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Dear Friend of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy,
Below is a very important statement from friends in Pakistan who have been organizing flood relief efforts in their country. For background, see the CPD email of August 18 Urgent Pakistan Labor Appeal for Emergency Flood Support (and thanks to all of you who generously responded to this appeal.) The statement helps to put the catastrophe into a global political context, and urges a fundamental change of course by the international community and both the U.S. and Pakistani governments. The statement can also be found at http://progpak.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/lpp-karachi-statement-on-flooding/
In peace and solidarity, Joanne Tom Joanne Landy and Thomas Harrison Co-Directors, Campaign for Peace and Democracy www.cpdweb.org cpd at igc.org
Labour Party Pakistan in Karachi has released this statement on the flooding. A parallel initiative is being launched in Islamabad and Karachi by LPP and Workers’ Party Pakistan, among others, all with the aim of calling attention to the political dimensions of the crisis.
August 20, 2010 The Disaster, and the Way Out Labour Party Pakistan (Karachi), National Trade Union Federation
Contact: ntufpak at gmail.com The recent floods represent the worst disaster in Pakistan’s history. The country has been devastated from the Northern Areas to its Southern tip. The State, stripped of its capacity to meet peoples’ needs by neoliberalism and militarism alike, has been found wanting—both in its longstanding failure to maintain existing infrastructure, and in its response to the calamity.
The grassroots relief efforts that have emerged across the country are heartening, but a crisis of this magnitude can only be handled by an institution with the resources and reach of the federal government. As in all disasters, the assistance of the military will be necessary—but this must be subject to civilian oversight, and must not be exploited to glorify the Army at the expense of the government. The military's relative strength is a direct legacy of pro-Army federal budgets, and we remember too well the failures of the Musharraf government in 2005.
Reconstruction costs have been provisionally estimated at $15 billion—a mammoth 466% of the total federal budget for the forthcoming fiscal year. It is critical, therefore, that the political and structural roots of the crisis be urgently addressed.
As of July 2010, Pakistan's total external debt stood at $54.5 billion. A great majority of the debt is owed to multilateral institutions, the Paris Club donors, and the IMF, all of which can be written-off if the political will is found. Servicing on the public or publicly-guaranteed portion of the external debt in FY 2010 amounted to roughly $3.4 billion—an amount seven times larger than the UN’s initial aid target of $450 million. The State should not be sending this kind of revenue overseas while people die of hunger and disease at home.
The budget must be revisited, with the intention of cutting all excess expenditure and redirecting money towards relief and rehabilitation. Current discussion around revising the budget calls for cuts to development spending, when it is fact the military budget that must be targeted. The Rs 442.2 billion allocated to defence in the current federal budget is up 13% from FY 2010. Resources saved must be urgently redirected towards the relief and rehabilitation efforts.
International governments must radically increase their assistance to Pakistan. The amount thus far collected is miniscule relative to what the moment demands. The assistance offered by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank are loans, and will have to be repaid—a fate that Pakistan's poor are unlikely to be able to afford at any stage in the immediate future. Assistance to the Pakistani government must be made as grants.
We further call on the international community—specifically the antiwar movement—to redouble its efforts to expose and redirect the enormous resources wasted on the criminal wars in Iraq and Af-Pak. The US spends around $12.2 billion on the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan every month—the cost of the Afghan surge alone was $33 billion, roughly 220 times greater than the amount the US has pledged for flood relief in Pakistan.
Evidence is also emerging that links these floods to rising atmospheric temperatures, and thus to climate change. Three-quarters of all carbon emissions have been produced by only 20% of the world’s population, and it is the poor in the developing world who are bearing the brunt of the resulting environmental degradation. The rich countries ought to offer urgent reparations to Pakistan as compensation for suffering the costs of others’ industrialization.
Finally, after the corruption that marked earthquake relief efforts, we recognize the importance of the aid being distributed in a transparent and democratic manner. We support the creation of a separate national commission to oversee reconstruction spending, provided it fulfills its mandate and is made entirely open to public scrutiny. All relevant authorities, like the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), should further be brought under civilian control.
Recognizing all this, we call urgently for action based around the following demands. Only the pressure of a popular movement can force the hand of the government and international community.
1. CANCEL THE DEBT
2. CUT DEFENCE EXPENDITURE
3. INTERNATIONAL ASSISTANCE IN GRANTS, NOT LOANS
4. REDIRECT AMERICAN MILITARY SPENDING
5. REPARATIONS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
6. DEMOCRATIC AND TRANSPARENT RECONSTRUCTION