FATA people forgotten

EVER since the US began its military aggression in this region under the guise of the ‘war on terror’, the people of the FATA region have been its particular victims. Despite the fact that they were not involved at any level with the terrorist acts of 9/11, they have been bombed by US drones as well as being targeted by their own country’s military forces. The main tribes from the FATA Agencies, like the Orakzais, continue to remain largely displaced as a result of ongoing military operations but no one is talking of helping them in any way. In fact, it appears, especially with the floods’ devastation, the earlier batch of IDPs have been conveniently forgotten by the state. So we have a population whom we want to win over into the mainstream of the country but whom our forces are killing and displacing along with the US drones, which are also being flown with the complicity of the Pakistan civil and military leadership. At the end of the day, while a few militants may have been killed by these lethal drones, thousands of innocent Pakistanis, including women and children, have also died as so much “collateral damage” – which for President Zardari is not a concern at all!As if that was not enough abuse of our people in FATA, a people who were the most avid supporters of the new state Pakistan, we now have our proclaimed ally the United States through NATO increasing the military attacks against the FATA people through helicopter gunships – again, according to local officials, killing civilians only. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa elected representatives have finally woken up to the military abuse of the FATA tribes and have passed a unanimous resolution through the KP Assembly slamming these airstrikes but our Federal government and military leadership continues to speak with forked tongue as it were on the drone issue – Nation