| Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Pashto: مرکزي قبایلي سیمې) |
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| Location of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas | |||
| Coordinates: | |||
| Country | Pakistan | ||
| Administrative unit | Federal territory | ||
| Components | 7 Agencies 6 Frontier Regions |
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| Administrative centre | Peshawar | ||
| Government | |||
| • Governor of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa | Syed Masood Kausar | ||
| Area | |||
| • Total | 27,220 km2 (10,509.7 sq mi) | ||
| Population (1998)[1][2] | |||
| • Total | 3,176,331 | ||
| • Density | 116.7/km2 (302.2/sq mi) | ||
| Time zone | PST (UTC+5) | ||
| Website | http://www.fata.gov.pk/ | ||
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) (Pashto: مرکزي قبایلي سیمې) are a semi-autonomous tribal region in the northwest of Pakistan, lying between the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and the neighboring country of Afghanistan. The FATA comprise seven Agencies (tribal districts) and six FRs (Frontier regions). The territory is almost exclusively inhabited by Pashtun tribes which are predominantly Sunni Muslims by faith.
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The Federally Administered Tribal Areas consist of two types of areas i.e. Agencies (Tribal Districts) and FRs (Frontier Regions). In the FATA, there are seven Tribal Agencies and six FRs. These are (from North to South):
Agencies are further divided into Subdivisions, and Tehsils. According to the Election Commission of Pakistan, the FATA consist of the following divisions:[3]
| Agency / FR | Subdivision | Tehsil |
|---|---|---|
| Bajaur Agency | Khar | Khar |
| Utman Khel | ||
| Salarzai | ||
| Nawagai | Nawagai | |
| Mamund | ||
| Barang | ||
| Chamarkand | ||
| Mohmand Agency | Lower Mohmand | Yekka Ghund |
| Ambar | ||
| Pandyalai | ||
| Praang Ghaar | ||
| Upper Mohmand | Safi / Lakaro | |
| Khwezai / Baezai | ||
| Halimzai | ||
| Khyber Agency | Jamrud | Jamrud |
| Mulla Gori | ||
| Landi Kotal | Landi Kotal | |
| Bara | Bara | |
| Orakzai Agency | Lower Orakzai | Lower Orakzai |
| Central Orakzai | ||
| Upper Orakzai | Ismailzai | |
| Upper Orakzai | ||
| Kurram Agency | Lower Kurram | Lower Kurram / Sadda |
| Central Kurram | Central Kurram | |
| Upper Kurram | Upper Kurram / Parachinar | |
| North Waziristan Agency | Mir Ali | Mir Ali |
| Speen Wam | ||
| Shewa | ||
| Miranshah | Miranshah | |
| Datta Khel | ||
| Ghulam Khan | ||
| Razmak | Razmak | |
| Dosalli | ||
| Geriyum | ||
| Shawal | ||
| South Waziristan Agency | Ladha | Ladha |
| Makeen | ||
| Sararogha | ||
| Sarwakai | Sarwakai | |
| Tiaraza | ||
| Wana | Wana | |
| Birmal | ||
| Toi Khulla | ||
| FR Peshawar | FR Peshawar | FR Peshawar |
| FR Kohat | FR Kohat | FR Kohat |
| FR Bannu | FR Bannu | FR Bannu |
| FR Lakki Marwat | FR Lakki Marwat | FR Lakki Marwat |
| FR Tank - Jandola | FR Tank - Jandola | FR Tank - Jandola |
| FR D.I. Khan | FR D.I. Khan | FR D.I. Khan |
The Frontier Regions are named after their adjacent settled districts. The administration of the FR is carried out by the DCO / DC of the neighbouring named district. The overall administration of the frontier regions is carried out by the FATA Secretariat, based in Peshawar and reporting to the Governor of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The six regions are:
Frontier Regions:
The FATA are bordered by: Afghanistan to the west with the border marked by the Durand Line, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to the north and east, Punjab and Balochistan to the south.
The seven Tribal Areas lie in a north-to-south strip that is adjacent to the west side of the six Frontier Regions, which also lie in a north-to-south strip. The areas within each of those two regions are geographically arranged in a sequence from north to south.
The geographical arrangement of the seven Tribal Areas in order from north to south is: Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram, North Waziristan, South Waziristan. The geographical arrangement of the six Frontier Regions in order from north to south is: Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, Lakki Marwat, Tank, Dera Ismail Khan.
The total population of the FATA was estimated in 2000 to be about 3,341,070 people, or roughly 2% of Pakistan's population. Only 3.1% of the population resides in established townships.[4] It is thus the most rural administrative unit in Pakistan.
The region is controlled by the Federal government of Pakistan and on behalf of the President, the Governor of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (formerly NWFP) exercises the federal authority in the context of FATA.
The Constitution of Pakistan governs FATA through the same rules which were framed by the British in 1901 as Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR). The Jurisdiction of Supreme Court and High Court of Pakistan does not extend to FATA and Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA), according to Article 247 and Article 248, of existing 1973 Constitution of Pakistan. The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Assembly has no power in FATA, and can only exercise its powers in PATA that are part of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
The mainly Pashtun tribes that inhabit the areas are semi-autonomous and until fall of the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan, the tribes had cordial relations with Pakistan's government.[5]
People of FATA are represented in the Parliament of Pakistan by their elected representatives both in National Assembly of Pakistan and the Senate of Pakistan. FATA has 12 members in the National Assembly and 8 members in the Senate. FATA has no representation in the Provincial Assembly of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and most tribesmen live happily with the fact that they are directly under Federal jurisdiction except for some elements affiliated with the Awami National Party.
Tribal political candidates do have party affiliations but can only contest elections as independents, because the Political Parties Act of Pakistan has not been extended to the FATA. However, tribesmen were given the right to vote in the 1997 general elections despite the absence of the Political Parties Act. Previously only the Tribal Elders or Maliks (called Lungi-holders) were allowed to vote in the elections, since British times.
The administrative head of each tribal agency is the Political Agent who represents the President of Pakistan and the appointed Governor of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
According to a 2007 report by the New York Times, "the political agents are widely considered corrupt bureaucrats of Pakistan Civil Service."[6]
Each Tribal Agency, depending on its size, has about two to three Assistant Political Agents, about three to ten Tehsildars and a number of Naib Tehsildars with the requisite supporting staff.
The FRs differ from the agencies only in the chain of command so that each FR is headed by the DC/DCO of the adjacent settled district (DC/DCO Peshawar heads FR Peshawar and so on). Under his supervision there is one Assistant Political Agent and a number of Tehsildars and Naib Tehsildars and support staff.
Each Tribal Agency has roughly 2–3,000 Khasadars and levies force of irregulars and up to three to nine wings of the para-military Frontier Corps for maintenance of law and order in the Agency and borders security. The Frontier Corps Force is headed by Pakistan's regular army officers and its soldiers are recruited mostly from the Pashtun tribes.
According to a 2009 BBC survey, categorized as "grossly exaggerated" by the Pakistan Army which was fighting the militants there, the Taliban were present in all FATA agencies, and in full control of Waziristan, Orakzai and Bajaur.[7]
The situation has, however, improved after successive military operations carried out by Pakistan Army in Bajaur, Swat, Waziristan, Orakzai and Mohmand.
All of the FATA's adults were legally allowed to vote in the Majlis-e-Shoora of Pakistan under the "adult franchise" granted in 1996.[8] Stephen Tierney, in Accommodating National Identity, reported that women came out to do so in the thousands for the 1997 office, possibly motivated by competition for voter numbers among the tribes.[9] However, Ian Talbot in Pakistan, a Modern History states that elders and religious leaders attempted to prevent female participation by threatening punishment against tribesmen whose women registered, leading to under-registration in the female population.[10] In 2008, the Taliban ordered women in the FATA regions of Bajaur, Kurram and Mohmand not to vote under threat of "serious punishment," while Mangal Bagh, chief of the Lashkar-e-Islam, forbade women to vote in the Jamrud and Bara subdivisions of the Khyber Agency.[11]
| Historical populations | ||
|---|---|---|
| Census | Population | Urban |
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| 1951 | 1,332,005 | - |
| 1961 | 1,847,195 | 1.33% |
| 1972 | 2,491,230 | 0.53% |
| 1981 | 2,198,547 | - |
| 1998 | 3,176,331 | 2.69% |
The region was annexed in the 19th century during the British colonial period, and though the British never succeeded in completely calming unrest in the region,[12] it afforded them some protection from Afghanistan.[13] The British Raj attempted to control the population of the annexed tribal regions with the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR), which allowed considerable power to govern to local nobles so long as these nobles were willing to meet the needs of the British.[13][14][15] Due to the unchecked discretionary power placed into the hands of the jirga put into place by these nobles and to the human rights violations that ensued, the FCR has come to be known as the "black law."[16] The annexed areas continued under the same governance after the Partition of India, through the Dominion of Pakistan in 1946 and into the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in 1956.[17]
According to the United States Institute of Peace, the character of the region underwent a shift beginning in the 1980s with the entry into the region of the Mujahideen and CIA Operation Cyclone, against the Soviet Union prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of Soviet Union.[8]
In 1996, the government of Pakistan finally granted the FATA the long requested "adult franchise", under which every adult would have the right to vote for their own representatives in the Majlis-e-Shoora.[8][9] However, the FATA were not allowed to organize political parties.[9] Islamist candidates were able to campaign through mosques and madrassahs, as a result of which mullahs were elected to represent the FATA in the National Assembly in 1997 and 2002.[8] This was a departure from prior tribal politics, where power was focused in the hands of secular authorities, Maliks.[8]
In 2001, the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda began entering into the region.[8] In 2003, Taliban and al-Qaeda forces sheltered in the FATA began crossing the border into Afghanistan, attacking military and police.[18] Shkin, Afghanistan is a key location for these frequent battles. This heavily fortified military base has housed mostly American special operations forces since 2002 and is located just six kilometers from the Pakistani border. It is considered the most dangerous location in Afghanistan.[19][20] With the encouragement of the United States, 80,000 Pakistani troops entered the FATA in March 2004 to search for al-Qaeda operatives. They were met with fierce resistance from Pakistani Taliban.[18] It was not the elders, but the Pakistani Taliban who negotiated a truce with the army, an indication of the extent to which the Pakistani Taliban had taken control.[18] Troops entered the region, into South Waziristan and North Waziristan eight more times between 2004 and 2006 and faced further Pakistani Taliban resistance. Peace accords entered into in 2004 and 2006 set terms whereby the tribesmen in the area would stop attacking Afghanistan and the Pakistanis would halt major military actions against the FATA, release all prisoners, and permit tribesmen to carry small guns.[18] In 2007 the Pakistani Taliban in FATA became officially known under the name Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.
On June 4, 2007, the National Security Council of Pakistan met to decide the fate of Waziristan and take up a number of political and administrative decisions to control "Talibanization" of the area. The meeting was chaired by President Pervez Musharraf and it was attended by the Chief Ministers and Governors of all four provinces. They discussed the deteriorating law and order situation and the threat posed to state security. To crush the armed militancy in the Tribal regions and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the government decided to intensify and reinforce law enforcement and military activity, take action against certain madrassahs, and jam illegal FM radio stations.[21]
FATA is the most impoverished part of the nation. Despite being home to 2.4% of Pakistan's population, it makes up only 1.5% of Pakistan's economy.[22] With a per capita income of only $663 in 2010[22] only 34% of households managed to rise above the poverty level.[23]
Due to the FATA's tribal organization, the economy is chiefly pastoral, with some agriculture practiced in the region's few fertile valleys. Its total irrigated land is roughly 1,000 square kilometres. The country does not have a system of banks.[6] The region is a major center for opium trafficking, as well the smuggling of other contraband.[6]
Foreign aid to the region is a difficult proposition, according to Craig Cohen, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Because security is difficult, local nongovernmental organizations are required to distribute aid, but there is a lack of trust amongst NGOs and other powers that hampers distribution. Pakistani NGOs are often targets of violent attacks by Islamist militants in the FATA. Because of the extensive hostility to any hint of foreign influence, the American branch of Save the Children was distributing funding anonymously in the region as of July 2007.[6]
The FATA contain proved commercially viable reserves of marble, copper, limestone and coal. However, in the current socio-political conditions, there is no chance of their exploitation in a profitable manner.
Industrialization of the FATA is another route or remedy proposed for rapidly breaking up tribal barriers and promoting integration. The process of industrialization through a policy of public/private partnership would not only provide employment opportunities and economic benefits but also assist in bringing the youth of the tribal area on par with those of developed cities in the rest of the country.
The concept of setting up ROZs in FATA and Afghanistan is an element in the United States Government's counter-terrorism and regional economic integration strategies.
Water is scarce in the FATA. When the British forces occupied Malakand they started work on the Amandara headworks to divert the Swat River through a tunnel to irrigate the plains of Mardan and Charsadda. The aim was not to get more wheat or sugarcane, but to ‘tame the wild tribes’.
The FATA does not have a university, but seats are reserved for FATA students in Pakistani universities. There is no concrete plan to establish a full-fledged university within FATA.
The FATA's literacy rate is 22%,[24] which is well below the nation-wide rate of 56%.[22] 35.8%[24] of men, and only 7.5%[24] of women receive education, compared to a nation-wide 44%[22] of women.
| Agency | Literacy rate 2007[24] | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Male | Female | Total | |
| Khyber | 57.2% | 10.1% | 34.2% |
| Kurram | 37.9% | 14.4% | 26.5% |
| South Waziristan | 32.3% | 4.3% | 20% |
| Orakzai | 29.5% | 3.4% | 17% |
| Mohmand | 28.5% | 3.5% | 16.6% |
| Bajour | 27.9% | 3.1% | 16.5% |
| North Waziristan (1998)[25] | 26.77% | 1.47% | 15.88% |
There is one hospital bed for every 2,179 people in the FATA, compared to one in 1,341 in Pakistan as a whole. There is one doctor for every 7,670[26] people compared to one doctor per 1,226 people in Pakistan as a whole. 43% of FATA citizens have access to clean drinking water.[27] Much of the population is suspicious about modern medicine, and some militant groups are openly hostile to vaccinations.
In June 2007, a Pakistani Doctor was blown up in his car "after trying to counter the anti-vaccine propaganda of an imam in Bajaur", Pakistani officials told the New York Times.[6]
| Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan Logar Province, Afghanistan |
Kunar Province, Afghanistan | |||
| Paktia Province, Afghanistan Khost Province, Afghanistan |
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa | |||
| Federally Administered Tribal Areas | ||||
| Paktika Province, Afghanistan | Balochistan |
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