Control of Quake Relief Is Gamble for Pakistan Army and Chief
By DAVID ROHDE and SOMINI SENGUPTA
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 13 - In a country with such a long tradition of military rule, it is hardly surprising to see the Pakistani Army dominate every aspect of earthquake relief, from evacuating the wounded and distributing desperately sought-after tents to erecting camps for the displaced.
But with that kind of reach comes considerable risk for the army, the country's most powerful institution, and the head of state, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. If relief is not distributed efficiently or fairly - or at least perceived to be - General Musharraf's government will feel the heat.
Already, some of his most vociferous critics have positioned themselves to compete with the army's relief machinery. The militant Islamist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, is feeding, housing and clothing survivors.
Two things make General Musharraf's handling of the quake particularly delicate. First, the army was perceived to be slow in its initial response when the earthquake struck Oct. 8. Second, the people of Kashmir are the most gravely affected. This disputed province remains the central source of competition and conflict between Pakistan and its nuclear rival, neighboring India.
That made all the more resonant the bitterness expressed by Razia Begum, as she shivered in the darkness recently in Bagh, a flattened town in Kashmir. One of her daughters was dead; seven surviving children were losing weight; her only shelter, nearly three weeks after the quake leveled her home, was a patchwork tent of plastic sheets and cloth.
Ms. Begum, a wizened woman of 45, was not in an isolated village in the hills, but in Bagh, a heavily militarized town reachable by road since the day after the quake.
Three military camps are within two miles of her former home. Ms. Begum accused the soldiers in those camps of hoarding tents and other aid. "They give it to people who they know," she said, as her neighbors nodded in agreement. "They don't give anything to us."
The Pakistani Army's traditional state of distrust with India seems not to have been buried under the quake's rubble. Neither India nor Pakistan appears ready to put bitterness behind it. Under pressure from Kashmiris, they did agree to open the disputed de facto Kashmir frontier - for relief - but so far they have barred Kashmiris from stepping across the line.
It is still premature to say whether the Pakistani Army's handling of earthquake relief will be judged a success or a failure. In some parts of the quake zone, survivors simmer with anger at the army. In others, they are forgiving. Still elsewhere, soldiers and citizens face off in desperation and trauma.
In a village in the far-flung Allai Valley in northwest Pakistan nearly three weeks after the quake, a cranky, disheveled man hectored the commanding officer in his village for tents and blankets, only to have a soldier wave a stick in his face and order him to leave. The man was defiant. "Where do you want me to go?" he yelled.
The depth of the United States' support for General Musharraf, who took power in 1999 in a bloodless coup, is also being tested. As a reward for being a vital partner in Mr. Bush's campaign against terrorism, American officials have promised Pakistan $3 billion in aid, rescheduled $3 billion in debt and canceled an additional $1 billion in debt.
Yet since the quake, the United States has offered Pakistan $156 million in aid, including military equipment, deployed 950 soldiers and sent 24 helicopters. After the Indian Ocean tsunami last year the United States sent nearly $1 billion in government aid, 16,000 soldiers, 57 helicopters, 42 other aircraft and 25 ships.
According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Americans have given $13.1 million in private donations. Americans gave 10 times as much for the tsunami - $1.3 billion - and roughly $2 billion for hurricane Katrina. Last week, President Bush convened a panel of American business leaders to raise additional money for earthquake survivors.
The United States, Europe and other wealthy nations have pledged less than 28 percent of the relief money the United Nations requested.
On the ground in the quake zone, there is plenty of gratitude for aid from the United States and other countries that were less than popular among ordinary Pakistanis. But it is General Musharraf's government - not any foreign nation - that the citizenry will hold responsible. "They will blame the government," said Rasul Baksh Rais, a professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan. "The critical link between these people and aid is the government of Pakistan."
General Musharraf has appointed military commanders to control virtually every aspect of the aid effort, ensuring that the army will be seen as responsible.
The army's absences have also been noted. On the morning after the quake, as survivors picked with their bare hands through the rubble of a school for girls in Garhi Habibullah, there were no soldiers in sight and there was no hiding the people's rage. The army base was an hour's drive from the village, so why had the soldiers not come to help, they demanded to know. How many children could have been saved?
Mohammed Akram Khan, the outraged father of a dead boy, cried. If General Musharraf's child lay under the rubble, he said, army helicopters would be overhead immediately. "Whatever Musharraf is saying, whatever the prime minister is saying - they are lies," he said.
But such absences were at times met with more resignation than fury.
In the third week after the quake, a group of men trekked from a marooned village in Neelam Valley to Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Army helicopters had dropped sacks of aid, the men said, but they had fallen into ravines. Soldiers had evacuated some of the injured by helicopter but left many others. The men showed not anger, but sympathy. The quake killed at least 450 soldiers.
At another camp, Ghulam Mohiuddin Butt, a civil servant, said of the army, "They have helped us in our hour of need." In two weeks, the snow is expected to come with a vengeance, and relief efforts will be frozen in place. So, too, will Pakistani views of their government's credibility.
David Rohde reported from Islamabad for this article, and Somini Sengupta from New Delhi.
http://www.nytimes.com/
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 13 - In a country with such a long tradition of military rule, it is hardly surprising to see the Pakistani Army dominate every aspect of earthquake relief, from evacuating the wounded and distributing desperately sought-after tents to erecting camps for the displaced.
But with that kind of reach comes considerable risk for the army, the country's most powerful institution, and the head of state, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. If relief is not distributed efficiently or fairly - or at least perceived to be - General Musharraf's government will feel the heat.
Already, some of his most vociferous critics have positioned themselves to compete with the army's relief machinery. The militant Islamist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, is feeding, housing and clothing survivors.
Two things make General Musharraf's handling of the quake particularly delicate. First, the army was perceived to be slow in its initial response when the earthquake struck Oct. 8. Second, the people of Kashmir are the most gravely affected. This disputed province remains the central source of competition and conflict between Pakistan and its nuclear rival, neighboring India.
That made all the more resonant the bitterness expressed by Razia Begum, as she shivered in the darkness recently in Bagh, a flattened town in Kashmir. One of her daughters was dead; seven surviving children were losing weight; her only shelter, nearly three weeks after the quake leveled her home, was a patchwork tent of plastic sheets and cloth.
Ms. Begum, a wizened woman of 45, was not in an isolated village in the hills, but in Bagh, a heavily militarized town reachable by road since the day after the quake.
Three military camps are within two miles of her former home. Ms. Begum accused the soldiers in those camps of hoarding tents and other aid. "They give it to people who they know," she said, as her neighbors nodded in agreement. "They don't give anything to us."
The Pakistani Army's traditional state of distrust with India seems not to have been buried under the quake's rubble. Neither India nor Pakistan appears ready to put bitterness behind it. Under pressure from Kashmiris, they did agree to open the disputed de facto Kashmir frontier - for relief - but so far they have barred Kashmiris from stepping across the line.
It is still premature to say whether the Pakistani Army's handling of earthquake relief will be judged a success or a failure. In some parts of the quake zone, survivors simmer with anger at the army. In others, they are forgiving. Still elsewhere, soldiers and citizens face off in desperation and trauma.
In a village in the far-flung Allai Valley in northwest Pakistan nearly three weeks after the quake, a cranky, disheveled man hectored the commanding officer in his village for tents and blankets, only to have a soldier wave a stick in his face and order him to leave. The man was defiant. "Where do you want me to go?" he yelled.
The depth of the United States' support for General Musharraf, who took power in 1999 in a bloodless coup, is also being tested. As a reward for being a vital partner in Mr. Bush's campaign against terrorism, American officials have promised Pakistan $3 billion in aid, rescheduled $3 billion in debt and canceled an additional $1 billion in debt.
Yet since the quake, the United States has offered Pakistan $156 million in aid, including military equipment, deployed 950 soldiers and sent 24 helicopters. After the Indian Ocean tsunami last year the United States sent nearly $1 billion in government aid, 16,000 soldiers, 57 helicopters, 42 other aircraft and 25 ships.
According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Americans have given $13.1 million in private donations. Americans gave 10 times as much for the tsunami - $1.3 billion - and roughly $2 billion for hurricane Katrina. Last week, President Bush convened a panel of American business leaders to raise additional money for earthquake survivors.
The United States, Europe and other wealthy nations have pledged less than 28 percent of the relief money the United Nations requested.
On the ground in the quake zone, there is plenty of gratitude for aid from the United States and other countries that were less than popular among ordinary Pakistanis. But it is General Musharraf's government - not any foreign nation - that the citizenry will hold responsible. "They will blame the government," said Rasul Baksh Rais, a professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan. "The critical link between these people and aid is the government of Pakistan."
General Musharraf has appointed military commanders to control virtually every aspect of the aid effort, ensuring that the army will be seen as responsible.
The army's absences have also been noted. On the morning after the quake, as survivors picked with their bare hands through the rubble of a school for girls in Garhi Habibullah, there were no soldiers in sight and there was no hiding the people's rage. The army base was an hour's drive from the village, so why had the soldiers not come to help, they demanded to know. How many children could have been saved?
Mohammed Akram Khan, the outraged father of a dead boy, cried. If General Musharraf's child lay under the rubble, he said, army helicopters would be overhead immediately. "Whatever Musharraf is saying, whatever the prime minister is saying - they are lies," he said.
But such absences were at times met with more resignation than fury.
In the third week after the quake, a group of men trekked from a marooned village in Neelam Valley to Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Army helicopters had dropped sacks of aid, the men said, but they had fallen into ravines. Soldiers had evacuated some of the injured by helicopter but left many others. The men showed not anger, but sympathy. The quake killed at least 450 soldiers.
At another camp, Ghulam Mohiuddin Butt, a civil servant, said of the army, "They have helped us in our hour of need." In two weeks, the snow is expected to come with a vengeance, and relief efforts will be frozen in place. So, too, will Pakistani views of their government's credibility.
David Rohde reported from Islamabad for this article, and Somini Sengupta from New Delhi.
http://www.nytimes.com/
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