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Pakistan’s tribal regions

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Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, a journalist and filmmaker who has spent much of the year working in Pakistan’s tribal regions.

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MARCO WERMAN: Journalist and documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy splits her time between Pakistan and New York City.  And she’s been spending lots of time in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan, where the Taliban have a stronghold.

SHARMENN OBAID-CHINOY: The predominant tribes that live in that area are the Wazir tribes, the Mehsud tribes.  They’re large tribes and there’s a structure.  So at the head of each tribe is what we call a malik, and the malik makes all the decisions for the tribe.  But the Taliban have systematically been trying to assassinate all the top leaders so as to create a power vacuum in that area.  There are women who live there, but, you know, you never see them.  In all my travels, I have rarely ever seen a woman venture out of the house.  There are hardly any schools there for young men, definitely no schools for young women.  Really, there are no hospitals there.  There is a main road that runs through most of the tribal areas, but 100 yards on each side of the tribal areas, it’s no man’s land, and anybody could be there.  So it’s a complicated area to understand.  It’s really an area, I’d have to do, that is at least 100, 200 years back in time.

WERMAN:  Right.  So I mean, it almost sounds like these are kind of clans, these groups.  And then you’ve got the Taliban.  Do the Taliban and their recruits actually walk around with impunity in these towns and villages?  Do you know who they are?

OBAID-CHINOY:  Absolutely.  They do walk around with impunity, and I think one has to take a step back and understand the code of conduct that exists in the tribal areas.  There’s a very strict code of conduct in which nobody can turn away a guest.  The tribes have to give refuge to the guests.  And based on that tribal code, all of the Taliban have enjoyed respect.  They’ve enjoyed a space to stay.  Many of the Taliban have married amongst the local tribes and the local tribes have sent young men to fight alongside the Taliban as well, because the Taliban ideology appeals to some of these people.  The Taliban ideology very much about bringing the sharia law that existed in Islam 1,400 years ago to Pakistan.  And as you drive through the streets of Waziristan, north Waziristan, south Waziristan and even Bajaur and other tribal areas, you find in the marketplace, you know, pickup trucks filled with young men, with their faces covered, some foreign fighters, most local fighters, kind of roaming about with full immunity and making it look like they control the area that they’re in.

WERMAN:  Now we’re talking in a kind of academic way right now, but I mean, in the films that you made that were shown on British and American television earlier this year, you saw firsthand what’s going on on the ground with this younger generation of people, children growing up there today. I mean, you’ve met kids who are burying their friends’ body parts.  Tell us about some of the people you met. This is very disturbing stuff.

OBAID-CHINOY:  Well, in my travels, I met two best friends, and the two best friends I think encapsulate what’s happening in Pakistan today. Wasif Fulla [PH] and Abdura Hehman [PH]. Wasif Fulla is 15 years old.  He comes from a small village in the tribal areas.  He described in detail how one morning, there was an explosion in a village next to his village.  There was a missile strike that hit a school and he lost his 12 year old cousin.  He describes in detail that when he arrived at the scene, there were dogs eating– stray dogs eating body parts, and that he saw a torso and a leg.  And then suddenly the Taliban arrived on the scene, and they started talking about how the Americans are killing off the Muslims and riled up the local population, and spoke about how innocent children are being killed in this war.  And all of a sudden, the Taliban had a hundred recruits.  So a missile strike had turned into a recruitment rally for the Taliban.  While I was having this conversation with him, his best friend, who also comes from the same village, had a totally different experience. He thought that the Taliban were militants who were trying to destroy the Pakistani government, the Pakistani way of life, and he wanted really to join the Pakistani army to fight these militants, he said, who want to destroy Islam.  And, you know, when I asked them, would they kill each other if ever confronted on the battlefield?  They looked at each other and they said, “We wouldn’t hesitate, because we each believe so strongly in what we want to do.”

WERMAN:  What are US policymakers supposed to conclude from that story?

OBAID-CHINOY:  You know, the drones that are used remotely from the United States to fire missiles into the tribal areas of Pakistan have had advantages and disadvantages.  They’ve often killed very high profile Taliban and Al Qaida leaders, but it does result in civilian casualties, and the Taliban film those civilian casualties.  They make propaganda videos out of them.  They rile up young boys to fight against the Pakistani army and eventually against NATO forces in Afghanistan.  So of course, you know, something that gets rid of a leader could potentially also get rid of civilians, and so it could be taken in any which way possible.  Having said that, I think that you can kill as many Taliban as possible, or Al Qaida leaders, but unless you address the ideology that permeates through them, sort out the problems at the grassroots level, there will be a thousand Taliban who’ll rise up from the ashes of these drone attacks.

WERMAN:  Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s latest documentary, “Children of the Taliban” aired earlier this year on the PBS program “Frontline World.”  We’ve got a link to it at The World dot org.  And Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, you’re returning to Pakistan next week.  Safe travels and thanks for speaking with us.

OBAID-CHINOY:  Thank you.

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