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| October 23, 2005 | Sunday | Ramzan 18, 1426 |
Rights group accuses officials of storing tents
ISLAMABAD, Oct 22: A US human rights group on Saturday joined a blame game over aid distribution in Azad Kashmir, accusing officials of storing tents intended for distribution among survivors of the earthquake.
The charge was made by the Washington-based Human Rights Watch(HRW) group, which cited only one case of storing rather than distributing the much-needed tents in the quake-ruined state capital Muzaffarabad.
It came amid other widespread complaints about influential people blocking or pinching relief supplies as well as looting of trucks destined for mountain villages while Muzaffarabad itself seemed to be overflowing with supplies sent by the people.
Asked to comment on the group’s report, military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan said he was not aware of any reported incident but he cited what he called standing instructions from President Pervez Musharraf for taking “very strict action” against any official found involved in wrongdoing in quake relief.
“Nothing will be put under the carpet,” he told Dawn. “Strict action will be taken (against the guilty),” he said.
The group report said Human Rights Watch was present on Oct 19 at a supply depot at the Muzaffarabad civil secretariat where civil servants were working to help store supplies on the promise of being provided tents at the end of a day’s labour.
The depot, it said, was under the control of officials from the services group, an administrative unit working for the AJK chief secretary.
“Several civil servants informed Human Rights Watch that they had been engaged in the activity for three days, only to return to their shelterless families empty-handed every night,” it said. “Human Rights Watch was told by officials at the scene in charge of dispersing these tents, which had been designated for government workers in Muzaffarabad, that tents and other emergency supplies were being stored instead.”
The report quoted officials present there, who were not identified, as saying “this was being done so that they would be able to avoid problems when senior military and civilian officials demand supplies that otherwise would not be available”.
“One official said that he would be fired if he handed out the tents,” it said. “Under pressure from the intended recipients, one official did release some tents to some of the people on the list of designated civil servants,” it added.
“In Azad Kashmir, tents are the difference between life and death,” the report quoted Human Rights Watch Asia director Brad Adams as saying. “It is essential for the public to know that aid is being handled in a non-arbitrary, non- discriminatory manner.”
“Almost two weeks after the earthquake, there is a massive shortage of tents even in Muzaffarabad, the hub of international and Pakistani relief efforts,” it said and added that relief efforts had been hampered by a lack of coordination between the army and civilian authorities” in Azad Kashmir and a scarcity of resources.
In other related developments, there have been frequent incidents of violence and aid looting in parts of Azad Kashmir.
This correspondent saw men and women fighting each other with sticks and tree branches on Thursday night on a road between Chattar Klass and Danna-Kachili in a dispute over sharing wheat floor apparently dropped off by UN World Food Programme trucks.
Earlier that day, one group set fire to quake-devastated houses of some residents of Padhar village in the Khawara area of Muzaffarabad district a day after a gunfight over sharing relief flour.
Part of another consignment to Pail was also pinched before it reached Pail later, barrister Raja Mohammad Ishaq told Dawn from Lahore.
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