Saturday, 4th April 2010

"Army's Swat Role Spurs Questions about Civilian Govt"

LAHORE:

The military operation to purge the Taliban from Swat ended last summer, but as life in the valley returns to normal, the army's footprint is still evident everywhere in the area, the Washington Post (WP) said on Friday. "The military is rebuilding roads, schools and rebuilding roads, schools and libraries and buying computers for women's vocational institutes and solar powered streetlights for villages. It is planting a million trees. The work has made soldiers hugely popular, but some wonder why the civilian government is not doing it," it said. "The mandate of the army was to clear the area and to hold the area for peace. The rebuilding should be done by the civilian government," Ziauddin, an educator and spokesman for the Swat National Committee, told the WP. "How long will we depend on them?" But the paper said there were competing explanations for why the military remained in the lead.

Corruption: Some US and Pakistani Military officials say Pakistan's civilian government is too corrupt and bureaucratic to build on military progress by improving services and quality of life. Others say the military is too accustomed to control and too enthralled with its popularity to cede any power. American and Pakistan experts told the paper that the enduring military presence carried worrying implications, because it tied down forces needed to battle militants elsewhere and raised awkward questions about the country's efforts to emerge from a decade of military rule. "They are carrying guns at the same time they are carrying shovels. It's sending the wrong signals," said Rifaat Hussain, a defence and security studies professor in Islamabad. "The civilians are completely dependent on the army." Government offices in Swat are open, and they have reclaimed their chaotic bustle.

Naeem Akhtar, a top civilian administrator, told the WP that officials had reduced a large backlog of court cases, surveyed 10,000 destroyed houses and shops, and planned to distribute $1 million in total compensation of families of victims or survivors of terrorist attacks. "In the entire district, every nook and corner, the government is functioning," Akhtar said.