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DAM-L LS: India under pressure to revoke Indus Water Treaty (fwd)



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Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 19:21:42 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: LS: India under pressure to revoke Indus Water Treaty
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Thu, 18 Apr 2002 14:53:00 +0100
DevNews Press Review <devnews@lists.worldbank.org>

This summary is prepared by the External Affairs Department of the World
Bank. All material is taken directly from published and copyright wire
service stories and newspaper articles.


WAR RISK WARNING AS DELHI UNDER PRESSURE TO SCRAP KEY WATER TREATY. The
Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan is often cited as an example
of how the two hostile neighbors can resolve a seemingly intractable
problem, reports the South China Morning Post. But with little sign of its
military standoff with Islamabad easing, there is pressure on New Delhi to
revoke the breakthrough treaty brokered by the World Bank in 1960.

The Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly last week called for a full
review of the treaty, under which India and Pakistan agreed to share water
from six major Himalayan rivers. Three rivers?the Indus, Jhelum and
Chenab?flow through the Kashmir Valley into Pakistan. Under the treaty,
there are restrictions on India using the water from these rivers. The
state assembly has now unanimously passed a resolution initiated by
Kashmir's lone Communist Party of India (Marxist) legislator, Mohammed
Yousuf Tarigami, asking New Delhi to review the treaty and compensate the
state for the loss it has suffered.

He received support across party lines, with ruling National Conference
party members - and even ministers - supporting his demand for a review of
the treaty. The assembly debate reflected popular resentment that the state
had failed to harness its enormous hydro-electric power potential because
of the treaty.

But analysts warn that if water is used as a weapon in current tensions
between India and Pakistan, it could result in full-scale war. An
estimated one million people in Pakistan's Punjab province would be
directly affected if the treaty was scrapped.

Pakistani experts warn that if New Delhi acts unilaterally, it will face
strong international condemnation, especially from the US and other
countries that contributed funds to the gigantic Indus Basin project
implemented after the signing of the treaty.

Moreover, diverting or blocking the rivers' flow would require an extended
engineering effort. In Lahore, former World Bank adviser B. A. Malik said,
"For stopping the water flow to Pakistan, India is required to build large
storages and diversion barrages which would take many years to construct."

But legislators in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly have demanded that India
approach the International Court of Justice in the Hague and the UN to seek
the scrapping of the water treaty.

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