[BITList] MORAL : Justice to ALL, Appeasement to NONE.

[John Feltham]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/19/AR2009041901731.html



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/19/AR2009041901731.html


Extremist Tide Rises in Pakistan
After Reaching Deal in North, Islamists Aim to Install Religious Law  
Nationwide


By Pamela Constable

Washington Post Foreign Service

Monday, April 20, 2009


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, April 19 --  A potentially troubling era dawned  
Sunday in Pakistan's Swat Valley,  where a top Islamist militant  
leader, emboldened by a peace agreement with the federal government,  
laid out an ambitious plan to bring a "complete Islamic system" to the  
surrounding northwest region and the entire country.

Speaking to thousands of followers in an address aired live from Swat  
on national news channels, cleric Sufi Mohammed bluntly defied the  
constitution and federal judiciary, saying he would not allow any  
appeals to state courts under the system of sharia, or Islamic
law, that will prevail there as a result of the peace accord signed by  
the president Tuesday.

" The Koran says that supporting an infidel system is a great sin,"   
Mohammed said, referring to Pakistan's modern democratic institutions.  
He declared that in Swat, home to 1.5 million people, all " un-Islamic  
laws and customs will be abolished, " and he suggested that the  
official imprimatur on the agreement would pave the way for sharia to  
be installed in other areas.

Mohammed's dramatic speech echoed a rousing sermon in Islamabad on  
Friday by another radical cleric, Maulana Abdul Aziz, who appeared at  
the Red Mosque in the capital after nearly two years in detention and  
urged several thousand chanting followers to launch a crusade for  
sharia nationwide.

Together, these rallying cries seemed to create an arc of radical  
religious energy between the turbulent, Taliban-plagued northwest  
region and the increasingly vulnerable federal capital, less than 100  
miles to the east. They also appeared to pose a direct, unprecedented  
religious challenge to modern state authority in the Muslim nation of  
176 million.

" The government made a big mistake to give these guys legal cover for  
their agenda. Now they are going to be battle-ready to struggle for  
the soul of Pakistan," said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of security  
studies at Quaid-i-Azam university here. He predicted a further surge  
in the suicide bombings that have recently become an almost daily  
occurrence across the country. Two recent bombings at security  
checkpoints in the northwest killed more than 40 people.

Richard C. Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to the region, said in an  
interview broadcast Sunday on CNN that the decision by insurgents to  
keep fighting in spite of the peace deal should be a " wake-up call to  
everybody in Pakistan that you can't deal with these people by giving  
away territory as they creep closer and closer to the populated  
centers of the Punjab and Islamabad. "

Also Sunday, a suspected U.S. missile strike killed three people at a  
Taliban compound in the South Waziristan tribal region; such attacks  
have become a powerful recruitment tool for extremist groups in  
Pakistan as anti-American sentiment builds.

The government agreed to Mohammed's demands in an effort to halt  
violent intimidation by Taliban forces that the army was unable to  
quell despite months of operations in the former tourist haven. In  
recent interviews, Swati leaders and refugees described armed men in  
black turbans whipping suspected thieves on the spot, cutting off the  
ears and noses of village elders who opposed them, and selling videos  
of police beheadings.

" We really had no other choice. We had no power to crush the  
militants, and people were desperate for peace," said Jafar Shah, a  
Swati legislator. His Awami National Party, though historically  
secular, sponsored the sharia deal. " Now people are calling us  
Taliban without beards," he said ruefully, " but it was the only  
option available."

Provincial and federal officials also hoped their show of good faith  
would halt further insurgent inroads and buy time for foreign aid  
programs to shore up the impoverished northwest against the Islamists'  
message of swift justice and social equality..

Instead, the evidence suggests that the extremist forces have drawn  
the opposite lesson from their victory in Swat and are gearing up to  
carry their armed crusade for a punitive, misogynistic form of Islam  
into new areas. There have been numerous reports of Taliban fighters  
entering districts south and west of Swat, where they have brandished  
weapons, bombed and occupied buildings, arrested aid workers, and  
killed female activists.

" When we achieve our goals in one place, we need to struggle for it  
in other areas," Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan told Pakistani news  
services by telephone last week. " Sharia does not permit us to lay  
down our arms if the government continues anti-Muslim policies." The  
goal, he said, is to " enforce the rule of Allah on the land of Allah. "

In the northwestern town of Mardan, insurgents attacked girls schools,  
forced CD shops to close, ordered barbers not to shave beards and  
bombed the office of a nonprofit aid agency, killing a female worker.  
Taliban commanders accused the agency of " propagating obscenity."  
Taliban fighters occupied the Buner district for several days, closed  
a religious shrine and burned DVDs in the streets. They then toured  
the region in a convoy of trucks, even entering a secured army area  
while displaying heavy weapons.

" The inescapable reality is that another domino has toppled and the  
Taliban are a step closer to Islamabad," the Pakistan-based News  
International newspaper warned last week after the Buner takeover. The  
paper compared Pakistan to Vietnam: a weak and corrupt state being "  
nibbled away " by determined insurgents: " The Taliban have the upper  
hand, and they know it."

Surprisingly, there has been little official or public protest against  
the creeping tide of Islamist extremism. Analysts said this is partly  
because of fear of retaliation and partly because of strong religious  
sentiments that make Pakistanis reluctant to criticize fellow Muslims.

Even in especially shocking cases, such as the public flogging of a  
Swati girl suspected of having an affair, the response from national  
leaders was a muddle of denial and obfuscation.. Some said the  
incident, which surfaced last month on a videotape, had been staged to  
sabotage the peace deal. Others said it was a minor issue compared  
with U.S. cross-border missile strikes.

A handful of influential Pakistanis have begun to raise the alarm,  
warning in newspaper columns or speeches that government and society  
need to confront the enemy within and acknowledge the difference  
between conventional sharia and the crude, brutally enforced Taliban  
version of an extremist Islamist state..

" In Swat they got their system imposed at gunpoint, and now they are  
ready to Taliban-ize the whole country," Altaf Hussain, the exiled  
head of the Muttahida Qaumi Majlis political party, said at a  
teleconference of Muslim clerics in Karachi on Sunday.

Denouncing the insurgents' abusive and autocratic methods, he said, "  
We have to decide between our country and the Taliban."

Sharia in Pakistan, as in Afghanistan, exists in tandem with a modern  
legal code but does not supersede it. Sharia courts rule on certain  
religious and moral issues, while other cases are tried by regular  
courts. Mohammed, Aziz and other radicals espouse a more severe  
version like the one Taliban rulers imposed on Afghanistan in the  
1990s, which segregates women and imposes harsh punishments.

Supporters of the Swat agreement pointed out that residents have been  
demanding sharia for years to replace the slow, corrupt justice  
system. But Swati leaders said that the local version of Islamic law  
was traditionally moderate and that in elections last year Swatis  
voted overwhelmingly for two secular parties.

Indeed, older natives of Swat like to recall earlier days when  
serenity and tolerance prevailed in the region of apple orchards,  
forested hills and glacial streams. Tourists from Japan and Europe  
came to explore ancient Buddhist ruins, while residents practiced a  
timeless mix of tribal customs and Islamic faith.

" There was something in the soil that made the people soft," said  
Asad Khan, a Swat native in his 40s who lives in the city of Peshawar.  
" Our culture was one of civilized hospitality. Everyone was a Muslim,  
but almost no one was a fundamentalist. The climate was not good for  
harsh people and ideas."


This week, after the peace accord was endorsed, officials and pro- 
government news media described the atmosphere in Swat as relieved and  
heading back to normalcy. But several people who visited the Swati  
capital of Mingora this week said they saw worried faces, no women in  
the markets, and clusters of black-turbaned men watching everyone  
closely.

" Things are confused and unclear. People have suffered a lot, and  
they are desperate for peace, but they don't know if it will last, "  
said Afzal Khan Lala, a provincial legislator, reached by phone in  
Mingora. " If the Taliban are sincere, then peace should prevail. But  
if they have ulterior aims and seek supremacy over the state, I doubt  
peace will come to Swat."


April 19, 2009