Inside Swat, Pakistan's violent valley

The Pakistani government and the Taliban were both very clear. There was NO permission for us to go to the Swat valley in northwestern Pakistan. It was said to be too dangerous to even try.

Then they both made the claim that everyday life in the much fought over Swat is better now. Really. It's much safer.

Pakistan has often been a place where leaders stare up at bright blue skies and declare them green, or red, or anything but blue. But the spin on Swat, from all sides, is particularly dizzying.

What is clear is that the place of the picturesque postcards is no more.

The Swat valley used to be the country's top tourist attraction. The "Switzerland of Pakistan" was the boast: good skiing, clear lakes, luxury hotels and an open embrace of visitors.

Then the Taliban began arriving in ever larger numbers attacking police, kidnapping foreigners and destroying schools and everything changed.

Families chased away

In a small living room in Islamabad, the Khan family pull out the photo album. Until last year, Swat had been their home. The pictures in the album show family picnics, women on the chair lifts, happy, awkward poses in front of resorts.

At almost every photo, Raitullah Khan waves his hand and says "Finished. It's finished."

In recent years, the Taliban began moving steadily into Swat. Girls schools were blown up, the resorts were destroyed and women were chased into the shadows.

In Khan's case, it was his work on women's rights that became the reason the family had to flee. The Taliban named them on a nightly radio broadcast that identified those guilty of un-Islamic deeds and who would be punished in the local square.

Floggings and beheadings were the signature Taliban forms of justice. The Khans knew what their fate would be and had just hours to flee.

Whatever the Taliban leader says on radio in the evening, happens the next morning, says Khan. "FM radio is the second almighty after God in Swat."

Capitulation

Panicked, the Pakistani government initially decided it had to crush the Taliban militants in Swat but a brutal military campaign didn't bear much fruit. After three years of fighting, the result was nearly 1,500 civilians killed and many thousands wounded, but the slippery insurgents survived.

So, in February, the government changed tactics and made a deal. Government troops would pull back and Sharia law would be allowed in the Swat if the Taliban agreed to lay down their arms.

The result was to be peace in the valley. Certainly that's the characterization from Pakistan's beaming foreign minister who says the government did what it had to do by negotiating with moderate Taliban elements.

The deal "had a very positive effect on the valley," Shah Mahmood Qureshi says. "The most important thing is to give people peace and security, to revive the confidence of the people in the institutions that exist."

Still, he advised. Don't go.

I asked if he would go. He stared silently for a moment, talked about how another minister had visited within the last month and then moved on to a new subject.

Getting the story in Swat

So, for days and weeks we worked with a credible local contact in Swat who would be our eyes and ears in assessing the deal on the ground.

The Swat he videotaped is still chilling.

It's true that without the constant shelling, people there report feeling much safer. But they also seem worried by how the situation is developing.

Video taken within the last few days in fact shows Taliban militants still carrying weapons and running checkpoints around Swat.

There are new signs banning women from the marketplace. Complaint boxes have been erected so people can anonymously snitch on their neighbours. And there are still stories and images of horrifying public floggings.

In a video sent to our cellphone, a young girl was held down and lashed 34 times. It was hard to watch, even harder to listen to, as her screams grew louder and more panicked with each tormenting thrash.

Days after airing it on the CBC, the video then made the rounds of the media and the government panicked again.

This was not the image of the Swat it wanted to project to the outside world and not the Swat it was intending to create.

Hiccups and 'lies'

"These are hiccups," says Major General Athar Abbas of the Pakistan army, referring to the ongoing troubles in Swat. (He had yet to see the video but knew the stories of the Taliban's continuing presence there.)

"These sporadic incidents and events do happen when you have to deal with a huge area. Now this whole area was subject to militancy and terrorism and therefore this transition period is very delicate. It is to be handled very carefully."

A tip for anyone who wants to employ the "hiccup" claim around human rights activist Tahira Abdullah, be prepared for the tiny woman to absolutely erupt.

"Lies. These are lies," she roars.

As for the suggestion that maybe, just maybe, everyone needs to give this so-called peace deal a chance and that, perhaps for the moment at least, it is somewhat safer in Swat, her response is a bellowed question.

"For WHOM? For the bearded men? For the men who are willing to toe the line of the Taliban's Sharia law? No woman is allowed to go out. The moderates and progressives are not allowed to return. They have suffered deaths.

"Nonsense, these are lies!"

'Swat is a prison'

The Khans don't feel in a patient mood either. They looked at some of the new video, saw greetings from their own family members left back in Swat and then sat back in their chairs. Raitullah, his wife and children seemed tired and pensive.

"They are in prison," Raituallah Khan said. "Swat is a prison, and the government is careless."

"Careless" is not a word, naturally, that the government would choose. It prefers pragmatic.

It had to do something to ramp down the violence. It discovered that it couldn't beat the Taliban and it wanted to find a local solution. So, it is trying "talking" as an approach. It surely sounds like a familiar refrain.