Parliament bypassed in handling of disaster: opposition
By Raja Asghar
ISLAMABAD, Nov 10: The opposition in the National Assembly on Thursday complained of parliament being bypassed in handling the earthquake disaster — a charge denied by the government — and staged a protest walkout over the plight of two jailed politicians.
Opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman also urged the government to review its foreign policy as an ally of the West because of what he called an inadequate aid pledged to Pakistan to meet the situation after the October 8 quake that killed more than 73,000 people in Azad Kashmir and the NWFP.
Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, who rejected opposition allegations that the government had bypassed parliament and reservations about Nato’s role in quake relief, had not finished his speech to wind up a prolonged debate on the calamity when the house was adjourned until 10am on Friday.
Opposition members accused the military-led government of curtailing the assembly’s authority during the debate and while they pleaded, without much success, with speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain to ensure a better treatment for former speaker Yousaf Raza Gilani in jail and order the presence in the house of Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, the jailed president of Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman said the government should have come to the National Assembly with plans for post-quake rehabilitation and reconstruction instead of wasting one month in a debate for mere expressions of goodwill for the sufferers.
“The government has ignored this highest institution of the country...and handed over the whole system to army generals,” he said.
He said while the opposition had demonstrated national unanimity in dealing with the quake situation, the government should have accepted the supremacy of parliament.
The opposition leader, who is also the secretary-general of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), said the United States and other western countries had not shown the same zeal to help Pakistan as they did after last December’s tsunami disaster.
He said the government should accept that its policies vis-a-vis the world situation had proved wrong and that “it has to review its foreign policy”.
The Maulana said there would be no objection to foreign experts coming to help Pakistan but he added that the presence of Nato personnel “smacks of interference in our internal affairs”.
Mr Sherpao said Nato engineers would provide only technical help to Pakistan, adding that “they are not coming here on a permanent basis”.
He thanked opposition parties for participating in relief work and said the government would give full consideration to their suggestions.
The minister said the flow of aid from 75 countries — about 600 cargo flights so far — was a manifestation of the success of the government’s foreign policy.
He also thanked Pakistani people for their donations worth Rs7 billion so far and the armed forces for what he called their “day and night” involvement in relief work.
Earlier, the opposition parties staged the token walkout to protest against the speaker’s refusal to issue any order to jail authorities to remedy alleged victimisation of Mr Yousaf Raza Gilani of the PPP and issue a production order for Mr Javed Hashmi.
The issue was raised at the start of the proceedings by PPP member Naveed Qamar who accused the government of victimising Mr Gilani through various tactics such as putting curbs on meetings with visitors.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Khan Niazi said the matter could not be debated in the house as it was still before a court of law.
But Minister of State for Law, Justice and Human Rights Chaudhry Shahid Akram Bhinder said that although jails were under provincial control, the federal government could take notice if it received a written complaint about any violations of the jail manual.
The chair advised Mr Qamar to give a written complaint to Mr Bhinder while he tried, without success, to stop to further discussion on the matter.
MMA president Qazi Hussain Ahmed, PPP secretary-general Raja Pervez Ashraf, MMA member Liaqat Baloch and Pervaiz Malik of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz also took up the issue of Mr Gilani and Mr Hashmi through points of order and asked the speaker to issue necessary instructions.
But the speaker ruled out their points of order, saying he would not intervene in a matter that was before a court of law.
