This is to thank you once
again for your extremely generous help and to provide an interim report
of relief activities. My initial letter was to 40+ persons, mostly
in the US, who passed it on further. The current list is several times
the original size and includes many other countries. I
would now request that you not forward this onwards because of our
limited
capacity to handle funds. Ours is an impromptu group of university
people
and will self-destruct once the job is done. If you would like to
continue
to give, I will be happy to provide a list of some of the larger NGOs
and
relief organizations that seem to be doing a good job.
Although I would like
to thank each of you separately, that would take up<
time which could be put to better use elsewhere.
To date, your donations
are around $80,000. These include donations as
small as $20. The largest one is $10,000 (this is from an Indian
expatriate living in the US, a wonderful example of how caring people
don't worry about borders). Zia Mian and Sharon Weiner, who are doing
doing the onerous job of keeping accounts for the Eqbal Ahmad Foundation
in the US, tell me that they have had to return 30 cheques because
these
were incorrectly made out. So, the total may cross $100,000 if all
pledges are ultimately fulfilled and cheques are cashed. See the end
of
this message for the correct instructions.
An unexpected difficulty
arose because we were unable to encash cheques
made out to "Quaid-e-Azam University and Eqbal Ahmad Foundation
Earthquake
Relief Fund". I had initially specified this to you after my
university
had agreed to set it up. However, this turned out to be impossible
because
the government has ordered all banks not to open any earthquake relief
account, and instead demands that all donations must go into the official
(prime minister's) relief fund. This is unacceptable. Therefore, we
decided to put the received money into the Eqbal Ahmad Memorial Education
Foundation account. The accounts of this foundation are audited yearly,
but we will ask that the earthquake fund money be separately audited
in a
few months once all received funds have been disbursed. Those of you
who
would like to receive a copy should please indicate this to me, with
mailing address.
So far the QAU effort
has resulted in 15 trucks/wagons delivering relief
goods to Muzaffarabad, Rawalakot, Balakot, Batgram, and other locations.
The QAU administration has cooperated by providing transport. Most
supplies were received in kind or purchased from local donations.
A small
portion of your money was spent on immediate relief work (tents, blankets,
medicines, rations).
The principal use of your
money will, however, be for house
reconstruction. There are some complications here that I would like
to
apprise you of, and then our planned course of action.
1. It is too soon to start
building. 3 weeks later, aftershocks are almost
a daily occurrence. Dr. Toor and I, having just returned from a relief
trip to villages near Batgram, saw that everyone is sleeping outside.
Some
have tents, others just the sky above them. People are too scared
to
return indoors even where the structures are still standing. Some
who had
repaired their houses saw them collapse again after a small quake.
2. Some peaks are already covered with snow and winter is just weeks
away.
So even if there were no aftershocks, rebuilding would be hard in
such
weather. The tent towns now seen everywhere will probably disappear
once
it gets colder. Even now there is large scale migration into the cities
(Mansehra, Abbottabad, Mirpur, Rawalpindi, Islamabad,...). There will
be
serious problems of sanitation, health, and employment. Tens of thousands
of the disabled may turn to beggary. Nobody seems to have a clue of
how to
handle this.
3. Where possible, we
shall help people rebuild rightaway. In the warmer areas it may be
possible. But in the overwhelming number of cases, this will have
to be deferred until April. Meanwhile we have begun to identify the
poorest of the poor, give them an immediate installment of money so
that they can survive the next few weeks, and will later pay them
to rebuild. The cost of construction materials is soaring, as you
might guess, but hopefully $1K per house is not too far off. The target
is: save 100 families and give them a roof over their heads.
4. Although identifying
the right recipients may seem an easy task, but in
fact it is not. One has to physically visit, interrogate, and make
spot
decisions. The scent of money draws many sharks. Relief trucks set
off
riots.
5. I am hoping that some
others will join on but, as of the present time,
the following friends and colleagues, in whose committment and judgement
I
have total confidence, have accepted the responsibility of identifying
the
right people and following the goal through to the end.
(1) Dr. Abdul Hameed Toor,
president of the Academic Staff Association.
(2) Dr. Abdul Nayyar, retired from QAU, now with SDPI.
(3) Mr. Vaqar Zakaria, CEO of Hagler Bailly (Pakistan), an environmental
consulting firm.
(4) Dr. Faheem Hussain, National Centre for Physics and COMSATS Univ.
They will work with many
others but the responsibility for use of funds
will be theirs (and mine).
On the general earthquake picture:
(a) The official toll
has reached 79,000 but everyone believes that it
will be much higher. Perhaps 100,000+. Entire villages have disappeared
in
AK.
(b) There is still no
attempt to clear the rubble in Balakot, or retrieve
the thousands of crushed corpses there and elsewhere. One wonders
what
will eventually happen to the masses of concrete - there is simply
no
place where to throw it away.
(c) There are long convoys
of trucks carrying relief goods. The army,
foreign organizations, local NGOs, and hundreds of private groups
(like
us) - in that order of size. The US Chinooks are still flying missions,
and winning public approbation. An RPG was reportedly fired at one,
but
missed. The Pakistan Army denies the incident occurred, but the US
stands
by it. There are rescue teams from Cuba, Spain, Turkey, and China
doing
excellent work. But compared to the scale of the problem, even everything
put together is far too small.
(d) International aid
has indeed been niggardly. But perhaps one should
not be surprised. Pakistan is run by an army obsessed with buying
top of
the line submarines, missiles, and jets for its nuclear weapons. Relief
money will go through the hands of army generals and some will inevitably
end up in their pockets. Musharraf has botched up this opportunity
to make
peace with India. He spurned an Indian offer for desperately needed
helicopters. Instead, last week, on official orders, Islamabad was
covered
with large banners denouncing Indian atrocities in Kashmir. The size
of
those banners was roughly ten times bigger than of banners asking
people
to contribute to the earthquake fund. It was obscene.
(e) The mullahs are in
full form in the mosques and on every TV channel,
telling people that the earthquake was divine retribution. Most buy
it. I
am angry and appalled, but scarcely surprised, that all but a few
of my
(physics) students share this view. Islamic parties and jihadist groups
are to be seen everywhere and are clearly doing a great job in obtaining
and distributing relief supplies. Some are openly flaunting their
weapons.
In an environment of ignorance and mullah domination, abject poverty,
and
exploding population, they will surely be able to get much cannon
fodder
and swell their ranks.
Sorry for this depressing
ending.
With best regards.
Pervez
---------------
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Professor of Physics
Quaid-e-Azam University
Islamabad 45320, Pakistan.
Phone (R): 92-51-2824257
Phone (O): 92-51-2829914
