US keeps aid flowing to Pakistan despite emergency

By Arun Kumar, IANS

Washington : The US has justified keeping aid flowing to key ally Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s government, which has since 2001 received close to $10 billion, bulk of it in military assistance, despite imposition of emergency rule.


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After initially concluding that Nov 3 imposition of emergency did not “trigger any automatic aid cut-offs,” US State Department has after a review of US assistance determined “that maintaining funding levels for Economic Support Funds and Foreign Military Financing is crucial.”

“Doing otherwise would not further our interests with Pakistan at a time when Pakistan plays a critical role in the War on Terrorism and is about to have elections that need to be free, fair, and credible,” a senior official told a US Senate panel Thursday.

However, to deflect Congressional criticism of the administration’s Pakistan policy, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Richard Boucher told a Sub Committee of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee “As you in the Congress do, we would want to be quite clear on what our money supports.”

“Thus, we’ve made the decision that the $200 million in Fiscal Year 2008 Economic Support Funds used for budget support will be projectised to ensure money is targeted at the most urgent priorities” for programmes that directly benefit the Pakistani people, he said.

“Foreign Military Financing to the Government of Pakistan’s counter-terrorism programme is another area we could not want to cut, as cuts would be counterproductive to military-to-military programmes and could affect Pakistan’s willingness to continue to support coalition access to Afghanistan,” Boucher said.

To help Pakistanis build an economically healthy, stable and democratic Pakistan, US has provided another $2.4 billion in economic assistance since 2002. US provides $300 million per year in Economic Support Funds and $300 million in Foreign Military Financing for Pakistan as part of a five-year, $6 billion Presidential commitment made by President George Bush in 2004, he said.

In addition the US has provided Pakistan $1.9 billion in security assistance in support of fighting terrorism, the “pre-eminent goal of US policy in Pakistan”. This has included $1.2 billion in Foreign Military Financing, $244 million in Department of State counter-narcotics funding and $87 million in Department of Defence counter-narcotics funding and $37.2 million in counter-terrorism funding.

This money has gone to purchase tactical radios, TOW missiles, Bell 412 and COBRA helicopters, and P-C3C Orion aircraft for maritime surveillance. In addition, the US has provided $5.3 billion in Coalition Support Funds to “reimburse Pakistan for expenses incurred in the War on Terror.”

Washington has also recently begun to implement a five-year, $750 million development strategy for Pakistan’s frontier region that supports the Government of Pakistan’s nine-year, $2 billion programme for the Tribal Areas’ sustainable development, Boucher said.

A growing number of US lawmakers, however, have voiced concerns particularly since the imposition of emergency that Washington possesses no sure-fire means of finding out how Islamabad spends the money.

“Are we getting the most bang for our buck?” as an angry Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the sub committee on international development and foreign assistance demanded at the hearing.

“In spite of (spending) $10 billion, Al Qaida and the Taliban have a safe haven in the FATA (Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Area), Osama bin Laden is still on the loose in the region and anti-Americanism remains high.

“…and Pakistan’s President has repeatedly exercised the powers of a dictator. Do we dare call our policies in that respect a success? What happens if Pervez Musharraf is suddenly no longer the leader of Pakistan?” he asked.

Boucher insisted that the coalition support funds being disbursed to Pakistan were only “reimbursements” in the ongoing war on terror and none of these funds are for any other purposes including for any use on the domestic front.

“We don’t see those as assistance. We don’t lump them in with the other categories of assistance. It’s about $5.3 billion since 9/11,” he said.The official said it’s a programme that was authorised by the Congress to reimburse allies and friends in the war on terror for their expenses.

“That money goes to reimburse the Pakistanis for the expenses that they incur in terms of food, ammunition, operating expenses, fuel – all those things that they incur in terms of fighting the war on terror,” Boucher said.

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