TAKE IT HEAD-ON
By Dr. Khalil Ahmad

It's no academic issue. We have no time to go into the details of its causes. No more history! No more psychology, please! We cannot afford a detailed discussion, in-depth analysis and study of the same.

It's no time to blame others. Digging into the past and past mistakes whoever committed them may burry our future.

It's no use letting time go by to make things clear. No more waiting and seeing! We have already wasted a lot on such quibbles.

It's an urgent issue. It's a matter of life and death for the people, nation, state and the country. It's time to take the terror tangle head-on. Proactively, finally and terminally!

Words like these must have been written by others many a time in recent months, weeks and days. This article builds on them and makes a part of them. It may go unheeded like they have gone. But the time is crucial when these words are being written. It's not in distant future that such words will be written again. It's in near future that such words will not be repeated. Not sooner or later, but in months we will have other words to describe our state. Or may be we will have no words to describe our lot.

In order to take it head-on, the following resolutions are urgently needed:

First, let us revert to our constitution, the constitution of 1973 as the binding contract. As under the circumstances the need of a leader, savior, redeemer or a visionary is being desperately felt, we have the same already present amongst us. It's the constitution. Ironically, our leaders, saviors, redeemers, and visionaries have tried to disfigure it, burry it, trash it, but it's the word and it's the idea that still lives on. Only the constitution can save the people, nation, state of Pakistan. It's the rallying point.

The terrorists prove that. They know that they can kill people, but they cannot bomb the constitution. That is why they have tried to do that through a via media. It's an illusion. They have been garbing it in various wrappings such as dialogue, peace, efficient and timely dispensation of justice. We have used the secular or secularized terms only. Their language is different and alluring. In the past their ‘silent' partners tried to use the denotation of Hasba Bill. The Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. The present Nizam-e-Adl Regulation is another ploy to thwart the constitution.

Second, let us be clear on one thing: it's the constitution that binds and weaves Pakistan into a whole. The institutions and offices that this constitution brings into existence must be working under it and must fulfill its purpose. No more deviations! It must mean that!

No going into the past and no blame game as said above! It's because in actual life what matters is what people believe. It's because they act in harmony with that. So it's no time to seek the truth and then act on that. It doesn't mean seeking truth is useless. It must be done in the first available opportunity. The point is seeking truth must not delay the action.

Third, the articles of the constitution, rules and laws of the land must strictly be implemented. The government must show resolve, will and determination to do it. The terror and its perpetrators must be seen and dealt with in the light of the provisions of the constitution and law of the land. Zero tolerance must be the policy to be pursued by all the organs and agencies of the state. The transgressors whoever they are must be brought to book.

Fourth, the terror and terrorists must be seen and dealt with as an indigenous problem. No external threat is a threat until and unless it has internal roots. Our problem is a problem created by ourselves. We should solve and resolve it on our own. Whoever comes to help in this must be welcomed. Who does not he needs not be blamed.

Fifth, a full scale war must be declared against terror and the perpetrators of terror regardless of the guises they use. All the resources must be deployed to root out the evil doers. Pakistan Army and its agencies must be made subservient both in letter and spirit to fight those who are encroaching upon the constitutional and lawful domains of the state of Pakistan.

Sixth, the writ of the government in FATA and certain areas of NWFP must be restored at any cost. The writ is not an end in itself. It is a means to a greater end: provision of protection of life, property, and the fundamental rights and freedoms to each and every individual citizen. How the citizens of Buner were abandoned by the provincial and federal governments on the one hand and NWFP Police, Frontier Corps and Pakistan Army on the other, and how they were left to be incarcerated by the perpetrators of terror is sheerly criminal.

Seventh, what happened or is happening in Buner must be taken as an example and must be made an example as well for all those who in whatever manner unleashed terror and coalesced with the perpetrators of terror. All of them who did not perform their constitutional and lawful duties, be they provincial and federal government functionaries or agencies or those who are trusted with the protection of the citizens of this land, must be booked under law and punished accordingly. This should make first step and a concrete one to reassert the writ of the government so that individual citizens of FATA and NWFP areas should be brought back under the protection of law, and their life, property, rights and freedoms be secured.

Until and unless the government sets upon this course of action and by taking people in confidence and announcing an all out war against terror and the perpetrators of terror controls them and wipes them out, it has no moral and constitutional justification to remain in power. If it keeps ceding this or that town or district to the perpetrators of terror under this or that pretext such as dialogue and peace, it means it is betraying the people. It is high time that government should come clean and declare that now there will be no more Buners!

Regards..