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U.S.-Pakistan Tensions Grow Over Diplomat

10 February 2011 04:35 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. The U.S. is threatening to cancel a high-level meeting involving Pakistan in Washington to protest Pakistan’s continued detention of a U.S. diplomat who shot dead two armed men in Lahore in late January, APA reports quoting â€œThe Wall Street Journalâ€.
Separately, an American government assessment said a $7.5 billion, five-year civilian-aid program for Pakistan has failed to show it is achieving its goals since Congress approved the package in late 2009.
The Obama administration is hoping the aid program will help stabilize the fragile, strategically important country and boost America’s image. The program focuses on funding visible infrastructure like bridges, roads and power plants.
But that strategy has faced a number of obstacles, including an Islamist insurgency that has made it dangerous for aid personnel to operate in some parts of the country. The U.S. remains deeply unpopular, in part due to strikes by unmanned Central Intelligence Agency drones against Taliban militants on the border with Afghanistan that have also killed civilians.
Pakistan, Afghanistan and U.S. officials were set to meet this month in Washington to discuss the war in Afghanistan. But Pakistani officials said the U.S. had conveyed its decision to cancel the meeting if the detained American diplomat, named by Pakistan as Raymond Davis, wasn’t released.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad said Washington hadn’t yet officially decided when to hold the meeting.
Mr. Davis shot dead the two men after they approached his car armed with weapons. Police say the men had earlier robbed others in Lahore. A U.S. consular vehicle that came to aid Mr. Davis knocked over and killed a bystander. The driver of the second car escaped, but Mr. Davis was arrested.
The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad says Mr. Davis acted in self-defense and is covered by diplomatic immunity. But a Pakistani court last week remanded Mr. Davis in police custody and put his name on a list banning him from leaving the country.
Mr. Davis is to appear in court again Friday; he hasn’t been formally charged with any crime.
The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, met President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday to push for Mr. Davis’s release, the U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said.
Mr. Zardari has publicly said Pakistan’s justice system should be allowed to run its course. Protests calling for Mr. Davis to be tried locally have broken out in Lahore since late January.
The situation became more volatile over the weekend after the widow of one of the alleged gunmen killed in the incident committed suicide Sunday by taking insecticide.
Just before her death, while in the hospital, she told local television she feared Mr. Davis would be set free. Hundreds of people chanting anti-American slogans attended her funeral Sunday in Faisalabad.
Mr. Zardari must balance the demands of Pakistan’s streets with an increasingly irritated U.S.
Growing anti-American sentiment in the country is a cause of serious concern to the U.S., which needs Pakistan’s cooperation to fight Taliban militants that shelter on its soil.
The report on American aid to Pakistan, released jointly by the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Department of State and Department of Defense, found U.S. aid officials on the ground in Pakistan had failed to supply data to allow a systematic evaluation of whether the assistance was helping stabilize the nation.
The report found that USAID, the lead U.S. government agency for overseeing foreign civilian assistance, has been unable to recruit sufficient staff to oversee its Pakistan program.
The U.S. has moved to change the way it distributes aid, funneling more money through the Pakistan government and local organizations rather than international contractors.