A Call for Justice As the table above indicates, Swat was While the lack of economic development among the better developed areas in the region, at may not have been a main driver of conflict in least from 2005-2008, and many experts assert that Swat, the underdeveloped judicial system and “the basic demand of the people [of Swat] was not ineffective local government certainly created for development but speedy justice.” 5 The social cleavages and played a major role in the empirical evidence to support this claim comes rise of Tehrikh-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as a © The Fletcher School – al Nakhlah – Tufts University Spring 2011 3 political force in the area. The February 2009 Afghanistan. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani passage of the Nizam-e-Adl regulation in which president at the time, had Muhammad arrested the federal government effectively agreed to a and banned the TNSM. Despite this set-back, the separate legal and judicial system for the movement continued to grow as Muhammad’s Malakand District, is generally seen as a son-in-law, Maulana Fazalullah took over and watershed in the conflict between the state and established links to the TTP. Fazalullah became the Taliban. While the regulation was known as the ‘Radio Mullah,’ operating 30 illegal undoubtedly symbolic, the fight between the state FM radio stations through which he broadcasted and extremist forces for control of the judicial his extremist views such as his opposition to system has a long and complex history in Swat. female education. In July 2007, Fazalullah For the purposes of this paper, it is important to declared jihad against the Pakistan army in examine this history to the extent that it can offer retaliation for its siege of the Red Mosque in alternative, non-development based explanations Islamabad. 9 This declaration brought on the for the advent of violence in Swat. second military operation against Sufi Muhammad and Fazalullah’s group. For most of its history, the Swat Valley had Nevertheless, by fall 2007 Fazalullah had gained been an autonomous princely state that only administrative control of Swat, setting up Islamic nominally bore the flag of various sovereigns. It courts and attacking girls’ schools. The violence was not until 1969 that the princely state was continued as the military intensified its operation. dissolved and a slow and often tumultuous Then, in April 2008, the provincial government process of integration into Pakistan’s embarked on a new peace process that resulted in administrative and legal structures began. In the a 16-point peace agreement. As part of the ensuing 30 years, political parties began picking agreement, Sufi Muhammad was released from up on local discontent with the ineptitude of the prison and Fazalullah was allowed to return to judicial system. The long delays in resolving even Swat. Peace however, was short-lived, as the straightforward civil claims, made many locals agreement broke down in June 2008. Militants nostalgic for the Sharia or Islamic system of cited the continued presence of the army as a deal jurisprudence that had existed prior to the breaker and therefore reneged on the agreement. dissolution of the princely state. In 1995, the Tahreekh-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi From August to December 2008, the (TNSM), a politically active militant group led by government engaged in its third military Sufi Muhammad, began agitating for Sharia courts operation in Swat. Militants had gained control of in Malakand. Initially, the government responded most of the area and an estimated 80,000 girls with a show of force, using the Frontier Corps, a were forced out of schools.