A peace deal with Islamists has been applauded by Pakistan's foes and denounced by its allies, writes Graham Usher in Islamabad Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari told American television earlier this month that large parts of his country had fallen to a Taliban movement that was bent on taking "over the state of Pakistan and our way of life". He vowed to do everything he could to reverse the tide. The next day he approved an agreement which in the eyes of many recognises the Taliban's de facto control of the Swat Valley, a pastoral district in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), less than 100 miles from Islamabad. Many inhabitants of the valley, wearied by months of war, have welcomed the deal. Pakistan's liberal intelligentsia and women's movements decry it as a retreat before a misogynist, retrograde form of political Islam. And NATO, Delhi, Kabul and Washington have charged the Zardari government with capitulating before Taliban forces now waging and winning the war in Afghanistan. "It's hard to understand this deal in Swat," United States Special Envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke told CNN on 19 February. The Swat Taliban are "murderous thugs and militants who pose a danger not only to Pakistan but to the United States and India... And I'm concerned, and I know Secretary [of State Hillary] Clinton is [concerned] and President [Barack Obama] is [concerned], that this deal, which is portrayed as a truce... does not turn into a surrender." The deal in Swat is not in fact with the Pakistani Taliban. It's between the NWFP provincial government and a small Islamist movement led by an ageing cleric Sufi Mohamed. But the Taliban has granted Mohamed power to negotiate on their behalf. Negotiations revolve around implementing a localised form of Sharia law in Swat: a law that has been agreed by three different Pakistani governments and has support in the valley, especially among the rural poor. In return for Sharia, "it is my hope the armed people will disarm themselves, give up the path of violence and work for the restoration of peace in Swat," said NWFP Chief Minister Amir Haidar Hoti on 16 February. Failure to implement Sharia was one of the reasons for the collapse last July of an earlier peace agreement between the NWFP government and the Taliban. In its wake erupted perhaps the most virulent insurgency Pakistan has ever faced. Over the next six months the Taliban established control in 80 per cent of the valley, set up 73 Sharia courts to dispense their own brand of justice, and instituted a system of rule characterised by beheadings of dissidents, purdah for women and public floggings of anyone who deviated from its rigid codes of conduct, including prescribed beard and trouser lengths. The Taliban particularly targeted the local, elected political leadership, as well as police officers, soldiers, government officials and women workers. In December Maulvi Fazlullah, the Taliban leader in Swat, pronounced a ban on female education, climaxing a campaign against learning that has so far seen the destruction of 191 schools, affecting 62,000 pupils, most of them girls. Faced with this utter collapse of its writ the provincial government turned to the army to re-impose some form of rule, first in the district capital Mingora, then across Swat as a whole. The army did so -- but like a sledgehammer trying to track down a moth. Relying on massive airpower and artillery, 15,000 soldiers reclaimed Mingora in January, often by bombarding civilian neighbourhoods as a prelude to winkling out militants. The cost was enormous and, for the local government, unsustainable. In the six-month campaign, 1,200 civilians were killed, between 200,000 and 500,000 displaced, and 1,000 hotels (the lifeblood of an economy based on tourism) closed. When, on 16 February, the Taliban announced a ceasefire thousands took to the streets of Mingora in unrestrained joy. The army returned to its barracks, conceding that it had lost the battle for their hearts and minds. Will peace hold? The Taliban have endorsed the Sharia law negotiated by Sufi Mohamed. But it is their political demands beyond Sharia that will prove harder to take, especially for their victims. The militants want the release of all prisoners, amnesty and compensation for their fighters (including, presumably, those who carried out executions and floggings) and the right to bear arms. At a press conference in Mingora on 23 February Sufi Mohamed agreed to the first demand, ducked the second and said that while the Taliban could keep their guns, they should not display them. Zardari has yet to sign the agreement into law. Should he do so, and his government accept the Taliban conditions, it will be difficult to deny the charge of capitulation. Not that the people of Swat are likely to oppose the deal. After months of violence, curfews and gunfire Mingora's grain and fruit markets are again thronged with people and trade. On 23 February schools reopened, at least for boys. In a radio broadcast Fazlullah said girls could take examinations if they were "covered according to the Sharia". As for girls attending schools as a right, that was "being negotiated", said Sufi Mohamed.
