WITH OVER three million still desperately needing shelter in the remote areas and hilly towns devastated by the terrible earthquake on 8th October, the Met. Office has forecast rain and hailstorm starting early this week. This will add to their miseries in the context of authorities failing to rush tents and other relief goods to the areas still inaccessible. The U.N. Relief Coordinator in Pakistan, Jan Vandemoortele, told newsmen in Islamabad on Saturday that time was running out for the millions. The relief agencies desperately needed at least two hundred thousands of more tents. Hundreds of additional helicopters, medicines, sleeping bags and food items were also badly required. He emphasized that these could be bought but money can not buy time. He was disappointed with the poor and slow response of the international donors to the monumental tragedy which has claimed, as per unofficial estimates, close to 100,000 lives. The number of critically injured exceeds this figure. Hunger, cold and lack of medical attention will claim many more lives. In the sea of widespread devastation, fears of second wave of deaths are increasing.
The countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia are going all out to mitigate human sufferings in the quake -hit areas. The other foreign donors such as the U.S., Britain, Germany and the World Bank have announced additional assistance. But the havoc wrought by the earth tremors of 7.6 Richter Scale intensity has not been fully grasped by the world community. The U.N. Relief Coordinator has lamented that against their estimated requirement of U.S. $312 million for immediate relief, the donors have contributed just U.S. $ 90 million. He is of the view that the world has not appreciated as to what has happened. Meanwhile, a U.N sponsored conference of rich donors is being convened in Geneva on 26th October. Hopefully, more donations will be announced but as the winter is set to commence, the prospects of further colossal loss of life in the quake-affected areas are frightening. The people of Pakistan must be saluted for their generous help to the affectees. Much more sacrifices are required in the coming months and years. The local industry is already making frantic efforts to manufacture more tents. However, without outside help the miseries of the survivors will continue to multiply. NATO `s offer of assistance has been accepted by Pakistan and modalities are to be worked out for the involvement of NATO troops and experts in the relief and rehabilitation operations. If India agrees to allow cross border traffic at five points of Line of Control proposed by Pakistan, the Kashmiris on ether side could join hands in alleviating miseries of the survivors in both parts of the disputed state. As the Army Jawans continue to move forward in the hitherto inaccessible areas, enormity of the havoc caused by the killer earthquake is becoming clearer. The death figures are climbing up fast. However, thousands of bodies still lie buried under collapsed structures. For survivors every passing minute is crucial.

Terrorizing justice

IT says a lot about Saddam Hussein’s record that even while he is on trial for the first of a series of terrible crimes, virtually everyone believes that he is guilty. The whole point of the judicial process is to show just how and why he was guilty while allowing him the opportunity to disprove the allegations, if he can. This is justice, a concept which is probably, even now, alien to the former dictator as we see him protesting and blustering before the court. It is only through the working of justice that the rule of law in the new Iraq can be established and a stable future ensured. This is why the murder of Saadoun Janabi, a lawyer for one of Saddam’s fellow defendants, is so disturbing. It is a clear attempt to pervert the course of justice by terrorizing other court officers as well as witnesses before this trial even gets properly under way. It appears that while prosecutors and judges, some of whom have chosen to remain anonymous, are under heavy guard, there was no protection for defence lawyers nor, it is alleged, for defence witnesses.
If, as was assumed initially, Janabi’s killers were acting out of revenge and hatred for Saddam’s regime, the crime was both stupid and counterproductive. Using the same brutal methods on Saddam and his people as they employed on unfortunate Iraqis during their vicious reign is no answer at all. It impugns the justice of the trial and turns the victimizers into victims. It also allows Saddam and his cohorts to protest that they cannot expect to receive a fair trial and also characterize the proceedings as a kangaroo court, in which defence teams are murdered and intimidated. What the eyewitnesses had to say about the kidnapping lends weight to the charges. The heavily armed men who burst into Janabi’s office and dragged him into a car were in suits and ties and said that they were from the Interior Ministry. In the present-day Iraq, murder comes easy not only to Saddam’s henchmen, but also to those who hate him - and many of them are in the government.
There is another, more sinister, possibility also. Could Janabi’s killers have been Sunni insurgents or their Al-Qaeda allies? That would serve their goals. They can use the murder of a member of the defence team to prove to the Sunnis that they cannot expect justice from the present system. In the final analysis, it does not matter who was responsible for this crime. What is of importance is that the authorities leave no stone unturned in their search for the criminals. The slaying of Janabi is not simply one more death in the miserable litany of violence since the US-led invasion. It is one of the most significant and outrageous among many. This is because it represents an attack upon everything for which the new Iraq stands. If Janabi’s killers go undetected and unpunished, it will demonstrate that a future pluralist Iraq in which justice and the rule of law are paramount, is in jeopardy. All Iraqis must come together to run these murderers down, whoever they are and whatever their perverse motives. Janabi’s murder was an attack on all their futures.

—Arab News