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Since late June this year the South Asian nation of Pakistan has experienced the worst flooding in nearly a hundred years, displacing millions of people and destroying livelihoods. One fifth of the country has been submerged and more than 20 million of its 167 million-strong population has been affected. Nearly two thousand people have been reported dead. As the flood waters have now begun to recede, the meager media coverage of it has begun similarly receding even as the real disaster is yet to unfold in the aftermath. The World Food Programme has identified what they are calling a “triple threat” particularly to the country’s farmers who have lost everything and are now facing hunger, homelessness, and increasing desperation. Nearly 500 people blocked a major highway into the city of Karachi for three hours on Wednesday, protesting the state response to the floods. The international community has pledged a little over a billion dollars in aid, much of it yet to come in. The total damage in dollars has run into the billions, overshadowing the damage of the massive earthquake in Kashmir 5 years ago. Meanwhile the US has been carrying out military attacks either unilaterally or in conjunction with the Pakistani military over the last few years and even during the floods. And, fundamentalist extremists have also stepped up their attacks, targeting civilians and the government.

Given this nexus of various political, social, military, and natural crises over the past few years, the future of Pakistan remains frighteningly in question. And so today we spend the hour on Pakistan with four distinguished guests analyzing various angles of the topic.

Unlike Tsunami and earthquakes which happen in short instances and are sometimes difficult to predict particularly in a country like Pakistan which doesn’t have facilities or technologies to follow trajectories, the floods have been a result of consistent rains and the intentional mis-management of how the floods would be routed through areas where hundreds of thousands have suffered to save the lands, lives and strategic locations of the very few. Over 20 million people have been displaced, almost 2000 dead, the economic cost of the floods is estimated to be over $45 billion. In a country that is one of the poorest on the planet with a history of corruption and abuse of power, the long term challenge will be the recovery and resettlement of over 20 million who have been displaced.

GUEST CO-HOST: Hamid Khan, Executive Director of the South Asian Network

GUESTS: Shahid Mahmood, former editorial cartoonist for Dawn, a national newspaper in Pakistan. He is now internationally syndicated with the New York Times Syndicate. Shahid Mahmood’s website is www.drawnconclusions.com.

ON US MILITARY AGGRESSION

The United States military has not ceased combat operations in Pakistan either during or after the floods. Unmanned drone attacks have continued in the border region with Afghanistan. By the end of August the drone attacks, most of them launched from a CIA air base in Nevada (check), had killed 54 people, one more than the 53 deaths recorded for all of 2009. The Pakistani military also carried out air strikes on Tuesday and Wednesday in the northwestern tribal region of Khyber. Sixty people including women and children were killed. Meanwhile the US State Department announced on Wednesday that the organization named Tehreek-e-Taliban, or the Pakistani Taliban, has been officially listed as a terrorist organization. The Christian Science Monitor reports that the new designation will allow the State and Justice Departments to bring criminal charges against financial or material supporters of the organization, to freeze its assets, and prohibit its members from entering the US. Richard Holbrook called Pakistan an “epicenter of global terrorism” recently leaving many questions as to how the US/ Pakistan relationship will evolve in the aftermath of the crisis that has destabilized the nation.

GUEST: Rahimullah Yusufzai, Resident Editor of Pakistan’s leading English daily, The News International, based in Peshawar. He also reports for the BBC, ABC News, Gulf News, and is an analyst for the Pakistani TV Channel Geo. He has been reporting on Afghanistan and the provinces of NWFP and Baluchistan since early 1980s and has traveled widely in the region.

MILITANTS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF FLOODS

In the first major attack since the floods hit, a religious procession was bombed in Lahore on Wednesday killing 33 people and injuring 250. The attacks consisted of a small bomb followed by two suicide bombers in quick succession. This morning, news of a second bombing has emerged, this time in Quetta. Forty three people were killed and more than a 100 injured in a suicide bomb attack targeting a rally in solidarity with Palestinians. Both attacks targeted Shia gatherings. Meanwhile it is being reported that the Pakistani Taliban, which was just added to the State Department’s Terrorist Watch list, are getting busy in flood ravaged areas, offering food and aid to those willing to take up their cause. Apparently they are hoping to recruit up to 50,000 new members in the wake of the floods.

GUEST: Pervez Hoodbhoy, chair of the Department of Physics at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, frequent political commentator and peace activist

THE POLITICS OF AID

After a month of flooding that has covered an area the size of England, Pakistan has yet to meet the needs of the 18 million people that have been affected by the disaster. Despite the initial outpouring of international aid, aid efforts have reached a standstill in the past week. Over $102 million has been sent by the United States, and the World Bank has raised its contribution from $900m to $1bn. According to the United Nations, there have been 121,000 tarpaulins and 110, 500 tents distributed already, potentially housing 1.2 million people. But another 5 million remain homeless, many for well over a month already. It is unlikely that 3.6 million hectares of farmland whose crops were washed away will be replanted in time for next year’s harvest.

GUEST: Nimmi Gowrinathan, Director of South Asia Programs at Operation USA, a privately-funded disaster relief organization, currently working on her Phd at the Department of Political Science at UCLA

Find out more at www.opusa.org or text “rebuild” to 50555.