The art of reconciling the irreconcilable

On October 1st, in an interview with a Turkish news channel, Prime Minister Imran Khan revealed that Pakistan was holding talks with some factions of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to lay down their arms in return for amnesty and reintegration. The prime minister noted: “If successful, these talks, for disarmament, will result in the government forgiving them, and then they [will] become normal citizens.” His disclosure was preceded by the statements of Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and President Arif Alvi of pardoning TTP members if they disarmed and followed [Pakistani] law. 

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) government should have initiated a debate in the parliament to outline the context, rationale and purpose of holding talks with TTP instead of disclosing these startling details through the media. Arguably, the government’s unilateral approach would further dent the already fragile but hard-won national consensus enshrined in the National Action Plan (NAP) to fight extremism and terrorism. NAP is the 20-point counterterrorism and extremism roadmap forged in the aftermath of the Peshawar Army Public School attack in December 2014. Unsurprisingly, these statements have provoked a strong pushback from the Pakistani opposition parties, intelligentsia, and civil society. 

Ironically, the TTP has rebuffed the government’s amnesty proposition unless Shariah Law is implemented in Pakistan. In response to the government’s indemnity offer, the TTP maintained, “pardon is usually offered to those who commit crimes, but we are quite proud of our struggle. We can offer conditional amnesty to our enemy if they promise to implement Shariah in the country.”

Seemingly, the PTI government is venturing into peace talks with TTP without doing its homework. The TTP’s unapologetic rebuke of the PTI government’s indemnity plan raises more questions than providing answers. For instance, given TTP’s dismissive reaction, is the government even talking from a position of strength? Have all the relevant policy stakeholders been consulted and taken onboard? Have the consequences of this decision on the country’s FATF “gray-status” been thought through? More importantly, are we ready to forgive the perpetrators responsible for killing 80,000 innocent Pakistanis? 

For peace and reconciliation, it takes two to tango. It is not a one-way affair. The desire for peace and reconciliation should be an exhibition of strength, not weakness. Furthermore, reconciliation with religiously inspired militants is not a linear process of repentance, surrender, pardon and reintegration. Quite to the contrary, the reintegration of ideological militants is a complex process that requires careful and elaborate planning. The reintegration process of faith-based militants is preceded by identifying individual pathways to radicalization, psychological and religious counselling, deradicalization (correcting distorted worldviews) and rehabilitation (vocational training, mainstream education, or imparting professional skills). The Pakistan Army started militant rehabilitation schools in Swat in 2009 as a pilot project to replicate this model at the national level. However, for a host of reasons, this model could not be expanded at the national level. So, when the prime minister is referring to reintegration, have the prerequisite processes been put in place? 

Conceptually, reconciling with religiously driven non-state violent groups like TTP is more difficult than ethnic insurgents. The demands of religiously driven groups are intangible and hard to reconcile. Being incentive-driven violent entrepreneurs, such groups never give up their violent campaigns. For instance, while rejecting the government’s offer for peace talks, TTP upheld, “the condition of giving up the armed struggle was meaningless for them.” 

Similarly, ideological militant groups are rigid and inflexible in their demands. They believe their self-styled worldview is the divine truth; hence, it is non-negotiable. For religiously driven militant groups, compromising on their demands is considered a betrayal. What further complicates this equation is that the demand for implementing the Shariah rule means different set of norms and values for different religious schools of thought. Even within the same Islamic school of thought, the interpretations of the Shariah rule varies. Besides, granting Shariah rule to one group would result in similar demands from other jurisprudential groups, opening up a pandora’s box for the state. 

Between 2004 and 2009, Pakistan reached nine agreements with different militant groups in Swat and the ex-FATA region. However, none of these deals held or achieved their desired outcomes, i.e., peace. On the contrary, they strengthened the extremist narrative in the society and provided them more space to expand their clout and influence. The militant groups used these deals to buy time to rest, recuperate, revive and relaunch their violent campaigns. The last effort to reach such an agreement with TTP was in 2014 when the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz government reached out to the militant group to “give peace a chance.” However, these efforts failed as TTP targeted Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport. In retaliation, the Pakistan Army launched the Zarb-e-Azb operation in North Waziristan. 

Indeed, one of the lessons learnt during the last 20 years of the ‘war on terror’ is that we cannot kill our way to victory. Ultimately, all conflicts end through politically negotiated settlements. However, peace must be a mutual desire of both conflicting parties. Furthermore, appeasement is neither peace nor reconciliation; instead, it is surrendering one’s will to stand up for one’s value and the way of life. 

The reconciliation offer to TTP has come against the backdrop of the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan, which has energized and emboldened the radical and extremist groups in Pakistan. Notwithstanding the outcome of the purported peace talks, the PTI government’s unilateral amnesty offer to the TTP would legitimize its extremist narrative. The imprudent approach to this sensitive internal security issue would do more harm than good. The sacrifices of 80,000 Pakistanis cannot be compromised to the whims of the incompetent few. Undoubtedly, Pakistan and Pakistanis expect and deserve better from their political leadership. 

-The author is a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. Twitter: @basitresearcher.