LANDI KOTAL, Aug 30: Afghanistan government’s policy to lure Pakistani youths to its educational institutions and police department has received a lukewarm response from tribesmen living along the Durand Line.
The interim Afghan government had announced many incentives for the Pakistani youths, inviting them to study in Kabul’s colleges and universities and join the national police and regional tribal militias.
The announcement, which was also broadcast through Afghan TV and radio, said although education for the tribesmen would not be totally free, they be given considerable concession in addition to the boarding facility in Kabul.
A good number of students from tribal areas and settled districts of the NWFP availed of such incentives during the Communist regime from 1979 to 1990. But this time, tribal people’s response has been cautious to the Afghan government offer.
The Afghan interim administration had made many attempts to establish contact with their like-minded people in the Pakistani tribal belt but so far their efforts have not succeeded much.
A tribal source close to the Afghan government told this correspondent that like the Karzai-led administration the US officials in Afghanistan were also keen to include interested and qualified tribal youths in the Afghan police.
He said the Americans felt that this would help multiply the number of Pukhtuns working in various government departments.
There was no restriction on the movement of Pakistani tribesmen on the Pakistan-Afghan border till the fall of Dr Najibullah government in 1991. Most of the tribesmen had even dual nationalities and possessed passports of both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Pakistan government has recently imposed restrictions on the cross-border movement of tribal people who are now required to keep identity cards issued by the concerned political administration.
To attract tribal students, Afghan Education Minister Younus Qanooni held meetings with tribal businessmen in Kabul when they had gone to Afghanistan to explore new business avenues.
Investigations carried out in the seven tribal agencies showed that no tribal elder had so far been directly approached by any of the Afghan functionaries. The tribal elders, too, were reluctant to express their views on such offers.
The response from the tribal elders has so far not been encouraging, the source said. He elaborated that the tribesmen feared their acceptance of these offers would earn them displeasure and anger of the Pakistan government. Their cold response was attributed also to the dominance of non-Pushtun Tajiks in the Karzai government. Another reason attributed to the lukewarm response was the fact that the Afghan government’s contacts had so far been through intermediaries and there had been no direct official move to reach the tribal elders.
Political authorities in Khyber, Mohmand, Bajaur, Parachinar and Miran Shah have confirmed reports that the Afghan government has made attempts to win over the tribal youths, but they said none of the well-known tribal Maliks or elders has been approached.
An official in Landi Kotal said they were monitoring activities of some tribal traders who, they believed, were in touch with secret agencies of Afghanistan.