HOLIDAY BRINGS LITTLE JOY TO PAKISTANI'S

Nov 4, 7:33 AM (ET)

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Quake survivors marked a normally joyous Muslim festival with somber prayers in debris-strewn fields and visits to the graves of victims Friday, as Pakistan's president deferred a key purchase of U.S. fighter jets to focus on reconstruction.
Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, visiting this city in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir shattered by the Oct. 8 quake, said the government wanted "to bring maximum relief and reconstruction efforts." Musharraf was criticized earlier this week after saying the quake would not affect his country's enormous defense spending.

The planes have become a symbol of Pakistan's improving relations with the United States after years in the political wilderness. Washington blocked the sale in the 1990s as punishment for Pakistan's then-illicit nuclear program, but reversed its position after intense lobbying by Musharraf and approved the sale in March.

During his tour of the area, Musharraf visted a U.S. Mobile Army Surgical Hospital set up in Muzaffarabad to treat quake victims and praised the work of the American doctors and nurses there.

"This will go a long way to create the right kind of impression about American concerns for the people, for us," he said.

Earlier, the faithful gathered in a field surrounded by smashed concrete as the helicopters of aid workers buzzed overhead in efforts to deliver much-needed aid ahead of the Himalayan region's fierce winter.

"God is testing us, testing our patience, testing our faith," Qazi Hussain Ahmed, head of Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's largest religious political party, told a crowd of more than 1,000 men. "One of the main reasons for the earthquake was our wrongdoing."

The quake killed about 80,000 people and left more than 3 million people homeless, most in the disputed Kashmir region.

For most of Pakistan, Friday was the start of the Eid al-Fitr celebration marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, but Musharraf asked Pakistanis to tone down festivities out of respect for quake victims.

(Zubair Abbasi, 24, an economics student before his university in Muzaffarabad was destroyed, said he would spend the day visiting orphans, instead of the normal Eid routine of feasting and distributing gifts among family and friends.

"Usually we celebrate very happily but this time we are very sad. Houses have collapsed and people are dead," he said.

He did not believe the quake was punishment, saying, "These were good people, very virtuous. We don't know why this was sent from God."

Some Muzaraffabad residents visited the graves of loved ones. On a bluff above the Neelem River, members of the Kiani family laid pink flower petals and tinsel on the graves of 56 relatives killed in the quake, from children as young as 3 to grandparents.

"Eid was always a special day, but we don't feel the spirit of Eid at all this year," said Jamil Kiani, 26.

Three weeks after the quake, thousands of mountain villagers trek for days to the region's towns and cities looking for shelter or to collect tents, blankets and other relief supplies before returning home.

"All the houses were destroyed and we haven't anything to celebrate with or give to the kids," Khabir, a 21-year-old herdsman and farmer, said as he rested by a riverside turn where Pakistan army engineers were clearing the road with bulldozers.

In New York, former President Clinton urged Pakistan and India to set aside their rivalry, saying this would help prompt a world weary of major natural disasters to donate money for the more than 3 million people left homeless by the quake.

The disaster has helped bring the nuclear-armed rivals closer, sparking an accord last weekend to partially open their heavily militarized border in Kashmir, called the Line of Control, to allow Pakistani quake victims to seek help at Indian aid camps.

Clinton said in New York that if people see "the Indians and the Pakistanis working together, crossing the Line of Control, treating each other as human beings ... the donor fatigue will wear down."

The United Nations says it needs $550 million in emergency aid for quake victims but donors have pledged only $131 million. By comparison, a total of $13.5 billion was pledged to victims of Asia's Dec. 26 tsunami.

Pakistani Finance Ministry official Ashfaq Hassan Khan said the world has pledged $1.93 billion in aid over the long term, but the country has said it needs $5 billion.

A British Cabinet minister criticized the world's response to the earthquake.

"Internationally, it is true the response hasn't frankly been good enough, and I don't understand it because nobody can be in any doubt whatsoever about the scale of the crisis," International Development Secretary Hilary Benn said Friday in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Musharraf also urged the world to be as generous with long-term help for quake victims as it was with Asia's tsunami last December and following Hurricane Katrina in August.