Swat landowners scared to return home

SLAMABAD: Even as hundreds of thousands of people stream back to the Swat Valley after months of fighting, one important group is conspicuously absent: the wealthy landowners who fled the Taliban in fear and are the economic pillar of the rural society.

About four dozen landlords were singled out over the past two years by the militants in a strategy intended to foment a class struggle. In some areas, the Taliban rewarded the landless peasants with profits of the crops of the landlords. Some resentful peasants even signed up as the Taliban’s shock troops.

The landlords, many of whom raised sizable militias to fight the Taliban themselves last year, say the army is again failing to provide enough protection if they return. Another deterrent to returning, they say, is that the top Taliban leadership, responsible for taking aim at the landlords and spreading the spoils among the landless, remains unscathed.

The landlords’ absence may have lasting ramifications not only for Swat, but also for Punjab, where the landholdings are vast, and the militants are gaining power, said Vali Nasr, an adviser to US envoy Richard Holbrooke.

“If the large landowners are kept out by the Taliban, the result will be property redistribution,” he said. “That will create a vested community of support for Taliban that will see benefit in the landlords’ absence.”