FATA Merger For Pakistan Termed As Crucial
FATA Merger For Pakistan Termed As Crucial: Pakistan’s Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) comprising of seven agencies and six frontier regions were merged into the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). The merger of FATA, which has historically been kept at the political margins by Pakistan’s leaders and remains largely underdeveloped, will mean that there are no ungoverned spaces or no go areas in Pakistan–terms which have commonly been used to define the region’s lawlessness.
If FATA’s constitutional merger with KP is implemented successfully, it can pave the way for the development of an effective security tool to control crossborder criminal and terrorist activities. Moreover, the development and democratization of the region is likely to help marginalize extremist forces in the area.
It has been widely argued that various institutions in Pakistan, particularly the military, have seldom been interested in bringing FATA into the mainstream. This is likely because such a move may increase oversight of the military’s approach toward managing the region, which could undermine the country’s regional security policy in support of various extremist groups that have found sanctuary in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Arguably, the military has an incentive to ensure there are few administrative, legal, and bureaucratic checks and balances on their governance of the region.
The current leadership of the Pakistani military has made significant efforts to ensure that FATA joins the rest of Pakistan in terms of having the same political, economic, and governance rights and opportunities.
However, the current leadership of the Pakistani military has made significant efforts to ensure that FATA joins the rest of Pakistan in terms of having the same political, economic, and governance rights and opportunities.
Having passed the crucial legislative hurdle related to FATA’s merger with KP, it is now time that reforms be put in place, with political and economic reforms a top priority. In the short run, the interim government should ensure that the people of FATA take part in the upcoming general election and the right to form political parties is legally available to them.
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