Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has made the right decision in postponing the purchase of F-16 fighter planes from the US and diverting the funds to the Kashmir earthquake relief effort. Time is running out for Pakistan if it is to avert an even greater disaster than the Oct. 8 earthquake which left over 70,000 dead, double that number injured, over three million homeless, and 15,000 villages destroyed.
Winter is fast approaching in Kashmir. In less than 10 days, a significant number of those homeless in mountain villages will be living out in the snow. There simply are not enough tents to go around, and many of the tents that have been provided are not winterized. Aid agencies fear that 100,000 people could freeze to death in the next few weeks. People need to be moved down from the mountains, but roads are still blocked. But that is far from the only reason why aid has not been getting in to some places. The relief effort is desperately short of cash. Only a third of the $400 million required — not for reconstruction but purely for relief work — has been received by the UN.
That is appalling. Musharraf is right when he accuses the rest of the world of hypocrisy, giving so much less after the Pakistan earthquake than after the Indian Ocean tsunami or Hurricane Katrina. The catastrophe is as great as the tsunami. The world has to give, and now — the whole world, not just the West. Musharraf is probably right when he says that the Western aid has been low because few Westerners were involved in the earthquake; but the rest of the world, including sadly the rest of the Muslim world, has not been any more generous. Pakistan cannot afford to wait months and months before the money starts rolling in. People are going to start to die in just a fortnight’s time. There will not be much point in sending help after that. That is what makes the situation in Kashmir totally different to the tsunami and the hurricanes that have battered the southern US and the Caribbean.
The postponement and diversion of funds is also a necessary decision. The army was slated for not reacting soon enough to the disaster. It is there now, but there are still criticisms about its effectiveness. Had the sale gone ahead, it would have done potentially irreparable damage to the military’s standing in Pakistani eyes. Pakistanis might have started asking what is the point of an army or an air force that ends up costing the lives of those it is supposed to defend.
Not only necessary to release desperately needed funds as well as brighten up the military’s image, it is a welcome decision for another reason. It also shows that Pakistan is confident in the improving relationship with India. It would not have happened, no matter how great the financial needs, had Islamabad felt threatened from India. It is all the more impressive given the efforts Pakistan put into surmounting US opposition to the sale; US military sanctions were only lifted last March after 15 years in place. It is as much a confidence-building measure as opening crossings on the LOC; indeed more so. India should respond in kind.
