The situation is bleak for the survivors of earth quake, which destroyed the 6 districts in NWFP and 4 main districts of Kashmir (Pakistani Occupied Kashmir) on 8th October. More than 3 hundred thousand people still waiting for aid and relief. According to military officials in Allai Valley in district Batgram (NWFP) “ the life’s of 50000 people are still in danger and they need immediate evacuation, because there is danger of Volcano activity”. The situation is no different in Neelam and Jehlam valleys in POC. According to UNICEF “ten thousand children may lost their lives in the winter due to lack of facilities and shelter in the fast looming winter on the mountains. Musharaf regime continues to make false claims about relief and rehabilitation work. Two hundred thousand families still are living without the tents and proper shelter. In next couple of weeks the snow will start to fall on the mountains. The chaos and panic continued to dominate the government relief work. There are much talk and less work on the ground. According to the UNHCR officials “we fear that 30000 more people will die, another 20000 will become permanently disabled because of Extreme cold weather, diseases and inadequate health facilities”. The death toll according to the official figures given by federal relief commissioner (a general in uniform) has already reached at 73000. But unofficial figures are indicating the death toll will cross 1, 50,000. There are still many areas where no aid and relief has so far been able to reach.
Militarization of Aid and Reconstruction
The militarization of aid and reconstruction is not only going on but also expanding. The federal government, dominated by the generals has already issued the notification to the tent manufacturing industry and importers that they will not sell their tents to NGOs and other organizations, but only sell it to the military. All the foreign aid is also kept and distributed by the military. It is most likely that generals and military officers will dominate the reconstruction and rehabilitation work, which means less accountability and no participation of the local communities and working class people in the reconstruction. Musharaf regime continued to give false impression that military is the only institution of Pakistani state which can be trusted blindly. The experience of last 6 years in which military generals were all powerful and dominated shows that military intervention and domination is no solution to the problems faced by the working class, but on the contrary it aggravates the problems and sufferings of the working masses. The last three weeks also provides enough prove of that fact. According to renowned political analyst and calmest “military generals are not seems concerned about relief work, but they are more concerned about their fast fading image. They are involved in a useless face saving exercise which is further damaging their image and repute. I never saw so many people as much angry with army in my whole life. It is heart breaking as a x-military officer. The generals should not blame media or individuals for damaging the image of the army, instead they should review their relief effort and heavy involvement in the political and economic affairs of the country. I went to different affected areas of Kashmir and Hazara and heard lot of complaints of ordinary people about the army relief operation”.
Now military wants to control all the relief and reconstruction activities. There is no involvement of any civilian public sector department or institution in the relief and reconstruction. It is clear indication for those who are very optimistic that generals will withdraw from politics voluntarily and unilaterally. The history of Pakistani politics clearly shows that military generals never withdraw from politics on the request of so called democratic leaders. They were thrown out of the politics by working class for few years in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
The arrival and involvement of the American and NATO troops has further advance the militarization of relief and rehabilitation work. Over whelming majority of the Pakistani population is against the presence of American and NATO troops. The main purpose of these troops is to improve the image of the American and European imperialists powers. They are not involved in any real relief activity on the ground, so they are not very useful to help the affected people. One section of media is already saying that the main purpose of the American and NATO troops is not to take part in the relief and rehabilitation work but to hunt the Osama-Bin-Ladan and other Al-Qaedah leaders. Musharaf regime is under fire from all the sections of the society including the main opposition parties on the issue of American and NATO troops. It will be very difficult for Musharaf regime to keep these American and NATO troops for longer period. The presence of these troops can also be seen in the context of the present developments between India and Pakistan on Kashmir. It seems that both the governments want to use this opportunity to make further advances on the Kashmir issue. The explosions in the Indian Capital Dehli is a clear warning from the extreme right wing nationalist wing of the Pakistani ruling class, which is not in favor of any concessions or compromise on Kashmir. The Pakistani ruling class wants to use the situation that has been developed from the earth quake.
Time has run out:
Despite the several warnings made by UNHCR and UNICEF officials to speed up the relief activities to save the life of thousands of people , but nothing has been done so for. No plan was made in the light of these warnings to provide shelter, food and health facilities in the remote areas of Kashmir and Hazara region. Now a very serious crises has emerged in which thousands more are going to lose their lives due to the negligence of the Pakistani rulers. UNHCR warned the Government about two weeks ago that battle against time might be lost because of slow pace of relief work. One UN official said that even money will not be able to bring back the precious time we have already lost, if we lost more time then we will lost more lives. All these warnings have become reality now. 34 children have lost their lives in last two days because of extreme cold weather. 11,000 people have already lost their legs or arms due to the delay in getting the medical treatment. There are more than 80,000 injured people, only few thousand has been able to get the proper medical treatment, the rest has waiting to get the medical treatment. Most of them will die if they fail to get proper medical treatment. No senior surgeons and specialist doctors are available in the affected areas.
More than 50,000 students (both boys and girls) have been confirmed dead. All these students died in the school buildings which collapsed immediately as the earth quake hit them. It is a criminal negligence on the part of the ruling class, which pays no attention to properly maintain these school and college buildings. No funds were allocated for the maintenance of schools and college buildings. Assessments of damages are still going on but early reports suggesting that at least 4,000 schools had been destroyed by the earth quake in Kashmir and Hazara Region.
The government has not yet started to pay the compensation to the affected families to build their houses. The poor people have nothing left to build their houses even the mud houses without the compensation from the government. There is no chance that these people will be able to get this compensation soon, because the Army is still conducting the surveys to get the details of affected families. They will start to pay the compensations after the completion of these surveys. So the people living on the mountains have left only with two options. One is to stay there to face all the hardships and extreme cold weather and snow and wait for the government to help them; the other one is to leave their areas to move to the big cities or tent cities near the big cities. The people who can pay high rents can afford to rent a house in the cities like Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Thousands of people have already been migrated from different areas to Rawalpindi/Islamabad and other cities to just spend the winter. Because of this migration the house rents has almost gone up to 200 to 300 %. A two room house cost 5,000 to 6000 rupees (50 to 60 pound) per month. It is not possible for a working class family to afford this rent. The capitalist greed is adding more insult to injuries. The capitalist system is based on super profits and exploitation, not on human needs. Working class needs a system based on social and economic justice and equality, with having no exploitation and repression and discrimination on the bases of religion, gender, race, language, nationality and colour. Socialism is the only system which provides these bases to develop a genuine democratic human society free from exploitation, repression and discrimination.
Khalid Bhatti National Organiser Trade union Rights Campaign Pakistan|