Last week the world came to praise Pakistan's President Musharraf -- for fear that the earthquake might bury him, writes Graham Usher in Islamabad On 19 November, 75 delegates attended an international donors' conference in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad to address the reconstruction and rehabilitation needs caused by the South Asian earthquake on 8 October. Some $5.8 billion were pledged, $6 million more than the needs assessment drawn up by the Pakistani government and an array of international bodies. The largest contributions came from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, pledging $1 billion each. The largest single donor country was the US, pledging $510 million at the conference but with the prospect that this could swell to $1 billion subject to Congressional approval. "It (the conference) shows we are not isolated," said Pakistan's Prime Minister Shawkat Aziz. "The foreign policy pursued by President General Pervez Musharraf has started showing results." His domestic policies have been less fruitful. None of Pakistan's main opposition parties, secular or Islamist, attended the conference. They have been angered by a relief effort that has so far been a "presidency-army affair", in the words of Pakistani military analyst Hassan-Askari Rizvi. The two main bodies in charge of managing the earthquake -- the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) and the Federal Relief Commissioner -- are headed by military officers answerable only to Musharraf. Parliament neither approved their establishment nor has oversight over their work. Nor can any court of law challenge an action undertaken by the ERRA "done in good faith". In the earthquake-hit areas what remains of a civil administration is subordinate to the army, with military corps not only leading the way in relief and rescue efforts but also responsible for disbursing compensation to the victims. "No role is assigned to the MPs or the provincial assemblies in the army-sponsored relief work," says Rizvi. The opposition also pointed out there was a lace of poison in the honey presented at the conference. Of the money pledged, $4 billion were in soft loans which "may prove to be another mountain of debt for Pakistan", said Malik Dehar, an MP from the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP). It was a warning echoed by less partisan organisations, like the British charity Oxfam. This alloy of international praise, authoritarian rule and domestic discontent has been a signature of Musharraf's leadership since 11 September 2001. Following the attacks on New York and Washington, the Bush administration submitted to the Pakistani chief of staff a thinly veiled ultimatum: Pakistan could either be on the American side in "the war on terror" or against it. Musharraf chose survival. He ended the military's open support for the Taliban and, over the next four years, arrested and extradited over 500 Al-Qaeda suspects, some of them to Guantanamo Bay. In return, US sanctions imposed in retaliation of Pakistan's covert nuclear programme were lifted, and economic and military aid was restored, with George Bush announcing a $3 billion package spread over three years. Nor has there been any international criticism of Musharraf's wholly unconstitutional decision to extend his rule until presidential elections in 2007 or the blatant rigging of recent local elections to keep the opposition at bay and his preferred Pakistan Muslim League in office. "The operative word in Pakistan these days is 'diplomacy', not 'democracy'," comments one PPP MP sourly. But the earthquake posed a challenge of potentially explosive proportions. First there was the collapse of "even the charade of Pakistan's civilian government", in the words of Pakistani columnist Ayaz Amir, especially in the politically charged area of Kashmir. Then there was the army's utterly inadequate response to the disaster -- taking three days to reach stricken cities like Muzaffarabad and Balakot and even longer to remote mountain communities -- and the unprecedented public criticism it drew. Finally there was the weak international reaction to a disaster that relief agencies soon concluded could be "worse than the tsunami", including from staunch Musharraf backers like the US. Prior to the donors' conference Pakistan had received $2.4 billion in pledges (less than half the assessed amount) and only $156 million in actual cash. There were increasing public calls on Musharraf to meet the deficit by making cuts in the army and government bureaucracy, the two pillars of his rule. It was then that Musharraf came up with the idea of a donors' conference, with the subliminal message (mainly to the US but also to Saudi Arabia and Europe) that, without real aid, not only were the lives of three million of his people at risk but so too was his regime. Has the conference rescued him? In the short-term the answer is almost certainly yes: it is a massively public relations coup for Musharraf's leadership and regime. But there is a world of difference between aid pledged and money received. And, with winter less than a month away, that money has to be translated into shelter for the homeless, jobs for the destitute and rebuilt villages and cities for the community. Otherwise the earthquake -- and the political questions it raises -- could yet prove to be Musharraf's undoing, says former general and now political analyst Talaat Masoud. "If Musharraf doesn't deliver on the earthquake, he will be in trouble. And without proper political structures through which people can empathise with the government, things may unravel. There could be discontent and street demonstrations. And since Musharraf has weakened the moderate political forces in Pakistan any protest will strengthen the Islamists. And we will be left once more with the military and the mullahs".
