Pakistan Flooding News

OTTAWA — Fears the Taliban and other extremist groups will exploit gaps in international and domestic aid efforts in Pakistan to gain a stronger foothold in the flood-ravaged country are unfounded, says the country's high commissioner to Canada.

Akbar Zeb said current and future international aid commitments, plus a generous outpouring of help from "moderate" Islamic groups within Pakistan will not leave a void for extremist organizations to exploit.

"I'm not really concerned the Taliban will be filling a vacuum," Zed said Monday in an interview with Postmedia News.

"What people need to do is distinguish really between the so-called moderate forces and the really hardliners. The Taliban constitute a very minute portion of Pakistan."

He also said the government of Pakistan is "fully focused and able to reach out to its own people."

Members of the 300,000-strong Pakistani diaspora in Canada said they worry the generosity of the Conservative government and individual Canadians could be affected by the political situation in Pakistan, including questions about the government's will to curb the presence and influence of the Taliban along the border with Afghanistan.

They said they are particularly disappointed the federal government, which has announced $33 million in emergency assistance to Pakistan, has not offered to match dollars donated by individual Canadians — something it quickly offered to do earlier this year when Haiti was hit with a horrific earthquake.

Farrukh Alam, president of the Canada Pakistan Association, says he's disheartened by talk about how the Taliban might play into the crisis, and why people should think twice about donating because the money could be siphoned off by the Taliban and distributed in its own name.

"Forget the Taliban. Forget the political calculations," Alam said in an interview from Vancouver. "When people are in trouble you go help."

Zeb described Canada's commitment to provide $33 million in emergency aid as "very, very generous," and said he expects the Conservative government will add to the pot if necessary.

"The message we get is that they will continue to assess our needs," Zeb said, noting discussions are ongoing between the two governments on if and when to deploy Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART).

The government reiterated Monday it has no plans to establish a matching fund "at this time" to respond to the disaster, which has left an estimated 20 million people homeless and possibly thousands dead.

The Canadian International Development Agency, the lead organization on the file, says the current response is "appropriate," and that a "matching fund" is only one of many tools in Canada's response kit.

Farooq Chaudhry, president of the Pakistani Canadian Cultural Society, said he hasn't given up hope the government will agree eventually to match private donations.

Chaudhry said the slower response on Pakistan is understandable. The needs in Haiti were urgent and captured in heartbreaking detail by cameras, he said.

By contrast, the flooding of huge swaths of land in far-flung Pakistan is a slower-moving tragedy that will have devastating consequences for years and decades, but which might not have had the same initial impact on donors.