Policy Options For Post Conflict Rehabilitation in North Wazirstan

Abstract

North Waziristan had historically been acting as a catalyst for geostrategic changes occurred in Afghanistan especially during the ‗Great Games‘. Following the period of relative calmness after Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan; the fateful incident of 11th September 2001 again pushed the agency into regional geostrategic wrangling. United States led military campaign in Afghanistan during 2002, triggered an unending chain of actions leading to a fresh cultural war and process of social disintegration in the area. The terrorists‘ infiltration in hideouts across North Waziristan; established during Afghan jihad (1979-1991), further complicated the sociopolitical matrix of the agency. The succeeding years witnessed an unprecedented wave of terrorism which destroyed the sociopolitical institutions and physical infrastructures in the area. The decade long miseries of locals ended when triumphant military operation ‗Zarb-e-Azb‘ obliterated the terrorists‘ hideouts from North Waziristan and set the stage for non-kinetic initiatives to revive and restore socioeconomic and politico-administrative institutions in the agency. Undertaking the research project in North Waziristan has never been a soft seafaring. Extremely conservative cultural values and inadequate accessibility make the task of amassing requisite data, contacting authentic stakeholders and recording of actual feelings exceedingly difficult. The research has been carried out while considering the said sociocultural ground realities and data collection limitations. The researcher‘s field experience of government service, operating knowledge and personal observations of the local environments have provided the needed expertise to accomplish this difficult task. The research used non-probability sampling design to collect relevant information needed to explore the causes of conflict and to suggest post conflict rehabilitation strategy. For this purpose, 503 respondents from various segments of Waziristan community living inside or outside the agency were approached by using close ended questionnaire through survey method. Using multiple regression analysis, the study found that there is a positive and significant relationship between the hypothesized relationships. This empirically evidence based on the conflict and rehabilitation theories verify the applicability of social engineering theory and system‘s thinking approach in the North Waziristan region. To sum-up the study concluded that rehabilitation framework based on perceptive planning and dynamic execution mechanism can optimally assist to revolutionize the socioeconomic fortune of the conflict ridden North Waziristan for a better and peaceful region with focus on human development. The research has also offered certain important policy recommendations for social, economic, political and institutional restoration in the post conflict environments of the North Waziristan.