LAHORE, Oct 26: Gen Fazle Haq created the Kalabagh dam problem, Gen Ziaul Haq complicated it and now Gen Musharraf is out to worsen it, said PML leader Syeda Abida Husain here on Sunday.

She was addressing a seminar on Kalabagh dam, which had been arranged by the Tehrik-i-Istaqlal, on Sunday. Only politicians could evolve the kind of a political consensus required for building the dam, she maintained.

Had Pervez Musharraf been sincere in his efforts, he would have started constructing the dam in his first year in power and inaugurated it by now. He lost the opportunity and the common man would pay a price for the failure, she said.

The army regime is not sincere in building the dam and the Kalabagh Dam issue and the sectarian crises are being created to divert the attention away from the more contentious Legal Framework Order (LFO), she claimed.

She recalled that she had asked Nawaz Sharif in his second tenure to start construction of the dam.

Criticizing the army’s involvement in civilian affairs, Ms Husain said the democratic process in the neighbouring country had never been thwarted by personal ambitions of a few. But in Pakistan, generals were being appointed in every department, even as vice-chancellors in universities.

Of late, Gen Musharraf has realized the importance of honesty in politics, but only last year, he was helping elect some of the politicians relentlessly haunted by his own National Accountability Bureau, she said.

She claimed that the Pakistan army and the agriculture sector were no match to the Indian. India was also far ahead in technology.

Ms Husain vowed that the Kalabagh dam would be constructed by real representatives of the masses.

Supporting the construction of Kalabagh dam, Tehrik president Rehmat Khan Vardag said that the construction should start immediately as it was a must for development. He feared that import of agriculture products would become a permanent feature of economy if the dam was not built in near future.

He said that Sindh and the NWFP would benefit the most, as the dam would enable them to bring more land under cultivation. The parties opposing the dam on one pretext or the other were against the development of the country. “The government should start building the dam and not give importance to threats from any party.”

Among others, Tehrik vice-chairman Akram Nagra, Punjab chapter chairman Hamid Sarfraz, women wing chairman Dr Shaheen and Wapda Water Resource Cell director Anwar Husain Gilani also spoke.