Politicizing tsunami

The generous outpouring of sympathy and financial aid for the tsunami victims by donors from across the world is contrasted sharply with the politics played out by some countries, including those that bore the brunt of the disaster.

Indonesia has warned foreign aid workers not to venture out without a military escort to the affected areas in its erstwhile rebel Aceh province. Sri Lanka last week refused to let the UN secretary-general visit rebel-controlled territories in its northern and eastern parts.

India, on the other hand, turned down foreign assistance, saying it was capable of providing relief to its affected people, but the Indian media has been critical of the government's response to the challenge at hand.

Developments such as these have had a dampening effect on the morale of the people the world over, who have wholeheartedly donated to relief funds, and have also caused confusion among emergency relief workers.

Responding to the Indonesian government's deadline given to international relief workers to leave Aceh, the UN humanitarian chief felt constrained to say: "...the most important thing is to save lives and not have deadlines."

The politicization of the world's biggest ever relief operation now underway began within the first few days of tsunamis' striking Asian shores. Washington announced the formation of its 'core group' of four countries that it said would lead the relief operations.

This was seen as an affront to the UN whose chief is little less than a hate figure with the Bush administration. But given the scale of the devastation and the fact that governments of the affected countries began to insist that all aid should be distributed through them, a sense of reality dawned on the US.

The 'core group' was dissolved in the aftermath of the January 6 international conference at Jakarta, which unanimously called for an integrated relief effort under UN auspices.

The US then got on a different tangent altogether; former presidents Bush and Clinton were paraded on American television, with the State Department saying this was time for the Americans to show Muslims that the US was their friend.

The blatant opportunism inherent in the idea is unlikely to make up for the pain and anguish caused by US actions in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay and by its policy on Palestine. Nor would it lessen the disappointment felt by Muslims on account of the US issuing threats to Syria and Iran.

This kind of politicking by the countries involved at a time when a humanitarian disaster of the tsunami magnitude has hit fellow human beings is simply in bad taste.

The world community made a good start at Jakarta last week when it decided to carry out the relief operations in the tsunami-hit areas under the largely apolitical UN banner, with aid pledges committed by many nations reaching two billion dollar mark.

Couple this with private donations from around the world and the figure is nearly three billion dollars. The need now for Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India, the three worst hit countries, is to open up their respective affected areas to international relief and aid workers, without pandering to a misplaced sense of ego. As it is, time is already running out, with over a million survivors in the three countries facing a grave risk of dying of infectious diseases.

Six weeks and counting

It has been over six weeks since two additional district and sessions judges were kidnapped on their way to Larkana from Shikarpur on December 3, 2004, and their recovery seems nowhere in sight.

One other judge was kidnapped with them but later released. Travelling during the night, it was reported that the judges had asked for a police escort but their request was turned down.

The judge who was released in mid-December had identified the kidnappers and passed on this information to the Sindh home minister who had made the customary promise that the other two would be recovered soon.

It was told then that a forest in Larkana district had been cordoned off, and that the services of foot trackers (to identify footprints in the katcha area) and sniffer dogs had been used by the police.

But that was almost a month ago. Several protest rallies have been held since then and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has taken personal interest in the case by summoning Sindh's inspector-general of police and the home secretary to explain the lack of progress.

The Sindh home minister, chief minister and the governor have claimed that the judges would be recovered soon but that 'soon' is nowhere in sight. The kidnapping, even for a day, of senior judges should be embarrassing enough for any government but for them to remain untraceable for so long is a damning indictment of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies and proof of the lawlessness in Sindh.

The delay goes to show that the police force is inept and that its intelligence and investigation techniques are sorely deficient. In spite of the release weeks ago of one of the kidnapped judges, the police have failed to obtain the lead necessary to get on the trail of the kidnappers.

If members of the judiciary can be kidnapped and kept captive for weeks, what kind of protection can ordinary citizens expect? It is time for the governor and the chief minister to act more decisively for the recovery of the kidnapped judges.

Widening trade gap

The country's foreign trade deficit has risen to $3.20 billion during the first six months of financial year 2004-05 and this marks a rise of 343 per cent over the corresponding period in the previous year.

While exports in this period rose to $6.49 billion, a 10.4 per cent increase over the corresponding period last year, it was the rise in imports by 47 per cent to $9.69 billion in the same period that widened the trade gap.

The growth in exports is said to have been possible as a result of exploration of non-traditional markets, improvement in quality of goods exported and better utilization of quotas.

The increase in imports, however, has offset some of these achievements but the silver lining here is that dutiable imports would result in higher revenue generation.

What is worrisome, though, is that there is a difference in the figures quoted by the Federal Bureau of Statistics and those by the Central Board of Revenue. As a result, an accurate picture of the extent of the deficit is yet to emerge.

At the same time, it has been revealed that the bulk of the imports comprised raw materials of which 49 per cent were imported for local production of consumer goods.

This means that the earlier trend of rising imports as a consequence of an increase in the purchase of capital goods or inputs used by exporters is now being overtaken by largely consumer-driven imports.

While higher imports indicate a gaining of momentum by the national economy, Pakistan should take care not make the mistakes it has made in the past of allowing unhindered imports at the cost of the local industry. This will only make matters worse in the long run and will allow the trade gap to widen over time.