Daily Times

Frontier Region Peshawar, commonly known as FR Peshawar, is located towards the south of Peshawar and is part of FATA. The military operations in Bora and Pastawana areas in FR Peshawar in 2010 displaced thousands of people. On May 30, 2010, Daily Times reported that the displaced people have been waiting to get internally displaced persons (IDPs) status for the last two months. The report quoted some of the displaced people requesting the government to grant them IDP status at the earliest so that they become entitled to relief from aid organisations. These people have fled empty-handed from their homes and have been living in pathetic conditions in Peshawar and Nowshera. Many have gone to Karachi and many others went to live in the former Afghan refugee camp called Shamshato.

These people have not been given IDP status by the government of Pakistan even after the passage of about seven months. They continue to live in pathetic conditions in rented houses or with relatives without any relief from the authorities or aid organisations. Most of the children who attended schools in FR Peshawar have no opportunity to go to schools in the areas of their current residence due to the poverty of their parents. The displaced people have no health facilities. Many of them have no access to clean drinking water. They have been constantly approaching the authorities, but to no avail. Moreover, the media of Pakistan, it seems, has forgotten these people.

These people could not go back to their native areas due to the poor security situation. They complain that the military operations have failed to eliminate the Taliban. Within days after the first military operation in FR Peshawar, the Taliban, the majority of whom was non-local, came back to the area. They occupied the houses left by the displaced people. Many of them brought their families with them to FR Peshawar. Moreover, the Taliban have killed the leading tribal leaders of the area, like Malik Kala Khan and Malik Akbar Khan. They have also kidnapped another noted tribal leader, Malik Musa Khan.

It is pertinent to mention that Bora and Pastawana in FR Peshawar are on the border of village Adeyzai in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The tribal jirga in Adeyzai has made an anti-Taliban lashkar in response to the activities of the Taliban in FR Peshawar and Darra Adam Khel. The assassinated leader of this lashkar, Haji Abdul Malik, told me in an interview prior to his assassination that there were heavily armed Taliban, only 25 in number, in Pastawana. He said that he had been pleading with the authorities to eliminate them or let his lashkar’s men do the job. He complained that the authorities showed no interest in taking on those 25 Taliban and also stopped his lashkar’s men from eliminating them. The Taliban in Pastawana were the ones who sent a suicide bomber who killed Haji Malik in November 2009. Haji Malik would have been alive today and Pastawana free of the Taliban, if only the authorities had appropriately responded to his pleading.

To the people of FATA, one thing has been established beyond doubt: the military operations in FATA have never been meant for the elimination of the Taliban and al Qaeda in the area. This has never been the objective of even the military high command. The aim is to displace the local people to vacate the area for the Taliban who carry forward the agenda of strategic depth or to mislead wider society in Pakistan and the world at large that there is a people-backed militancy in FATA led by the Taliban who are the people of FATA. The Mehsud tribesmen of South Waziristan informed that there have been 17 small and big operations in their area and not even a single Taliban commander or foot-soldier has been killed in these operations. On the other hand, the Mehsud tribesmen have repeatedly become IDPs in these operations. Such fake military operations may be in the ‘interest’ of the state as defined by the intelligence agencies of Pakistan. This, however, has left the people of FATA in the most inhumane conditions. The people of Bora and Pastawana are an example of this. They have been abandoned by the state, which has not even recognised them as IDPs despite their displacement months ago.

The Bora and Pastawana IDPs request the UN secretary general, and authorities in the Red Cross, World Food Programme, UNICEF and other national and international aid organisations to request the government, on their behalf, to register them as IDPs so that they become entitled to relief help provided by the aid agencies.

The writer is a PhD Research Fellow with the University of Oslo and currently writing a book, Taliban and Anti-Taliban