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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
Pakistan joined the UN on September 30, 1947, and has
been an
active participant in the UN and its specialized agencies
and
other bodies, as well as in various specialized UN
conferences.
In 1993 Pakistan was elected to a two-year term on the UN
Security Council. In addition, Pakistani nationals have
contributed their skills within the UN itself. For
example, in
1987, Nafis Sadik, a Pakistani woman physician, became
executive
director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
with the
rank of undersecretary general. Pakistan has also been the
recipient of assistance from UN development organizations,
including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
and the
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in a variety of
fields
such as agriculture, water and sanitation, national
planning, and
human development. The UNDP, for example, allocated more
than
US$87 million for assistance to Pakistan for the 1992-96
program
period.
Pakistan's view of the UN has necessarily been
conditioned by
its own needs and experience. Although recognizing the
shortcomings and powerlessness of the UN in many
situations,
Pakistan has seen no alternative to the UN as a forum
where
weaker countries could appeal to the world's conscience
against
the actions of stronger powers. Consequently, Pakistan has
called
for solutions to international problems through UN
auspices, most
notably for resolution of the Kashmir issue. Pakistan also
played
a highly visible role in UN peacekeeping efforts,
contributing
more than 7,000 troops to the United Nations Operation in
Somalia
(UNOSOM)--the largest single national contingent to any
peacekeeping force in early 1994. Pakistan had troops
serving
with the United Nations Protection Force in Bosnia and
Herzegovina (UNPROFOR BH) and had participating observers
in a
number of other UN mission
(see Foreign Security Relationships
, ch. 5).
Pakistan's participation in other international
organizations, including SAARC and the ECO, reflect its
desire to
be an influential player in the geographic region of which
it is
a part. In addition, Pakistan has played a leading role in
the
OIC, and President Zia was instrumental in revitalizing
the OIC
as a forum for periodic meetings of the heads of Islamic
states.
Pakistan thus appears firmly committed to the utility of
broadbased international cooperation.
* * *
Political developments are examined in considerable
detail in
Lawrence Ziring's Pakistan: The Enigma of Political
Development. For studies of Islam in Pakistan, Leonard
Binder's Religion and Politics in Pakistan and
Hafeez
Malik's Moslem Nationalism in India and Pakistan
are
useful. For Pakistan's formative period, Richard Symonds's
The
Making of Pakistan, Khalid Bin Sayeed's Pakistan:
The
Formative Phase, and Wayne Ayres Wilcox's Pakistan:
The
Consolidation of a Nation are excellent.
Pakistan's first ten years or so are expertly covered
in
Keith Callard's Political Forces in Pakistan,
1947-1959
and G.W. Choudhury's Constitutional Development in
Pakistan. The Pakistani bureaucracy is described by
Ralph
Braibanti in Bureaucracy and Political Development,
edited
by Joseph LaPalombara.
The Pakistani army and its political role are described
in
Fazal Muqeem Khan's The Story of the Pakistan Army.
The
dismemberment of Pakistan is investigated in G.W.
Choudhury's
The Last Days of United Pakistan. Useful accounts
of
Pakistan's foreign policy are Latif Ahmed Sherwani's
Pakistan,
China, and America and S.M. Burke and Lawrence
Ziring's
Pakistan's Foreign Policy. An overview of politics
and
government in Pakistan from independence through 1990 is
provided
in Craig Baxter et al., Government and Politics in
South
Asia. An analysis of political developments in the
early
1990s is provided by Pakistan: 1992, edited by
Charles H.
Kennedy. (For further information and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of April 1994
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