The Aftershocks Of Pakistan's Quake

Over 1,000 survivors of last year's quake held a rally outside Parliament in the Pakistani capital Saturday to protest delays in releasing compensation to them for rebuilding homes.

Chanting slogans such as "Stop taking bribes!" "Stop cheating us!" and "Build our homes before snowfall," the protesters marched from the Parliament to the offices of the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority, which is responsible for releasing aid money to them for reconstruction.

The protest came a day before the first anniversary of the 7.6 magnitude quake that killed over 80,000 people in northern Pakistan and made another three million homeless.

Many survivors since then have been living in tent villages.

"I swear that I didn't get even a single penny," said Farooq Ahmed, 50, who had come from Muzafarabad, the capital of Pakistan's part of Kashmir, where the Oct. 8, 2005, quake killed thousands.

Shumila Bibi, 30, another woman protester, also accused the government of misusing aid funds.

"We are protesting against the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) because we have not received any financial assistance," she said, adding she was still living in a donated tent.

However, Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani on Saturday promised that "each and every survivor will get shelter."

"This is our commitment, and we will honor it," he told a gathering of survivors in Balakot, one of the cities in northwestern Pakistan that was ruined by the quake.

The president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has said that his government will ensure the provision of basic facilities to the people affected by the quake and he hopes that 80 percent of the reconstruction will be over in the coming three years.

Meanwhile, many of the 2,000 children who lost limbs, fingers or toes in the earthquake or its aftermath are still waiting for prosthetics, and funding is scarce. Private charities are the main source of donations.

Another charity that has offered prosthetic limbs for children is Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which the U.S. government says is a cover for Lashkhar-e-Tayyaba, an outlawed Islamic militant group fighting Indian forces in the India-controlled Kashmir.

The development has dismayed Indian officials who were hoping nature had done what their army could not: destroy safe houses, weapons caches and training camps used by Islamic militants fighting for control of Kashmir.

A year later, it has become clear the initial assessments that the disaster had dealt a potentially crippling blow to the 17-year insurgency were wildly optimistic.

In the intervening months, militants with loose ties to al Qaeda have carried out shootings and bombings across India, from Kashmiri villages to major cities.

Across the frontier in Pakistan's part of Kashmir, groups labeled as terrorist organizations by the United States and the United Nations have run extensive relief efforts, bolstering their popularity among Kashmiris.

But the militants have deep roots in Kashmir, an overwhelmingly Muslim land of towering peaks and deep valleys where they have been fighting since 1989 to win independence for India's two-thirds of the region or see it merged with Pakistan's portion.

In the immediate aftermath of the quake, the militants acted quickly to feed and clothe the destitute and dig the dead from the rubble so they could be hurriedly buried in keeping with Islamic law. Later, they helped rebuild Kashmir's communities, even advertising their work on billboards.

"We saw mujahedeen everywhere after the quake," said Zarina Bib, a 38-year-old in Muzaffrabad, the main city in Pakistan's part of the divided territory. "They are still running medical camps and providing free food to needy people."

The Islamic insurgency has killed more than 68,000 Kashmiris in the region split between Hindu-majority India and Muslim Pakistan. The nuclear-armed rivals' have also fought two wars over Kashmir since the subcontinent's partition following independence from Britain in 1947.

Despite an up-and-down peace effort during the past two years, New Delhi says Islamabad still arms and trains the militants. Pakistan insists it only provides moral and diplomatic support.

Nonetheless, Pakistani officials are not shy about the militants' role in the relief effort.

Maj. Gen. Abdul Malik, who supervised the Pakistani military's medical relief operations, praised militants for their "excellent work to help the quake survivors."

"We never had any problem due to their presence," he said, singling out for praise Jamaat al-Dawat, whose leader, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, also founded the anti-India militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.

India says Lashkar, which is closely linked to Jamaat, carried out three major bombings in the past year: the October 2005 New Delhi bombings that targeted crowded markets and killed 62 people; the March bombings in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi in which 20 died; and the July train bombings Mumbai that killed 207 people.

India's portion of Kashmir, meanwhile, has witnessed months of violence since the spring, when snows melt in the mountain passes, opening the terrain for the insurgents. Scores have been killed.

In Pakistan, meanwhile, "jihad and relief work are going side by side," said a Lashkar official, referring to the fight against India.

He added that hundreds of the group's members are still taking part in relief efforts, but spoke on condition of anonymity because Lashkar remains technically banned in Pakistan.