[Reader-list] 20 million homeless in Pak

[Nagraj Adve]

Much as climate change is not about events but about trends, the
tragedy that is unfolding in Pakistan seems a good candidate.
Naga


Impact of Pakistan floods as bad as 1947 partition, says prime minister

Yousaf Raza Gilani calls on population to rise to flooding challenge
as anger grows among 20 million people left homeless


David Batty and Saeed Shah in Islamabad
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 14 August 2010 12.09 BST

Pakistan's government has compared the impact of the country's
devastating floods to the country's partition from India as it
revealed more than 20 million people had been made homeless by the
disaster.

The prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, said the country faced
challenges similar to those during the 1947 partition of the
subcontinent into Hindu-dominated India and Muslim-majority Pakistan
in which about 500,000 people were killed in mass violence and
thousands of families were torn apart as 10 million refugees crossed
the new border.


Gilani said 20 million people were now homeless and called on
Pakistanis to rise to the occasion, amid growing fears of social
unrest or even a military takeover following the government's
shambolic response to the floods.

"The nation faced the situation successfully at that time [of the
partition] and inshallah [God willing] we will emerge successful in
this test," he said.

About 1,600 people have died in the floods and aid agencies expect the
toll to rise due to outbreaks of deadly waterborne diseases. A case of
cholera was confirmed today in Mingora, the main town in Swat Valley
in the north-east of the country, and UN aid workers are taking
proactive measures to try to avert a crisis.

A UN humanitarian operations spokesman, Maurizio Giuliano, said at
least 36,000 people believed to have potentially fatal acute watery
diarrhoea (AWD) were being treated fo cholera.

"Given that there is a significant risk of cholera, which is a deadly
and dangerous and a potentially epidemic disease, instead of focusing
on testing, everyone who has AWD is being treated for cholera," he
told Reuters.

Aid agencies have warned that 6 million children are at risk of
life-threatening diarrhoeal diseases, malnutrition and pneumonia.
Stagnant flood plains in densely populated, poverty-stricken urban
areas may become breeding grounds for cholera, mosquitos and malaria.

A spokesman for the UK Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) said: "It's
extremely worrying that we are seeing the confirmation of our fears.

"We now have to work very hard to prevent the spread of the disease.
The danger is that cholera is both deadly and spreads incredibly
easily. Unfortunately the circumstances in Pakistan are against us."

The floods, triggered by torrential monsoon downpours just over two
weeks ago, engulfed Pakistan's Indus river basin. Relief operations
have yet to reach an estimated 6 million people, fuelling long-held
grievances in the flood-hit areas. Villages have been wiped away. Some
people only have a patch of land to stand on. But the impact of the
disaster will be felt throughout Pakistan's population of 170 million.

President Asif Ali Zardari, who has drawn criticism for going abroad
to meet the leaders of Britain and France as the crisis unfolded,
today vowed to rebuild the devastated country.


"Despondency is forbidden in our religion. We consider it as a test
from Allah for us. This is a test for us and for you," he told flood
victims at a relief camp. "We will try to meet all your wishes. We
will build a new house for you. We will build a new Pakistan."

Fears that Zardari could be overthrown – possibly through an
intervention by the army – have grown as rescuers continue to struggle
to help the millions of people affected.

Najam Sethi, editor of the weekly Friday Times, said: "The powers that
be, that is the military and bureaucratic establishment, are mulling
the formation of a national government, with or without the PPP [the
ruling Pakistan People's party]. I know this is definitely being
discussed. There is a perception in the army that you need good
governance to get out of the economic crisis and there is no good
governance."

Other analysts say a military coup is unlikely because the army's
priority is fighting the Taliban insurgency, and taking over during a
disaster makes no sense.

In Sindh province, flood victims have complained of looting and there
are signs of increasing lawlessness.

Gilani and the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif vowed to work together
to tackle the crisis.

"Politics at this time is haram [forbidden by Islam]," Sharif said in
a joint news conference.

The agricultural heartland has been wiped out, which will cause
spiralling food prices and shortages. Many roads and irrigation canals
have been destroyed, along with electricity supply infrastructure.

"The immediate risk is one of food riots," said Marie Lall, an Asia
expert at Chatham House. "There is already great resentment in Swat
and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where people had to be cleared during
the government offensive. Now there is the threat of social unrest as
various factions, families and ethnic groups compete with each other
in the event of a breakdown in government."

The World Bank estimates that crops worth $1bn (£640m) have been
ruined and the Pakistani finance secretary warned today that the
disaster would cut the country's growth in half.

The government may have to spend $1.7bn on reconstruction, and has
said it will have to divert expenditure from badly needed development
programmes.

Fresh downpours could bring more destruction and displacement.
Scattered showers with heavy downpours are expected in the upper
north-west, upper Punjab, parts of the north and Kashmir over the next
24 hours, according to Pakistan's meteorological department.
Naga