Madakhel is a small village in North Waziristan, the Afghan borders runs three to four km away, it in inaccessible to the outside world even dirt tracks are non existent, from Miran shah the 40 km journey to Madakhel can take four hours although since 2002 some work is going on and semi hard tracks have appeared. The rationale of its aloofness from the world is the oath in late 1800’s on holy book Quran taken by Madakhel elders and Wazeri tribes to keep their region out of the influence of colonialists who were considered as infidels. No education infrastructure existed until 2002, since 2002 with the help of US aid new primary schools and health centers are appearing and new roads are being constructed, in a population of 40,000 in close proximity the number of graduates is less than 10.
Practically everyone has ammunition that is ample to fight many a wars, In Afghan struggle against USSR used these areas became the storage ground for Jihadi equipment, according to local sources the armaments the modern one flourished as nearly three big ship loads every month were to be distributed to the freedom fighters inside Afghanistan to fight the reds, of course the conduits was fully funded and supplied by the US government policy under tutelage of CIA a man known as Brigadier Yussuf from ISI ran the war with billions of dollar supports of US government and a support that was unstinted the logic was ‘green of Islam is better than red of the Communists’ that was the time when lunatics of the world likes of Osama were gathered and hounded nearly 40,000 of them armed with latest weaponry like stingers and put in Afghanistan.. They had the free territory, they had the modern weaponry and they had the savage mind and a ideological goal to destroy the infidel red in a name of Allah, the combination of all these elements resulted into fall of USSR, a body blow in Afghanistan was something that Brezhnev could not recover from the divisions in the politburo due to heavy looses and occupation of Afghanistan resulted in speedy demise of USSR and fall of the iron curtain overnight from Europe, the sagas of Russian tanks running through Rhine and the great war games to stop the Russian through German Ruhr and nightmares of breach of Fulda gap were all found to be over preparation, the third world war won and ensuing peace dividend helped the global economy.<reflect on the last month of World War II you will recognize that the Wetterau Corridor and what we now know as the Fulda Gap served as the main avenue for the drive of the Third U.S. Army from its Rhine bridgehead near Frankfurt onward to Leipzig and the heart of Germany. In the Cold War Soviet war planners from the Eight Guards Army Staff near Weimar all the way to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow probably had a codename for this avenue in the westbound mode. Anyway, you do not have to be a war planner to look at the map of Germany and recognize that the shortest route from East Germany to the Rhine River was THIS avenue. >
The marriage of Stone Age medieval mind with modern weaponry to bring down the cyber age economy was solemnized in these wretched lands, these lands and beyond became the perfect breeding grounds where a explosive ideological mind met the right geography, terrain people and traditions to plan the fall of the cyber age global economy. These were the sanctuaries totally inaccessible to the outside worlds, totally forgotten once the war was won and peace dividend utilized for the benefit of mankind but out their there were dogs of war looking for new action.
The amassing of new weapons and dreadful one too, new firepower has led to new aggressions, the balance of terror earlier was based on ability of the local tribal authority ‘Jirga’ to raise a 303 armed ‘lashkar’ against an outlaw today that ability has been greatly diminished, the local Maliks feel under armed when die hard ex talebeni like Nek Mohammed take to the mountains in a direct defiance to traditional authority and use mortars and heavy weaponry a sad remnants of the Russian occupation resistance of Afghanistan.
The tribal area is a free land and is governed by its own writ, the Brits rarely ever tried to bring the land under their total writ, they developed a loose control of system that still exits, the free roaming pakhtuns would not accept a iota of change and subservience of their independence to any authority outside their known systems. The system works on the prehistoric system of collective responsibility and hence since system primary configuration is primitive and primitive so are the results it has successfully kept the area bound in stone age, mentally as well as physically, once a man is trained only on basic instincts combined with traditions based on settlement of feuds through blood the evolving discipline is based on balance of terror. If a murder happens in geographical confines of tribe the whole tribe is responsible and is meted out collective punishment the ‘sins of father are very much a responsibility of their sons’ it is normal the an outlaw family and a tribe has to produce the outlaw, British created this system of internal control whereby they targeted man of influence and made them the Maliks, they were registered with the British agent of the area called as political agents.
These Maliks were given state benefits and monthly stipends according to their stature the practicality and the ability to control their wards and tribes determined the stipend. It was fixed and calibrated as from 5 Rs. stipend a century ago to 200 Rs. Stipend and more, depending on the ability of the Malik to control the area and number of people this system has evolved where a local Malik is the elder and is responsible for peace in the area, now these very Maliks face a strange task they are deeply ideologically motivated, their code of conduct is Pakhtunwali and ‘nang’ is something that they have been taught to live and die for, many a lands are inaccessible, even many a aborigines and ex-Indians have been put in reservations where inundated by fire water they have lost their will to survive independent of alcoholism, but here is an inhospitable territory that has medieval philosophy ingrained in them as core software and these primitive minds were totally immersed in modern warfare and trained as guerillas.
Intertwine medieval system with most basic living conditions with no facility with every conceivable modern weaponry at their disposal and one can imagine the task that lies ahead for Pakistan to clear this mess.. A land ruled by FCR ,Frontier crime regulations based on stone age logic needs to be brought in this modern age, three things, make roads, make it accessible, make education popular by making it compulsory and provide basic health, give these people hope to survive not as warriors but productive humans, that is the long term objective, since post 911 a lot of aid has been given and a lot is happening to change the courser of minds, it will take time but the hope exists, people their are as human as all of us, it just needs some little more attention, they don’t needs stingers they need basic education, and if we have the indecency to use them as cannon fodder than lets have decency to settle them now.
They did win the 3rd world war, a USSR that felled was primarily due to the hinterland people they now need our help to get rid of the foreign terrorists embedded in them from last three decades but more than that is the development of their social structure, a small sum can change the most explosive of mind combinations in a peered of one decade, we owe this change to our future generations for their peace. |
