US Senate panel cuts aid to Pakistan

WASHINGTON: Annoyed by the conviction of a Pakistani doctor who helped US to find Osama bin Laden, Senate panel has voted unanimously to cut aid to Islamabad by USD 33 million.

The unanimous vote on Thursday by the Senate Appropriations committee on the amendment, moved by Senator Lindsey Graham, is reflective of the changing mode in the US especially the growing anger among US lawmakers towards Pakistan.

The US has insisted that there is no basis to imprison Dr Shakil Afridi on treason charges, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denouncing it as “unjust and unwarranted”.

“We regret both the fact that he was convicted and the severity of his sentence,” Clinton told a joint press conference with New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully.

“We are raising it (his case) and we will continue to do so because we think that his treatment is unjust and unwarranted,” she said today.

The latest decision by the key Senate panel represents about four per cent of the USD 800 million set aside for Pakistan for the year 2013. This includes USD 250 million in foreign military aid and another USD 50 million for Pakistan’s counterinsurgency efforts.

In fact, this amount of USD 800 million is far below the USD 2.3 billion the Obama administration is requesting for Pakistan. Another House committee had made similar recommendations early this week.

During the markup, Senator Patrick Leahy and Senator Graham called Pakistan a “schizophrenic” ally, which has suffered the worst losses at the hands of militants while at the same time harboring the Haqqani network and other groups.

“If this is cooperation, I would hate like heck to see opposition,” Leahy said.

The Appropriations Committee approved Graham’s amendment to cut the assistance by USD 33 million on a 30-0 vote.

Influential Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein pointed out that Pakistan has suffered at the hands of terrorists yet misconstrued what is treason in convicting Afridi. She also insisted that Afridi was not a spy.

“This conviction says to me that al-Qaida is viewed by the court to be Pakistan. I don’t know which side of the war Pakistan is on. This makes me seriously question our financial support to Pakistan,” Feinstein said.

The substantial reduction in House and Senate committees comes despite warning from the White House that such a move could be counter-productive in getting Pakistan?s cooperation in war against terrorism.

Dr Afridi was accused of running a CIA-sponsored fake vaccine programme in Abbottabad, where bin Laden was killed last year on May 2 in a covert US operation. His programme was aimed at obtaining DNA samples from any of bin Laden’s family members residing in the compound.

Afridi was awarded jail term under the tribal laws, known as Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR). The British-era FCR is still effective in Pakistan’s tribal regions.
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