Some misunderstandings exist about the Tribal areas, this post might be of interest to those of you who would like to know more:
PESHAWAR: A Pakistan-US agreement, promising $30 million US assistance for law-enforcement in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), has once again brought into focus the need for constitutional and political reforms in the tribal belt.
The incumbent set-up initially showed euphoria for introducing reforms in Fata but unfortunately added another chapter of broken promises like its predecessors as far as reforms in tribal belt are concerned.
Constitutionally, Fata is a non-regulatory area, which means that legislation for the tribal belt is the responsibility of President of Pakistan. As representative of President of Pakistan and federation, the NWFP governor issues ordinances in respect of tribal affairs. It needs constitutional amendment to declare tribal belt as regulatory area and granting the tribesmen right of representation in provincial legislature. The move would help the legal and constitutional integration of Fata with rest of the country.
It would be in the fitness of things that a law commission should be entrusted with the task of recommending a set of civil and criminal laws to be imposed in the Fata, according to socio-cultural traditions of the tribesmen providing them an opportunity to have right of appeal against any judicial verdict announced by political authorities.
Lock, stock and barrel committed to serve their imperial interests; British rulers imposed political system in the tribal belt as part of ‘Forward Policy’ in order to keep tribesmen under their thumb using carrot and stick policy. The present system instead of giving any benefit to ordinary tribesmen allows political administration to offer incentives to few influential Maliks. This institutionalised corruption in the prevailing political system has made posting in the tribal areas as a lifetime dream for government officials.
In this respect an instant case of highhandedness on part of political administration is that every tribesmen is required to pay Rs 500 for getting a domicile certificate while in settled area it costs only six rupees. In the same way political authorities are charging Rs 500 for issuing National Identity Card while normal fees charged by Nadra is Rs 35 in rest of the country.
Until and unless the obsolete political system is done away at the earliest and government officials being posted in the Fata are not being robbed of unlimited powers, any effort, how much sincere and well thought out it may be’ for law-enforcement in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, is doomed to failure.