Atilla Iftikhar (Stavangar, Norway), 11 January 2006

on Emergency Relief in a Military State, by S. Akbar Zaidi

Certainly, the Pakistani armed forces should learn from this disasterous earthquake and develop capabilities which are more effective and adequate. This means also that both the federal and local civilian authorities must be better funded and qualified for such disaster relief missions. More and better spending on civilian and military disaster relief infrastructure is a necessity in Pakistan.

However, I think that critics of the Pakistani armed forces should remember that thousands of Pakistani soldiers also perished in the earthquake. Officially the military statistics say that approximately 2000 soldiers died, but nearly all relief groups, international experts, media and independent defence experts claim that tens of thousands of soldiers perished.

My point is that this earthquake even wiped large part of the Pak military infrastructure in the Azad Kashmir region. It took the Pak armed forces weeks to even reedeploy basic troops for border security. After the people of Azad Kashmir, the Pak military is the one institution which suffered most severly from this disaster. Many seem to undermine this unfortunate reality.

Atilla Iftikhar