Found this letter in todays “The News”. What a terrible situation.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Through this open letter we, the over half a million people of Kurram Agency, would like the rest of Pakistan to be at least aware of the barbaric atrocities that are happening in our agency. Since April 2007, the agency has been under siege and a virtual economic blockade is in effect. The people of the agency have always helped in national causes, whether it was in 1947-48, 1965, 1971 or Kargil.
We would like to ask those who are in power that what is our crime – why are we being targeted as if we are enemies of Pakistan? Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that we are the only agency whose residents are standing up in large numbers against the Taliban and their patrons. Their patrons are the same people who have recently said that Osama bin Laden may be hiding in Upper Kurram! First they had said that he was in Bajaur, then they spoke of Chitral and now Parachinar!
The fact is that Osama and his followers are as much to blame for what is happening in our region as American policies. It is the latter’s meddling in Afghanistan that set the stage for the decline in our way of life. General Zia used Kurram as the main staging ground into Afghanistan and as a result the agency became infested with jihadis and mujahideen. Since the 1980s hundreds of tribesmen and their families have been killed in sectarian fighting in the agency. Over the years, dozens of villages of the Turi and Bangash tribes, including many in Sadda tehsil in Lower Kurram, were more or less handed over to the control of these jihadis.
Through the years, the people of these tribes have been at the receiving end of both the Americans as well as the jihadis. Most regrettably, the Pakistani state has all but absolved itself of any responsibility and the people have had to fend for themselves. The result now is that large swathes of the agency are now under the control of the Taliban and their allies and they are targeting Shias at will. One can only wonder why the state has done nothing so far to prevent all of this from taking place.
Several tribal jirgas have convened to establish peace in the agency but every time the Taliban have violated it – and with fierce violence. They deliberately target vehicles on the road which connects the agency with Peshawar – again suggesting a near-complete abdication of government writ. Even convoys escorted by security forces and ambulances have been targeted, with the people dragged out and killed. On June 18, 2008, a terrible incident happened when people were targeted in this fashion and beheaded. What did the government do in response? It freed – the very next day – 35 Taliban militants, passing off the whole thing as a prisoner escape!
In February, the militants again commandeered a passenger bus on the Parachinar-Peshawar road and kidnapped 12 passengers. One who tried to resist was killed on the spot. The result is that those who need to travel to Peshawar now have to use Afghanistan as a transit route – not only does this take longer, it costs a lot more – and also makes one think what point is it being a citizen of this country when your government has all but left you at the mercy of these devils. Are we not Pakistanis? Is Parachinar not a part of Pakistan?
A citizen
Parachinar