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Pakistan
International Organizations
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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