| 22 July 2004 | Thursday | 04 Jamadi-us-Saani 1425 |
Senseless violence
Okara probe
The meeting on Tuesday of the parliamentary committee on water resources seems to have broken some ice on the question of sharing the Indus waters among the provinces. For now, the four chief ministers and provincial and federal officials have agreed that the 1991 Irsa accord should be implemented in its totality.
This means that the annual average or 'historical use' practice decided three years later, in 1994, will be dispensed with. Under the 1994 decision, Punjab and the Frontier got larger shares of water in lean months, to the disadvantage of Sindh, while Balochistan's share remained unchanged.
In other words, the consensus reached in 1991 will be followed and to that extent lessen the controversy that now dogs the issue. The chief ministers have also agreed on the need to construct at least one big dam; however, no agreement could be reached on the location, with Sindh leading the argument against Kalabagh as the proposed site.
The Thal canal also came up for discussion, but nothing positive was said on its on-going construction. All said and done, it is back to the 1991 water accord which was, and still is, seen by many as reasonably equitable.
However, there are those who claim that even the 1991 accord has its flaws and cannot be held 'sacrosanct' for all times to come. A letter appearing in this newspaper by a former Irsa chairman yesterday has pointed out the contradictions that have left the accord open to conflicting interpretations by the provinces.
One such contradiction pertains to a clause that treats variable estimated floodwater inflow into the river system as part of the total water available for irrigation on an annual basis. Another clause of the accord blurs the line between perennial and floodwater canals.
A third clause provides for building dams, reservoirs and canals with the aim of fulfilling the country's future needs without specifically mentioning any of the controversial projects by name.
These are anomalies that the parliamentary committee on water resources would do well to examine in depth and recommend ways to rectify before it submits its final report to the president in June next year.
Meanwhile, the preliminary findings submitted to the inter-provincial meeting on Tuesday carry an ominous note. A cursory study of the available water resources over the last decade reveals that while there has been a substantial increase in population, the country's water resources have decreased as a result of prevalent climatic patterns over the same period.
In addition, water losses through seepage and faults in the irrigation system have risen to 45 per cent, affecting some 47 per cent of the total cultivable land. The committee says that the federal government has allocated Rs66 billion over the next four years for lining the water courses and canals to reduce losses through seepage.
This is all very well, but the truth remains that there still is a scarcity of water in our rivers, which even the estimated floodwater inflows have failed to mitigate fully over the last decade.
In the long term, unless there is an agreed policy on equitably sharing this scarcity among the provinces as well as a plan to build greater storage capacity, the sense of deprivation among the smaller provinces will continue.
Senseless violence
The level of fighting in the Wana area shows no signs of declining. On Tuesday, according to one agency report, 10 foreign militants and four security personnel were killed, though the Inter-Services Public Relations Directorate has given no casualty figures.
Evidently, the sources of arms supplies for the militants remain intact, because the guerrillas used rocket launchers and heavy machine guns against the security forces. How long the fighting will continue is a big question. As records of guerrilla wars worldwide show, it is not an easy task to pacify an area harbouring guerillas.
The government, too, has not shown the acumen necessary for such a sensitive operation. While armed action is necessary, it has not been accompanied by a corresponding political effort. The bright feature of the situation is that some tribesmen are helping the government in the fight against militants, but often their support has been lackadaisical.
The political agent of the area has also come under attack from political parties. The government must try to know why. Local tribesmen and foreign militants are not averse to listening to advice from leaders belonging to some religious parties.
But the government's attitude in this respect has been far from positive. For instance, it recently banned Qazi Hussain Ahmad's entry into the area. A highly undemocratic decision, it would not go well with the tribesmen, who would have wished to listen to what the MMA leader had to say.
It will help normalize the situation in South Waziristan if the government tried to win over the tribesmen's wholehearted support. The people of the area have suffered a great deal because of the disruption in their daily life. The focus of the operations should be their welfare.
It would be much better if the local people were told that a terrorist-free area is in their interest, for the fighting is holding back the area's socio-economic development. It is, in the local people's own interest to cooperate with the government in rooting out foreign militants, who are using senseless violence in the name of religion.
Okara probe
The conduct of paramilitary forces in tackling a movement by local farmers for tenancy rights in Okara district last year has just been criticized by the New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Based on interviews with over 100 people affected by the paramilitary action, HRW has come to some disturbing conclusions, accusing the Rangers of launching a "campaign of murder, arbitrary detention, torture, 'forced divorces' and of summary dismissals from employment".
It has quoted what it said were three cases where couples were coerced through physical torture into signing divorce papers, a tactic to pressure the more vocal farmers to give up their opposition and sign contracts for a new tenancy agreement.
Children as young as 10 have been quoted in the 54-page report as saying that they were taken to Rangers headquarters where they were beaten with sticks. Adult farmers were allegedly beaten with "a flat leather whip", in the presence of an army major.
The Inter-Services Public Relations Director has strongly refuted the HRW's conclusions. Meanwhile, a Senate sub-committee on human rights is also investigating the allegations made by the farmers.
The dispute stemmed from a change in the share-cropping status of the farmers. The military (which does not own the land in question but has leased it from the Punjab government) wanted them to sign new agreements according to which the farmers would no longer hand over a portion of the crop they harvested from the land but an amount in cash.
This was seen as disadvantageous by many farmers, especially in times when crop yields would be low. The nature of these allegations and abuses is such that mere denial or rejection of these, as the ISPR has done, will not do.
The findings of the inquiry underway by the Senate sub-committee into the whole affair should be made public and not kept confidential as planned. Any government personnel found involved in any instance of persecution or abuse must be dealt with in accordance with the law.
Criminal cases registered against farmers merely to pressure them into giving up their opposition to the new tenancy agreement should be withdrawn. Finally, the Punjab government should amend the Punjab Tenancy Act of 1887 to provide for protection of farmers against forced or arbitrary eviction.