 A harder military approach towards militancy in the Tribal Areas seems a new agenda following the departure of Ali Jan Orakzai as the NWFP governor, who pleaded for a ‘peaceful solution’ to the issue engulfing the country’s western borders, analysts said on Saturday.
With Orakzai’s departure, political solution to the militancy in the Tribal Areas will be a distant cry and strong military response will follow, the analysts told Daily Times. “I think that emphasis on the political solution will be lesser and hard things have to come by,” said Khalid Aziz, head of the Regional Institute of Policy Research and Training.
| Meaning the new guy's not going to be on the turbans' side? |
Since early days of his appointment as NWFP governor in May 2006, Orakzai, himself a tribesman and former corps commander of Peshawar, was giving every young tribesman a pen to change mindset of the tribal people from militancy. “Orakzai was trying to balance government’s acts in the Tribal Areas with an emphasis on a political solution. With his departure, this emphasis will vanish,” Khalid, a former NWFP chief secretary, said.
| The political solution approach works if both sides want one. If one side wants a political solution and the other side wants to cut some heads off, it doesn't work at all. And if the guy who's pushing the political solution is actually on the side of the head choppers, it works even less. |
Within months of his appointment, Orakzai signed a peace deal with militants in North Waziristan in September 2006 and hoped that this would lead to a permanent solution. The Waziristan attempt was copied in the Helmand province of Afghanistan where the British forces left Musa Qala district after they reached a similar deal with the Taliban.
| Another move of singular brilliance. |
Although Orakzai kept himself at bay from the media, the Helmand deal prompted him to say that his deal with pro-Taliban militants in North Waziristan was a good starter, pleading that Afghanistan should “follow me”. Months later, anti-deal forces began voicing concern at the North Waziristan situation where they believed the deal was “benefiting the militants”. |