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Baroness Nicholson leads debate on the political situation in Pakistan

Baroness Emma Nicholson MEP
7 October 2008

Yesterday Baroness Nicholson MEP quizzed the UK government on their response to the political situation in Pakistan.   The debate comes after the tragic attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on September 20th and as the political and humanitarian situation in Pakistan deteriorates.

In response, Lord Malloch-Brown, Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, promised to work with the international community to help Pakistan build a strong, accountable, legitimate Government.

Speaking in the debate, Baroness Nicholson said:

“I recently returned from meetings in Lahore, Islamabad and along the line of control in Azad Jammu-Kashmir and the message from the people I met was clear: the election in February this year was fatally flawed.  It was neither free, fair nor democratic and the situation has drastically worsened for the people since the ruling coalition has fallen apart.

“20,000 Pakistanis recently fled to Afghanistan for shelter and protection, leaving 300,000 internally displaced persons on the border between the two countries. Twenty per cent of the state budget is spent on the military and only two per cent on education. Of the $2 billion given by the United States annually for the war against terror, ninety per cent goes to the military and almost nothing on social education, health or developmental projects, or on enhancement of the fragmentary fundamental freedoms.

“I believe that the country is currently in a complete political vacuum comparable in its sense of drift, instability and fragmentation to the break-up of East Pakistan and the formation of Bangladesh. One can feel the same loss of identity as a nation, the lack of implementation of the law, the barriers rising to democratic solutions and the fundamental freedoms and rights of the people being progressively ignored.

Lord Malloch-Brown replied on behalf of the government and agreed on the severity of the situation, saying that:

“There is no more alarming situation than the prospect of Pakistan descending and deteriorating into the status of a failed state.”

He recognised that Pakistan needs the support of the international community to build a kind of strong, accountable, legitimate Government and told the House about a broader Friends of Pakistan group that was launched in New York on September 26th.