PESHAWAR: Laudable initiative

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Speaking at the death anniversaries of Khan Abdul Ghaffar (Bacha) Khan and Khan Abdul Wali Khan at Peshawar's Nishtar Hall on Monday, Awami National Party chief Asfandyar Wali reiterated his plan of convening an all parties conference on the issue of terrorism that is certainly a commendable initiative because the unabated subversive and sabotage activities by religious extremists have since become the number one predicament of the country. The ANP had, in fact, had the courage of convening such a moot of soon after the martyrdom of Bashir Ahmad Billlour in December and the ANP president only re-emphasized its importance as a vehicle to formulate a comprehensive anti-terrorism political policy because not only the ANP but several other parties in the country were target to militancy and extremism. When the ANP announced the convening of an APC, several parties, including the MQM, Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party and PML-Q, instantly agreed their participation. Asfandyar also met President Asif Ali Zardari in Karachi on Jan 10 with an invitation to the meet as the co-chairperson of the Pakistan People's Party. The ANP also contacted with the PML-N and several other political organizations for the moot. The ANP, despite the huge loss of the late Billour in a terrorist attack, had not shut the door for talks with the Taliban. It rather invited the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan to come on the negotiating table with the only condition that the TTP should renounce violence. In a general perspective, convening any such moot without a matching policy and corresponding steps will be a useless exercise. The most outstanding step in this direction was taken on October 22, 2008 when a joint session of parliament adopted a well thought out resolution after a two-week in-camera briefing by military intelligence officers. Although that occasion was restricted in a sense that not all parties but their parliamentary groups were part of the deliberations, all mainstream parties, however, availed the opportunity of listening of the nuisance direct from the horse's mouth. That resolution, among other things, sought to review the country's national security strategy and revisiting the methodology of combating terrorism. Although parliament approved army operation against militants, the matching political strategy has yet to be worked out. This is an exclusive reminder to the ANP whose leadership was also the part of those deliberations to pick the thread from the parliament's resolution to add a political strategy to fight terrorism in all its manifestations. For example, the ANP may include volatility of Karachi which is adding to the worries on the economic front besides pure law and order conditions. Then there is Balochistan where political instability coupled with insurgency like situation, caused by the involvement of foreign powers, is assuming a monstrous proportion. They may also make FATA part of their APC agenda where sheer poverty and deprivation of the people of their political and socio-economic rights is giving birth to militancy. In fact, the ANP APC should present a comprehensive plan to a national policy on all critical areas of life. The ANP moot must also take into account a general apathy of the international community to Pakistan falling prey to the twin-menace of militancy and extremism that has killed thousands of the people since its inception. This must also be mentioned that Pakistan cannot defeat terrorism on its own, simply because this a global issue even in Pakistan's perspective. The roots of international terrorism, of which Pakistan is the primary victim, lie in the complex nuisance of international history played out over the last three odd decades by world actors in South and West Asia regions. This burden of history is being borne by Pakistan alone. This also is a hard and regrettable fact that the powers which sowed the seeds of terrorism in areas bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan in connivance with the dictatorial rule in Pakistan, have simply abdicated their role to remedy the wrong. The ANP's APC in this context can make a new history provided all the political parties also seize this opportunity in the same spirit providing the input that commensurate with turning out an institutional effort to take on the challenging task. The host party that has the philosophy of Bacha Khan as the guiding light, will hopefully create an epoch making milieu in achieving the objective of making Pakistan a land of peace, love, tolerance and forward looking policies that guide the nation of 180 million people to the ultimate destination of egalitarianism.