Share this story!            

Waziristan deal prompted by internal army concerns

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: The decision to do a deal with tribal leaders in North Waziristan was prompted in part by concerns about the effects of the continuing conflict on Pashtun elements in the Pakistan army, according to an analysis published here.

Hassan Abbas, a former police officer from Pakistan, now a Boston-based academic, writes for the Jamestown Foundation that the Pakistan army stands today as the most organised, powerful and influential institution in the country. It has a cohesive and task-oriented profile with a strong esprit de corps. The composition and ethnic make-up of the Pakistan army have a long history.

Recruitment to the army from traditional areas in the Punjab and the NWFP continued after independence until the late 1970s. From then onwards, it officially discarded this concept and tried to expand its recruitment base, but the base remained unchanged.

Abbas writes that there are 520,000 personnel on active duty in the army, which makes it one of the world’s largest. There are no official figures about the ethnic background of officers or men, yet according to Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution and Prof Hasan Askari Rizvi, Pashtun representation in the army is between 15-22 percent among officers and between 20-25 percent among men. Pashtuns from the NWFP and tribal areas together comprise only 16 percent of the country’s overall population, while Punjab, which represents 56 percent of the population, provides 65 percent of officers and 70 percent of men. Balochistan and Sindh make up the balance. While the army is often disdainfully dubbed the Punjabi army by the minority provinces, it is actually a mix of Punjabis and Pashtuns.

A more insightful fact is that out of the 11 chiefs of the army, four have been Pashtuns.

Although there are no all-Pashtun regiments, and only one corps in a total of nine is headquartered in the NWFP, many important training centres for soldiers, as well as the Pakistan Military Academy are located in the NWFP. “Hence, Pashtuns are very well placed within the Pakistan army’s infrastructure. Although there is no such thing as a Pashtun grouping, their opinion certainly matters … What happens in the NWFP and the tribal areas directly affects their views to which the military hierarchy is not oblivious. In 2004, when military operation began in the area, there were desertions from the Frontier Corps. Pashtuns refused to fight Pashtuns, creating serious unrest. Consequently, at least one Pashtun major-general from the Orakzai tribe was prematurely retired, while more than a dozen colonels have had to be posted elsewhere. Recently, a well-known senior police officer hailing from Waziristan has also put in his papers in protest. The Globe and Mail wrote in September 2001 that “Musharraf has earned particular praise for bridging differences between the Punjabi and Pashtun officers who dominate Pakistan’s 520,000-strong army.”

Home | National

Share this story!