The Hindu : Front Page : Generous payout by U.S. for the displaced earns Holbrooke no friends in Pakistan

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Friday, Jun 05, 2009
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Generous payout by U.S. for the displaced earns Holbrooke no friends in Pakistan

Nirupama Subramanian

Photo: AP

Hearing their woeS: U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke (left) talks with a displaced man at the Chota Lahore refugee camp in Swabi, northwest Pakistan, on Thursday. Mr. Holbrooke, who visited refugees who fled the fighting between the military and Taliban militants, urged European and Muslim nations to help the exiled people and avert a humanitarian crisis.

ISLAMABAD: U.S. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke may have announced generous sums of money to help Pakistan deal with the humanitarian crisis of people displaced by the fighting in Swat, but that has not melted the butter in Pakistani mouths.

Mr. Holbrooke’s appearance, after his arrival here on Wednesday, with President Asif Ali Zardari at a joint press conference, at which Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi was also present, has become a controversial issue with the Pakistani media raising questions of protocol.

The special envoy announced that the U.S. would be shelling out $200 million in addition to the $110 million already promised, to assist Pakistan in dealing with the more than 2 million people who had to flee the operational areas in the North West Frontier Province.

But clearly, Mr. Holbrooke has still some way to go before he makes friends with a hostile and suspicious Pakistani media. At the weekly Foreign Ministry briefing on Thursday, incensed Pakistani journalists threw questions at spokesman Abdul Basit on why Pakistan was going out of its way for a mere special envoy.

“What is your understanding about the status of Richard Holbrooke? Who is the counterpart of the person in question and why is he behaving like a supra head of state?” one journalist asked. Another wanted to know what the “rule of business or protocol procedures” said about a visiting special envoy from the U.S. “Who should hold a [press] stakeout with him?” the journalist questioned.

“High protocol”

A third wanted to know the reason for giving Mr. Holbrooke “such high protocol; this is his third visit here and the President addressed a press conference with him, at a time when they don’t seem to be addressing any of the key concerns of Pakistan.”

Similar questions used to be raised earlier about the access enjoyed by the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Richard Boucher, to the Pakistani leadership and are reflective of the mutually need-based but troubled ties between the two countries. Though taken aback by the number of questions on the issue, Mr. Basit soldiered on with his replies to a clearly sceptical audience.

“Strictly speaking, there’s no counterpart to him here, so the question of protocol is not to the point,” he said. What Pakistan tried to do with such visits, the spokesman tried explaining, was to make them “as useful and productive as possible.” And, he said, this visit by Mr. Holbrooke was “different” to his previous trips.

“He is here on the instructions of President Obama to assess the situation in Pakistan with regard to the dislocated population, so we need to see the visit in that context,” he said. “It’s a problem, it’s a humanitarian situation that Pakistan is facing, and it is our own desire to highlight the issue better to sensitise the international community and the major powers about the needs of the displaced people.” Mr. Holbrooke visited a camp for displaced persons on Thursday and spoke to many of the refugees to learn from them the conditions at the camps.

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