I was wondering aloud a few weeks ago about what to call the occasional posts at that point named "News You Won't Be Seeing On The CBC." CBCWatch, writing to request permission (granted) to repost some of these, suggested "CB No See" or "CBC Unseen," both of which I like. So I shall alternate between them, maybe adding others as I go along.
Following the earthquake that struck Pakistan and parts of India Oct. 8 last year, Canada did what it could, dispatching its Disaster And Relief Team (DART) to the area within a matter of days. They helped many people in very difficult circumstances (with the CBC providing glowing reports documenting the effort). But DART wrapped up its mission Dec. 4, and the CBC packed up its cameras too.
Guess who's still there?
It was Pakistan's good fortune in those critical days that Adm. LeFever could call in heavy-lift helicopters, particularly the tandem-rotor Chinook, from bases in nearby Afghanistan. Every road into the Frontier Province and the neighboring Azad Kashmir region had been rendered impassable by huge landslides. Every hospital in the region except one had been destroyed. The Pakistan government, which lost nearly its entire civil administration in the region as well as hundreds of soldiers, lacked the airlift capacity to bring adequate relief north and the critically injured south. The Chinooks were among the few helicopters able to reach, supply and evacuate places that, even under normal conditions, are some of the most inaccessible on earth.Since then, U.S. helicopters have flown 2,500 sorties, carried 16,000 passengers and delivered nearly 6,000 tons of aid. Just as importantly, the Chinook has become America's new emblem in Pakistan, a byword for salvation in an area where until recently the U.S. was widely and fanatically detested. Toy Chinooks (made in China, of course) are suddenly popular with Pakistani children. A Kashmiri imam who denounced the U.S. in a recent sermon was booed and heckled by worshippers. "Pakistan is not a nation of ingrates," a local businessman told me over dinner the other night. "We know where the help is coming from."