THE US has made a new bid to improve its uneasy war partnership with Pakistan by offering a $2bn (£1.27bn) arms package but warned it will not tolerate human rights abuses.
The five-year assistance plan satisfies a key request of Pakistan’s influential military, which assists the US military in Afghanistan and was initially uneasy about a US shift to civilian assistance.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday (October 22)) that the US administration would ask Congress to approve two billion dollars in military aid from 2012 to 2016, replacing an earlier five-year package that expired.
“The United States has no stronger partner when it comes to counterterrorism efforts against the extremists who threaten us both than Pakistan,” Clinton said at three-day talks between the two nations.
But the US also said that, complying with US law, it has decided to bar assistance to units accused of abuses. A video surfaced this month that appears to show Pakistani troops summarily executing six men.
“We take all allegations of human rights abuses seriously, and we discuss them with the government of Pakistan,” Clinton said. US officials declined to list the names of units to be blacklisted, but said there were several.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi promised that Pakistan was investigating the video but was not yet sure of its authenticity.
“I can assure you that there will be zero tolerance against human rights violations,” Qureshi said.
The military package would be in addition to $7.5bn (£4.78bn) Congress committed over five years in civilian aid, including building schools and roads, and millions of dollars more in relief for Pakistan’s floods.
The latest military package does not include so-called Coalition Support Funds, in which the US financially compensates Pakistan for military actions.
A US government report in June 2008 estimated that the US at that point had given nearly $11bn (£7.01bn) in total aid to Pakistan since the September 11, 2001 attacks, mostly to the military.
