When states fail, as they some times do in the third world, one common reason is that people there have lost faith in their rulers. That is what is happening in Pakistan too. Our people have been lied to, so much and so often, by rulers past and present that now even when their top government officials are truthfully telling them of a problem, they simply do not believe them. A recent example, which I am quoting without intent to malign anyone, is of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah. He had announced that the breach in Torri dyke in Sindh which had caused inundation of about one-third of the province, would be repaired within a week. Today, about six weeks after that statement, water is still gushing from that dyke full force and has now reached the Manchhar Lake. An irrigation expert Idrees Rajput has written in an article in a Sindhi daily that it could not be repaired even after four weeks because of 'technical reasons' (rather than administrative ones). But Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani had himself announced that "breach in Torri would be investigated". Many weeks after that statement, there is no progress on that 'investigation' either. The common people should be forgiven for not believing what our rulers tell them. -MOHAMMAD KHAN SIAL, Karachi, September 18.