ISLAMABAD, Oct 28: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) on Friday came out openly in the National Assembly against any Nato or US military role in earthquake relief or reconstruction in Pakistan as the opposition kept up its criticism of the government’s handling of the Oct 8 disaster.
“We don’t need foreign forces in our country...our own forces are enough,” MMA Secretary General and Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rehman said during a continuing debate on the situation created by the killer earthquake in Azad Kashmir and parts of the North West Frontier Province.
“If American forces have come here, they should be sent back and the same should be done for Nato forces,” he said in his Islamic alliance’s first formal opposition to the planned Nato role in reconstruction and the presence of American military teams providing medical aid to quake sufferers.
But it was not clear whether Maulana Fazl was speaking for the whole opposition or only his alliance of six Islamic parties, whose members had also sought a debate on the matter through an adjournment motion.
The MMA move came after Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the acting parliamentary leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) — a component party of the opposition Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) — and a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML), Riaz Hussain Pirzada, criticised the proposed Nato role last week.
The People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP), the main component of the ARD, has not so far taken a clear stand on the issue publicly, although one of its members and the Leader of Opposition in the Senate, Raza Rabbani, has called for a parliamentary approval for the Nato role and has given notice for a debate on the matter in the upper house, which is due to meet on Nov 11.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was present in the house but refrained from immediately replying to the criticism from Maulana Fazlur Rehman and other opposition charges ranging from a slow government response to the worst earthquake in Pakistan’s history to a bypassing of parliament and the army’s control of the relief work to the exclusion of civilians.
However, the prime minister justified Nato’s role while talking to reporters later in his chambers in the parliament house, saying the western alliance would assist only in reconstruction as stated earlier in the house by Minister of State for Environment Malik Amin Aslam.
The assembly debate, which was later adjourned until 11am on Monday, also marked a demand by several opposition members for the presence of jailed PML-N acting president Javed Hashmi in the house so he could take part in the present debate.
Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain dismissed the demand, first made by PML-N member Begum Tehmina Daultana and later endorsed by PPP president and ARD chairman Amin Fahim, Maulana Fazlur Rehman and another MMA member, Dr Ataur Rehman.
The notice for an adjournment motion on the role of Nato and American forces was signed by several MMA members and tabled on Friday with a request for an immediate debate. But the speaker said the motion could not be taken up immediately because of the short time available while the house was to be adjourned before the Friday prayers.
The notice said that while Pakistani people were fully cooperating in the relief and rehabilitation work “our military jawans were also fulfilling their responsibilities, calling Nato or American forces to take part in the relief work is incomprehensible because these forces have never taken part in aid or welfare activities in any country”.
“Therefore, activities of these forces within the country can be a cause for serious danger to national security,” it said.
While American military helicopters are providing relief to earthquake survivors and a US military field hospital has been set up at the ruined Azad Kashmir capital of Muzaffarabad, Nato engineers are yet to arrive in Pakistan to help in the reconstruction of infrastructure like roads and bridges.
Maulana Fazl said in his speech he was opposing the presence of American and Nato forces because of their feared “political designs” and asked the government to clear its position on the matter.
Minister of State Malik Amin Aslam said that American and Nato personnel’s presence was only for the sake of relief and reconstruction and added: “It is wrong to give it a political colour.”
Minister of State for Defence Zahid Hamid said at the start of the day’s proceedings that the government would welcome the opposition’s suggestions in relief and reconstruction work.
PML member Sardar Shah Jahan Yousaf claimed the quake had killed some 40,000 people alone in his constituency in Mansehra district and called for declaring the area as calamity stricken, writing off agricultural and house-building loans and federal and provincial taxes owed by the stricken people, provision of new loans on easy terms for rehabilitation and early restoration of facilities such as electricity and telephone lines.
PPP’s Syed Zafar Ali Shah said civilians should oversee the relief and reconstruction effort and complained that parliament was being bypassed in what he called a faulty system controlled by “one man”.
Nawab Mirza of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement spoke of the relief work undertaken by his party and urged all parties to concentrate on service rather than airing differences at this time.
