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Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Hindrance in aid flow to benefit extremists, says Haqqani

* Pakistan’s US envoy says hardline groups running only 30 relief camps compared to govt’s 3,000 g Pleads donors not to divert money pledged earlier to flood relief

WASHINGTON: Pakistan needs a steady flow of foreign aid to prevent extremists from exploiting flood victims’ predicament, said Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani. He also voiced concern over the trend to recycle already pledged international aid into relief assistance.
Haqqani, who had recently returned from a visit to Pakistan, told an American newspaper that the flooding which had affected 20 million people had also produced opportunities for extremists who hoped to recruit aggrieved victims. He noted that journalists who had never left Islamabad were criticising government’s response to the unprecedented catastrophe making insurgents’ job easier. “We have a strong military, we have a strong government machinery,” he said. “We are a fledgling democracy and we hope that we will improve our institutional state,” he told The Washington Examiner.
“In the end, more people have been served by the Pakistani military and the Pakistani civilian government than by the radicals,” he remarked, while acknowledging “the radicals are better able to grab media attention.”
Haqqani ascribed the initially slow response to the humanitarian tragedy to a relatively low death toll of 1,500, but he warned that disease and human displacement could make the eventual human toll much
higher.
He observed that the government had already established 3,000 refugee camps, compared to “less than 30 being run by various charities affiliated with some of the hardline religious political parties and movements.” But without a steady stream of aid, the extremists will gain more traction, he warned.
Pakistani officials are concerned that the US and other donors would not commit new resources to the crisis but instead recycle aid they had already promised before the floods hit. “Don’t say OK, instead of building the school that we were going to build next year we will give that money for flood relief, undermining the potential for the school we were going to build anyway,” Haqqani said. app

Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk

 

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