Daily Times

Loach and Laverty’s portrayal of the Irish struggle for independence in the 1920s is a risqué portrayal of the gruesome freedom joust that pitted brothers against brothers, all for a noble cause. The Irish Republican Army’s sedulously resilient struggle against British colonialism is an inspiring yet poignant chapter in the history of Irish Republicanism. It was a tale that excited passions of patriotic fervour that could only be doused with a lot of blood, and a political agreement that the world now remembers as the “Good Friday Agreement”. There are amazing similarities between the problems he Irish faced and the troubles we face today in FATA, KP, and Balochistan.

Like the IRA struggle, there are particular ideologies that cause unrest in certain areas especially Balochistan. Religious extremism and sectarian cleavages are eerily reminiscent of the Catholic-Protestant animus that rent the country apart. The lessons are a plenty and let’s go over some of them now.

The first lesson is that a political problem can only be resolved through a political solution. The Good Friday Agreement in 1998, that ended over seven decades of bloodshed in the Irish Republic, Northern Ireland, and the UK, dealt with issues related to sovereignty, civil and cultural rights, decommissioning of weapons, demilitarisation, justice and policing. The agreement ended the bitter rivalry and internecine warfare that bedevilled the three political entities since the 1920s. The main lesson to learn is that policing and counter insurgency/counter terrorism efforts do not root out the basic problems, but create space for a political solution that ultimately has to be achieved in order to completely resolve the problem.

The Good Friday Agreement laid the framework for a lasting peace, but the space for a political solution was created by innovative policing, counter terrorism, and criminal justice solutions. An important lesson from Irish case study that emerges is that while the armed forces could be employed in a counter insurgency role, they should not be employed as the lead agencies.

In case of Northern Ireland, the best police officer in the UK was selected as the ‘Chief Constable”, and given the powers to arrest and speedily prosecute terrorists in the region. UK’s intelligence agencies were really helpful in this endeavour as they had penetrated the IRA’s political, as well as military wings, pre-empting their stratagems effectively. In our case, our military and civil intelligence agencies need a greater degree of coordination to provide valuable input to pre-empt terrorist attacks, and dismantle their support network. In our environment the intelligence and policing coordination has to be extended to Afghan and US agencies as well. It is here that the boundaries between the diplomatic, military, and policing functions get blurred.

The Good Friday Agreement laid the framework for a lasting peace, but the space for a political solution was created by innovative policing, counter-terrorism, and criminal justice solutions

A wholesome effort including astute diplomacy, regional cooperation, and internal coordination between Army, intelligence agencies, and police is de rigueur. A terrorist network needs a counter terrorism network and to fight an amorphous enemy operating in hidden cells leveraging modern communication technology, we need an intelligence apparatus that rivals the one our opponents possess. The Royal Irish Constabulary, nicknamed the “Auxies’ and the “Black and Tan” militia, followed a policy of terrorizing the terrorists and turning public opinion, even in Britain, against their high handed tactics. Pakistan might also need a similar organization.

One of the most important lessons we can learn from the Irish struggle is the need for an efficacious criminal justice system that responds speedily to the terrorist threat. A supportive judicial and criminal justice system is an absolute necessity to fight terrorism efficaciously. The limitations of normal criminal justice system and the evidence gathering capabilities of police emerged as the main reasons for an aborted counter terrorism drive by the security agencies. The terrorists freed by the courts exacted their revenge with a spate of suicidal bombings in 2008, resulting in 2267 deaths and 4558 injuries. In Northern Ireland, a similar dilemma was resolved by the introduction of “Diplock Courts” that held the notion of trial by jury, instead of trial by a judge.

A time has come when we will have to embrace the above concepts. We need the Army in a counter insurgency role, with the lead counter terrorism role assigned to police and intelligence agencies. Army needs to be pulled back after they help clean the areas controlled by the insurgents and paramilitary forces and power needs to be restored with the police and intelligence agencies. It is time we applied the lessons of the Irish to our situation, and introduce reforms to our criminal justice system. If we do not apply these time and tested lessons, the problems that the Irish once faced, might come to haunt us as well.

The writer is a PhD scholar at NUST and can be reached at rwjanj@hotmail.com

Published in Daily Times, June 25^th 2018.