The Pakistan Army, ever conscious of its carefully cultivated and pristine image as the saviour of the nation, has attempted to nip the movement in the bud. It has exerted pressure on the PTM leadership and engineered a complete media ban on coverage to its proceedings. These attempts have failed due to resort to a massive social media information campaign by the activists of the movement.
Visuals of massive rallies and public functions are doing the rounds on multiple social media platforms and all information about the wrong doing by the Army is being shown.
The matter has reached a level where the Army has been compelled to hold a press conference at the General Headquarter, Rawalpindi, on 29 April. The presser was addressed by Major Gen. Asif Ghafoor, Director General of the Inter-Services Public Relations (DGISPR) of the Pakistan Army. The General rendered an address for about an hour, starting with the inevitable and elaborate exposition on relations with India. However, as the conference progressed it became obvious that it was the PTM and its activities which were the main topic for the day both for the army as well as the media.
In the course of the meeting Gen. Ghafoor accused PTM and its leadership of waging a “Hybrid War” against the state and receiving funding from Afghan and Indian intelligence agencies. “But tell us how much money did you get from the NDS (Afghan National Directorate of Security) to run your campaign?” How much money did RAW give you for the first Dharna (sit-in) in Islamabad,” queried the DGISPR rather grandly.
In yet another faux pas’, while replying to a query on missing persons by a journalist Hamid Mir, he admitted that there were many missing persons in the country, due to internal security operations conducted by the Army. “We also have affection for people of Pakistan but such things happen since everything is fair in love and war, Pakistan Army does not fight on the personal level, it does what is required to be done in national interest,” he said. In culmination, while speaking about PTM, he made a statement, “Their time is up,” which has elicited widespread disgust for its egoistic undertone and inherent viciousness.
His comments, especially on the missing persons, created a twitter storm. “The whole presser was horrendous. But this was the OMG moment. This confession will sink the military image. He is admitting to crime against humanity on television, OMG,” wrote well known journalist, Gul Bukhari, in a tweet after the press conference.
Gulali Ismail, a well known Human Rights Activist from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa tweeted, “I consider this Press Conference not an attack on PTM, but an attack on the Parliament of Pakistan, an attack on the Democracy of Pakistan and an attack on the Constitution of Pakistan #PTMZindabad.” In fact, there are thousands of tweets on the same line with #PTMZindabad which, by now, must be giving nightmares to the Pakistan Army.
They are also generating debates on the role of social media across the country. It will not come as a surprise if the DGISPR is soon transferred from the post.
The pressure on the Pakistan government has been such that it had to give in to some of the movement’s demands. Firstly, it agreed to no longer impose curfews in the region and promised to develop a mechanism to find the missing persons. Most important of all, the FATA Interim Governance Regulation 2018, signed by the President of Pakistan on May 28, 2018, replaced the FCR and outlined how FATA would be governed, “within a timeframe of two years”, even as the region is merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
However, it is now apparent that the PTM and its leadership are neither impressed with such small steps of the Imran Khan Govt, nor going to be cowed down by the usual pressure tactics of the Pakistan Army based on rising of anti-National, anti-Islam bogeys. These calls for accountability of the actions taken by the Army are going to increase and also envelope other trouble torn areas of the country like Balochistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK).
The political leadership also needs to see the writing on the wall and try to change the narrative of Army control which has caused so much grief to the country. These leaders, while in opposition align with the true aspirations of the people, but change their ideology the moment some kind of support from the Army is forthcoming. Such weakness in the political system has been exploited by the Army all these years, but now the people are raising a voice against the same.
Politicians can survive only if they hold the pulse of the people, so now is the time for the Pakistani leadership to go with the desired change. This cycle of violence perpetrated by the Army and its proxies, the attendant human rights violations, the poverty and lack of empowerment cannot continue for too long now. The first casualty of the changing times will probably be Imran Kan, after which, the people will look for those leaders who have changed with times or will go for a new set of leaders altogether.
Photo Caption (1) - Manzoor Pashteen (center) sitting with landmine victims in Tank, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, at a PTM gathering on the first anniversary of the murder of Naqeebullah Mehsud. Photo Credit: Khestwol, Wikipedia Commons.
Photo Caption (2) - FILE - Manzoor Pashteen, the leader of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, is seen in this undated photo. Image Credit - voanews.com
(Jaibans Singh is a Geo-political analyst, columnist and author)
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