Pakistan rejects human rights group's claim tents and aid being held up by bureaucracy
Special Correspondent
Oct. 22, 2005

Pakistan on Saturday rejected an international human rights group's claim that tents and other relief supplies were being stored instead of immediately distributed to earthquake survivors.

The charge from New York-based Human Rights Watch came as the U.N. appealed for more aid for victims of South Asia's massive earthquake, warning of another wave of deaths if survivors don''t get shelter and food before the Himalayan winter comes. NATO has agreed to send up to 1,000 troops to Pakistan to boost relief efforts.

"We urgently need tents, shelter and helicopters for inaccessible areas," said Jan van de Moortele, the UN's humanitarian aid coordinator for Pakistan. "Time is against us, we can buy everything with money, but not time."

In apparent response to calls from President Gen. Pervez Musharraf for Kashmiris to be allowed to cross the cease-fire line that splits Kashmir to help each other rebuild, India on Saturday said it would set up three aid camps along its disputed border to aid Pakistani quake victims.

Kashmir is claimed by both India and Pakistan in its entirety and the uneasy neighbors have fought two wars over the region since gaining independence from Britain in 1947. The camps would allow people on the Pakistan side of Kashmir to legally cross on foot for the first time since 1948.

India has already sent many tons of relief goods to Pakistani Kashmir, and the goodwill gesture was greeted by Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, which said the two sides would now have to meet to iron out details.

In its statement Saturday, Human Rights Watch accused civilian authorities, under military supervision, of storing tents and other relief goods at a supply depot in Muzaffarabad, the city at the heart of the quake-shattered region.

Pakistani officials at the scene told the organization Oct. 19 it 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," the group's statement said.

One official said he would be fired if he gave out tents, the group added.

Liaquat Hussain, deputy commissioner of Muzaffarabad, suggested that Human Rights Watch may have misunderstood what it saw.

"It is part of the system. We have a registration location ... where we do check and register the supplies coming through the official channels, and then forward them to the most deserving locations in the affected areas," he said.

Pakistan Human Rights Commission chairman Asma Jehangir, who witnessed the incident and was cited in the Human Rights Watch statement, said the incoming tents in question had been promised to civil servants who had been helping unload supplies. Soldiers refused to give them the tents, so she intervened and they relented and handed out 20, but still put another two dozen into the storage depot.

"I did not see ill will on the part of the government, that they were holding it for themselves, or misappropriating it," Jehangir told The Associated Press. "But nevertheless, what they didn''t understand is the need for speed. They''re being bureaucratic," she said.

With an estimated 3.3 million people left homeless by the earthquake, in addition to the approximately 79,000 dead, the acquisition and distribution of tents has become a main focus for Pakistan's government and international aid organizations. Van de Moortele said at the current rate, some 200,000 tents will be in the country by winter _ only enough to house about half the homeless families. NATO allies agreed Friday to dispatch up to 1,000 troops _ including military engineers, medics and others _ to reinforce the earthquake relief effort, and to send 12 giant C-17 cargo planes loaded with supplies. It will also send "at least six" additional helicopters to add to those from NATO countries already on hand, said German Brig. Gen. Antonius Strik, chief of NATO's operation liaison team in Pakistan.

The first of the 500 to 600 NATO engineers will arrive in Pakistan "within a few days" to be deployed in the quake zone for clearing roads and keeping them open when it snows in the winter, Strik said. The NATO engineers will also clear up land in the quake-hit areas for survivors to set up tents or build winterized houses, he said at a news conference in Islamabad.

Currently, 65 helicopters _ from nations including Pakistan, the United States, Afghanistan, Japan, and Germany _ are being used to haul relief goods and evacuate the injured from remote areas. They have been flying virtually nonstop, but have yet to reach many of the estimated half million people still in desperate need of aid.

Despite the disaster's magnitude, U.N. officials said the international response had fallen far short of the need. So far, the U.N. has received only 27 percent of the US$312 million (A261 million) of its flash appeal for quake relief _ compared with 80 percent pledged within 10 days of a similar appeal to international donors after the tsunami.

Boosting the relief effort, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged US$150 million (A124 million) in cash and aid _ making Turkey the biggest single donor nation yet _ as he urged others go give more during a tour of the quake-zone Friday.

Relief operations have taken on increasing urgency as temperatures begin to dip. In Kashmir, snow has already fallen in the high mountains, and upland villages are experiencing subfreezing temperatures at night.

The Pakistani government's official toll rose Saturday to more than 53,000 dead and more than 75,000 injured, though central figures have lagged behind regional numbers. The regional figures, from officials in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province and the Pakistani-controlled portion of Kashmir, add up to about 78,000. India reported 1,360 deaths in its part of Kashmir.

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