The verdant valley where Sharia law now rules

Published on Monday 16 February 2009 20:51

ISLAMABAD has caved in to the demands of Islamic militants fighting in Pakistan's beautiful but volatile Swat Valley region, agreeing to implement Sharia law in a move that will bring concerns about the government's writ in an area less than 100 miles from the capital.

The decision on Islamic justice is likely to draw criticism from the United States and other western powers worried that appeasement will play into the hands of religious conservatives who sympathise with the Taleban and al-Qaeda.

But the government fears that use of force to impose its will would only fuel an Islamist insurgency radiating out of tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, and believes compromise was the best option to restore order in Swat.

"Those who adopted militancy should move towards peace now the agreement has been reached," Amir Haider Khan Hoti, the chief minister of the North West Frontier Province, told reporters yesterday after his government reached agreement with Islamists at a meeting in Peshawar.

"Our whole struggle is for the enforcement of Sharia law," said Muslim Khan, a Swat Taleban spokesman. "If this brings us the implementation of Sharia, we will fully co-operate with it."

Taleban militants in Swat, once a tourist paradise, called a ten-day ceasefire the night before the talks and, in another gesture of goodwill, on Saturday released a Chinese engineer kidnapped five months earlier.

The uprising erupted in late 2007 in Swat, an alpine beauty spot favoured by honeymooners and trekkers alike, and militants now control the valley 80 miles north-west of Islamabad.

They have destroyed more than 200 girls' schools in a campaign against female education, and tens of thousands of people have fled their homes.

Asif Ali Zardari, the president of Pakistan, had given his agreement in principle for the NWFP government to make this concession to the Islamists, but will sign it only when he is sure peace has been established, officials said. However, while Islamists saw the move as a victory, Sheree Rehman, the information minister, said that the principal changes for the people of Swat would be that they could have speedy justice and that an appellate bench would be established in Peshawar.

The laws that will be applied were written into the Pakistani constitution after an uprising in Swat in the 1990s, but were not implemented, she said.

Officials said the government was neither setting up new courts nor appointing Islamic scholars, and existing judges would carry on in their role.

Analysts said the courts were unlikely to hand down sentences like those meted out by the Taleban in Pakistani tribal areas and Swat, where thieves' hands were chopped off.

Religious conservatives in Swat have long fought for Sharia to replace Pakistan's secular laws, which came into force after the former princely state was absorbed into the Pakistani federation in 1969. Yesterday's agreement was reached with Maulana Sufi Mohammad, who led the revolt in the early 1990s. He was later imprisoned after leading thousands of fighters in a vain attempt to stop US-backed forces from ousting the Taleban from power in Afghanistan in 2001.

A spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan, an umbrella group for various Taleban factions, said the agreement signed by Mr Mohammad was acceptable, and he vowed the struggle would continue until Islamic law was applied across Pakistan.

The government hopes that, by compromising with militants who have laid down their arms, it will be able to isolate hardliners who have forged ties with the Taleban and al-Qaeda.

BACKGROUND

WITH meadows, high mountains and clear lakes, Swat is a favourite tourist destination, often called "the Switzerland of Pakistan". Like the rest of the north-west, Swat has historically been a conservative region but a large number of its population is educated thanks to schools set up by the former native rulers, the Waalis.

Swatis are ethnic Pashtuns. Under British colonial rule, Swat was a princely state meaning it was not directly governed by the British but through a native ruler, the Waali. The Waali system continued after Pakistan was created in 1947 but it was abolished in 1969 when Swat was absorbed into the Pakistani federation and made a district of Northwest Frontier Province.

Under the Waali system, an Islamic scholar, a Qazi, acted as judge and laws were based on local tradition, mostly drawn from the sharia law.