[Reader-list] India, Afghans created floods in Pakistan?

[Subhash]

Check Indian, Afghan Dams For Floods In Pakistan
Headlines Thursday, August 19th, 2010

* Indian company controls dam on Kabul River, tens of dams control
flow of Kashmir water into Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan
* Flood gates of Afghan Sarobi Dam, Indian Baglihar Dam were opened to
drown Pakistani plains
* Two US allies, the puppet regime in Kabul and the ‘strategic ally’
in New Delhi, declare water war on Pakistan
* The tragedy one again raises question marks on the US double game
against Pakistan in the region
* Melting glaciers have nothing to do with this tragedy; it also
doesn’t explain why Kabul river surged

It’s not as if the clouds dodged borders and focused on Pakistan only.
Pakistan’s water flows from Indian-occupied Kashmir and from
US-occupied Afghanistan. A natural deluge should have shown some
spillover effect into Indian and Afghan regions adjoining Pakistan. It
is interesting that a second and a third wave of floods is expected in
Pakistan when there’s no rain to justify it. Where is the water coming
from? Here’s a perspective by Mr. Zaid Hamid, a security analyst at
BrassTacks, and Ms. Gulpari Mehsud.

There is a very sinister aspect to the floods in Pakistan that no one
is discussing in the media. While there were rains and flooding in
some rivers of the country, the size, scale and the gush of water
suddenly pumped into these rivers defies logic. This is especially
true considering that rains have slowed down since the breakout of the
floods on 29 July.

It is two weeks since the rains stopped but water continues to rise in
the rivers Indus and Chenab. There was no flooding in India or in
Afghanistan. Never before have rivers in all the provinces of Pakistan
flooded at the same time without a similar act affecting the upstream,
the source. While some parts of the country, like some areas of Khyber
Pakhtun Khwa saw flooding in 1929, the simultaneous floods covering
all of Pakistan and in all of the rivers flowing in from Afghanistan
and Indian-occupied Kashmir is something truly unprecedented.

The speed and quantity of the gushing water and the short span of time
in which it picked momentum preclude the possibility that water from
melting glaciers are solely responsible for the floods.

There is no evidence that suggests that glaciers decided to melt at a
faster speed just in time for the heavy monsoon rains.

There is every likelihood that what we are seeing today is that the
Indians and the US-backed regime in Kabul are using water as a weapon
for the first time to deluge Pakistan. There is no doubt about it.

>From an initial look at the data, it seems that a natural spill of
heavy rain was exploited by releasing water reservoirs in
Indian-occupied Kashmir and on river Kabul. Let’s remember that the
Met Office in Pakistan had already forecast heavy rains almost ten
days before the first downpour. Different people received this news in
different ways. Pakistani politicians, inept and incompetent as usual,
slept over it. The anti-Pakistan terrorists based on Afghan soil and
supported by several countries used this information to exacerbate
terror against Pakistani citizens in the southwestern province of
Balochistan, knowing that the State machinery would be distracted.

Interestingly, even when it comes to water, it is Indians who are
sitting to the left and right of Pakistan’s borders and controlling
its water at the moment. The dam on Kabul river is handled by Indian
personnel, while tens of dams choke Pakistan from the side of occupied
Kashmir.

RIVER KABUL

In February, the Obama administration organized a meeting for senior
government officials in Kabul and Islamabad who handle agricultural
issues. The meeting was strangely held in Doha, Qatar, on US request.
The agenda was to force the Pakistanis to grant agricultural
concessions to the US-propped government in Kabul, without Pakistan
getting anything in return.

But in the meeting, Mr. Zahoor Malik, a senior Pakistani bureaucrat
leading the Pakistani delegation, raised the issue of an Indian
company with close links to the Indian government building a dam on
river Kabul near the border with Pakistan. It is not clear what the
Americans and Karzai’s officials had to say about this. There is a
track record, however, that the incumbent pro-US government in
Islamabad has often swept such issues under the carpet in order not to
jeopardize Washington’s support for the Zardari government.

All major rivers flowing into Pakistan including the Indus are blocked
by Indian-built dams.

US and British officials often defend India and dismiss Pakistani
concerns as ‘conspiracy theories.’ Some Pakistani analysts accuse
elements within US government and intelligence of using Afghan soil
against Pakistan.

But imagine this: India, a country that faces a debilitating conflict
over Kashmir with Pakistan, goes to build tens of small and medium
sized dams on all the rivers flowing down to Pakistan, and everything
is supposed to work out smoothly? Not possible, even theoretically.
But luckily Indian actions on the ground more than strengthen
Pakistani concerns.

After the first wave of floods, the other rivers were flowing normally
and no extraordinary rains followed. But suddenly Chenab and Indus
Rivers overflowed and the flow picked up speed, turning into a flood.
India’s Baghliar Dam in occupied Kashmir opened its flood gates to
cause a tragedy in the plains of Pakistan [Sindh and Punjab]. While
Sarobi Dam – the Indian-maintained dam near Kabul – controls the flow
of Kabul River entering Pakistan.  The same thing happened here.
Monsoons did not lash Afghanistan and there was no flooding there of
any magnitude. But again, strangely, water flowing from river Kabul
into Pakistan dramatically picked up speed as water levels increased
turning into a flood. The speed with which this transformation
occurred could have happened only because of one of two reasons:
massive rains in Afghanistan or because Sarobi Dam released large
amounts of water over a sustainable period of time.

PAKISTANI POLITICIANS

ANP, a US-allied party with strong links to Kabul and New Delhi and
ruling the Pakistani northwestern province, has always opposed the
construction of the Kalabagh Dam which would have saved thousands of
lives and property had it been there. The ANP has argued that building
the dam would drown the city of Nowshehra. Ironically, ANP’s lie was
exposed when not only Nowshehra but also Charsadda drowned without the
Kalabagh Dam being there and thanks to the artificial floods created
in Kabul River by ANP’s Indian and Afghan patrons.

[Earlier this year, Washington and New Delhi came to ANP’s defense on
the Kalabagh Dam project by lobbying the World Bank to refuse
Islamabad’s request for funding the dam. The Bank obliged and said it
can’t fund the project due to Indian objections.]

OUR RESPONSE

How Pakistan responds to this latest Indian water war and aggression
is something that remains to be seen. What is confirmed is that the
incumbent pro-US government in Islamabad is useless when it comes to
defending the Pakistani interest. To be fair to this government, this
unusual situation in Islamabad started under former President
Musharraf and continues with the current ‘elected’ government with
amazing continuity. This water aggression has proved more lethal than
the TTP [so-called Pakistani Taliban] and the BLA insurgencies, both
of which were started from the Afghan springboard to punish Pakistan.

Pakistan has taken another serious hit, more from its corrupt rulers
than external enemies. These Indian Dams now need to be destroyed.
India has declared war on us by exploiting and orchestrating these
floods.

By: Zaid Hamid, Gulpari Mehsud

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