Kurram:
False Accords
Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management
On February
3, 2011, an Aman Jirga (peace conclave) between Sunni
and Shia tribes in the Kurram Agency of the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) signed an accord to
end bloodshed between the two sects.
On March
13, a group of militants attacked a Shia convoy coming
from Kurram Agency, at Mamo Khwar area of Hangu District
in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, leaving 11 passengers dead and
six injured.
On March
25, at least 13 passengers were killed and eight were
injured, while another 33 were abducted by suspected
militants, in an attack on a convoy of passenger vehicles
in the Kurram Agency. Sources indicated that the victims
were Turi tribesmen of the Shia sect. The convoy had
entered Kurram Agency after crossing the Chapari check-post
via Thall tehsil (revenue unit) in the Hangu
District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
In the
wake of the second attack, Sajid Hussain Turi, the Member
of the National Assembly (MNA) from the Kurram Agency,
declared the agreement signed by the warring tribes
was a ‘useless document’, and that the attack on passengers
by terrorists was a failure of security agencies and
a serious breach of the peace deal.
A grand
jirga (tribal council) composed of tribal elders
and parliamentarians from the FATA, had announced a
peace accord between Shias and Sunnis at Parachinar,
the headquarters of the Kurram Agency, on February 3,
2011. The ‘truce’ was declared after three years of
fighting that left over 2,000 dead and at least 3,500
injured.
Headed
by Malik Waris Khan Afridi, a former Federal Minister
from the Khyber Agency, the 225-member tribal jirga
took two years to arrange a negotiated settlement of
the issue. MNA Sajid Toori from Parachinar and MNA Muneer
Orakzai played leading roles to bring the two sides
to the negotiation table. Federal Minister of Interior
Rehman Malik also attended the news conference announcing
the accord, to demonstrate the Government’s support
for this ‘historic’ event.
The jirga
also appealed to the Government of Pakistan to ensure
the execution of the accord, implying clearly that the
state should re-establish its writ in the Agency. Indeed,
even Fazal Saeed, ‘commander’ of the Kurram Chapter
of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), declared that "anyone
violating the new accord would be punished according
to Shariah (Islamic law)… We will first ask the
political administration and jirga members to
take action against the side violating the agreement.
But we will be justified to punish the violators after
15 days as per the accord." Saeed asked Shias to
use roads, including the Thall-Parachinar Road, without
any fear, as the TTP was not against the peace deal
between the Shia and Sunni elders. However, it was feared
that the deal would not be acceptable to certain quarters
of the TTP.
Sectarian
violence is nothing new to the Kurram Agency, the only
tribal Agency with a significant Shia population. Sectarian
strife in the Agency dates back to the British era,
long before the advent of sectarian terrorist groupings
such as the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP),
the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ)
and Sipah-e-Muhammad (SeM). About 40 percent of the
region’s 500,000 inhabitants are Shia. Upper Kurram
is inhabited largely by the Turi (the only Pashtun tribe
which is wholly Shia) while Lower Kurram is inhabited
by Sunnis, principally of the Bangash tribe. Historically
the Turis were under domination of the Bangash, until
the 18th century when they attacked the Bangash
and pushed them into Lower Kurram.
There
are disputes over land and water resources between Sunni
and Shia tribes and sporadic incidents of communal violence
have taken place since the 1930s, particularly during
Muharram and Nowroz (the Iranian New Year
is celebrated by the Shia). Till 1977, the Shias were
in a preponderant majority in the Kurram Agency, on
its border with Afghanistan, and in the areas of Gilgit
and Baltistan. After the triumph of the Islamic Revolution
in Iran in February, 1979, there was a measure of radicalisation
among the Shias of these areas, who started demanding
the creation of a separate Shia majority province, to
be called the Karakoram Province, consisting of the
Kurram Agency, the Northern Areas and other contiguous
Shia majority areas. The leadership of this movement
came mainly from the Turi tribe of the Kurram Agency.
The movement was allegedly funded by the Iranian Intelligence.
Then President General Zia-ul-Haq ruthlessly suppressed
this movement, and also initiated a policy of re-settling
Sunnis in these areas in order to control the Shias
and dilute their preponderant majority. While Sunni
ex-servicemen from other parts of Pakistan were re-settled
in the Northern Areas, Afghan Sunni refugees were re-settled
in the Kurram Agency. This led to widespread resentment
among the Shias against the Government and the Sunni
settlers.
The massive
influx of Afghan refugees during the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan inverted the demographic equation in
the Agency, and also introduced a militant (Taliban)
brand of the Sunni ideology, at a time when the Shias
of Parachinar, under the leadership of cleric Allama
Arif Hussain al-Hussaini, were being radicalized by
the Iranian Revolution. As modern weapons became available,
clashes grew in frequency and intensity, while the local
administration was viewed as indifferent or partisan.
The first
large-scale attack was recorded in 1986, when the Turis
prevented Sunni Mujahideen from passing through to Afghanistan.
General Zia ul-Haq allowed a purge of the Turi Shias
at the hands of the Afghan Mujahideen, with the active
help and assistance of local Sunnis. Arif Hussain Al
Hussaini was killed in Peshawar on August 5, 1988, and
the Turis held General Zia responsible. The Kurram Agency
has also been the scene of frequent Shia-Sunni clashes,
with most of the attacks by the Shias directed against
the Afghan and Pakistani Sunni settlers brought in by
Zia.
Another
round of the conflict began in 2001, when the Shias
refused to offer shelter to al Qaeda and the Afghan
Taliban fleeing from US led NATO forces. Both the nature
and dimensions of the sectarian conflict were transformed
after 2001, with organised terrorist and insurgent groupings,
including the Taliban getting involved in what was,
earlier, far more irregular confrontations between local
tribes.
There
was a recrudescence of the violence in April 2007, after
three people were killed and 13 injured, when Shias
were attacked in an Imambargah in the morning of April
6, 2007. The trouble erupted when Shias staged a demonstration
outside their mosque against local Sunnis, who had allegedly
chanted anti-Shia slogans during a religious rally the
previous week. At least 40 persons were killed and an
unspecified number were wounded at Parachinar and other
parts of the Kurram Agency on the second day of sectarian
clashes that followed. Another 16 were killed on the
third day, as sectarian clashes spread to most parts
of the tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Despite
a cease-fire between the rival Sunni and Shia groups
on April 9, sectarian riots continued for three days
in different parts of the Kurram Agency. The Army used
helicopter gunships to control Parachinar and Sadda
(headquarters of Lower Kurram), but the fighting continued
in the rural areas.
Another
round of sectarian violence commenced in the month of
November 2007. At least 86 persons were killed and over
50 were injured during a clash at Parachinar on November
16, 2007. A 16-member peace jirga headed by Pir
Haider Ali Shah brokered a cease-fire on November 19,
but failed to stem the violence. At least 129 persons
were killed and over 300 were injured in the Tangi and
Mengak areas in the night of November 23. The very next
day, violence claimed another 50 lives. Local Sunnis
were joined by al-Qaeda fighters and the TTP from Waziristan,
and even paramilitary forces were targeted. The situation
in Parachinar and Sadda town, however, remained peaceful
as the Army, Frontier Corps and Kurram Militia personnel
had taken control of the town. The cease-fire also remained
intact in Balishkhel and Ibrahimzai, where no untoward
incident took place.
According
to UNHCR, 6,000 Sunnis, mostly women and children, fled
to Afghanistan in January 2008. The clashes intensified
during the summer, and the Government was blamed for
doing nothing to stop the influx of militant outsiders
from North Waziristan. In June 2008, people from Kurram
staged a demonstration in front of Parliament House
in Islamabad, seeking the intervention of the Federal
Government, but to no avail. Instead, the Government
kept denying the sectarian problem in Kurram, blaming
a ‘foreign hand’ for pitting the tribes against each
other.
As the
violence continued, the road from Parachinar to Peshawar
was blocked, resulting in a shortage of food and medicines.
Shia truck drivers were abducted and beheaded. Shia
communities were besieged, as Sunnis controlled the
road from Parachinar to Thal. People going to Peshawar
were forced to travel across the much longer and difficult
route, via Paktia and Kabul.
A unilateral
cease-fire was declared by the Turis ahead of Ramzan
(Islamic holy month) on September 2, 2008, but the bloodshed
continued. A peace jirga was later convened in
Islamabad under the supervision of the Political Agent
of Kurram. More than 1,500 persons had been killed and
5,000 had been injured in sectarian clashes in the Agency
over the preceding year-and-a-half, The News reported
on September 19, 2008.
The intervention
of the Haqqani network in the Kurram peace talks, which
dates back to 2007, has also surprised and concerned
many, since this group had been associated principally
with the wars in Afghanistan, and had its base in North
Waziristan. The US has been pressurising the Pakistan
Government for months to dislodge the Haqqanis from
the North Waziristan Agency. Khalil and Ibrahim, sons
of the network’s founder Jalaluddin Haqqani, had reportedly
been meeting tribal elders from Kurram in Peshawar in
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and in Islamabad, to end the hostilities
between the local tribes. The last round of these talks
was held in Islamabad on October 10, 2010. "They
first turned up at a meeting held in Peshawar in the
first week of September," a tribal elder told the
media, and his account was corroborated by another elder,
who added that the two brothers were also present at
a second meeting in the provincial capital on September
16, 2010, and then at one in Islamabad.
The Kurram
tribes are wary of the involvement of the Haqqanis,
because they assume that such intervention would have
the tacit approval of the Army, which has strong links
with the Haqqani network. Reports suggest that the Haqqanis
have sought full authority and machlaka (bonds)
from rival factions before hammering out a new peace
agreement. The proposed deal will be binding on all
parties. The tribes, however, remain reluctant to give
full authority and machlaka to the Haqqanis,
and the February Accord sought to marginalize the Haqqani
initiative.
Through
all this, the Pakistan Government and Army have chosen
to remain silent observers, implicitly backing the Haqqani
initiative, despite the US pressures to act against
this group.
Meanwhile,
tribal groups are stressing that the Murree Agreement
of October 16, 2008, brokered by the Government and
signed by all the tribes, be implemented. Under the
agreement, the rival tribes deposited PKR 20 million
with the local authorities as a guarantee that they
would refrain from fighting. But the five-point Agreement,
which covers all major issues, has never been implemented.
Tribesmen blame a lack of interest on the part of the
Government for this.
On March
1, 2011, shortly after the Kurram Accord, Prime Minister
Yousaf Raza Gilani announced PKR one billion in the
current budget and PKR 700 million in next year’s budget
for rehabilitation of an estimated 32 thousand residents
of the Kurram Agency who left their homes due to sectarian
riots and militancy. Gilani stressed that the amount
allocated for the purpose of rehabilitation and welfare
of the affected people must be spent in the "most
transparent manner, so that everybody who had suffered
during the last four years may benefit from the compensation".
But the
Kurram Accord is little more than a collection of recommendations
and appeals to the Government of Pakistan, with no corresponding
guarantees from the Government’s side. The Accord appeals
to the Government of Pakistan for support and necessary
action for the repatriation of the Internally Displaced
Persons (IDPs) and implementation of the Murree Agreement;
and for approval of a special development package for
Kurram to compensate for the losses the agency has suffered
in violent clashes since 2007. It ‘urges’ both Shias
and Sunnis to ‘show restraint’ and cooperate with the
Government for peace, and calls on the political administration
and Security Forces to play their due roles to re-establish
their writ in the Agency.
Islamabad,
however, has never been in good faith on the issue of
sectarian violence, and shows no inclination to end
the conflict. Indeed, there is almost no official resistance
to any actions – including militant activity – that
would help bring the Shia minority to heel, and the
administration appears to have intentionally ceded its
writ in Kurram to Sunni extremists. With the state fanning
the fires of hatred, Peace Accords can only end up in
flames.
