Overview

Fighting between Pakistani government forces and Taliban armed groups has devastated civilian populations in northwestern Pakistan. Human rights violations have been committed by both sides in the conflict, as each pursues purely military strategies that fail to protect civilians. Countless lives have been destroyed and untold damage done to property, leaving millions of civilians homeless and unable to take care of their families.

Click image to enlarge © Lynsey Addario / VII Network - Thousands of internally displaced people, IDPs, from Swat fight for food in a temporary camp in Jalala, outside of Marden, North West Frontier Province, Pakistan on May 9, 2009.

The Pakistani government's response to the rise of insurgents in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has fluctuated between launching often indiscriminate and disproportionate military operations that mostly harm civilians and abandoning Pakistani citizens to abusive militant groups like the Taliban. Military operations have taken a high toll on civilian life, property and infrastructure—such as homes and schools—and have often violated human rights law and international humanitarian law. Such violations have occurred repeatedly throughout the region and caused massive displacement.

In April 2009, the Pakistani army launched a major offensive in Malakand Division (NWFP) against the Pakistani Taliban, resulting in the displacement of over 2 million people, the largest displacement crisis in Pakistan's history. This new wave of displaced joined the already 500,000 displaced people by the conflict in the FATA agencies (mainly by the military counter-insurgency operations in Bajaur and Mohmand agencies conducted in late 2008). Nearly 90 percent of the people who fled the region had no access to organized camps and lived instead in extremely overcrowded conditions in host communities, existing slums and abandoned buildings. In many cases, three or four families were forced to share one residence, greatly straining host communities' ability to provide sufficient food and clean water.

Click image to enlarge Photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images - A Pakistan Military patrol make their way through destroyed homes in the village of Sultanwas. The town was the Taliban stronghold in Buner and, according to the Pakistan Military, the scene of a 3 day bloody clash between Pakistan Army and the Taliban. July 16, 2009.

Taliban forces have regularly violated human rights by positioning insurgents in residential areas, significantly increasing the probability that civilian lives and property will be harmed during government attacks. Where Taliban forces have gained control over civilian areas, they have imposed practices—including restrictions against the education of girls and the establishment of Taliban courts—that further violate the human rights of Pakistani civilians. Violence and the threat of violence against suspected government allies and anti-Taliban tribal leaders have sown fear across the region.

International humanitarian law (IHL) is the main body of law that regulates how hostilities may be carried out, including hostilities that are part of internal armed conflicts. Both the Pakistani government and anti-government armed groups in FATA and NWFP are bound by international humanitarian law, including provisions of the Geneva Conventions, which Pakistan signed in 1951, and customary international humanitarian law applicable to non-international armed conflict. However, analysis based on public reports and testimony gathered by Amnesty International suggests that both insurgent groups and the Pakistani government in northwestern Pakistan are ignoring bedrock principles of the laws of war.

Click image to enlarge Heat map of insurgency and security related incidents in northwestern Pakistan. Information is based on publically available sources only. © Analysis conducted and graphic produced by AAAS.

The northwestern region of Pakistan historically has some of the lowest levels of development in Pakistan, and indeed, in the world. The economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights of the people have largely been ignored and FATA has been treated with disdain by the Pakistani government because it is considered a renegade area. The problems with insurgents in FATA can be directly linked to the government's historic mismanagement of the area, and thus the solutions to FATA's problems must entail reform of the political and legal arrangements in FATA, including democratization and legal reforms. Addressing this historical neglect will go a long way toward removing the conditions that have led to decades of conflict and associated human rights abuses. However, in addition, other concrete actions will also be necessary: increased development efforts in the long term, more political attention from Pakistan's central government, and, in the interim, more sensitive and precise military operations that are conducted with due concerns for civilian life.

Download detailed timeline of military operations and displacement.