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The World


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In Pakistan, power of flood is also political


President recognizes disaster’s potential to destabilize nation


by Karin Brulliard


islamabad, pakistan — Pa- kistan’s president said Monday that the calamitous flooding that is wreaking havoc across his country could foment public an- ger and embolden Islamist mil- itants, but he expressed confi- dence that his government would survive the crisis. Asif Ali Zardari, in a meeting with a small group of foreign journalists, called it the “ideal hope of the radical” that the floods would discredit Pakistan’s government, which has been crit- icized for a slow and muddled re- sponse. “One has to fight,” he said, against extremist groups that aim to scoop up orphaned children and “create them into robots.” Even before floodwaters sub-


merged one-fifth of Pakistan’s territory, Zardari’s unpopular, U.S.-backed government was struggling to contain a rising in- surgency and cope with a weak economy. The floods have caused widespread destruction and left


at least 6million homeless, fur- ther straining the nation and pro- viding an opening to Islamist charities, some of which have provided aid to victims. Some of the challenges to the


government were underscored over the past two days. On Mon- day, militants broke a lull in at- tacks by carrying out three bomb- ings that killed at least 36 people in the restive northwest, where the flooding began. The day before, the leader of


the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, a political party that is in a coali- tion government led by Zardari’s ruling party, seemed to call for martial law, suggesting in a pub- lic address that “patriotic gener- als” weed out corrupt politicians. Zardari has long been dogged by graft allegations. As floodwaters began spread- ing early this month, Zardari was in Europe, visiting leaders and his family’s French chateau. He was assailed as a symbol of gov- ernment failure and detachment, and some critics have blamed him for international donors’ ini- tially tepid response to aid pleas. On Monday, Zardari defended


his government’s response, say- ing any nation would be over- whelmed by a catastrophe of such proportion and arguing that his trip helped strengthen relations


TUESDAY, AUGUST 24, 2010


KEVIN FRAYER/ASSOCIATED PRESS As floodwaters rise, Pakistanis try to reinforce a levee and protect the city of Shadad Kot in Sindh province.


that would help in the long run. The prime minister, to whom Zardari ceded most of his powers earlier this year, was in control of the situation, he said. The fact that so many people were saved shows that the gov- ernment was doing its job, Zarda- ri said. “Government is function- ing to its fullest capacity.” Many of the most visible relief


efforts have been made by the military, which has run Pakistan


for half its existence and still is viewed as the true power. The floods have diverted the army’s attention from its fight against insurgents in the northwest, and its manpower could be key to post-flood recovery. Zardari de- clined to comment on whether that would delay new counterter- rorism offensives that the United States has encouraged, but said the “resolve is not going down.” On Monday, water continued


Many Pakistanis unaware of U.S. aid spent pakistan from A1


“I haven’t seen a penny of this U.S. assistance.” Analysts say there are many reasons: poor coordination with the Pakistani government, a lack of understanding of Pakistan’s needs and a reluctance to pro- duce iconic projects, lest they be- come targets for terrorists. “American assistance is always


of a nature that is not seen or felt,” said Tariq Fatemi, a former Paki- stani ambassador to the United States. “How many dams were built? How many highways? Can you touch anything that was built with U.S. assistance?” U.S. officials say aid money is making a positive impact, if not always a widely noticed one. Since Sept. 11, Pakistan has ranked among the top five recipi- ents of U.S. civilian and military aid, in a group with Israel, Egypt, Afghanistan and Iraq. But they acknowledge the overall criticism and say they are fundamentally changing the way they spend tax- payer dollars here. The $7.5 billion Kerry-Lugar ci- vilian aid package, passed by Con- gress late last year, is providing the first big test. Unlike in the past, the money will be routed di- rectly through Pakistani agencies and institutions, and officials say the results will be far more vis- ible.


But already, there have been


delays that could keep the money from making an impact anytime soon. “We’re having trouble moving this money,” said Robert J. Wil- son, the USAID mission director here. “It’s not easy to change the approach.” The Kerry-Lugar funds, which will be spread over five years, were intended to help erase the widespread perception that the United States cares only about supporting Pakistan’s military.


Indeed, most U.S. assistance over the past nine years has paid for night-vision goggles, F-16 fighter jets, unmanned surveil- lance planes and other tools that help the army battle the Taliban, but has done little to convince Pa- kistanis that the United States cares about their well-being. Still, the United States will have spent nearly $5 billion in civilian assistance by the end of the year, and that money is supposed to buy goodwill.


By almost all accounts, it


hasn’t. Although the United States has received praise here for its speedy response to the sum- mer’s catastrophic floods, Paki- stanis remain suspicious of Amer- ican motives. In the Pew poll, nearly six in 10 Pakistanis de- scribed the United States as an enemy; only one in 10 called it a partner. Javed Ashraf Qazi, Pakistan’s former education minister and onetime top spy, thinks he knows the reason. When Qazi was appointed edu-


cation minister in 2004 after re- tiring from the military, he expec- ted that U.S. assistance would help him raise standards. There was much to do: Pakistan’s public schools are in deplorable condi- tion, with more than half lacking electricity and teachers earning as little as $50 a month. But Qazi said he soon discov- ered that the United States did not even coordinate its programs with the education ministry. Most of the money seemed to go to U.S. consultants “who would carry out a study for something or other that we did not need.” One program was geared toward “setting up democratic schools in Pakistan,” he said. “I was very curious to know what the hell is a democratic school.” Another, he said, involved spending millions to send Paki- stani teachers to Washington for


months of training. Qazi won- dered why the United States had not just paid for training in Paki- stan, which could have had many times the impact. Invited to Washington himself,


Qazi said he finally lost his pa- tience at a meeting in a State De- partment office once used by Gen. George C. Marshall, architect of Europe’s reconstruction. “I said, ‘You do the opposite of


what Marshall did. You don’t ask us what we want to do. You tell us what you want to do,’ ” he said. The complaint is a familiar one here. A program to train female health workers, for instance, was duplicating the work of a similar Pakistani government program. A recently announced plan to put solar panels on the roofs of the elite and private Beaconhouse school system, meanwhile, has been widely derided as out of touch when many public schools lack even roofs. Pakistani analysts say a system


that relies largely on Beltway con- tractors to devise the plans and get the work done has yielded few results. Wilson, the USAID direc- tor, said his agency is transition- ing away from that system and toward the Pakistanis themselves. But doing so poses its own set of challenges. Pakistan’s govern- ment is rated among the most corrupt in the world, and the United States has a lengthy proc- ess for certifying the accountabil- ity of its partners. As a result, very little of the Kerry-Lugar money has hit the ground nearly a year after the bill’s passage. When it does, Pakistani devel- opment officials worry that it will be spent without regard for the results, or for the limitations in Pakistan’s capacity to absorb the funds. “When the money comes in,


there’s a lot of pressure to spend it,” said Mehnaz Aziz, chief exec- utive of the Children’s Global Net-


work, a nongovernmental organi- zation that has had small con- tracts with USAID. “I would never want to be in a position to spend $100 million in Pakistan.” All that money does not neces- sarily mean high-profile projects. Because anything in Pakistan that’s associated with America is vulnerable to attack, the United States has shied away from proj- ects that could make for alluring targets. Qazi, the former education minister and spymaster, said the threat is overstated. He said that if the United States set up a tech- nical training institute, no one would dare attack it. “Call it the American School of Technology. People are running to the U.S. for good technical education. So set it up over here,” he said. U.S. officials are not convinced.


But they say the incoming money will have a tangible impact. Among the projects slated to be- gin is one in Tarbela, where Amer- ican engineers worked decades ago with a consortium of interna- tional and Pakistani partners to build the dam. For $16 million, USAID plans to


upgrade the dam’s turbines, which produce hydropower. The work is expected to significantly cut Pakistan’s chronic energy def- icit.


Word has begun to spread in


Tarbela that the Americans are coming back, and former mayor Firdous Khan said he would wel- come them. He said he admired the Amer- ican engineers who helped build the dam for their ability to get things done without delay, and without demanding a bribe. But decades later, surveying his


town’s potholed streets, its archa- ic sewer system and its vast popu- lation of unemployed young men, Khan’s mind turns to regret: “I just wish they had stayed.” witteg@washpost.com


Iranian ex-prosecutor may face trial in prison deaths


Mortazavi is among officials suspended in case, lawyer says


by Thomas Erdbrink


tehran — A former Iranian prosecutor who for years was re- sponsible for jailing dissidents and opposition members in the Islamic republic could now be taken to court over the 2009 kill- ings of three opposition activists in a substandard prison, an attor- ney for one of the victims’ fami- lies said Monday. Former Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi was already con- nected by a parliamentary in- vestigation to the July 2009 deaths in the Kahrizak detention facility, but he had judicial immu- nity and could not be put on trial. On Sunday, Iranian media report- ed that three top judicial officials had been suspended over the


case, but the semi-official Mehr news agency did not mention any names. “Mortazavi is among them, and now that he no longer has judicial immunity, he could face trial,” the attorney, Saleh Nikbakht, said in an interview. Opposition media also reported that Mortazavi is one of the three suspended top of- ficials. “Many people have charg- es against him,” said Nikbakht, a well-known human rights lawyer. Mortazavi’s notoriety came about because he handled nearly all the sensitive cases against dis- sidents, journalists and activists in the past 10 years. Many saw him as the executive arm of a hard-line political movement that has used last year’s crack- down of anti-government pro- tests to gain considerable influ- ence. A trial against Mortazavi could prove to be dangerous for many high-ranking Iranian offi- cials who have had close relation- shipswith him.


In August 2009, the head of


Saeed Mortazavi


Iran’s judiciary demoted Morta- zavi to the less influential posi- tion of deputy prosecutor gener- al, a post shared with six others. But in a sign that Mortazavi can still count on political support, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad installed the former pros- ecutor as the head of an an- ti-smuggling committee — immediately


after the publication of the par- liamentary report connecting him to the Kahrizak killings. “His actions have been so foul


that the system had become afraid of what it had created by giving him this power and creat- ing a place like Kahrizak,” said analyst and former activist Abbas


Abdi, who like many other dis- sidents had been sentenced to long prison terms by Mortazavi. “His supporters are the real cul- prits here.”


Authorities said the prisoners


died after meningitis broke out in the overcrowded facility. But in July, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered Kahrizak closed because of “substandard conditions.” In July, two prison guards were sentenced to death for their involvement, but their cases are awaiting appeal, and their names are being kept secret. Iran’s leaders have used the in-


vestigation into the prison kill- ings — one of the victims was the son of a top official — to show the transparency of the country’s ju- dicial system. But opposition and human rights activists say that many other cases of prison abuse, after months of opposition street protests and thousands of ar- rests, have not been investigated. erdbrinkt@washpost.com


spreading across southern Paki- stan. It is expected to flow into the Arabian Sea from there. Zar- dari said the nation would need at least three years to recover from the flooding, which has left about 1,500 people dead. The United States has contrib- uted food, helicopters and $150 million of the $815million in international assistance pledged to Pakistan. That is more than any other nation, and U.S.


officials hope it will also help im- prove the American image in a strategically crucial nation with strong distrust of the United States.


Zardari appeared uncertain


that would happen, saying Paki- stan was grateful for the aid but would also like the United States to reduce tariffs on textile goods. “Hearts and minds is a long- term commitment,” he said. brulliardk@washpost.com


More aid, little affection


Te U.S. has substantially increased civilian aid to Pakistan in recent years, and will continue to give large sums under the $7.5 billion Kerry-Lugar bill. Te aid money is intended to help convince Pakistanis that the United States cares about their well-being, and not just about helping Pakistan’s military.


While aid to Pakistan has increased . . . Civilian U.S. aid to Pakistan by fiscal year, in millions


200 400 600 800 1000 1200


0


$1.33 billion


$615 million


2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Education


Economic growth


2008 2009 2010


Civilian U.S. aid to Pakistan in fiscal year 2010: $1.33 billion Governance


Health Agriculture SOURCE: USAID, Pakistan


. . . the aid seems to have made little difference in Pakistani perceptions of the United States, which remain overwhelmingly negative. Tere is little awareness in Pakistan of U.S. assistance levels.


Views of the U.S.


Percentages of Pakistanis with favorable and unfavorable views


40% 20


0


100 80 60 40 20


FAVORABLE 10 17


A LOT 23%


Awareness by Pakistanis of U.S. aid to Pakistan


How much aid does the U.S. give to Pakistan?


A LITTLE 22


HARDLY ANY 10


NONE 16


DON’T KNOW 29


U.S. aid to Pakistan is increasing, decreasing or staying the same?


69 ’02 ’04


UNFAVORABLE ’06


’08 68 ’10 SOURCE: Pew Global Attitudes Project, Pew Research Center THE WASHINGTON POST


INCREASING 33%


DECREASING 33


STAYING THE SAME 18


DON’T KNOW 16


$282 million 236 221.5 162.5 146 150 109 120 In millions


Humanitarian/ social assistance


Energy transfer Cash


Carter traveling to North Korea, hoping to win detainee’s release Carter’s strategy is similar to


by Chico Harlan


Former president Jimmy Car- ter is planning a visit to North Korea to win the release of a de- tained American citizen, accord- ing to a report in Foreign Policy magazine. The trip, which could happen “within days,” is charac- terized as a private rescue mis- sion for Aijalon Mahli Gomes, a 30-year-old from Boston who in January was arrested for illegally entering the country. Gomes has since been sen- tenced to eight years of hard la- bor, and last month Pyongyang said that Gomes tried to commit suicide. The State Department has repeatedly requested Gomes’s release, and sent a four- person envoy to North Korea this month for that purpose. The group was allowed to visit Gomes but could not bring him home.


that used last year in a similar case, when North Korea detained American TV reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling. Former presi- dent Bill Clinton met with Kim Jong Il, who granted a pardon. The State Department on Mon-


day could not confirm Carter’s trip, but spokesman Philip Crow- ley said, “We remain concerned about the health and welfare of Mr. Gomes.” Since leaving the White House,


Carter has acted as an intermedi- ary in Africa, Yugoslavia and the Middle East. And Carter has vis- ited Pyongyang before. In 1994, with North Korea threatening to process spent nuclear fuel, Carter traveled to North Korea and met with Kim Il Sung. Those dis- cussions led to the Agreed Frame- work, a nonproliferation agree- ment.


harlanc@washpost.com


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