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dam-l LS: Rallies Against Pakistan's Kalabagh Dam Unite Rivals



>
>http://ens-news.com/ens/aug98/1998-08-11-06.html
>
>ENS-News 8/11/98
>
>Rallies Against Pakistan's Kalabagh Dam Unite Rivals
>By Ahmar Mustikhan
>
>KARACHI, Pakistan, August 11, 1998 (ENS) - Two mammoth rallies against
>theconstruction of the controversial multi-billion Kalabagh Dam were held
>attowns bordering Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s home province
>ofPunjab. The demonstrations were billed as a referendum of the people of
>theSindh and Frontier provinces.
>
>Prime Minister Sharif declared several weeks ago that just as Pakistan
>hadstunned the world by conducting the nuclear underground tests in May,
>it wouldshock the nation by constructing the dam on the Indus River to
>irrigate thebarren lands and generate more hydroelectric power.
>
>Opposition Leader Benazir Bhutto
>
>Former Pakistani Premier Benazir Bhutto, the first-ever woman head
>ofgovernment of a Muslim country, now Leader of the Opposition, led a
>rallyattended by tens of thousands of people in the town of Ubauro in
>the south-eastern Sindh province.  Bhutto dubbed the present Prime
>MinisterNawaz Sharif "Pakistan’s
>Gorbachev." It was an oblique way of saying that just as former
>RussianPresident Mikhail Gorbachev presided over the demise of the Soviet
>Union, theFederation of Pakistan has been endangered by Sharif’s plans to
>construct thedam, come what may.
>
>The Water and Power Development Authority views the Kalabagh Dam as a
>multi-purpose project designed to generate 3,600 MW of low cost
>hydro-electricpower. It is supposed to replace the storage capacities
>of two reservoirs lost due to progressive silting, and provide
>additionalstorage on the Indus River for better irrigation supplies to
>crops andregulate and control the flood peak of Indus.
>
>Bhutto said the federation of Pakistan would be in harm's way if the
>Kalabaghdam is constructed in spite of the opposition by the three
>smaller provinces -her home province of Sindh, the North West Frontier
>province and Balochistan.
>
>She claimed that the colossal dam plan was a "bad project" prepared
>byconsultants and engineers to make a fast buck in open violation of
>theprinciples of federalism.
>
>In a rare show of solidarity, other Sindhi nationalist leaders also spoke
>atthe rallies led by Bhutto and lambasted the Punjab province, saying
>that thedam would result in desertification of Sindh.
>
>Resolutions passed at the rally said if the dam is constructed the Indus
>Riverdelta would turn into a huge salt lake with a receding coastline.
>Theresolutions predicted that nearly 1.2 million acres of wetlands and
>riverine forests would dry up, and the rich mangrove forests and
>associatedfisheries would be lost for good.
>
>Another resolution said the dam would convert fertile valleys of the
>NorthWest Frontier Province into waste lands. Meanwhile, the province
>ofBalochistan would get less water, and the water problem for the 10
>millionpeople of Karachi would become even more acute.
>
>In an identical rally further north, thousands of people gathered Monday
>nearthe Attock bridge on the Frontier-Punjab border in a show of disgust
>over theSharif government's plans to construct the dam.
>
>The second Sindh rally was led by veteran Pakhtun nationalist leader
>KhanAbdul Wali Khan. He declared he would be the first to jump into the
>dam with abomb tied to his body.
>
>Khan said the three districts of his province - Mardan, Nowshehra
>andCharsadda - would all be inundated once the dam was constructed.
>Participantsof this rally compared it to the important first rally when
>the entire Pakhtuns were united. The Pakhtuns are the dominant
>ethniccommunity both in the North West West frontier Province and
>neighbouringAfghanistan.
>
>Khan said Premier Sharif had pitted Punjab - with over half of the
>entirecountry’s 130 million population - against the three other
>provinces. Hewarned that Pakhtuns would remain patriotic to the country
>so long as thePunjab remained patriotic to the Pakhtuns.
>
>Reports from the Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province in area,
>saidPakhtuns and Baloch nationalists united for the first time in nearly
>a decadeand marched through the streets of capital Quetta. Here, veteran
>Baloch leaderSardar Ataullah Mengal attacked the dam project and called
>for autonomy forthe three smaller provinces. 
>