[Foreign government officials say they are reluctant to give money for fear it will be siphoned off by politicians. The provincial government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where Swat is located, was listed as the most corrupt provincial administration in the country by the global advocacy group Transparency International. ]
By ADAM B. ELLICK
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| A fourth-grade Pakistani student leading a morning prayer at a Swat Valley school still in rubble from a Taliban bombing in 2007. |
But more than a year after millions of residents returned home, the absence of virtually any government follow-through has turned that hope into despair.
Throughout the valley, tens of thousands of students are sheltered by broken-down walls and flimsy tents supplied mostly by international aid groups. The government has yet to rebuild even one of the more than 150 schools leveled by the Taliban in their methodical campaign to prevent girls’ education.
Running water, electricity and school supplies are widely absent. The floods that ravaged the country this summer, and hit Swat especially hard, have only compounded the hardships and diverted money and attention away from reconstructing war-torn areas.
The lack of any visible progress has fed the frustrations of local people and international donors over the government’s incompetence and corruption, raising fears that it has squandered a chance to win over a pivotal population in its war against militancy, which has been urged on by the United States.
“In the minds of these little kids, the frustration against our own government is developing, and against the West is developing,” said Esanullah Khan, a landlord here who advises the army and aid organizations on rebuilding schools. “They’ll go into Talibanization or miscreants because that is their only option left. What do they have to lose?”
“And who is the one to blame?” he said, parroting the students’ reasoning. “It’s the United States of America.”
Jamal Uddin, a ninth grader who missed nearly two years of school because of the conflict in Swat, used to detest the Taliban, who bombed his school in the village of Baidera in 2008. Now, he says, he has no reason to support either side.
He has watched as a parade of government leaders has visited his school without removing even one brick from the rubble. The Taliban tightened their hold on Swat by exploiting class grievances, and Jamal, who is about 17, angrily protested that the wealthy class and politicians, who are often the same, do not care for the poor or their schools.
“I don’t have any more faith,” he said. “I don’t even believe I’ll become a bus conductor.”
Pakistani officials defended their performance, saying that hiring engineers and architects to ensure that schools would be safe from earthquakes was a time-consuming process that was delayed two months by the floods.
They also blamed foreign governments who, they said, failed to follow through on pledges made when several million people were displaced from Swat by the military’s campaign to oust the Taliban in 2009.
“The focus has shifted,” said Shakeel Qadir, the director general of the Provincial Relief, Rehabilitation and Settlement Authority, a government agency set up last year to “speed and ease” the rehabilitation of areas swept by fighting.
“The issue of postmilitancy reconstruction — not only schools, but enterprise, infrastructure — somehow the whole international community has forgotten the issue, which we feel is perhaps, if not more important, than as important as floods,” he said.
Foreign government officials say they are reluctant to give money for fear it will be siphoned off by politicians. The provincial government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where Swat is located, was listed as the most corrupt provincial administration in the country by the global advocacy group Transparency International.
“Donors need clarity,” said one foreign official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue. “It’s unfortunate, but that’s where we are.”
So far the United States is the only foreign government to contribute to the school cause. It gave $5 million in April and planned to release an additional $15 million if it was satisfied with the transparency of how its initial donation was used, and with the progress made.
Officials said that the pledges would build 108 schools over roughly two years, but added that they were still $1 billion short of what was needed to restore the region’s infrastructure.
The United States was so concerned about corruption that it set up an elaborate system that tracks the funds, according to American and Pakistan officials.
Mr. Qadir, the rehabilitation agency director, said the Pakistani government had short-circuited many of those procedures to speed up reconstruction. However, he said, the United States’ insistence on financial safeguards has undoubtedly delayed progress.
“Is making compromises on financial controls a smart thing?” he said. “Is winning or losing the hearts and minds of the people a smart thing? You cannot have the cake and eat it, too.”
Another official from the relief authority in Mingora, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said international donors were wise to take the precautions. Despite the safeguards, he said, contracts for 68 schools were steered to a handful of construction companies with direct ties to politicians.
A top education official in Mingora confirmed that local politicians spent at least three months haggling over school contracts. He charged that they colluded to raise the bids and then split the profits.
“It’s an open secret,” said Fazle Maula Zahid, the coordinator of the Global Peace Council, an independent watchdog group based in Mingora, Swat’s main city. “These people, for their petty commissions, have destroyed our future, have destroyed our youth.”
Mr. Qadir said everything was aboveboard. “Politicians might like to get these contracts, but they have to follow the process, and that’s what they did, even if they have companies,” he said.
Highlighting the gap between government officials and the reality on the ground, Mr. Qadir said he recently received a field report indicating that students were no longer studying in tents. This month, however, four officials in Swat confirmed that tens of thousands of students remained in tents.
The government has yet even to verify the number of schools damaged over all, according to the relief authority. It has allocated $3.5 million for reconstruction, but that helped to repair dozens of damaged schools, which were cheaper and easier to fix than those completely destroyed.
Several hundred other schools were fixed by the army, which is concerned about its military gains going to waste. “Schools are a snapshot of the larger picture,” said Maj. Tahir Bashir, an army officer who until recently was based in Mingora.
“Time and again we discuss this with the provincial government,” he said. “It’s a lengthy procedure for them, and they’re not so capable.”
The government’s record contrasts with that of Pakistanis who have taken matters into their own hands.
A nonprofit organization called Sarhad Rural Support Program raised $400,000 in donations from wealthy Pakistanis, and rebuilt seven prefabricated schools in six weeks. It did so by putting money in the hands of community leaders, not government officials, and by recruiting local volunteers.
But even elite schools can do only so much in the absence of an energetic response by the government.
Ismail Khan, the principal at Sangota Public School and Excelsior College, a renowned semi-private school, said he tapped his endowment to rent a defunct hotel to hold classes. Teachers worked for free at one point.
Still, the hotel can accommodate only half of his 1,300 students. The school is running a $3,500 deficit each month. “Day by day, our problems are increasing,” Mr. Khan said. “It is destined to be doomed.”
* The Chinese-built railway, only to be used for five days a year now, will only operate at 35 percent of its full final capacity in the first phase.
ARAFAT, Saudi Arabia (AFP) – The Mashair Railway, also known as Mecca Metro, rolls out on Sunday to serve pilgrims beginning the annual hajj rituals near the Muslim holy city, bringing a new solution to crowding.
The dual-track light railway, with its initial number of nine stations, connects the three holy sites of Mina, Muzdalifah and Mount Arafat -- areas that see massive congestion during the five-day pilgrimage.
It will replace 4,000 buses previously used.
The first official trip will set off from Mina at 8:00 pm (1700 GMT), as pilgrims gather there, outside Mecca on the Tarwiah Day to prepare for the peak day of Arafat, when some 2.5 million are expected to gather on Mount Arafat and its surrounding plain.
The Chinese-built railway, only to be used for five days a year now, will only operate at 35 percent of its full final capacity in the first phase.
It will be open only to Saudi and Gulf pilgrims, forecast at some 130,000 Saudis, 10,000 Kuwaitis and 10,000 Bahrainis, said Saeed al-Qurashi, head of the Hajj and Umra Committee at the Mecca Chamber of Commerce.
The number is modest in comparison with the total number of pilgrims, but other nationalities will be able to use the train in the second phase.
While all pilgrims begin the journey in Mecca, the train initially will run only from Mina, to the east, and on to Muzdalifah and Mount Arafat further east.
All pilgrims leave Mina for Arafat by the 9th of the Dhul Hijja month of the Muslim lunar calendar, which is Monday this year.
Later Monday they all descend by train back to Muzdalifah, halfway between Arafat and Mina, and Tuesday they all head back to Mina, where they stay up to three nights.
The railway will eventually stretch the extra few kilometres to Mecca, home of the Muslim holiest shrine.
At Arafat 1 station, the light-green train pulled in during one of the trial runs conducted to test its readiness. Chinese workers were seen still working to fix a ventilation system on the 10-metre- (33 feet) wide marble platform.
"The platform has a capacity to accommodate 3,000 passengers at a time," said Yasser al-Sibaei, a Saudi supervisor at the station.
He said the plan is to get 3,000 passengers into the train, and then bring the same number onto the platform for the next journey.
Platforms are protected by glass barriers whose doors open simultaneously with the train doors to ensure the security of waiting passengers.
The elevated stations also have wide ramps for pilgrims to flow out smoothly, backed by lifts that can carry up to 50 persons at a time.
Most of the station agents appear to be Egyptian and Saudis. Egyptians with experience in running the metro of Cairo were recruited to operate the control rooms.
"It is an honour to serve the pilgrims and represent our country," said Saber Bernawi, a Saudi agent said.
Mansur al-Blushi, a Meccan who is at university in South Africa said he took up the seasonal work to make some pocket money.
"I study abroad. It is a chance to come to see my family and make some pocket money," he told AFP. Station agents are paid 5,000 riyals (1,333 dollars/970 euros) for the two-week contract.
British Serco service firm has been contracted to provide operations and maintenance consultancy, in cooperation with China Railway Construction Corp (CRCC).
The 1.8-billion-dollar project is the first of two rail links aimed at easing pilgrim traffic. The much larger Haramain High Speed Rail is set to stretch 444 kilometres (275 miles) between Mecca and Medina, the second Muslim holy site.
Local Al-Rajhi construction group together with France's Alstom and China Railway Engineering won the first-phase of the 6.8-billion-riyal (1.8-billion-dollar) contract for civil works.
The train which will travel through the Red Sea city of Jeddah is planned to run at a high speed reaching 360 kilometres (225 miles) per hour and ease traffic of pilgrims between the two sites.
@ Yahoo news
@ Yahoo news
