Daily Times

Most countries in the world have border problems with their neighbours. Some of these problems have led to wars; some big, some small and some had remained just about in-between.

In many case, these problems have, with mutual consent, been consigned to the back-burner as countries in dispute conducted normal business on political, economic and social fronts, at times bending backwards to keep their bilateral relations from going into the reverse gear.

Some have resolved their border issues for all times to come on the basis of give- and- take. But there are also those which have allowed their border disputes to turn into permanent war-like situations causing their people to remain in a perpetual state of uncertainty, instability and crises ridden.

Pakistan and Afghanistan seem to fall into the last category. Both suffer from a large dose of trust deficit which makes it impossible for the two to sit across the table and debate the issue to find a mutually agreeable solution to the Durand Line (DL) problems in a spirit of give and take.

The first step towards ending for good the dispute over the DL is not by sealing the border with Afghanistan or militarily defending the physical divide that Pakistan believes is the actual boundary line between the two countries.

These steps would only add to the bitterness of a people who naturally cannot bring themselves to accept a line that divides houses, families and tribes.

Pashtuns make up the majority of population that live in the immediate vicinity on the two sides of the DL. Almost 100% of this population is followers of Islam. Culturally too, the two are identical.

But ironically, that is the main reason why the Afghans find it impossible to recognise the DL, which divides what they perceive are one people, as an international border.

On the other hand successive governments in Pakistan have consistently failed to legally establish that the Pashtun population that lives on our side of DL is made up of Pakistanis, different in national terms from those who live across on the other side of the DL and who call themselves Afghans.

This has happened because successive governments in Pakistan have miserably failed to bring the Pashtun population which lives in the immediate vicinity of our side of the DL into our national mainstream.

The irrelevancy of the Durand Line was proved beyond all doubts during the first Afghan war of 1980s, and it is being proved once again since the advent of now almost 16-year-long second Afghan war that began soon after 9/11

This population has remained consigned to its tribal existence all these 70 years. And under our constitution, people living in these so-called tribal regions do not enjoy the same legal and socio-economic rights that normal Pakistani citizens do.

Only a nation with a dead conscience could have lived with Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) an obnoxious law specifically meant for a group of its own citizens, without feeling guilty. We howl and bawl for the beleaguered Kashmiris under Indian occupation, for the Palestinians and for the Muslims of Myanmar. But for the agony and pain that we continue to cause to these four million Pakistanis, we show no feelings at all.

The socio-economic indicators suggest that FATA is Pakistan’s most impoverished and economically backward area. No major development work has taken place here since the country won independence from British rule over seven decades ago. This has resulted in political alienation, economic deprivation and fuelled deep resentment and grievances against the country itself.

The absence of an inclusive and participatory system of governance at the grass roots, a bias in favour of traditional feudal system of economy and a social hierarchy have created conditions for the perpetuation of a cycle of underdevelopment which is conducive for growth of militancy and religious conservatism.

In fact these tribal Pashtuns have been denied and deprived all these 70 years since independence of what is called the Pakistani persona that would have set them socially and politically apart from the Pashtun population that lives in the immediate vicinity on the Afghan side of DL.

Simply put, the two Pashtun populations on the two sides of DL are ethnically the same but nationally they are two different entities.

Now that the Army has successfully cleared the militant pockets that had existed in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA), especially from the South and North Waziristan Agencies, which had remained the strong-holds of these militants; and that the civilian populations have started streaming back to their homes, with repatriation, rehabilitation and reconstruction work in full swing, one felt the government would need to move quickly and implement the FATA reforms as recommended by the Sartaj Aziz Committee and bring the Pashtun population living in the tribal areas adjacent to the DL within the Pakistani mainstream.

This move, it is believed, would serve as the first step towards resolving the border dispute with Afghanistan. The second step would be for Pakistan to declare as irrelevant the dividing line between the two Pashtun populations called the Durand Linewhile in return Afghanistan recognised DL as international border.

The irrelevancy of the DL, a 2,430 kilometre long porous border between the two countries was proved beyond all doubts during the first Afghan war of 1980s and it is being proved once again since the advent of now almost 16-year long second Afghan war that began soon after 9/11 as militants of one kind or the other cross the DL at will and with impunity.

Once the irrelevancy of DL has been established in the  minds of the two nations separated by an internationally recognized border the original plans envisaged by the Americans called the Hammer and Anvil operations as well as the Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZs) could be revived with mutual consent, the latter for facilitating joint Pakistan-Afghanistan manufacturing units in private sector for producing goods for the US markets as is being done between Jordan and Israel and Egypt and Israel across their borders to establish lasting peace and improve the socio-economic well- being of the people living straddling these borders.

Once the ROZs become operative, the region straddling the DL would enable the landmass, with nudging from all three sides—-Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US—- to turn into a free trade zone (FTA) replacing the current free terror zone (FTA) with China and Central Asia also joining in as they too do not countenance living in a region swarming with terrorists.

The writer is a senior journalist based in Islamabad. He served as the Executive Editor of Express Tribune until 2014

Published in Daily Times, July 21^st, 2017.