The IDPs of FATA: Issues and Challenges

Rizwan Ismail

With­in the last decade, around 350,000 peo­ple from Fed­er­al­ly Admin­is­tered Trib­al Areas (FATA) have been inter­nal­ly dis­placed owing to mil­i­tan­cy, mil­i­tary oper­a­tions and threats from Tal­iban. This mas­sive human dis­as­ter has not received enough atten­tion from the state and the civ­il soci­ety. FATA Research Cen­tre (FRC), the first ever non-par­ti­san and non-polit­i­cal think-tank to improve under­stand­ing of FATA through research and analy­sis, recent­ly organ­ised a sem­i­nar in Islam­abad titled ‘The IDPs of FATA: Issues and Chal­lenges’. It encom­passed a diverse pool of opin­ions from speak­ers like Jan Muham­mad Achakzai (Offi­cial Spokesper­son of Jami­at Ule­ma Islam‑F), Ibrahim Shin­wari (Polit­i­cal Ana­lyst and Jour­nal­ist), Gul Bat Khan Afri­di (Head of IDP’s Shu­ra, FATA), Syed Zaheer Ul Islam Shah (DG Provin­cial Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Author­i­ty), Sen­a­tor Haji Muham­mad Adeel (Awa­mi Nation­al Par­ty), and Ahmer Bilal Soofi (Min­is­ter for Law & Jus­tice).

Dr. Ashraf Ali, Pres­i­dent FATA Research Cen­tre, intro­duced that the major por­tion of Inter­nal­ly Dis­placed Per­sons (IDPs) comes from Kur­ram, Khy­ber, and Orakzai Agen­cies, and South Waziris­tan because of the on-going mil­i­tary oper­a­tions against TTP. “They have left their homes to avoid the effects of armed con­flicts, bomb blasts, shelling, drone attacks and var­i­ous oth­er kinds of ter­ror­ist attacks which have absolute­ly shat­tered peace of the region.” He stat­ed. Wors­en­ing eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion was also high­light­ed by Mr. Ibrahim Shin­wari, a polit­i­cal ana­lyst and jour­nal­ist, as anoth­er major cause of dis­place­ment. He elab­o­rat­ed that while there were already few­er eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties in FATA, oth­er impor­tant avenues such as smug­gling that sup­port­ed a large num­ber of peo­ple have been monop­o­lized by the mil­i­tants.

Ibrahim Shin­wari, fur­ther speak­ing about the ground real­i­ties, stat­ed that the offi­cial fig­ures do not illus­trate the sit­u­a­tion clear­ly in terms of human loss and suf­fer­ing. Noth­ing less than around 165,000 fam­i­lies are forced to flee their homes and stay out­side in tents and tem­po­rary places in the areas like Hangu, Peshawar, Karachi, Fateh Nawab, Rawalpin­di and Islam­abad. Talk­ing about the mis­er­able con­di­tions that IDPs are liv­ing in, he said, “Peo­ple espe­cial­ly the females and chil­dren are suf­fer­ing from great many psy­cho­log­i­cal prob­lems. Life has become so dif­fi­cult that even a hus­band and wife are not able to talk or sit togeth­er because of the over-crowd­ed­ness.” He went fur­ther to high­light the con­se­quences of such neg­li­gence by point­ing out that the edu­cat­ed unem­ployed youth of the IDPs is at a seri­ous risk of falling into the hands of mil­i­tants just to get some mon­ey and oth­er mate­r­i­al ben­e­fits to feed and sup­port their fam­i­lies.

Shar­ing his own expe­ri­ences and those of his fel­low IDPs, Gul Bat Khan Afri­di, head of IDP’s Shu­ra, spoke very crit­i­cal of the insuf­fi­cient efforts of state author­i­ties to address their plight.  He said, “We the trib­al peo­ple have always been sac­ri­fic­ing for the nation, for the coun­try, and will con­tin­ue to do so. But we get noth­ing in return. With vir­tu­al­ly no edu­ca­tion and health facil­i­ties, our youth has no future. We are worse off than the Afghan refugees. The food is always short, the reg­is­tra­tion sys­tem is cum­ber­some and slow, and there is no trans­porta­tion and secu­ri­ty. Last time there was a bomb blast in our camps killing 18 peo­ple, no one took the notice. And still the camps are total­ly open and vul­ner­a­ble to any such attack.”

Syed Zaheer-ul-Islam Shah, DG Provin­cial Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Author­i­ty, was defen­sive by focus­ing on nuances of the issue. He said, “The sit­u­a­tion is quite com­pli­cat­ed in terms of var­i­ous actors involved; on one hand there are inter­na­tion­al stake hold­ers inter­est­ed in main­tain­ing region­al hege­mo­ny in the region, while on the oth­er hand there are mil­i­tants eager to impose their ver­sion of Islam by wag­ing war against the west. Then there are inter­nal rifts among mil­i­tants too, var­i­ous groups are in con­tin­u­ous tus­sle to gain con­trol over the area. Selec­tive sup­port of these mil­i­tants by the pow­er­ful actors fur­ther increas­es the com­pli­ca­tions.”

He con­test­ed the notion that the IDPs are in extreme­ly wretched con­di­tions by point­ing out that they are get­ting free elec­tric­i­ty, food, edu­ca­tion and health facil­i­ties. “Apart from some camps, oth­ers like Jalozai, Toap Srai, and New Dur­rani are very safe. Even after some areas in FATA being declared clear by the army, peo­ple still want to live in these camps.” He briefed.

It needs to be seen, how­ev­er, whether this is the bet­ter con­di­tions at the camps or the uncer­tain­ty of sit­u­a­tion back home that is forc­ing peo­ple not to go back. It could also be a com­bi­na­tion of the both.

Rest of the speak­ers includ­ing Sen­a­tor Haji Muham­mad Adeel, Jan Muham­mad Achakzai and Ahmer Bilal Soofi were more gener­ic in approach­ing the issue. They spoke of long term poli­cies and strate­gic prob­lems.

Sen­a­tor Haji Muham­mad Adeel of Awa­mi Nation­al Par­ty traced the his­tor­i­cal and con­tex­tu­al fac­tors behind the mil­i­tan­cy. He opined that FATA always used to be quite peace­ful. This mess start­ed in Zia’s era and reached its peak dur­ing Musharaf’s. Since mil­i­tants took over, they have killed about 1000 trib­al lead­ers and have held peo­ple hostage. He fur­ther added, “With­out peace in FATA, peace in Pak­istan will not be pos­si­ble. We can for­give the blood of our 800 mar­tyrs includ­ing that of Basheer Bilour and the son of Mian Iftikhar if mil­i­tants are ready to give up their arms and have nego­ti­a­tions.”

On the oth­er hand, Jan Muham­mad Achakzai, the offi­cial spokesper­son of JUIF, was keen­er at empha­siz­ing fail­ure of the gov­ern­ment and sug­gest­ing a dif­fer­ent course of action. He blamed government’s erro­neous pol­i­cy on ter­ror­ism as the pri­ma­ry cause for IDP cri­sis. He was of the opin­ion that all the mil­i­tary oper­a­tions must stop fol­lowed by peace­ful nego­ti­a­tions with the mil­i­tants, only such as approach can tack­le the IDP prob­lem.

Ahmer Bilal Soofi’s con­clu­sive talk spoke of a strat­e­gy to counter the root cause behind the whole prob­lem of inter­nal dis­place­ment, i.e. ter­ror­ism. He great­ly empha­sized on coun­ter­ing the extrem­ist mind set by reform­ing reli­gious edu­ca­tions and the cler­gy. “We have to teach our reli­gious schol­ars and madras­sa lead­er­ship the sig­nif­i­cance of inter­na­tion­al sys­tem as it has evolved since the end of Sec­ond World War. They must be made to under­stand inter­na­tion­al treaties and nar­cis­sist delu­sions medieval time should be root­ed out. By under­stand­ing inter­na­tion­al sys­tem and the sig­nif­i­cance of peace­ful coex­is­tence, we can over­come the prob­lem of ter­ror­ism hence of IDPs.” He con­clud­ed.

(Pub­lished in The Laal­tain — May 2013)