Re: Consensus & The Dam
Musharraf and Punjab has fallen in the minority over Kalabagh, but who knows if this is enough to stop the Dam. It’s never mattered before to the rulers.
http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/30/top3.htm
KBD supporters fall in minority in Senate debate
By Raja Asghar
ISLAMABAD, Dec 29: Advocates of the proposed Kalabagh dam seemed isolated on Thursday on the second day of a Senate debate on the controversial project, which drew support from only a few ruling party back-benchers from Punjab and more criticism from opposition parties and even a government ally.
Even a preliminary report on water resources tabled by a parliamentary committee of only ruling coalition members was not of much comfort because it reported a consensus of the provincial chief ministers over the construction of the Bhasha dam in the Northern Areas rather than on Kalabagh, with only the Punjab chief minister seeking a simultaneous construction of both.
**While all the four opposition senators who took part in the debate blasted the project on both political and technical grounds, the most prominent speaker from as many of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, Senator S.M. Zafar, did not utter a word in support of the Kalabagh dam and suggested an immediate revival of the Council of Common Interests to settle the row.
No support for the dam has so far come from any of the ruling party members from the smaller provinces of Sindh, the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan, whose assemblies have already passed resolutions against the dam proposed to be built over the River Indus in the Kalabagh area in the Punjab province.
While a faction of the Pakistan People’s Party (Patriots), led by Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, is reported to have joined the anti-Kalabagh movement in the NWFP, a back-bencher of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Abida Said, declared that her party, which is a partner in the ruling coalition, would not support a project not acceptable to smaller provinces.**
Mr Zafar, a prominent jurist and former law minister, proposed giving a ‘constitutional mandate’ to the 1991 inter-provincial water apportionment accord by getting it approved by the CCI, saying it should settle the controversy over the construction of water reservoirs whereas a violation of the accord could be challenged before the Supreme Court.
Prof Khurshid Ahmed of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal said the country needed water reservoirs, but accused President Musharraf of trying to impose his choice of the project against the wishes of some provinces and warned that ‘Kalabagh dam could become a kala nag (black cobra) with serious consequences’ if that attitude did not change.
The presentation of the interim report of the eight-member parliamentary committee by its chairman Nisar A. Memon was also marked by controversy after the opposition said it had neither accepted the formation or the finding of the body which it said had no representation.
Opposition leader Raza Rabbani said the committee, nominated by the National Assembly speaker and later approved by a Senate resolution, was a ruling party committee rather than of parliament because no opposition member was named on it.
He described the formation of the committee by the lower house speaker as unconstitutional because, he said, only the CCI was competent to set up a parliamentary or other committee to make recommendations about inter-provincial water issues.
Mr Rabbani also put a question mark on the impartiality of Mr Memon because of his recent role as chief of the Senate standing committee on defence.
A committee meeting attended by nine members on December 16 had opposed planned purchase of some VVIP planes.
http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/30/top2.htm
Anti-dam rally blocks GT Road for 7 hours
Bureau Report
JEHANGIRA, Dec 29: An anti-Kalabagh dam rally here on Thursday declared the controversial project “disastrous” and warned that its construction would mark the beginning of the disintegration of the federation.
“This rally warns military rulers and their stakeholders in Punjab that the construction of the so-called Kalabagh dam would result in the federation falling apart,” a resolution unanimously adopted at the rally organized by the Awami National Party (ANP) said.
The rally asked international financial institutions not to lend money for a divisive project like Kalabagh dam.
Leaders from almost all the political parties, excluding the PML and PML-N, attended the public meeting held on the Grand Trunk Road, some 60km to the east of Peshawar.
The ruling MMA represented by JUI-F Senator Maulana Gul Naseeb and Jamaat-i-Islami MNA Usman advocate threw its weight behind opponents of the Kalabagh dam.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s brother Maulana Ata-ur-Rehman also attended the rally but did not make a speech.
The PPP (Sherpao), an ally of President Pervez Musharraf and the ruling PML (Q), was represented by former federal minister Mian Muzaffar Shah who minced no words in opposing the dam.
He warned that those in the government would have to make up their mind whether they stood by their own people.
Baloch nationalists were the most strident in their criticism of the military for what they called “denying smaller provinces their rights and imposing its decisions on them”.**
The lone representative from Sindh was Awami Tehrik’s Abdul Qadir who said that his province would never agree to a project that was bound to transform it into a desert.
The participants of the rally dominated by ANP’s red-shirted workers and activists of the PPP-P, Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party and the JUI, shouted anti-Musharraf and anti-Kalabagh dam slogans.
The GT Road remained blocked for almost seven hours and traffic between Peshawar and Islamabad was diverted through Tarbela and Haripur.
The resolution said that the proposed dam would submerge fertile lands of the NWFP, turn Sindh into a desert and destroy the Pat Feeder system in Balochistan.
It said the smaller provinces had been compelled to think that Gen Musharraf, in collaboration with Punjab, wanted to drown and destroy the three provinces.
It said that Musharraf’s argument that Punjab would topple any government that opposed the Kalabagh dam was a testimony that he wanted to pit federating units against each other.
“It proves that Punjab is Pakistan and Pakistan is Punjab,” the two-page resolution read and warned that President Musharraf and his associates would be squarely responsible for any harm done to the integrity of Pakistan.
“We want to live like brothers in Pakistan but not slaves,” the resolution concluded.**
Another resolution called for an immediate end to the military operation in Balochistan and resolution of all issues through dialogue with its genuine leadership.
ANP’s president Asfandyar Wali Khan said that it was no longer a struggle for rights but a battle for survival.
“Pakistan and Kalabagh dam cannot co-exist,” he said and asked Punjab to make the choice. “You cannot have your cake and eat it too.”
He warned that any attempt to thrust a decision on smaller provinces could lead to a 1971-like situation. He also warned that those who disregarded the unanimous resolutions of the NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan assemblies on the issue of Kalabagh dam could prompt some people to question the 1946 Lahore Resolution that had led to the creation of Pakistan.
Asfandyar said that smaller provinces were being pushed to the wall and they had no option but to confront rather than make compromises over the issue.
He said the ANP was opposed to the disintegration of the country but if the establishment was bent upon drowning its people “then we will choose how we want to die”.
