•Mini Kapoor: Mr Yusufzai, can you explain the implications of the peace deal signed recently, by President Zardari on the Swat region?

Rahimullah Yousufzai: The peace deal was signed in February and now the Pakistan government has to enforce the Sharia regulation in Swat and the rest of the Malakand. Parliament has ratified this Islamic law which is strange because the President of Pakistan is empowered to issue ordinances and laws for this semi-tribal area. In Pakistan, we have two different types of tribal areas. There is the federally administered tribal area, FATA, comprising Waziristan, Bajaur??? and Mohmand???. It is directly administered by the President of Pakistan. Parliament cannot make laws for this tribal area. And then we have got the PATA, Provincially Administered Tribal Area, which is Swat and Malakand. We have got 20 members of Parliament from FATA. They can make laws for the whole country but they can’t make laws for the tribal areas they represent. It is a very strange thing.

Although the President was empowered to issue this law he went to Parliament because he wanted all political parties to support it. He wanted them to take responsibility, in case it fails. The law is not something new. We had some kind of a Sharia in Swat and Malakand since 1994 and that law was given by the secular government of Benazir Bhutto, that, too, after a rebellion by the militants. At that time, Sufi Mohammad, who is also involved now, was leading the uprising and they forced the government to issue that law. When Nawaz Sharif was Prime Minister in 1999, there was an attempt to stage a rebellion and Nawaz Sharif was forced to issue an amended Sharia law for Malakand. So both the secular governments, at the time, succumbed to the pressure and issued this Islamic law. So there’s really nothing new here except that the old law has been amended in response to the demands of the militants.

... contd.