Pakistani soldiers rescuing fellow countrymen
The growing appreciation of Pakistan army's role only reinforces the perception outside and within Pakistan that brass tacks still pull the strings of power. Growing disenchantment with the democratic government gluts streets rife with all shades of speculation over the durability of Zardari government. Observers and some media analysts told me, on condition of anonymity, that the next 90 days would trigger a desperate attempt to dethrone the incumbents. A power storm is brewing in the air of the Blue Area of Islamabad, the seat of power.
Will the Indus's flood fury sink Zardari? This is the open question in Pakistan on the streets. Yet, nobody has the million dollar answer as to who would bell the cat?
Still further, nobody is predicting a military coup or
affirming hope in the audacity of General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani to boot out Asif
Ali Zardari. Instead, observers are hoping for a third alternative, the
surprise emergence of a dark horse backed by GHQ, Rawalpindi, minus Zardari and Nawaz Sharif,
to clean the pungent odour.
This is a dark omen, and the international community has reasons to worry about amidst the rising evidence of complete collapse of both provincial and federal machinery. The credibility quotient of President Zardari (Jemima Khan wondered in her column for The Sunday Times, 15 August 2010, how formerly Mr. "10 percent" has upgraded himself since his Presidency to 110 percent) having dipped to alarming levels in recent months, the country is struggling to convince international donors that the $5 billion needed to rebuild the homes and hearths of 30 million victims will not fall into the hands of rogue, extremist and terrorist organisations who have pitched in ahead of the state. Turbulence swarms about.
The lukewarm response
to the tragedy is further rattling well-reasoned Pakistanis. I was talking to
my Liverpool-based activist friend, Shirley Rohan, who was sceptical of her
donation reaching the poorest of poor victims in backwaters of Pakistan. She
told me, "I fear my money will end up in the hands of Taliban. Instead of
bringing smiles to faces of innocent country folks, it might fund a suicide
vest of a potential suicide bomber. Who should I trust with my money?
Unlike Shirley, Nic Careem is clear who he will trust to bring smiles to hapless millions in Pakistan. My London-based friend Nic has booked the West End's Lyrical Theatre for a special performance of his big hit play, And Then They Came For Me, which features the step sister of Anne Frank, Eva Schloss in the cast, in order to raise funds for Pakistan's flood victims. Nic told me, "I am inviting Jemima Khan and Imran Khan to the fund-raiser on 17th October, and will contribute the money raised to his newly set-up Imran Khan Flood Relief Fund."
Clearly, the misuse of funds during the previous natural disasters, and the contingency funds released during the displacement of millions of people in tribal areas during the Pakistan army's offensive against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Taliban in tribal areas has been the stuff of local nightmares and international disenchantment.
Ahmed Quraishi, a veteran journalist of Geo TV, blames the
democratic dispensation of President Zardari for the increasing failure to
offer any contingency planning. He said, "Our rains and floods could never have
turned into a tragedy worse than Haiti and Kashmir earthquake and the Indian
ocean Tsunami combined if not for the manmade factors: an entire government and
administrative structure that failed to offer any contingency planning before
the tragedy or rapid response after. In village after village, Pakistanis saw
how cardboard local administrations raised white flags and handed power over to
the Pakistan
military (army, navy, and air force) at the slightest hint of challenge."
Ahmed talks about the video footage of the Sindh chief minister who, having been alerted by the Punjab government about the floods headed his way, stood before a camera to laugh along with his aides at how the Punjab had opened the waterways now that there is a flood, a thinly-disguised reference to the water disputes among provinces. The tragedy has virtually pitched the people of Balcohistan against the powerful landowning families of Sindh and Punjab.
Anarchy is reigning supreme in certain areas where
displaced people have begun to blame some powerful families of deliberately
breaching the embankment for flooding their farmlands in order to save theirs.
No less than former Prime Minister Mir Jafarullah Jamali took umbrage against
some feudal lords of Sindh for flooding a vast chunk of Balochistan. Already
Balochs are disenchanted with Islamabad,
so this fresh wave of realisation fills them with an acute sense of alienation.
To top that off, food riots are rampant in several areas. Convoys of trucks carrying food materials and clothes were attacked by burqa-clad women in Dera Ismail Khan.
The presidency ridicules the rumours and conspiracy
theories of deliberate flooding of certain areas. Senator Farhatullah Babar
told me the PPP government doesn't believe in such theories and is committed to
organise speedy relief to victims and efficient use of foreign and local aids.
But even local traders and business magnates are fighting shy of trusting the Zardari government-controlled flood relief agencies. A foreign journalist shocked President Zardari by asking him tongue-in-cheek, "Mr President, your government is reviled on streets for massive fraud and corruption. People don't want to donate because of the malaise. Are you the problem?"
The image deficit and distrust virus is spreading like a blanket of gloom in Islamabad. When President Zardari convened a meeting of top industrialists and business magnates in Islamabad, the majority of those invited feigned unavailability, citing one reason or another. The talk of introducing a Flood Tax further soiled the environment.
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