March 26, 2006	Sunday	Safar 25, 1427

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GILGIT, March 25: The participants of an all parties’ conference, convened by the anti-dam grand jirga of Diamer district on Friday, has called upon the government to initiate a dialogue with the people who are going to be affected by the dam’s construction.

Former chairman of the Gilgit-Baltistan National Alliance Inayatullah Shumali said that the NWFP government and certain vested interests in the NWFP are deliberately fudging facts and figures to misguide the government about construction of the proposed Diamer-Bhasha dam that would inundate the people of Diamer.

He said: “If our problems are not resolved today it would create many problems in future.”

Representing the views of the grand jirga, the Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC) member Fidaullah Advocate said that they were opposed to the construction of dams in any part of the region and said they would not allow anyone to force their decisions on the people of the region and dams could be built in areas that were not controversial in the constitution.

Another NALC member from Diamer district, Abdul Quddus said that the proposed Diamer-Bhasha dam is the problem of the Northern Areas and the people had been protesting against the dam since 1980 when a Canadian firm started the feasibility study.

He called upon the government to constitute a high-level committee comprising the people of Diamer and Northern Areas.

He said that they had rejected a committee headed by the NALC speaker because it did not represent their reservations regarding the dam.

NALC member Imran Nadeem said it is unfortunate that the president of Pakistan was being misguided regarding the dam by insincere people who wanted the policies of the president to fail.

PML-N president and NALC member Qari Hafeezur Rahman said that the martial regimes had always ignored the aspirations of the people at the grass-root level and the issue had been allowed to take place for political purposes.