Bittersweet Eid celebrated in Swat

[Naveed Yaseen]

* Shopkeeper says there is less fear now, but people still fear Taliban resurgence
* Taliban-style toy rifle hottest selling gift item among children

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: For the first time in three years, The Washington Post points out, people in Swat have been able to celebrate Eid this week without looking anxiously over their shoulders for armed vigilantes.

Girls in bright dresses pushed each other on swings, and boys in pastel tunics played soldier with toy rifles. Neighbours hugged, families gathered and vendors sold scoop after scoop of sweet custard.

Yet, the Taliban-free feast has been bittersweet for many Swatis, still shell-shocked from the summer-long army operation that drove the Taliban from the valley, but also had hundreds of thousands of inhabitants fleeing for their lives.

“It doesn’t really feel like Eid... we cannot forget so soon,” said a fruit seller in the town of Batkhela. “They are still finding bodies in the Swat river. We had to spend weeks in those hot tents, and some of our women had to give birth on the road as we ran from the fighting. There is too much sorrow and shame for us to celebrate.”

Two months after the army declared that people could return home from the relief camps, Swat still looks like a war zone. Dozens of buildings in every town lie in ruins – some destroyed by the Taliban, others by army shelling.

The main road through the valley winds past peach orchards, rice paddies and fragrant eucalyptus groves. But drivers must navigate a succession of military barricades concocted from boulders, trees, car parts and iron pipes. Every few miles, soldiers flag down long lines of vehicles, peer inside and check each passenger’s face against photos of fugitive Taliban leaders. The 7pm to 11am curfew was lifted for Eid but few people went out after dark and most shops remained closed until mid-morning.

Less fear: “There is less fear now, but people are still worried the Taliban will come back, so they don't feel completely free," said Shah Ziaul Haq, 40, a shop owner in Balogram whose house was partly destroyed by army shelling. "My family is still in mourning because my brother was killed when he went outside after curfew one night. We still don't know what happened to him."

The enjoyment was also marred by a dispute over when the people could end their month of daily fasts. There were awkward social situations, semi-opened markets and general annoyance.

"Everything is confused," said Noor Rehman, a butcher in Batkhela, where many shops were closed on Monday. "Some mosques announced it was Eid yesterday, but others said we should still fast. It is because the government is too weak. We need to have one Eid to unify the country."

During three years of Taliban control, Eid began whenever the Taliban said so. But people also recount how Taliban bombed a girls school, dragged hashish addicts off to be whipped, beheaded a clerk accused of being a government spy and beat a couple who ventured outdoors and could not convince the vigilantes that they were married.

The atmosphere of the first post-Taliban Eid was a mix of muted celebration, religious contemplation and re-emerging commercial freedom. Many shops remained closed, but Indian movie posters were back up on the walls, and young men browsed through racks of pop-music CDs.

At the Saidu Baba shrine, a steady stream of people entered all day. They knelt to wash in a stone trough of running, ice-cold spring water, and then knelt again to say their Eid prayers.

A white-bearded man outside the shrine recalled the days when Swat was peaceful and full of foreign tourists who came to see its ancient Buddhist ruins, climb its green craggy hills and enjoy its bracing alpine air. He also mentioned proudly that England's Queen Elizabeth II had visited in the 1950s.

Gift: Just down the hill from the shrine, a dozen boys in new yellow and blue tunics were playing in an old cemetery. As they hid behind the jagged gravestones and jumped out in ambush, each brandished a plastic, Taliban-style assault rifle -- the hottest selling gift item in Swat this Eid.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...009_pg7_24