Pakistan : Senseless mourning ’ over Hakeemullah’s death '

Something is out of kilter with Nawaz Sharif and his government’s claims that Hakeemullah Mehsud’s death has delivered a stinging blow to the peace initiative they had planned so meticulously. Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz has said that the US has turned the tables on Pakistan’s desire to end the insurgency engulfing the country through dialogue. He reiterated his government’s demand of seeing the drones stopped forthwith while talking to the defence representatives of various countries including the US at the Azam-i-Nau-4 army exercise in Bahawalpur. Heaping the entire blame on drone attacks coming along whenever there is a hope to bring the so-called stakeholders to the negotiating table, the government is brushing under the carpet the relevance and importance of killing a practitioner of terror. As if we have lost some saviour, Chaudhry Nisar is wailing endlessly since Friday. Operating on the radical fringe, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP’s) chief has been responsible for the killing and maiming of thousands of Pakistani soldiers and civilians. By mourning his death, are we not besides adding more confusion to the already perplexed people, trivializing Hakimullah’s atrocities? Are we not downplaying the sacrifices our soldiers made? Peace is important and all the more desirable if achieved through talks. However, the government also needs to keep its powder dry and have a Plan B in case the talks fail. Not only that, preparations for implementing that plan should be set in motion. So far such steps are conspicuous by their absence. Emotional rhetoric might at this critical time find a few all too willing ears to listen for the government, but in the long run a nuanced strategy to deal with terrorism cannot be dispensed with. Waiting as we have been for months now, the National Security Policy is nowhere to be seen. The creation of a Rapid Response Force and the Joint Intelligence Directorate is in limbo. The new revamping prepared for the National Counter Terrorism Authority is still unimplemented. We want to talk it out with the terrorists since the All Parties Conference suggested this way out, before other options are taken up. Though force is not beyond the strategic pale, how the government plans to use it is unclear. We have Plan A, that is dialogue with the enemy, but we lack Plan B, attacking the enemy if it decides to persist with its rogue attitude. For Hakeemullah and his like, the constitution of Pakistan is dispensable. They have called the system in Pakistan unIslamic, which the TTP under the global jihadi agenda is mandated to cleanse. Will the government concede to this demand? Will the government release the TTP prisoners having the blood of innocent people on their hands? Will the Pakistan army give in and leave FATA at the mercy of these senseless people using senseless force against the government and people? There are so many questions swirling around the entire programme of dialogue and its corresponding agenda that one is surprised at the continuing keenness, especially of Chaudhry Nisar, for peaceful negotiations with the terrorists at the cost of looking like apologists for the latter. Indeed the insurgency should be halted and a way out of it cannot be carved out through force alone and we need to initiate dialogue as well, but not from a position of weakness. The ‘mourning’ over Hakeemullah’s death by no means should be assumed as the closing of the dialogue door. The government is on record as saying saying that there are factions within the TTP that are averse to the talks; Hakeemullah’s was one of them. Even days before his killing he had denied accepting the government’s proposal to talk and showed defiance to stick to his conditions. Yet some of us still consider his killing an act that goes against Pakistan’s national interest. On the other hand Maulana Fazlur Rehman has said that whoever is killed by the US will be considered a martyr, even if the victim were a dog. Are we not in chorus with Maulana Fazlur Rehman by condemning and droning on over Hakeemullah’s death? He was an enemy killed by the US, with whom we had joined hands to combat terrorism. There is no jigsaw puzzle involved in it, then why test further the already tense and confused citizenry. Maybe it is time to come clean and clear about who is who and on the government’s strategy to strike at terrorism if the process of dialogue fails.