WHEN they asked the tribal elders on Friday to expel foreign militants from North Waziristan, the KP governor and the corps commander seemed to forget that tribal elders and maliks no more exercise the moral and temporal authority they once did. The tribal elders would love a return to the halcyon days of yore but they feel helpless as all power in North Waziristan rests with the outlawed Taliban. In separate meetings with the elders of the Utmanzai tribe on Tuesday, Governor Mahtab Ahmad Khan and Lt-Gen Khalid Rabbani gave the jirga 15 days in which to expel the foreign militants. Failing this, the army would act. Surprisingly, the tribesmen had met them for the opposite reason: they asked the governor and corps commander to postpone the military operation they believed was in the offing. The elders’ apprehension of a crackdown on foreign militants, who together with the local elements have dispossessed them of their authority, betrays their anxiety. The tribesmen aren’t sure that a crackdown will be successful or launched with such force that all the militants will be wiped out. No wonder they should fear for their safety in the aftermath of an operation which may not succeed or turn out to be a half-hearted job whose failure could result in a ferocious backlash for those loyal to the state.

The sea change in the tribal belt’s socio-political milieu over the last two decades has destroyed the system crafted by the British for a peaceful relationship with the tribal people. The system, revolving round tribal maliks and the political agent, worked well and served colonial interests, although Pakistan inherited what indeed was an oppressive system in which it was the tribal chiefs rather than the people who mattered. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, the influx of millions of refugees and the US-sponsored ‘jihad’ upset the socio-political equilibrium and unleashed jihadist forces that wrested powers from the maliks, and defied the writ of the Pakistani state. Since 2007, North Waziristan and other parts of the tribal belt have been the bastion of militants with horrendous consequences for Pakistan and its people.

Today, foreign militants have acquired such power that they object to the sight of Pakistani flags flying in North Waziristan. Clearly, the elders do not have the power to dislodge local and foreign — especially the Uzbek — militants in the area. Basically, it is the army’s job, though the people will observe how the civilian and political leaderships behave after the end of the 15-day deadline. At stake is the credibility of Pakistan’s security forces’ resolve to end the violence.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2014