A years-long Pakistani land dispute pitting the military against the civilian government is culminating in one seemingly simple question: Should the field where Osama bin Laden’s compound once stood be turned into a playground, or a graveyard?

The local cantonment administration, largely controlled by the military, is pushing for the graveyard. It seeks to rectify ‘‘a serious shortage of graveyards in the area,’’ said Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, a cantonment administration official, according to The Times in London.

The government wants a playground. Mushtaq Ghani, the information minister of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government, told The Times, ‘‘You can’t develop a cemetery in the middle of houses.’’

But this seemingly minor disagreement is a reflection of years of disputes between the two stakeholders over who, exactly, controls the 38,000 square feet in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where bin Laden hid for five years.

For a year after Navy SEAL Team Six raided the compound in May 2011, killing bin Laden, the property remained vacant.

Local residents tend to want to loosen the association between their neighborhood and the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks who once lived among them. According to The Times, for many, this means favoring the playground, which doesn’t conjure up thoughts of death and destruction.

Others think the graveyard would be better at achieving that goal.

Washington Post