http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-02-23-pakistan_N.htm
Pakistan's slump creates security risks
Posted 3h 7m ago
By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY
FAISALABAD, Pakistan — The mob was hungry.
Police had stopped hundreds of jobless Pakistanis from marching on the offices of the Faisalabad electric company, which they blamed for daily power outages. So the protesters went after the Treats bakery instead.
They hurled rocks through the windows and stormed the place, beating anyone who tried to stop them, throwing the owner down a flight of stairs, looting the cash register and grabbing cookies, cakes and loaves of bread. "They put their anguish on us," store manager Muhammad Shafiq recalls. "Whatever food they found, they ate it."
A month later, some of the windows at Treats haven't been repaired. Customers have returned, but many employees bear physical scars from the assault. Worst of all, Shafiq fears poverty is rising so fast in this city of 2 million people that conditions are
ripe for another riot. "The unrest will continue," he predicts, "until the problems are solved."
The lingering tensions in Faisalabad highlight how, in the early days of the Obama administration, the global economic crisis is making combustible countries such as Pakistan even more of a security risk to the United States and its troops abroad. The fear here, and in other parts of the Muslim world, is that unrest over soaring unemployment and food shortages could cause unpopular governments to collapse, resulting in more support for militant organizations such as al-Qaeda or the Taliban.
"If the economy goes down, the militants benefit," says retired army lieutenant general Talat Masood, a prominent Pakistani political analyst. "If the economy was strong, many things would take care of themselves."{Seems like a ploy to get more money rather then doing something for economy}
Even before the economic mess took hold, Pakistan was one of President Obama's biggest foreign-policy headaches.
Despite receiving more than $11 billion in U.S. aid since the 9/11 terror attacks, its fragile government has been unable to stop Islamic extremists based on its soil from launching attacks in neighboring Afghanistan, where Obama announced plans last week to send an additional 17,000 U.S. troops to combat the growing Taliban insurgency. Pakistani militants also were responsible for November's assault on two hotels and other landmarks in Mumbai, India, which killed 170 people and raised the prospect of war between the two nuclear-armed rivals.
Now, as the financial crisis chokes off trade and the flow of money to all corners of the world,
"a lack of job opportunities may increase the incentives for many young Pakistani men to join militant groups," {Like till now they were coming from Mars}according to a recent report by the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank. The report also warned that support for beleaguered Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari "could quickly erode."
Obama has urged Pakistan to do more to eradicate "safe havens" for militants, and earlier this month he sent Richard Holbrooke, his new special envoy to the region, to Islamabad to press for action. Pakistani officials responded by asking for more military funding and urgent economic aid.:sAni_monkey:
Pakistan's economy is slowing dramatically — from g
rowth of 6% or more in recent years to just 0.6% in 2008 and a projected 2.4% in 2009, according to HSBC bank. And in a country with a youthful and rapidly growing population of 173 million, anything less than 3% growth amounts to a recession, Pakistani economist Mohsin Khan warns.
Meanwhile, the government is so strapped for cash that it has fallen behind on payments to power companies, leading to the electrical blackouts that sparked the riots in Faisalabad and have chilled economic activity even further.
The fallout from the blackouts was clear one recent day outside a factory in Faisalabad, where Muhammad Ashiq and some weary colleagues were waiting next to a pool of stagnant water, hoping the electricity would come back on.
Since the outages started eating into the plant's working hours, Ashiq's previous wages of 6,000 Pakistani rupees a month — about $75 — have been cut in half.
"It is terrible," Ashiq says. Half his reduced income goes to rent on his house, and the soaring cost of electricity takes up most of the rest.
As food prices also rise, Ashiq has been getting his groceries on credit, but shopkeepers have begun cutting off cash-poor workers and the unemployed. He doesn't blame them: "They are broke," he says with a shrug. "We are broke."
Poor feel squeeze
The situation was similar 230 miles to the north in Rawalpindi, twin city to the capital Islamabad. Machinist Muhammad Shafiq (no relation to the store manager in Faisalabad)
was sitting in the chilly darkness of his engine repair shop, waiting for the power to come back on. "We are doing nothing," said Shafiq, 62.
Such stories help explain why, in a survey conducted last fall for the International Republican Institute (IRI), a U.S.-funded pro-democracy group,
73% of 3,500 Pakistani adults said their personal finances had deteriorated over the previous year, and 59% expected things to get worse.
Asked to name the country's No. 1 problem, 58% picked inflation and 12% chose unemployment. Just 10% of those polled cited the recent wave of suicide bombings that has hit Pakistani cities as militant groups try to destabilize the government.
Pakistan's poor have been particularly squeezed.
Shoppers are paying 2½ times as much for wheat as they did in April 2007, according to the government.
Palm oil, which is instrumental for cooking here, has tripled in cost during that time.
The economic distress has hit hard in Faisalabad and the surrounding countryside. This is Pakistan's heartland and the center of its textile industry, which accounts for more than 60% of the country's exports. Workers in their traditional shalwar kameez— tunics worn over baggy pants — pour in from the countryside to take jobs weaving, sewing and dyeing fabrics.
When work is plentiful, they send the bulk of their earnings back to their families. These days, work is scarce and getting scarcer.
In the village of Fakharabad, unemployment is running at 80%, estimates Muhammad Anwar, a former factory manager who lost his job in December.
People there are not accustomed to poverty: Muhammad Mushtaq, 21, had earned $100 a month — a decent salary here — for the previous four years. He lost his job in early January, and now his family is getting by on homegrown wheat and on credit from Fakharabad's general store.
"We're starving to death," Mushtaq says. "How can I be happy?"
Anwar sees even more problems ahead: "Because of the abrupt, increasing and severe joblessness, problems could emerge," he says. "Young guys can turn to crime."
Anwar says that, because they follow a moderate form of Islam, Fakharabad villagers haven't been lured by Islamic militant groups. Even so, patience with the government in Islamabad is waning: "The entire economy is in crisis, and the government is sleeping," says Ejaz Ahmed, owner of a Faisalabad cotton-cycling plant.
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