Pakistan: Army feels strength in flood relief

PAKISTANI navy boats sped across miles of flood waters yesterday as the military took a lead role in rescuing survivors from a devastating disaster that has killed 1,600 people and left two million homeless.

• More than two million people have been made homeless following the devastating floods in Pakistan. Pictures: Getty Images

The Pakistani military has maintained a dominant role in foreign and security policy even during civilian rule, and has come to the fore during natural disasters, such as in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake.

The civilian government has meanwhile appeared overwhelmed and president Asif Ali Zardari has been singled out for criticism for remaining on an official visit to Europe as the country suffered its worst floods in 80 years.

But analysts do not expect the government's heavily criticised handling of the crisis to encourage the military, which has ruled for more than half of Pakistan's history, to try to seize power.

Heavy rain is forecast to further lash the country in the next few days.

Rubber and wooden navy boats set out from areas in Sindh province, where flood waters burst from the Indus River across vast distances, to help Pakistanis who have watched safe ground shrink by the hour and waters swallow up their livestock.

"We have been doing this for several days," said navy officer Akhter Mahmood after his boat travelled through about 12 miles of flood water.

Women, chest-deep in water, carried chickens and clothes on their heads before entering navy boats. "I thought the waters would go away," said Sakina. "I want to come back."

Floods wiped out Mohammad Saleem's home and grocery store in the village of Kot Addu. "We have not received any help from the government so far and I am sure any foreign help that will come will never reach us," he said.

Even though relief efforts may have improved the military's standing, and widened the perception that Pakistani civilian governments are too weak and inefficient to cope with disasters, analysts do not see any threat to the current administration.

The army is busy fighting Taleban insurgents and does not want to be strapped with Pakistan's enormous problems; from costly rebuilding after the floods, to the struggle to attract foreign investment in a troubled economy, to widespread poverty.

"I don't think they are willing to dump Zardari," said Kamran Bokhari, regional director, Middle East and South Asia at global intelligence firm STRATFOR. "The current army leadership… is very clear that there is a war that needs to be waged."

Foreign aid organisations, also playing a much bigger role than the government, say weather has hampered relief efforts.

Floodwaters have roared down from the north-west to the agricultural heartland of Punjab and on to southern Sindh along a trail more than 600 miles long.

The flooding, brought on by unusually strong monsoon rains, has destroyed 360,000 houses, aid groups say.

"We are very concerned because the situation is getting worse and worse," said Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman for the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. In Punjab alone, 1.4 million acres of land was destroyed.

"Our country has gone back several years," prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told reporters on a visit to Sindh province.