Emergency Relief in a Military State

​​Despite appearances to the contrary, Pakistan is still ruled by the military. General Perves Musharraf, the Chief of the Army Staff, also serves as Pakistan's President.

While there is an elected Parliament and a Prime Minister, who leads a quasi-civilian Government, real power still rests with the President and the military institutions supporting him. The response to Pakistan's recent earthquake, which resulted in almost 100,000 deaths, needs to be seen in this light.

Almost a month after the earthquake, numerous facts reveal the weakness of Pakistan's state. The military is its largest and best organised institution as well as a key constituent of the government. In the devastated areas, it was therefore the force expected to react immediately by providing relief and help, particularly medical support.

As in many other nations, the military is the only institution to command the resources required to intervene in any disaster area – including helicopters, ambulances, jeeps and even manpower.

Hindered by commands and order structures

Nonetheless, private groups – formally organised or composed ad hoc – had to provide immediate relief in the remote and inaccessible regions, which had suffered high casualties. The military was hindered by its command and order structures.

Many NGOs, charities and, importantly, Islamic relief organisations (including so-called jihadi groups) reached these areas first. Without the support of such volunteers, the death toll and misery level would have been far higher.

Whoever has visited the affected areas has witnessed a great deal of disappointment, anger, and downright antagonism towards the role played by the military. Because of Pakistan's political economy and history, there has been a persistent reliance on the state and its institutions.

In crisis situations, Pakistanis expect help from the government and the military, perhaps even more so than do people of other countries. It does not make state failure any less striking in Pakistan that US President George Bush was seen to have let down New Orleans in the Katrina catastrophe a few weeks earlier.

The quake's aftermath has exposed a much-trumpeted "success" story of Musharraf's regime, the local government system called "District Government", to be just as flimsy, apolitical and dysfunctional as many had felt it was. This system and its elected bodies are part of the rubble along with the entire physical infra-structure of the area.

Moreover, civil society actors and political groups have criticised the national authorities for not responding adequately to the fiscal aspects of the crisis. Both military and government have been soliciting international aid for the reconstruction efforts, which are estimated to cost $10 to 12 billion.

Nonetheless, Pakistan's President-General has ruled out cuts in the defence budget. A week after the earthquake, the military even signed a deal worth $1 billion with Sweden to buy six early warning aircraft.

Adding insult to injury, the military is building a huge, new, General Headquarters for itself in Islamabad, which most commentators consider an extravagance.

Undermining real human security in Pakistan

More than a month after the earthquake, the authorities understood it was better to postpone the purchase of F-16-aircraft for $3 billion from the USA, but that will hardly qualify as an appreciable response to a crisis of dreadful proportions.

The state's reaction to the devastating earthquake has revealed that despite the continued global appreciation for its role in the war on terror, the military rules an alienated society and fails to respond to local needs in time of crisis. Its obsession with its notion of "security" continues to undermine real human security in Pakistan.

It took the military four weeks to allow delivery of relief goods from India across the line of control in Kashmir. But even though that decision was slow in coming, we should probably welcome it as a sign of a late-aroused willingness to cooperate for the good of the people.

S. Akbar Zaidi

© Magazine for Development and Cooperation 2005

S. Akbar Zaidi is a social scientist based in Karachi, Pakistan.

Qantara.de

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