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Kurram groups sign accord to open key highway
[Dawn] After about three years, rival factions again signed a peace agreement here on Sunday to restore peace in  Kurram Agency...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora... after the government promised to provide security on the main highway in the region. Under the accord which was first signed in Murree in October 2008, the Thall-Parachinar road would be made safe for travel for local people and internally displaced people would be rehabilitated in their areas. The Thall-Parachinar highway linking the Kurram agency with the rest of the country has remained closed since 2007. Officials told news hounds that elders of various tribes representing rival sects had again signed the Murree accord in the presence of members of a reconciliation jirga and political agent Syed Shahab Ali Shah. The earlier agreement signed in Murree could not be implemented for unknown reasons despite the fact that rival tribes had fully backed it and even the leader of banned but still somehow murderously active Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistain Fazal Saeed had also endorsed it last year. Fazal Saeed later quit the TTP after developing differences with his chief Hakimullah Mehsud and set up his own faction and named it Tehrik-i-Taliban Islami. Under the new deal, all tribal elders agreed to ban waving guns in the area and impose Rs1 million fine for any violation of the agreement. They also agreed to rehabilitate all IDPs in their areas. It was decided that local people would set up village peace committees to check movement of hard boyz and trouble-makers. The government has decided to set up checkpoints on the main highway from Chappari at the point of entry to Kurram Agency and Tari Mangal, a village adjacent to the Afghan border. After deployment of forces on the highway, the administration, in cooperation with the Fata Disaster Management Authority, will start the work of rehabilitation of displaced persons in their respective areas. According to official reports, over 30,000 families were displaced after violence erupted  in November 2007.According to unofficial reports over 3,000 people had been killed and hundreds others maimed in bloody festivities. Residents said that deployment of army and paramilitary troops had been started and checkpoints were being set up. Sources said that elders of upper and lower Kurram had been insisting on deployment of army troops on the main road. A delegation of Turi-Bangash tribe held meetings with the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... Governor Barrister Masood Kausar and other stakeholders last week and demanded deployment of regular troops. Sources said the delegation was told that forces were overstretched because of security situation in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and other parts of Fata. However, by candlelight every wench is handsome... the delegation was assured that army would monitor the situation and more troops would be dispatched at an appropriate time. One tribal elder said that the deal's guarantors, including the Haqqani group, would be kept out of the process and the responsibility of maintaining peace would lie with the tribes. "All issues among the tribes would be settled in the light of the Murree declaration," said the elder, adding that outsiders, including Taliban groups, now had nothing to do with the matter. Meanwhile, ...back at the chili cook-off, Chuck and Manuel's rivalry was entering a new and more dangerous phase... two paramilitary soldiers were kidnapped from Bagun in lower Kurram on Saturday, officials said. They said that they were going from Thall Garrison to Alizai Fort in a private car when gunnies kidnapped them and shifted to an unknown location. No group has grabbed credit for the kidnapping. Posted by: Fred 2011-10-11 |
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