terrorism doesn't pay (3)

[Mark Jones <mark.jones@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

US to reward Pakistan with billions in aid

Government may receive package to clear £25bn debts

Special report: Pakistan
Special report: terrorism in the US

Rory McCarthy in Islamabad
Thursday September 20, 2001
The Guardian

American officials are drawing up plans for a major economic aid package to
reward Pakistan for supporting a military operation against Osama bin Laden
and Afghanistan's Taliban regime.
Wendy Chamberlin, the new US ambassador to Islamabad, is due to meet the
biggest financial donors to Pakistan today to work out the details of an
economic assistance plan.
Washington will ask donors including Britain's department for international
development, the EU, the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development
Bank, the World Bank and the Japanese government to give Pakistan all the
support they can for a significant new package.
"You will find that we will stand by our friends who stand by us," Ms
Chamberlin said. "We are currently looking at any number of ways to be
responsive to Pakistan as they have been responsive to us."
In particular the donors will be asked to help ease Pakistan's suffocating
$37bn (£25bn) debt burden, aid sources said. Many of those debts are due
for repayment in the coming weeks and Washington now wants all countries
involved to quickly sign rescheduling agreements.
Ms Chamberlin will also ask donors to give a quick agreement for the
release of the final tranche of a $596m IMF standby loan which runs until
the end of this month. Washington now wants the IMF to sign a much larger,
long-term loan which has been under discussion for several months.
The loan would be worth several billion dollars at a very low rate of
interest.
General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military leader, was handed a further
incentive to continue his cooperation yesterday when the Japanese prime
minister, Junichiro Koizumi, said that Tokyo will provide emergency
financial aid to Pakistan and India as a reward for their cooperation with
the US. Japan halted economic assistance to the two countries in 1998 in
protest at their nuclear weapons tests.
"This is a new era and many new options are on the table," an American
official said last night. In recent months, teams from the IMF have
complained that the military regime has not done enough to improve revenue
collection - only 2% of Pakistan's population pay any tax - or to reform
corrupt institutions and loss-making nationalised industries.
Those complaints are now likely to be quietly forgotten.
The donors will also be told the list of demands Washington has sent to
Islamabad's military regime for assistance in the hunt for Bin Laden.
General Musharraf is facing growing protests from Islamic clerics who
believe that Bin Laden is being unfairly singled out and that Islamabad
should support the Taliban regime against the Americans.
There is no doubt Pakistan wants a reward from the US in return for risking
an Islamic backlash. Shaukat Aziz, Pakistan's finance minister and a former
Citibank executive, said: "As the relationship grows, I am sure economic
ties will grow, which could mean better market access, better treatment on
debt rescheduling and more money."
Shortly after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 the United States
gave a $3.2bn package in return for Pakistan's support in fighting the war
of resistance.
More followed but money dried up in the early 1990s as sanctions were
imposed in an effort to curb Islamabad's developing nuclear programme.
Action was taken again after the military coup two years ago.
In the weeks before the attacks, Washington was preparing to start lending
again with a small aid package worth around $3m.
Islamabad is now hoping the sanctions can be lifted. For the past decade
investment in development has been largely ignored, and one-third of the
country's 140m people live in poverty.
"This new aid could be the opportunity to breathe life into Pakistan's
ailing social sectors after a decade of neglect," one European donor said
last night.