This is clear to all and sundry that Taliban have been created by "invisible hands" and then they have been given the control of tribal areas situated on Pak-Afghan border. At last the "invisible hands" succeeded in getting a project from the United States for killing Taliban. Use of the army has always been opposed everywhere, but in tribal areas and North West Frontier Province they have been given free hand to kill the people. It is astonishing the main characters of Taliban movement have still been enjoying support of the "invisible hands." Through this issue they can get dollars from the United States. They are still alive and enjoying their life, but millions of people have been running for their lives.
Champions of democracy have played havoc in the country. The present rulers sitting in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, have handed over the country to the army. There will be no denying the fact. Former president of Paksitan, Pervez Musharraf, did not enjoy as much power as is being given to the present generals. The rulers cannot go outside Islamabad. The figure of internally displaced persons has crossed three million. I am just sharing an article of Rustam Sham Mohmand, written in a leading Pakistani newspaper. Rustam Shah is a retired bureaucrat, who also remained Pakistan's ambassador in Afghanistan.
In the nineteenth century they fought the British imperialists in a long-drawn-out war of attrition. In the twentieth century they were pitted against the might of another empire, the Soviet Union. In the 21st century, in yet another unequal contest, they are confronted by and fighting against the US empire.
To make matters worse, the Pakistani Pakhtoons are also under attack by the security forces of their own country.The Pakhtoons, perhaps never before in their history, were going through an ordeal as awesome in its magnitude as in its cruelty.
In neighbouring Afghanistan, Pakhtoon villages are being systematically demolished, their men, women and children are dying every day like cattle or, worse still, like flies. It is a Pakhtoon genocide. Their economy is in ruins, their homes broken, their families shattered, their future uncertain and their present as bleak as it can get.
In the tribal areas they are being bombed and struck every second day with missiles, as if they are all enemies.
In Karachi, the biggest Pakhtoon city, they are periodically picked up and brutally killed, with no questions asked. Politics is more sacrosanct than the lives of ordinary mortals in the Land of the Pure.
The launching of the latest operation by the government smacks of the same hypocricy, double standards and lack of foresight that has characterised our policy formulation in the last 60 years.
From the word go, it appeared that the government was in no mood to implement the act it chose to extend, most reluctantly and after inexplicable delay.
The interregnum between the signing of the agreement and the approval of the president to sign Nizam-e-Adl into law was utilised for creating a hype, for painting a dreadful scenario of the implications of implementing the act. A deliberate mindset of phobia was created. It was not, for instance, explained to the people and to the world that the government is only re-enacting a law that was adopted by the governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
When there was no countrywide criticism of the act, then why was a storm being created now?
And when the law was extended finally there was a lukewarm attitude towards putting in place an infrastructure to implement the act. That was partly deliberate and partly reflected the incompetence of the authorities.
Just as the act was extended In 1994 and in 1999 and not allowed to take practical shape, it was presumed that the act would remain a document on paper and it would be business as usual.
This approach failed then, and it didn't quite work out this time.
It was not realised that merely calling a judge a qazi does not make him competent for administration of a totally different legal system.
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