Pakistan: A “Failed State”?

Nuclear-armed Pakistan has been ranked among the top ten ‘failed states’ in the world, ahead of Afghanistan and a host of crisis-ridden African countries, in a new world survey released on Tuesday, says the Times of India. While a similar report in the BBC says “Pakistan ‘is a top failed state’.”

Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has confessed to transferring nuclear technology to Iran and Libya, is regarded as a national hero for helping Pakistan become a nuclear state. In March 2001 he was promoted to the inner circle of the country’s military leadership as special science and technology adviser to President Pervez Musharraf.

He was sacked from the position unceremoniously in January 2004 during the investigation. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has pardoned the disgraced founder of the country’s nuclear programme. However, there are wild speculations as to why Abdul Qadeer Khan has been treated with velvet gloves, and the USA conveniently overlooking the serious charges against him.

Foreign Policy magazine’s second annual index of failed states paints a grim picture of India’s neighborhood. Four other South Asian countries, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, are ranked 18th, 19th, 20th and 25th respectively. All of them are featured in the critical red zone of states most vulnerable to failure.

According to the index, a failing state is one in which the government does not have effective control of its territory, is not perceived as legitimate by a significant portion of its population, and does not provide domestic security or basic public services to its citizens.

The survey uses 12 indicators to measure failure, including criminalisation or delegitimisation of the state, security apparatus as “state within a state,” rise of factionalised elites, intervention of other states or external actors, legacy of vengeance-seeking group grievance, chronic and sustained human flight, and uneven economic development.

Pakistan scores heavily in all categories to chalk up a scary total of 103.1 out of 120, while other failing South Asian states are all score in the mid-90s.

By contrast, 93th ranked India is rated the most stable country in the neighbourhood with a score of 70.4, well ahead of even China, which is ranked 57th with 82.5.

The study debunks the notion that China’s massive economic growth is making the country more stable. China lost ground from last year when it was ranked 75th, just ahead of India at 76, mainly on account of increasing inequity and corruption.

Greater social mobility and increased decentralisation appears to have served India better and pulled it ahead of China in the stability sweepstakes.

But the most startling slide, and a worrisome development for India, is nuclear-armed Pakistan’s precipitous slide from 34th place last year to 9th place this year. Remarkably, Liberia, Burundi and Ethiopia are rated more stable than nuclear Pakistan.

The survey said Pakistan’s inability to police its tribal areas, where there is now an ongoing civil war, it’s simmering ethnic tensions, and the devastating earthquake last year, has led to its sharp decline.

The government of Pakistan has rubbished a survey which ranked it in the world’s top 10 “failed states”, says BBC.

Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani said the report was the “joke of the year” and factually incorrect.

The study – compiled by the US Foreign Policy magazine and the US-based Fund for Peace think-tank – showed Pakistan moving from 34th to ninth in the table.

FAILED STATES 2006 – TOP 10
1. Sudan (3)*
2. DR Congo (2)*
3. Ivory Coast (1)*
4. Iraq (4)*
5. Zimbabwe (15)*
6. Chad (7)*
(Tie) Somalia(5)*
8. Haiti (10)*
9. Pakistan (34)*
10 Afghanistan (11)*
(*Position in 2005 report)