National security tensions hamper Pakistan's response to Hunza landslide dam crisis

The remote valley facing a potential humanitarian crisis sits in an area that has been the focus of geostrategic competition for centuries.

Labourers work on the concrete-bridge of a tunnel on the Karakorum Highway, linking Pakistan with China. A 22km stretch of the sole road between the countries was destroyed in the landslide.

GILGIT // National security policy has been a major, but largely ignored, factor in the Pakistani government's handling of an unfolding humanitarian crisis in the idyllic northern valley of Hunza-Nagar. Thousands of residents there are watching the clock, hoping a massive landslide dam will survive the imminent stress of being filled by melting glacial waters. The government had predicted the critical point would occur yesterday, but officials now say it could happen any time within the next week.

A landslide on January 4 that killed 19 residents of Ata-abad village formed the dam, which has since submerged five communities and marooned about 30,000 people. Massive flooding, polo and geostrategic competition have been part of life for centuries in the Karakorum Mountains, the seismic consequence of the collision of the Asian and Indian geological plates some 55 million years ago. It was a focal point of the 19th century "Great Game" between the British and Russian empires. As a direct consequence, it became part of the wider territorial dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, a flash-point since independence from British rule in 1947.

Karim Khan, a former special forces commando and intelligence operative turned politician, recalled that two Soviet military helicopters, operating out of modern-day Tajikistan, to the north-west, landed in northern Hunza-Nagar Valley in 1970. "Back then, we had just two small check-posts up there, each manned by two paramilitary soldiers with Lee Enfield rifles. They watched the Soviets land, walk around for a few hours - casually, almost as if they were tourists - and leave without incident," Mr Khan said.

The other strategic player in the region is China, which has intermittently ruled parts of Gilgit-Baltistan since the 8th century. It became Pakistan's strategic ally after the 1962 Sino-Indian war, and after Islamabad ceded its territory in northern Hunza-Nagar and areas of neighbouring Kashmir to the east. The alliance was cemented by the construction of the 1,300km Karakorum Highway, completed in 1978, the sole road link between Gilgit-Baltistan, the Pakistani hinterland, and China, a 22km stretch of which has been destroyed by the landslide dam.

The other major factor in current national security concerns about Gilgit-Baltistan is the presence of the US military in adjacent provinces of Afghanistan to the west and north. Pakistan and the US are diplomatic allies, but distrust and conflicting political interests mar relations. Pakistan's powerful military, which has ruled the country for more than half its 62-year history, continues to have the decisive say in foreign and defence policy. It would be very reluctant to accept any foreign military presence in Gilgit-Baltistan, even a temporary one in the event of a natural disaster - a bitter pill it was forced to swallow in October 2005 after a massive earthquake struck Kashmir.

There is little doubt, therefore, about who has been calling the shots in Hunza-Nagar since January 4. The key government agencies have been the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), chaired by a retired general, and the Frontier Works Organisation, effectively an extension of the army's Corps of Engineers. On the basis of their reports, the federal government chose, in March, to set aside recommendations by two international landslide experts on how to prepare for the arising emergency, and took the questionable decision of reassigning the task to Nespak, a state engineering consultancy not known for comparable specialist expertise.

That insular approach has already proven counterproductive to the broader Pakistani national security imperative, as well as the wellbeing of more than 40,000 Hunza-Nagar residents. Rather than giving rise to urgency about the physical threat to the population and key strategic infrastructure, the risk was downplayed. Federal ministers and civil administrators lazily assumed the situation was under control and, unwisely, parroted the line: "There is no danger of the dam collapsing."

The government did not fully come to terms with the consequences of such insularity until Friday, when survivors of the landslide in Hunza heckled the visiting prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani. By then, a belated disaster management response had already been undermined by the inherent ineptitude and petty corruption of the civil service. In turn, that led to a sense of abandonment among residents of Hunza-Nagar, and a crisis of confidence in the government.

Many residents have since voted with their feet. Zafar Waqar Taj, the administrator for Hunza-Nagar, told journalists on Monday that 70 per cent of evacuees had chosen to take refuge with relatives living outside the area threatened with flooding, rather than move into government relief camps. Enter Nawaz Sharif, the national opposition leader, who flew into Gilgit-Baltistan on a military plane on Monday, apparently, on a damage-limitation exercise. Returning to the scene of the prime minister's embarrassment, his focus was on bridging the emerging deficit of trust between the resident population and the government.

"The provision of relief is no favour to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan," Mr Sharif said. @Email:[e-mail]