MARDAN, Pakistan — A top U.S. envoy today expressed sympathy to refugees displaced by Pakistan’s military offensive against the Taliban and promised them more aid from Washington.
Richard Holbrooke, President Barack Obama’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, visited two camps housing some of around 3 million people who have fled the month-old campaign to oust the Taliban from the Swat Valley and surrounding regions.
Washington strongly supports the offensive, which is seen as a test of Pakistan’s resolve to take on militants who have built strongholds in the country’s northwest border region with Afghanistan.
But, sensitive to suspicion among some Pakistanis that the government is too close to Washington, officials stress that the United States has no role to play in the campaign other to offer humanitarian aid.
“It’s up to the Pakistan army to give you security — that is not our job,” Holbrooke said. “We are giving assistance.”
Holbrooke on Wednesday announced another $200 million in aid for the refugees, pending Congressional approval, bringing U.S. aid directed at the refugees to $310 million. This amount was more than the rest of the world combined had pledged to help, Holbrooke said.
Holbrooke’s helicopter arrival blew up clouds of dust in the already dry, hot camps. The group was accompanied by a heavy contingent of U.S. and Pakistani security.
Most refugees are staying with friends and relatives, and some 160,000 are living in dusty, sweltering camps.
“We hope you can go back very quickly, but we don’t know,” Holbrooke told refugees.
The camps Holbrooke visited were run by the Red Cross and the United Nations. He asked refugees for their individual stories and about the Taliban. One said he needed an electric fan for the sweltering heat, another complained about the food.
“Our crops are destroyed, and we are getting nothing here,” Abdul Sajid, a farmer from the Buner district just south of Swat, told Holbrooke. “It is coming, the food, but it is not good. I am not satisfied with the conditions at the camp. Now we need your help.”
In Islamabad, the capital, on Wednesday, Holbrooke rejected the idea the U.S. played a part in creating the refugee crisis. He was responding to new audio tape by Osama bin Laden in which the al-Qaida leader said Washington had pressured Pakistan to launch the Swat offensive.
“The idea that anyone is responsible for the refugee crisis other than al-Qaida and the Taliban and the other people that have caused such tragedy in Pakistan is ludicrous,” Holbrooke said.
The Swat offensive has been coupled with increasing militant activity in the semiautonomous tribal region bordering Afghanistan as well as what appear to be revenge attacks in other parts of the country.
Earlier this week, dozens of students and staff driving away from a boys school in the North Waziristan tribal region were kidnapped by suspected militants.
Officials said initially they had rescued all of them within hours, though it later emerged that more than 40 were still being held captive.
Deputy Interior Minister Tasnim Qureshi told state-run Pakistan Television that 46 students and two teachers were rescued today, and all captives were now safe.
Lawmaker Saleh Shah told The Associated Press that tribal elders had negotiated their release with local militants. It was not known if any ransom or other demands were made.
In a new report, the International Crisis Group said the Pakistani government needs to devise a blueprint for reconstruction in Swat and make a priority of training a strong local police force.
The Brussels-based think tank also said the international community should encourage Pakistan to stop fighting long enough so aid can reach civilians still trapped in the battle zone.
The group also urged Pakistan to scrap a regulation that imposes an Islamic justice system in Swat that the government agreed to earlier this year as part of a peace deal with the Taliban. The deal later collapsed.
Karim Khattak, a top government official for the region, told reporters visiting Swat on Wednesday the rule would not be tossed aside because residents wanted it because they are fed up with the inefficient regular judicial system.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
