Who to blame for Pakistan’s aid crisis: ISI or donors?

Foreign aid is all but sufficient in Pakistan where millions of people are surrounded by a severe humanitarian crisis. The post-flood environment in the worst affected provinces of Khyber-Pukhunkhwa and Punjab is alarmingly bleak as diseases, starvation and desperation join forces to bring about a major human catastrophe.

Politically the country is torn apart among corrupt and inefficient politicians who seem to be seeking personal interests from the crisis than lending hands to help their desperate people. There are conflicting calls coming from Pakistan’s political establishments regarding foreign assistance. Some rejects foreign aid categorically while others plead for billions.

International donor response to funding appeals has been criticized as weak and mean. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been demanded by the international aid community to fight highly contiguous diseases, feed the hungry, provide drinking water and assist people to regain a somewhat normal life.

However, it seems time has gone for Pakistan to receive immediate blank cheques from the West as it did in the past. People in most donor countries rightly say why aid to a country which exports religious terrorism? Will not the aid be siphoned off by the ISI (Pakistan’s notorious intelligence agency) to bankroll its Taliban protégés and sponsor more terrorist operations?

These are critical questions. Pakistan cannot rely on foreign generosity when its rogue state institutions only send suicide attackers, bombs and hatred to the world.

Will the unfolding flood crisis awaken Pakistanis and lead to radical political and institutional reforms?

The backlash is clear: ISI’s terrorism and Talibanization has weakened international sympathy with the Pakistani people. As ISI agents perpetuate violence abroad they bring home global condemnation.

The ISI, therefore, deserves a strong domestic condemnation for denying foreign aid to needy Pakistanis and turning Pakistan into a notorious terrorism hub.

Complaint about German Consular services in Kabul

(I emailed this to the German Embassy last week, but, unsurprisingly, have not received a response yet)


Dear Sir/ Madam:

I am writing to you to complain about the way German consular services are executed in Kabul, particularly for Afghan nationals.

Submission of a visa application at the German Consulate requires undergoing a highly disorganized, stringent and to some extent inhumane procedures.

Ironically, the Consulate does not arrange appointments to serve its clients.

This creates a situation in which applicants make long queues in front of the Consulate as early as 6:00am and linger until 12:00 when guards simply instruct them to “go” and “come tomorrow” for the same chaotic exercise. In the hot weather outside the Consulate no basic facilities such as benches, water, toilets etc are available for the languishing applicants. This is unfair, sir!

I spent three days in order to be able to submit my application to a counter where I was treated unprofessionally and indecently. Despite I had provided all the required documents (invitation letter from a German institute, health insurance etc) I was told to provide these very documents and comeback another day!

When I asked a German employee of the Consulate on 26 July to behave with me humanly and respectfully, he retorted that he was not there to solve my problems. The gentleman further told me that the chaotic and long queues are “problematic to everyone” but he nevertheless insisted the Consulate “would not arrange appoints” to solve the problems.

Both the guards and employees of the Consulate treated me roughly, indecently and without appropriate respect. I think this happens to every other applicant. The people who legitimately apply to German visas are not illegal migrants or asylum seekers and they should not be treated as such.

I have never visited Germany but I trust Germans are great and civilized people. Respect to other people, I believe, is at the heart of German culture which has made Germany a highly respected country in the world.

I hope you will seriously consider this complain and urgently reform and improve German Consular services in Kabul.

As an applicant and an Afghan citizen, I would be happy to provide further information if you will need.

Thank you in anticipation for your understanding.