behind the murder of a Polish engineer in Pakistan

For Wprost, Poland
Feb 12, 2009
Stanczak's murder: The tragic human cost of a larger war
By Beena Sarwar in Karachi, Pakistan

The horrific cold-blooded murder of a kidnapped Polish engineer in
Pakistan has saddened and shocked people. It is the first such murder
of a foreigner in Pakistan since the beheading of the American
journalist Daniel Pearl in February 2002 by his captors who are
believed to have links with Al-Qaeda.

"It was very cruel. These people (the murderers) are animals," said a
young housewife, Saima, coming out of a yoga class in Karachi in
sweatpants and t-shirt. Her colleague Seema agreed. "They are
barbarians. They never spared the great prophets, how can we expect
them to spare us ordinary people?" she added, adjusting a printed
headscarf over her long black coat.

The 42-year-old geologist, Piotr Stanczak who worked for Geofizyka
Krakow, an oil and natural gas exploration company was kidnapped on
Sept. 28, 2008 by militants who ambushed his vehicle, killing three
Pakistanis traveling with him, in Attock district in Pakistan near the
Afghan border, 85 km from the capital Islamabad.

His captors, the
banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (`Taliban Movement of Pakistan',
TTP) which has links to Al-Qaeda, were holding him in Darra Adamkhel,
Orakzai, one of the seven tribal agencies that form Pakistan's
FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas (FATA). They demanded that the
Pakistan government halt military operations in the area and release
61 Taliban prisoners in exchange for Stanczak's life.

Such groups continue to hold other foreign hostages, including an
American U.N. worker and a Chinese national for similar demands. Not
operating under a central chain of command makes negotiations with
them difficult.

The TTP group holding Stanczak hostage beheaded him on Feb 7,
releasing a video of what Pakistan's Prime Minister Yusuf Reza Gillani
has condemned as an "absolutely barbaric act". Pending confirmation of
the report, he said he "would want to condole with the Polish people,
the Polish government and his family." Stanczak, he said, was working
to help Pakistan's development, making his death even more tragic.
"The government of Pakistan condemns it in the strongest possible terms."

Poland has blamed Pakistan for not doing enough to tackle the
terrorism that led to the killing. Polish Justice Minister Andrzej
Czuma told reporters, "The structure of the Pakistani government is
behind this apathy. Pakistani authorities encourage these bandits."
The situation is more complicated than that. Pakistan does have a
historical link to these forces, `jihadis' or holy warriors. But for
the first time, an elected government is genuinely working against
them, recognizing that Pakistan's very survival lies in eradicating
them. As President Asif Ali Zardari has stated, the target of these
`jihadi' forces is not just to control some areas, but to overrun the
entire country.

This is a marked departure from the previous policy, particularly
since the Afghan war against the Soviet occupation of the 1980s during
which Pakistan armed and trained `jihadi' forces, backed by the
Americans, Saudis and others, turning a nationalist struggle for
liberation into a global `religious' war. In 1996, in the power
vacuum of post-war Afghanistan, the `Taliban', a plural word that
literally means `students', who came from religious seminaries in
Pakistan that had been set up by Pakistan, America and Saudi Arabia to
indoctrinate cadres for the Afghan `jihad', swept into power. They
have since then been a threat to women, pluralism, and democracy in
the region.

The Afghans initially welcomed the Taliban for their `speedy justice'
but were alienated by Taliban's oppressive measures like closing
girls' schools and pushing women out of the public sphere. Forced to
give up their jobs, thousands of women, the sole bread-earners for
their families, had three choices: beg, starve, or prostitution. Yet
the Pakistani establishment supported the Taliban in an attempt to
provide Pakistan with the `strategic depth' apparently needed to
counter the perceived threat from long-standing rival India, projected
by the Pakistani establishment as `the enemy' on the eastern border.

Many in Pakistan, like the independent Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan, urged the authorities to severe links with the `jihadis' for
the country's own survival. But it was only after being pushed by
Washington following the attacks in New York of September 11, 2001,
that Pakistan's President and also Chief of Army Staff Pervez
Musharraf officially renounced Pakistan's ties to the Taliban, turning
against the very forces Islamabad had been cultivating to counter
India and bleed it in the disputed valley of Kashmir.
Pakistan now allowed its territory to be used by US military forces
and committed military forces to combating `terrorist' elements.

Given the absence of democratic rule in Pakistan, the `war on terror'
also gave the government a pretext for crushing political dissent as
in the western province of Balochistan bordering Iran, where a
nationalist insurgency has been festering for years.

After the bombing of Afghanistan in 2001, the Taliban began
re-grouping in Pakistan's tribal belt. As they gained ground, they
have been `banning' girls' education, shutting down or demolishing
over a hundred girls' schools in the area. Over 100,000 girls have
been forced to discontinue their education. Schoolteachers have been
killed for going to work, even if covered in the all-enveloping
`burqa'. These measures are alienating many locals who have a basic
education and want their children, including girls, to be educated for
a better future.

The Taliban's murder of women and mutilation of bodies are also
eroding sympathies for the their ostensibly Islamic agenda. They have
violated the time-honoured code that allows people to `punish' women
of their own family for transgressions, but not those of others. They
have been kidnapping and killing women they accuse of `immoral
activities'. Over the past five years, the mutilated bodies of more
than 150 pro-government maliks (tribal elders) have been dumped at
various hamlets.

Locals in some areas have begun refusing to harbour Taliban and even
aggressively chasing them away. Without local support, the Taliban
cannot operate here. In one incident on September 25, 2008, a militia
comprising hundreds of armed volunteers, Mullagori tribesmen in Khyber
Agency set Taliban hideouts on fire and chased out some eighty TTP
militants. During the fighting, the tribesmen suffered huge financial
losses, but pledged to support the government against the militants.
Many Jirgas (tribal councils) have warned locals against sheltering
Taliban or being punished with fine, expulsion and demolition of the
violator's home. Such incidents have taken place in Waziristan,
Bajaur, and Khyber tribal agencies and in Swat, a settled area in the
North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

The Pakistan government – the first popularly elected government in
over a decade – believes that the problem's resolution lies in
political rather than military means, although it needs the full
support of the Pakistan Army. However, many in Pakistan, including in
the agencies that were earlier charged with cultivating links with the
`jihadi' elements, still see the Taliban as an anti-imperialist force,
forgetting that the Taliban pre-date the American invasion of Iraq,
bombing of Afghanistan, and drone attacks in Pakistan. These `jihadis'
have the ideological upper hand because they play the religion card.
They release videos of captured Pakistani soldiers – including their
executions -- in which they are asked whether their first loyalty is
to the country or to their religion. This is a difficult proposition
for any Muslim, particularly soldiers who have since the years of the
Afghan war been ideologically conditioned to see themselves as an
`Islamic army'. Sometimes they release captured soldiers making them
promise to quit their jobs.

Meanwhile, the mighty Pakistan Army is unable to even neutralise the
FM radio station from which daily announcements are made of the
Taliban's next targets. Although the Army chief recently stated his
resolve to support the civilian government more completely, there
still seems to be a lack of will to do so.

It is a tough bind for the Pakistan government. Locals oppose its
military offensive in FATA because of the high rate of civilian
casualties and `collateral damage'. Many have ethnic and tribal
affiliations with the Pakistani Taliban who tend to be ethnically
Pashtun like themselves. The tribal code of honour (`Pakhtunwali')
forbids abandoning someone who has approached you for refuge. Injured
Taliban seek the help of locals, who provide them with medicines and
bandages out of fear or compassion. Many feel caught between the devil
and the deep blue sea, their homes, families and lands destroyed by
American drones and the Pakistani military action on the one hand, and
by Taliban elements on the other. An estimated 3-400,000 have fled
the area over the past few months. The American done attacks in FATA
since July 2008 have generated great resentment in Pakistan, making
things more difficult for the civilian government and benefitting the
`jihadi' elements.

(ends)