Pakistan’s President has provoked outrage by taking a tour of Europe with his son while thousands die in the floods at home. Isabel Villiers reports
Pakistan’s worst monsoon rains continue, and thousands are now dead, many more trapped, surrounded by floods. The images on TV over here show vast expanses of putrid water where riverbanks have spilled, chasing families from their homes, swallowing crops, destroying livelihoods.
In one of Pakistan’s worst affected flooded areas around Peshawar, people are very angry. They claim their privacy, their culture has been violated as women and children have been forced to sleep in the streets and wash in a contaminated mix of water, mud, human and animal faeces.
What makes people here most upset is that their President, Asif Zardari, has abandoned them in their hour of need. As Rahim Saranjan, an MBA student from Peshawar says: ‘People in general are very sad and now they are actually asking God — why is this happening to us? We are fighting a war against terrorism but where is the government at a time when we need it most? It is a sad situation.’ Whatever the army is saying, whatever the official line, the fact here is that two weeks into the crisis and there is still no centralised relief management plan or package.
Yasir Raheed, his wife and two daughters aged five and nine were visiting the Khagan valley in the Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province when the floods began. He woke up to find the lower level of the hotel underwater — the owner had fled and the guests were given no warning. For three days Yasir and his family waited for the rains to stop and for help to arrive. Eventually, Yasir, his family and the other hotel residents fled to the nearest hill, and shivered there, alert for landslides and rising lake levels.
At a time of chaos and confusion, the inadequate government response has largely left the army and international aid organisations to shoulder the responsibility. It was they who cleared the roads, rebuilt the bridges and evacuated thousands from the surrounding area. Perhaps the most dangerous result of the flooding is the growing consensus that the government has failed in its duty; that the army (which is of course close to Pakistan’s terrifying intelligence agency, the ISI) cares more for the people.
Local government has made some effort. The Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa provincial government has already given over 10 million Pakistani rupees in aid to flood victims but one local politician, Haji Adeel, has acknowledged that this is not enough. It is alleged that the provincial and federal governments are quibbling over whose budget relief money should be released. So why, everyone wonders, did President Zardari go ahead with his plans to visit the UK? Why was it so vital for him to meet David Cameron at Chequers, especially after Cameron’s public snub?
In a week when Pakistan faced extreme sectarian violence in Karachi, the worst plane crash and floods in the country’s history, Zardari’s decision not to postpone the trip is absolutely baffling. One man voices everyone’s growing suspicion: ‘Zardari has just gone to the UK simply to launch his son’s political career,’ said Rahim Saranjan. ‘Bilawal Zardari Bhutto is at Oxford university, just as Cameron was. That is why his father was so keen to go. He has chosen his son over his people.’ This, increasingly, is the popular consensus.
Britons may enjoy feeling outraged at the thought of Pakistanis burning effigies of Cameron in Karachi, but that is not the issue here. Pakistanis are infuriated by Zardari’s absence from their country during a domestic crisis. They want support, leadership and initiatives delivered at home.
Yes, the army is doing what it can, but these are stop-gap measures, not a solution. If the President doesn’t stop swanning around abroad and come home soon to take responsibility and implement a proper plan, there will be disease, fear and increasing anger to deal with. There is a month of monsoon rains still to come, the extent of flood damage and infection is not known. But with the people already looking not just to the army, but to Jamaat-e-Islami and other Islamist groups for means of support, Zardari would have to be mad to stay away for much longer.
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