Afghanistan and Pakistan: The Tribal Dimension
(Click on map to enlarge.)
“As the Afghan war goes increasingly badly for the Western powers, President Hamid Karzai keeps blaming President Parvez Musharraf for allowing Taliban to operate inside Pakistan and launch cross-border attacks on Afghanistan. Musharraf fired back that Karzai was a figurehead who had no control of his country. Both accusations are true”, says Eric Margolis In Toronto Sun.
“Tribal politics lie at the heart of their dispute. The 30 million Pashtuns (or Pathans), the world’s largest tribal society, are divided between Afghanistan and Pakistan by an artificial border, the Durand Line, drawn by divide-and-conquer British imperialists.
“Pashtuns account for 50-60% of Afghanistan’s 30 million people. The Taliban is an organic part of the Pashtun people. The Western powers and Karzai are not just fighting “Taliban terrorists,â€? but a coalition of Pashtun tribes and other allied nationalist movements. In effect, most of the Pashtun people.
“The other half of the divided Pashtuns live just across the Durand Line in Pakistan, comprising 15-20% of its population. Pashtuns occupy many senior posts in Pakistan’s military and intelligence services. Pashtuns, including anti-Western resistance fighters, never accepted and simply ignore the artificial border bifurcating their tribal homeland.
“Washington keeps demanding Musharraf crack down on Pakistan’s pro-Taliban Pashtuns. But Washington fails to understand that too much pressure on these fierce warriors could quickly ignite a major historic threat to Pakistan’s national integrity: A Pashtun independence movement seeking to join the Pashtun of Afghanistan and Pakistan in a new state — Pashtunistan.”
An interesting analyses by this Canadian journalist about the Afghan-Pak developments.
2 Responses to “Afghanistan and Pakistan: The Tribal Dimension”
Interestingly, my parents lived in Qandahar in the 1960s in the Peace Corps and there was a movement then to create a Pashtunistan. Nobody really took it seriously, but the idea was certainly there.
The sad thing is that Bush and his crowd went in “guns ablaze” without considering the tribal aspects of the ME. There are stories about McMaster(Dereliction of Duty) taking in tribal customs to deal with Iraqis.
PING:
TITLE: A Graphical Depiction Of The Challenge In Afghanistan
BLOG NAME: Captain’s Quarters
With Pervez Musharraf appearing to retreat in the war on terror and Hamid Karzai demanding results, the situation in Afghanistan and the Waziristan region appears to be inexplicably troublesome of late. Musharraf and Karzai have more trouble than just borders…