Unlike the Swat operation which was pre-planned and was timely announced by the then Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, the North Waziristan action came abruptly following the blatant militant assault on Karachi airport. Even, the civilian government was taken by surprise when the unilateral announcement of long-awaited and much-hyped military operation in North Waziristan was made by the military late on evening of June 15. In this entire scenario, the wrath fell on poor tribesmen who had been given little time for evacuation from the region. With options running thin for local population of the volatile region, they left their homes in haste without being fully prepared for migration and that consequently caused immense losses to them.
"The government should have informed us before the operation as it did in neighbouring South Waziristan or Swat Valley. The treatment meted out to us was unparallel in the country's history. Before leaving our places we were bombed, our children and women were indiscriminately killed and terrified. We didn't know how to save ourselves," lamented Islam Gul Daur, a school teacher from Mir Ali while standing in a long queue in sizzling heat for food in Bannu. "That was the unforgettable moment of my life," he said with tearful eyes.
The exodus from North Waziristan marked the second largest human displacement following the Swat operation during which about 2.5 million people had exited from the region in the wake of the operation. While arrangements for displaced persons from Swat were adequately planned so they did not suffer the agony and pain which was being faced by dwellers from North Waziristan. Not any family can be singled out which had not suffered the miseries of recent migration.
Tehseenullah, who reached Bannu on foot, narrated one of the most shocking accounts that he went through during his unpleasant journey from Hassokhel, a village in outskirts of Mir Ali, the second largest town of North Waziristan.
After crossing the Kajuri check post, he said, they came across a young boy, hardly four-year old, crying loud to a body lying on barren ground. "As we went close, we found that a pregnant woman had just passed away in the rugged mountainous walking track while her son sitting helplessly next to her mother's dead body was crying. We were in shock what to do with the body," he said. "We had nothing to carry it. At last we gave knots to our shawls in an attempt to take along the body for burial to any nearby graveyard," he explained in trembling voice. Although, he said, they carried the body for almost 15 kilometers until they reached Bakakhel village, entry point to Bannu, adjacent town with North Waziristan. "When locals saw us, they came and got the body from us while saying that it was now their responsibility and they will fulfill all the burial rituals," Teseenullah said and added that one of the elder persons in Bakakhel had also adopted the son of slain mother. There are no precedents of such tragic incidents being reported during the exodus from Swat. For them, before the launch of operation proper arrangements were made by the government in the settled districts of Mardan, Swabi and Charsadda while local and international NGOs were also very active in facilitating the displaced families.
When tribal families from North Waziristan entered into Bannu, they found themselves completely abandoned. The relief activities started much later and the displaced families had to endure hardships for more than ten days without having any clear indication of what the concerned authorities were actually planning for them.
The poorly planned relief operation had further fueled the prevailing reservations of distressed tribesmen about the military push in their homeland. Contrarily, the people of Swat wanted the authorities to clear their land from militancy by restoring the state's writ. And there were obvious reasons for it. The people of Swat were educated, law-abiding, more exposed to the outer world and the region had a long history of being ruled by enlightened and modern rulers as a princely state before its merger into Pakistan in 1969.
The history of Waziristan is, however, entirely different. For centuries they were used to tribal way of life where rivalries ran for decades. Scores of people were killed in disputes primarily related to property. Their rivalries at times turned so intense that it continued for several generations. They were checked through self-formulated informal tribal laws where a "Jirga system" (counsel of tribal elders) was the sole source of settling disputes. In case, if rival parties did not go along with the decision of "Jirga", there was no other alternative to end the quarrel between the warring parties. The two main tribes of North Waziristan, Daur and Uthmanzai Wazir, had fought fierce battles for decades over control of the land. At times the casualties caused by such infightings exceeded a figure of hundred.
Another factor which started influencing the tribal culture was the advent of Talibanization of the region that traces back to early 1980s and was linked to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The new phenomenon instantly engulfed the region turning it into a hot bed of myriad of militant outfits. In post 9/11, Pakistan distanced itself from overtly supporting Taliban but discreetly the state continued with its old policy of supporting proxies in Afghanistan to counter Indian influence and implanting assets to serve its strategic objectives.
The North Waziristan offensive is also fuelling ethnic sentiments with majority of the people believing that Pashtuns have been used as scapegoats for the "so called" strategic goals of "Punjab-influenced establishment". When this scribe came across dozens of displaced persons, all of them expressed grave concerns about the ongoing operation and termed it a "Pashtun genocide". "This conspiracy has been hatched against us. The Punjab dominated establishment has already succeeded in creating rifts among innocent Pashtuns. They used us as scapegoat for its nasty strategic goals in Afghanistan and now are bent upon to play with the dignity and honour of our women," said Abdur Rehman Wazir, 58, a resident of Issori village in North Waziristan.
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