Act against militants or face international isolation, civilians tell military

 Act against militants or face international isolation, civilians tell military

CYRIL ALMEIDA          Dawn, October 6th, 2016

ISLAMABAD: In a blunt, orchestrated and unprecedented warning, the civilian government has informed the military leadership of a growing international isolation of Pakistan and sought consensus on several key actions by the state.

As a result of the most recent meeting, an undisclosed one on the day of the All Parties’ Conference on Monday, at least two sets of actions have been agreed.

First, ISI DG Gen Rizwan Akhtar, accompanied by National Security Adviser Nasser Janjua, is to travel to each of the four provinces with a message for provincial apex committees and ISI sector commanders.

The message: military-led intelligence agencies are not to interfere if law enforcement acts against militant groups that are banned or until now considered off-limits for civilian action. Gen Akhtar’s inter-provincial tour has begun with a visit to Lahore.

Second, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has directed that fresh attempts be made to conclude the Pathankot investigation and restart the stalled Mumbai attacks-related trials in a Rawalpindi antiterrorism court.

Those decisions, taken after an extraordinary verbal confrontation between Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and the ISI DG, appear to indicate a high-stakes new approach by the PML-N government.

The following account is based on conversations with Dawn of individuals present in the crucial meetings this week.

All declined to speak on the record and none of the attributed statements were confirmed by the individuals mentioned.

Foreign secretary’s presentation

On Monday, on the day of the All Parties’ Conference, Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry gave a separate, exclusive presentation in the Prime Minister’s Office to a small group of civil and military officials.

The meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Sharif and included senior cabinet and provincial officials. On the military side, ISI DG Rizwan Akhtar led the representatives.

The presentation by the foreign secretary summarised the results of the recent diplomatic outreach by Pakistan, the crux being that Pakistan faces diplomatic isolation and that the government’s talking points have been met with indifference in major world capitals.

Examine: What should determine Pakistan’s foreign policy?

On the US, Mr Chaudhry said that relations have deteriorated and will likely further deteriorate because of the American demand that action be taken against the Haqqani network. On India, Mr Chaudhry stated that the completion of the Pathankot investigation and some visible action against Jaish-i-Mohammad were the principal demands.

Then, to a hushed but surprised room, Mr Chaudhry suggested that while China has reiterated its support for Pakistan, it too has indicated a preference for a change in course by Pakistan. Specifically, while Chinese authorities have conveyed their willingness to keep putting on technical hold a UN ban on Jaish-i-Mohammad leader Masood Azhar, they have questioned the logic of doing so repeatedly.

Extraordinary exchange

The foreign secretary’s unexpectedly blunt conclusions triggered an astonishing and potentially ground-shifting exchange between the ISI DG and several civilian officials.

In response to Foreign Secretary Chaudhry’s conclusions, Gen Akhtar asked what steps could be taken to prevent the drift towards isolation. Mr Chaudhry’s reply was direct and emphatic: the principal international demands are for action against Masood Azhar and the Jaish-i-Mohmmad; Hafiz Saeed and the Lashkar-e-Taiba; and the Haqqani network.

To that, Gen Akhtar offered that the government should arrest whomever it deems necessary, though it is unclear whether he was referring to particular individuals or members of banned groups generally. At that point came the stunning and unexpectedly bold intervention by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

Addressing Gen Akhtar, the younger Sharif complained that whenever action has been taken against certain groups by civilian authorities, the security establishment has worked behind the scenes to set the arrested free. Astounded onlookers describe a stunned room that was immediately aware of the extraordinary, unprecedented nature of the exchange.

To defuse tensions, Prime Minister Sharif himself addressed Gen Akhtar and said that policies pursued in the past were state policies and as such they were the collective responsibility of the state and that the ISI DG was not being accused of complicity in present-day events.

PM’s strategy?

Several eyewitnesses to the incredible events of Monday believe that the foreign secretary’s presentation and Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s intervention were orchestrated by the prime minister to stir the military to action, leading to the decision to dispatch the ISI DG on an inter-provincial tour.

Yet, according to the accounts shared with Dawn, the sparring between the ISI DG and civilian officials did not degenerate into acrimony.

Earlier in the meeting, ISI DG Gen Akhtar stated that not only is it the military’s policy to not distinguish between militant groups, but that the military is committed to that policy prevailing. The ISI chief did mention concerns about the timing of action against several groups, citing the need to not be seen as buckling to Indian pressure or abandoning the Kashmiri people.

Gen Akhtar also readily agreed to tour the provinces at the direction of the prime minister, issue fresh orders to ISI sector commanders and meet with provincial apex committees to chalk out specific actions that need to be taken in various provinces.

According to several government officials, Monday’s confrontation was part of a high-stakes gamble by Prime Minister Sharif to try and forestall further diplomatic pressure on Pakistan. In separate meetings with the army chief, participants describe an animated and energised Mr Sharif, who has argued that Pakistan faces real isolation if policy adjustments are not made.

Government officials, however, are divided about whether Prime Minister Sharif’s gamble will pay off. According to one official, commenting on the ISI DG’s commitments, “This is what we prayed to hear all our lives. Let’s see if it happens.”

Another government official offered: “Wait till November to see if action will be taken. By then a lot of things will be settled.”

Military officials declined to comment.

Clarification:

The spok­es­­man for Prime Minister Office on Thursday denied a story appearing in Dawn on Oct 6 regarding “purported deliberations” of a meeting held on security issues. The spokesman termed contents of the story not only speculative but misleading and factually incorrect, describing it as an “amalgamation of fiction and fabrication”.

Dispelling the impression created by the report, headlined “Act against militants or face international isolation, civilians tell military”, he said that intelligence agencies, particularly the ISI, are working in line with the state policy in the best interest of the nation, both at the federal and provincial levels to act against terrorists of all hue and colour without any discrimination. Indeed the Army’s and ISI’s role and contributions towards implementation of NAP have been proactive and unwavering, the spokesman said. Meanwhile, the office of the chief minister of Punjab also denied the comments attributed to Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in the news story.

Dismissing it as a baseless table story, he emphasised that besides his respect for the institution of the armed forces, on an individual level he also had the highest respect for the present ISI DG for his professionalism, commitment to duty and sincerity of purpose.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1288350

They send militants not to liberate us but to advance their agenda - a discussion with a Kashmiri Muslim from Jammu

They send militants not to liberate us but to advance their agenda - a discussion with a Kashmiri Muslim from Jammu

Dr Shabir Choudhry        06 October 2016

While on a holiday in Qatar, I had interesting conversations with people and among them was a Kashmiri from Jammu. It was not the first time I spoke to him on the subject of Jammu and Kashmir. I always found him honest, knowledgeable and understanding. He was also very concerned with what was going on in Kashmir and wanted to help his people. We, of course, differed with each other on many points.

While talking about the Kashmiri struggle, he - Anwaar Sahib asked me to define violence. When I did that he said, ‘it means breaking windows of cars with stones and sticks, windows of houses, attacking ordinary people with sticks and stones, attacking policemen with sticks and stones, burning buildings and police stations also constitute violence’.

Yes, it is violence and intimidation, I replied. But using tear gas, gun pellets and gun bullets also constitute violence, and in view of some, state terrorism. Primary responsibility of a government is to protect life and property of people and not to compete in violence with citizens.

He said he agreed with me on this; but ‘we need to look at the reasons why tear gas and bullets are used. Is it that government and men in uniform are trigger happy, and want to torture and kill people; or is it that they find themselves in a situation created by Pakistan and their proxies that they have to respond to protect others and themselves too. I agree they don’t get it right all the time. It is also debateable if they have the required professional skills and know how to effectively deal with the situation they find themselves in’.

He continued, however, ‘You should not be so naive and ill informed that you can’t understand that people with the vested interest want the Kashmir pot boiling as it serves their personal and political agenda. They create a situation in which men in the uniform have to react; and, at times, they do it wrong, which makes the bad situation worse’.

I said Jammu and Kashmir and India Pakistan relations are my areas of specialism. Also terrorism, extremism religious intolerance and hatred; regional conflicts and exploitation are my areas of special interest. I know Jammu and Kashmir has a great economic and strategic importance. I know apart from India, Pakistan and China, there are other countries that have keen interest in future of this region.

I said, ‘I want this bloodshed to stop. I want common sense to prevail. I don’t want people of Jammu and Kashmir to be a target of bullets and religious hatred, as that will create more problems for all of us and may divide the State of Jammu and Kashmir on religious lines’.

He interrupted me and said, ‘How can you stop bloodshed and control the religious intolerance when you have tens of thousands of religious warriors, some coming from across the LOC with weapons, ready to disrupt peace and intimidate Muslims and non Muslims who have different view on religion; and who want to have a social and political system which accommodates all citizens of Jammu and Kashmir’?

It was my turn to interrupt him. I said, ‘You can’t hold Pakistan responsible for all the wrongs of Jammu and Kashmir. Are not governments here responsible for some of the wrongs? Pakistan has interest in radicalising the society here, but was it not responsibility of those who rule here to win hearts and minds of the people? Outside involvement can only be effective when people are unhappy and frustrated with the governments and see no future’.

He said, ‘I agree that governments here have also been corrupt and ineffective. They had their own agenda. They also wanted uncertainty and chaos that they can blackmail New Delhi for more funds and resources, a bulk of which end up elsewhere’.

‘Despite that we are far ahead of you people in so called Azad Kashmir. I am here from the Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir as a professional. I have some respect here. I am in the Management team and make important decisions. I get a good salary. Tell me how many people of your Azad Kashmir are here as professionals? My heart bleeds when I see my fellow countrymen working here in very harsh conditions because they are here as manual labourers. They lack professional education and skills that enable them to get respect’.

I don’t know from where my regional instinct emerged. I said we also have educated people in Azad Kashmir. Literacy rate is very good, and colleges and universities are being established.

‘You may have a good literacy rate’, he interrupted me. ‘Anyone with a Matriculation, FA or BA is considered as an educated person; but can you get a job abroad with these certificates? These certificates don’t even get you a job in Azad Kashmir as a clerk. Tell me how many medical specialists do you produce in a year? How many Civil Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Electrical Engineers, how many computer experts and Software Engineers do you produce? Sometimes people have certificates but no skills that can enable them to compete in the job market’.

He paused for a moment and said, ‘If Azad Kashmir or an independent Kashmir has given you what I see on the roads of various countries of the Middle East; then please leave me a Ghulam – enslaved person. Instead of competing with us in the field of education and development you people started sending militants here to disrupt our lives here’.

I said, ‘You have a point, but can’t you see how badly people are treated here. They are killed, tortured and women raped. All that is not acceptable to any civilised society’.

He interrupted me and said, ‘I strongly condemn human rights abuses and rapes. Tell me; is Pakistan free of rapes and human rights abuses? Tell me why all these human rights abuses are taking place in the Valley of Kashmir? Why Jammu and Ladakh are spared? I am a Muslim too, and I feel safe in Jammu where I live. It is not that the government is targeting all Muslims. They are targeting bad Muslims who use name of religion to advance agenda of Pakistan. You come from London, will your government – civilised and a democratic government, allow some people with guns and extreme views to disrupt peace and stability there’?

‘You may not agree with me, but a bitter fact is that Pakistan is not sincere in resolving the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. They send militants not to liberate us but to advance their agenda. They need the Kashmir dispute for their survival and for recruitment of more militants that they can export to other countries to disrupt peace and stability and to hold back progress and development which they failed to achieve’.

I know for sure, India will not give an inch of Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan. However, for argument sake if India was to give the Valley of Kashmir where the problem is, to Pakistan, Pakistan will refuse to accept that because they want the Kashmir dispute and not Kashmir. If they take Kashmir, they know they will get a problem, these people are not easy to satisfy; and moreover, Pakistan needs the Kashmir dispute for its survival and a large army’.

What he said made a lot of sense, but citizen of Azad (independent) Kashmir should not let a citizen of Ghulam (occupied) Kashmir win a debate; so by using my experience and knowledge I started shifting goal post and topic. With a friendly smile, he said now you are behaving like a typical Pakistani/ Azad Kashmiri who is never wrong; and who thinks all their problems are because of foreign conspiracies against them.

Writer is a political analyst, TV anchor and author of many books and booklets. Also he is Director Institute of Kashmir Affairs. Email:drshabirchoudhry@gmail.com  

Impediments to CPEC projects, EDITORIAL Dawn

Impediments to CPEC projects, EDITORIAL Dawn

IT appears the bouquet of power-sector projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor has hit a number of road blocks of late. The latest in a series of snags that these projects have run into is the Matiari to Lahore transmission line, the first private-sector initiative in power transmission that Pakistan has seen. The line is vital to the overall CPEC vision because it will carry additional power to be generated under numerous other CPEC power-generation projects in Sindh, including Tharparkar and Hub in Karachi. If the line is not built, that additional generation capacity will have no means to get to load centres in Punjab, rendering it redundant. Given the $2.1bn cost of the line, the Chinese were asked to build the project, but the tariff that they wanted was higher than what the regulator, Nepra, could allow. The net result has been a stalemate of sorts for almost a year now. In August, Nepra approved a tariff of 71 paisa per unit, but the Chinese want a tariff of 95 paisa instead, 30pc higher, and the government is spinning all its wheels to persuade the regulator to grant the revised tariff.

This is not the first time that we have seen a large CPEC project run into financial difficulties. Earlier, the complex of power plants envisioned at Gadani was scrapped because of the costs of building the jetty. Many investments in the Quaid-i-Azam Solar Park in Punjab have landed up in litigation because the government cannot honour the upfront solar tariff it offered to woo the Chinese. A large coal-fired power plant to be built in Kallar Kahar has also been scrapped due to an escalation in cost, while the Thar coal plants have landed up in litigation because of the costs of compliance with environmental regulations.

The fact that all of these were scrapped at advanced stages of execution shows the lack of foresight while highlighting the abundance of triumphant rhetoric under which these projects were being carried out. In almost every case, it is being discovered that the hidden costs are large enough to erode whatever cost advantages the projects are supposed to bring. Accommodating these costs in every case runs the risk of creating a separate class of investor in the power sector that enjoys privileged access to the sector’s resources, from revolving funds to dollar-denominated settlement and a special security force. This situation must be avoided to safeguard the future integrity of power-sector investments. And the temptation to simply pass all these costs on to the consumers must also be resisted. If the investment coming under CPEC cannot justify itself on financial grounds, then it is worth considering why we should go down this path rather than walk the hard road of power reforms to promote competitiveness instead.

Published in Dawn October 4th, 2016

India’s Army is Economically Unprepared to Engage in Conventional Warfare with Pakistan

India’s Army is Economically Unprepared to Engage in Conventional Warfare with Pakistan

An analysis of various reports shows that it is highly unlikely that India has the artillery and ammunition resources to fight another war like Kargil.

The current India-Pakistan tension in the wake of  the Uri attack seems like another round of hostilities meant to re-define the military-strategic red lines of the two countries.

It was in the wake of the Kargil war that the current threshold was marked. What both sides learnt from that conflict, especially General Pervez Musharraf’s army, was that the military option could not be relied upon to solve the Kashmir dispute. But Kargil also changed the nature of bilateral conflict.

The primary lesson learnt by Pakistan was that a military victory was almost impossible – especially if India could expand the conflict not just through the use of firepower but also tactful diplomacy and media management. Since what followed eventually were peace overtures – with even Musharraf, the architect of Kargil, coming up with his ‘out of the box’ solution for Kashmir – it was generally assumed that this was a strategic shift and a new milestone in bilateral relations.

However, the Pakistani establishment still believed in the utility of using non-state militants willing to fight the war in Kashmir, and against India more generally. Avoiding conflict through the use of a nuclear deterrence umbrella while pushing conflict with the help of jihadis was the new formula used to bring attention to unresolved issues.

It was obvious from various incidents starting from 2002 through to 26/11, right up to the present, that the Lashkar-e Tayyaba/Jamaat-ud-Dawwa (LeT/JuD) network, Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) and certain elements of Sipha-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhangavi were being used to challenge India in a manner which would raise tension without a high risk of major retaliation.

Of course, in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, New Delhi played its diplomatic cards well. It also tried to silently put pressure on Pakistan by aiding insurgents in Balochistan. However, the threat was never comparable – mainly due to the Baloch insurgents lacking the capacity to take on the Pakistani state.

Except for claiming a terrorist attack in Islamabad in April 2014, there is nothing that the various Baluch insurgents ever managed to do to challenge Pakistan. Even today, they continue to lack that capacity despite the Pakistan military’s public relations machinery successfully depicting them as a force on par with anti-state religious militants like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Thanks to this hard sell, Pakistanis today, especially the younger generation, have more or less bought the idea that LeT/JuD and JeM are Islamabad’s response to the various Baloch groups that India is accused of supporting. But the reality is that these groups in Balochistan can never inflict the kind of damage that the jihadi groups can do in Kashmir and India.

It appears that post-Uri, New Delhi is trying to find a method to counterbalance the threat by targeting jihadi camps across the border. By increasing the stakes for Islamabad, India hopes to pressure it into reducing and abandoning its support for these groups. Behind the noise of the past few days, that is what is happening. The Indian announcement of ‘surgical strikes’ and the Pakistani response to that has set in motion a slow process of recalibrating the threshold between the two countries.  This process will continue until both sides understand their own limits.

A limited operation

Contrary to the impression created by India’s DGMO, the operation across the border was limited in scale and less gargantuan than claimed.

Reportedly, Indian troops crossed over not more than 200 meters inside the Pakistani side of the Line of Control to attack an LeT camp located some 100 metres away from an army check post at Dudhnial. The fact that it was a limited scale operation made it possible for Pakistan to couch this as nothing more than firing and a border violation. While it attained some goals in the form of killing 5-6 militants, the use of the term ‘surgical strike’ was misleading. Perhaps, a better term was a ‘targeted’ operation in which the risk of further escalation was avoided by not killing military personnel at the nearby check post. Reports indicate that only 3-4 army personnel were injured due to the use of grenades against the post. Furthermore, the Indian troops did not come three or four miles inside the LoC as some defence sources in India have suggested. The short distance is the reason why Pakistan could claim that what happened was nothing more than an unprovoked incursion of the sort that takes place all the time.

Indeed, this is how the attack was presented to a team of journalists taken to the border areas by the Pakistani army’s Inter-Services Public Relations agency. Although the media were not taken to a couple of other places such as beyond Kotli at Tatta Pani and one other place, the fact is that even if journalists were taken to the exact location, they might not have been too impressed by the destruction caused given the limited nature of the target.

The attack at best denotes the testing of waters to check the Pakistan army’s threshold for retaliation but also the Indian Army’s current capacity to carry out surgical operations without the threat of escalating the cost of conflict to an unbearably high level. The Pakistani side at the moment is trying to keep a tight lid on the issue so that it is not forced to escalate. An admission of an attack without meeting public expectations of retaliation would exact a high political cost for GHQ Rawalpindi. People would be most disappointed if they found out that an attack actually happened inside Pakistan, raising concerns about issues of national sovereignty.

These are indeed tricky times for the subcontinent in which excessive or incorrect claims can both be dangerous. They could raise expectations that could later force the hand of political leaders to act less rationally or even irrationally.

The impact of the post-Uri targeted operation is hard to read but it may have strengthened some existing assumptions on both sides. For India, the understanding might be that Pakistan is still not in a position to escalate tension – just as it was unable to do during Kargil. But Delhi must understand that a reaction did not come mainly due to the scale of the Indian ‘strike’. The lack of a response, however, must not be misread or taken as denoting the absence of a future reaction.

In Pakistan’s case, on the other hand, the assumption might be that the Indian Army still will not dare to come deep inside Pakistan to strike other camps located deeper behind the LoC other than the one mentioned above, which was quite close to the line. Nevertheless, Islamabad is likely to watch carefully India’s willingness to shift the goal post as far as its security is concerned. The operation, thus, can’t be brushed aside casually even if there was no response to it.

Thus far, the conflict seems manageable. The influence of the army in Kashmir, particularly on people living close to the border areas has helped tremendously in keeping secret the fact that an LeT camp was there and was hit. The fact that the number of militants killed is 5-6 militants also helps the incident go unreported. The security culture in Kashmir on the Pakistani side of the LoC is such that people are either in sync with the army or dependent upon the organisation for meeting their needs during tough times. Typically, those living close to the borders are either informants or too scared to tell.

However, these are tough times for peace and stability in the region as the two militaries test and re-define their thresholds. Any miscalculation could result in an inadvertent but costly escalation. At the end of the day, there are no prospects for a decisive victory by either side and sacrificing over a billion lives or more is too big a risk to take.

Ayesha Siddiqa is an independent social scientist based in Islamabad and author of Military Inc: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy

http://thewire.in/70044/india-is-unprepared-to-engage-in-conventional-warfare-with-pakistan/

Pakistan needs to cleanse itself of terror, by Khaled Ahmed

Pakistan needs to cleanse itself of terror, by Khaled Ahmed

One reason India and Pakistan can’t resolve the Kashmir issue is how the two interpret the Simla Agreement of 1972. The treaty put an end to the 1971 Indo-Pak war, thus endorsing the separation of East Pakistan as Bangladesh. The world takes cognisance of this treaty whenever a dispute erupts between the two South Asian rivals. What Pakistan conceded — without Pakistanis feeling too bad about it — was the text in the treaty:

“That the two countries are resolved to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations or by any other peaceful means mutually agreed upon between them.”

Pakistan takes the official line that the above text doesn’t preclude its right to address international fora on the Kashmir issue because Simla Agreement doesn’t invalidate the UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir. The stance, as explained by a foreign office spokesperson in Islamabad, in 2014, was: “Countries are condemned every year on various forums in the UN, on one issue or the other, for violating the UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions”. This has been repeated in Islamabad on September 2: “Simla Agreement can’t change UN resolutions.”

But who is going to finally decide whose point of view is valid? Has the Kashmir issue been “bilateralised” or is it still open to a “multilateral” solution? Whether one likes it or not, the decision on this issue will always be political. Where does the world stand on Kashmir in 2016 as the Valley erupts again and India is crushing the Kashmiri protests with brute force? The pictures that the world sees of the latest outbreak are not pleasant and many in India are pained by what the TV channels are carrying daily into their bedrooms. Nationalism cannot be the permanent carapace of conscience.

But Pakistan is in a much worse position. If the Kashmiris want to make a case in front of the court of international opinion — and Pakistan wants that — they should be told by Pakistan not to raise the Pakistani flag when fired upon by Indian troops. The world simply looks away when a reference to Pakistan crops up. The “liberators” of Kashmir — the jihadis in Pakistan’s proxy war — carry UN bounty on them and are roaming around in Pakistan despite its commitment under the National Action Plan to get rid of “armed militias”. Unlike in the past, many columnists are asking for action against men like Masood Azhar and Hafiz Saeed.

In June 2000, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rejected Pakistan’s application against India in the Atlantique case on grounds of lack of jurisdiction. In 1999, Pakistan had brought up the shooting down of a non-combat aircraft within Pakistani territory by India, which killed 16 crew members. The case couldn’t proceed because of the “optional clause” of the court allowing the target state to disavow jurisdiction. But then the court did something very significant. It reverted to the irreducible political nature of the enforcement of international law under the UN system by referring to the Simla Accord and the Lahore Declaration of February 1999 under which India and Pakistan are morally obliged to settle their “differences” bilaterally in light of Article 2 of the UN Charter.

But facts will intervene despite whatever decision Pakistan takes about internationalising the Kashmir issue. Pakistan had begun using its proxy warriors right after 1947. The cross-border covert war began hurting the world after terrorism, learned in Pakistani and Afghan training camps, spread out to Europe and America. As Pakistan faces internal disturbance by terrorists — who once formed its foreign policy tools – it is becoming aware of the futility of posing as a rights advocate against India and Bangladesh. Increasingly, Pakistani intellectuals are asking the state to cleanse itself of terror before regaining the confidence and sympathy of the international community.

http://niazamana.com/2016/09/pakistan-needs-to-cleanse-itself-of-terror/

Pakistan- the time to focus on infrastructure is now

Pakistan- the time to focus on infrastructure is now

Zofeen T. Ebrahim, October 1, 2016

India-Pakistan tensions have brought the Indus Waters Treaty in focus, but experts say that what Pakistan really needs to do is build and maintain its decaying and weak water infrastructure

As tensions rose between India and Pakistan after a recent terrorist attack on an Indian Army contingent, focus shifted to the Indus Waters Treaty. As Indian commentators asked for the scrapping, or suspension of the treaty, and the Indian Prime Minister is reported to have said, “Both blood and water cannot flow,” anxiety increased in Pakistan. Pakistan is the downstream riparian to India, and is critically dependent on the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum – all of which flow through India – for its freshwater resources.

So far, though, India has chosen to do little on the Indus Waters Treatybeyond suspending fresh meetings between the Indus Water Commissioners and suggesting it will utilise its water storage rights under the treaty better.

See: Indus Waters Treaty rides out latest crisis

See: India suspends Indus commissioners’ meetings

Mirza Asif Baig, Pakistan’s Indus Water Commissioner, said that India would avail all the opportunities provided by the treaty to develop its hydropower and agricultural projects to maximise its benefits. “If the projects conform to the design and operational criteria specified in the treaty Pakistan cannot object on those.”

However, he added, “We see a persistent attitude of India that it designs projects in a manner as if the treaty does not specify any design and operational restrictions and tries to justify such designs on the basis of site conditions and maximisation of benefits.”

Giving an example of the Kishanganga case, Baig said, “The Court of Arbitration in Kishanganga’s case has clearly held that absolute optimisation of benefits is not permitted by the treaty; India can optimise the projects only under the regulatory constraints of the treaty.”

But India being the upper riparian and an angry one at that can tamper with the water, conceded Khalid Mohtadullah, Pakistan’s top water expert.

And if India does take the drastic step of “bottling up the river water to prevent it from flowing downstream, Pakistan could face utter devastation,” explained Michael Kugelman, a senior associate at the Washington DC based Woodrow Wilson Center.

However, Mohtadullah, also a senior advisor to the Global Water Partnership (GWP) and International Water Management Institute (IWMI), said Pakistan need not buckle under the pressure [referring to threats of revoking the Indus Water Treaty] and give its water rights away. “India has gone on a rampage for nothing,” he added.

Agreeing with Mohtadullah, Baig explained, “The IWT deals with only the matters related to sharing of waters of the Indus basin between India and Pakistan. The treaty insulates itself from all the external matters including the dispute over Kashmir. Hence the present attitude of India is clearly against the treaty’s provisions.”

“It is hoped that India would realise that fair and honest implementation of the treaty is in its own interest. Respecting Pakistan’s rights and honouring its obligation would be beneficial for the peace and prosperity of the region,” Baig told the thethirdpole.net. He was in Washington where he had gone on an already scheduled meeting with the World Bank officials.

And while India can stop the water; it will take time.

“It would take at least a few years for India to create enough storage to prevent water from flowing downstream to Pakistan,” agreed Kugelman and, therefore, Pakistan would have time to adjust.

“India cannot stop water in a few weeks or months. It takes years to build infrastructure that will stop, reduce and/or divert water,” agreed geographer and water conservation expert Simi Kamal. She hoped sanity will prevail before that stage is reached but added, “To face the possibility of reduced or blocked flows in the Indus system, we have to plan to manage with less water in the long run.”

The imminent threat has also provided a rude nudge to Pakistan to wake up from its complacent slumber, do a bit of introspection to take its water resource management more seriously. It also gives an opportunity to experts to question the government whether it has a contingency plan ready if such an eventuality arises.

“Every drop we store is a drop saved,” emphasized Mohtadullah, adding, “Then if such shocks arise, Pakistan is better prepared to absorb them. Irrespective of the current situation, we need to make our water use in agriculture efficient, through improved water management,” he said, referring to the fact that 95% of water is used for irrigation, an unsustainable proportion.

Unfortunately there is little new thinking in the government on how to tackle the crisis.

Mohtadullah suggested Pakistan could grow crops other than sugarcane and rice (both of which need a lot of water), appropriately zone its agriculture so that the right crops are grown on the right soil in optimum environmental conditions, and consider moving towards precision agriculture based on scientifically sound research. “The water saved thus can then be diverted to the parched areas like the lower reaches of Sindh, southern Punjab and eastern Balochistan to alleviate poverty,” he said.

But most importantly, said Mohtadullah, the need of the hour was storage. “In the form of field storages (ponds), small dams, big dams, all kinds of dams and everywhere,” he said.

“We are letting a lot of water – beyond the environmental flows necessary to keep the rivers healthy – go to waste,” he said.

No major dams have been constructed in Pakistan since the Tarbela in 1976. Along with Mangla the two major reservoirs in the Indus basin store only 14 million acre feet (MAF) of the 145 MAF that flows through Pakistan annually, and that too only for 30 days. The international standard is 120 days.

According to a 2015 IMF report Pakistan’s demand for water is on the rise and is projected to reach 274 MAF by 2025, while supply is expected to remain stagnant at 191 MAF, resulting in a demand-supply gap of approximately 83 MAF. “The single biggest reason for the drastic reduction in our per capita availability of water is our runway population growth,” pointed out environmentalist Shafqat Kakakhel, who has served as the deputy executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and as UN Assistant Secretary General.

At present the country’s population is estimated to be around 190 million. By 2030 it will grow to 244 million, and by 2100, Pakistan’s population is projected at 364 million, states the World Population Prospects 2015. With a rising population the demand is going to increase.

Pakistan is already a water-desperate country, said Kugelman. According to Ghulam Rasul, the director general of the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), it will become water scarce by 2025. In Pakistan water availability per person annually is just 1,017 cubic metres, dangerously close to 1,000 cubic metres under which limit a country is considered water scarce.

“Reductions of water from its chief water source could amount to a nightmare scenario. Farmers already struggling with the realities of a disappearing Indus in Sindh could find themselves without water at all, for example,” pointed out Kugelman.

“In an ideal world, the mere threat of shutting off the tap would prompt the Pakistani political leadership to take drastic measures to safeguard its precarious water security – such as by developing new pricing plans that penalise consumers for using too much water, rolling out plans to subsidise water-saving drip irrigation, and so on,” said Kugelman. But he concluded, “The reality is that in Pakistan, I imagine, the response will simply be angry words and threats issued to India, with little introspection about what Pakistan can do to make itself less vulnerable to India’s water machinations.”

https://www.thethirdpole.net/2016/10/01/pakistan-the-time-to-focus-on-infrastructure-is-now/

HRCP concerns grow over rights situation in Karachi

HRCP concerns grow over rights situation in Karachi

October 1, 2016

Karachi, October 1: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has expressed grave apprehensions over the prevailing human rights concerns in Karachi being aggravated by new problems cropping up in recent months.

In a statement issued on Saturday, the Executive Council of the Commission said that it had decided to hold its autumn meeting in Karachi this time due to the gravity of the situation developing in the city. HRCP stated: “Three years of the Rangers operation in Karachi have been completed this month. There is no doubt that the incidents of targeted killing and extortion have fallen significantly; however, cases of extrajudicial killing and torture continue to be reported. It is a matter of great dismay and concern that little has been done to systematically investigate these cases.

“Complaints of enforced disappearance in the city are on the rise, with many people targeted because of their political affiliation. Even the figures released by the officially constituted commission of enquiry into enforced disappearance indicate the extent of the problem in this part of the country. The report of the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearance (WGEID) has also cited complaints of enforced disappearance, especially of those believed to be associated with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

“Our concerns have risen greatly over an increasingly expanding role of the Rangers in the city’s political affairs, particularly the tactics used to push MQM against the wall.

“The militant wings of political parties, MQM included, seem to have been silenced for now, but not brought to justice. How and when the next episode of factional fighting unfolds might well determine the scale of any recurrence in large-scale violence in Karachi.

“The people are justified in inquiring how any gains made through the Karachi operation could be sustained. In that respect, it is vital that details regarding prosecution of suspects and conviction rates are shared. HRCP is disappointed that efforts have not been made to strengthen civilian policing capacity in the city. We implore the authorities to start remedying that even at this late stage.

“Lack of representative and responsible governance in Karachi, as indeed in other major cities of the country, is having an adverse effect on the basic entitlements of the people. This state of governance has also affected the functioning of the local government in the city. Sanitation has been grossly ignored. Traffic disorder is getting worse by the day. At the same time, the people’s problems of unemployment, food, health and security are aggravating. It is not difficult to understand why some might find the situation in Karachi ‘appalling’ and ‘at a breaking point’.

“Overall, a display of responsive governance and enabling the local government to operate effectively is vital to stem the rot and lead to due attention being paid to people’s problems.”

Zohra Yusuf

Chairperson
On behalf of HRCP Executive Council

http://hrcp-web.org/hrcpweb/hrcp-concerns-grow-over-rights-situation-in-karachi/