Dam it?

PaagalInsaan #15

I have seen this sort of argument in The Nation, but it doesnot make sense whichever way one looks at it.

Do you really think the French intelligence wouldnot be following the investigation and would not know if Indians were involved? They show no sign of it. The French Prime Minister M Raffarin was in India this week, for a three-day visit with a high level delegation `for strengthening bilateral relations with a special focus on enhancing economic ties`.

What sort of jihadis take money from the same infidels who they are fighting to the death? If India is able to bribe these groups to act against Pakistani interests, while fighting them elsewhere, this is a very compelling reason to shut these subversive groups down ASAP, something which Musharraf is refusing to do, though he can easily do it, being both President and Army Chief and having a cooperative Prime Minister and government and all.

It seems most likely that the jihad incharge in the Pakistani establishment(read a Pakistani secret agency) is desperately trying to save its hide by telling lies, esp after it allowed the hijackers of IA 814 and their friends, all Harkat Ul Mujahideen, and all known murderers and terrorists, to walk free and operate freely in Pakistan all these years, resulting in the death of Daniel Pearl, and other attacks on foreigners.

Dear Sadna,

I wrote a couple of times in Pakistani Urdu dailies against how everyone was pointing fingers at ``Raw`` for all those incidents. But I found out that the french engineers incident was sponsored by AlQaeda and an Indian agency (not RAW but not sure which one) seperately. It was first planned out, then the two parties were contacted for sponsorship. I do not get any of my information from the news agencies. I get it first hand from people who`re into these Jihad groups. I mean all that I say on here :)

PagalInsaan #13
``Some of them took money from Alqaeda and an Indian Intellgence Agency, for the recent bomb blasts in the American consulate, on the French engineers, and in churches in the north of Pakistan.``

`Indian Intelligence Agency` is a bit of wishful thinking on the Pakistani government`s part because thats not what the Pakistani government itself believes.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/25/world/main523196.shtml
Pakistan Arrests Bomb Mastermind

KARACHI, Pakistan, Sept. 18, 2002

````..The government announced the arrest Wednesday of a Pakistani suspected of masterminding the deadliest terrorist attack on foreigners in Pakistan this year — the May 8 car bombing that killed 11 French engineers and three others.

The government statement said the man, whom it did not identify, was among seven Pakistanis seized in raids throughout Karachi, in which police also seized a large quantity of weapons...``

``...All those arrested were believed to be members of an offshoot of the al-Qaida-linked extremist group Harkat-ul-Mujahdeen, one of the major militant organizations fighting Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. .``

``..Those arrested Wednesday were said to be members of the offshoot Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen Al-Alami. Three members of that faction are on trial for the U.S. Consulate bombing. Five other members were arrested this month in what police said was an attempt to kill Musharraf at an April 27 public ceremony in Karachi.

The plan went awry when Musharraf showed up three hours late for the event, the investigators said. Five others from the same group were arrested last week for allegedly planning terrorist attacks on American fast-food restaurants in Pakistan...``

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2266956.stm
Wednesday, 18 September, 2002, 19:17 GMT 20:17 UK
Pakistan arrests bomb `mastermind`

``Sharib Zubair is believed to belong to Harkat-ul Mujahideen al-Alaami, which officials say is an offshoot of Harkat-ul Mujahideen - one of the main guerrilla groups fighting Indian rule in the disputed region of Kashmir.

Three Harkat-ul Mujahideen al-Alaami members are already on trial over the US consulate attack. ..``

Wall Street Journal (now archived)
Killing of Pearl Fit Into Web Of Radical Islam in Pakistan
Thursday, January 23 2003

A year after the abduction and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi, Pakistan, Pakistani police have yet to determine exactly who ordered the killing and the names of those who carried it out. But the police, who now have additional details of Mr. Pearl`s detention, say that some of the militants involved in his death have turned up as participants in other terrorist acts in the country, forming a loose network of radicals that is now weakened. Indeed, Pakistani officials believe their broad probe of both Mr. Pearl`s murder and other terrorism has solved last May`s killing of a group of French engineers in Karachi, the June bombing of the U.S. consulate there and a five-year murder spree against Pakistan`s Shiite Muslim minority... ``

Dear Sadna #12


The generals are extremely worried about the international isolation of Pakistan. These are sensible people who`re almost back in charge. The federal cabinet contains the few remaining liberal politicians, out of which 6 were bought out of the opposition party just to ensure liberals stay in charge. This cabinet met very recently to decide on the policy relating war on Iraq. It is one of the hardest decisions ever made by Pakistani government in 50 years. They decided to ``support the UN resolutions``, the ones that exist and the ones that are to come. Qazi Hussain Ahmed was called upon and nobody reported as to what he was told. It has been decided that Pakistan will try its best to stay indifferent in the Iraq issue, and in case of war, the MMA will not oppose the government. There will be protests and rallies, against the US and against the government, controlled and approved by the Government. The Molvi government in the frontier province will support the decision of the Government in general, other than a few statements theyre expected to make to show they havent changed their political stance. They will close all the Jihad activities that they can possibly close. This will be done temporarily for now but for an indefinite period of time. Thats the plan for now.




The Jihad activities are certainly still going on. Previously they were financed by the rich Arab organizations, the offshoots of Alqaeda, in Afghanistan. The Kashmir and local Jihadis were also getting trained mainly in Afghanistan. Now the Taleban/Alqaeda Jihad, the goal of which was military dominance of ``Islam``, has almost ended, other than some attempts at guerilla war in parts of Afghanistan. The Pakistani Jihadis are of two types, those that work in Kashmir, and those that are responsible for secterian violence. They kill people within Pakistan for money. Some of them took money from Alqaeda and an Indian Intellgence Agency, for the recent bomb blasts in the American consulate, on the French engineers, and in churches in the north of Pakistan. The Kashmir Jihadis are not being trained right now, other than a very few ignorable exceptions. The local Jihadis are being trained in mobile camps in the frontier province. These local Jihadis however share many soldiers with the Kashmir Jihadis.


The FBI raids in Pakistan are limited to the Taleban/Alqaeda terrorists only. The FBI does not want to catch the local Jihadi terrorists. Any attempts by a person to draw the attention of Pakistan or US government towards them or their training, will be chased to every corner of Pakistan by the Jihadis to be shot. It is strange but in all cases it has looked like the US government itself pointed out the person providing information to the terrorists. This is something that is very surprising for me and I can not get to the philosophy behind this, but yes, the US government clearly wants to protect the local Jihadis, the secterain-terrorists. This is scary, surprising, and confusing.

PaagalInsaan #10
Thanks. So there IS something positive about the Iraq War :).

What do you think about this? There was a news report(which I am unable to locate again at this time) a few months ago about someone from an activist organisation who sent a letter to the UN/US Ambassador in Pakistan about seeing `Arabs` and their camps in PoK/NAreas. The guy who sent this letter said he did so because he was afraid that unless this fact was taken notice of now, finally his region could end up getting daisy-cuttered by the US.

Pakistan has a severe water management problem especially since
its fresh water supply is severely limited due to population pressure.

A FAIR deal needs to be worked out with the Mirpuris, Sindhis and
the people around Kalabagh. Pakistan cannot let water management schemes be ignored.

So Build it Damn It!

Ras

Dear Sadna #9,

The training camps in AJK are non-operational lately. Mobile camps in the frontier province are being used for now. In case of war on Iraq they will be out of operation too.

Not agreeing or disagreeing to you, just a piece of information :)

The various jihadi groups` training camps - did they/the govt lease the land or just occupy it? How much effect does this activity have on Pakistani Kashmir`s economy?

Interesting article

There are number of factual errors in the article.Pakistani government promised visas and vouchers to England for Mirpuries.Pakistan government can`t grant visas to England,it was British government that did.and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the dam.

The whole process of emigration from Mirpur started in the early fifties due to socio-economic reasons way before any dam was proposed.

Jay#6 I like your sense of humour but this problem isn`t confined to Mirpur and Pakistan,There are problems in India just as bad if not worse in the Narmada valley scheme with up to one Million people being uprooted. Freethinker#5 you have no concept of geography river tawi does not feed mangla reserviour,the reason i know because i lived 15 years of my life in Mirpur.

WARS IN PAKISTAN,

Urstruly laments in post #1 that there will be civl wars in pakistan for water. What is new, there is war between shia and sunnis, against MQM, what difference wil an additional cause for war make.

Mangala damn is a damn fight for survival, from being drowned and qualifies as jihad. So kashmiris are on a double jihad, against the pakistanis and indians. That could mean double heaven, special offer of houris, special deal for kashmiris, 144 houris in place of mere 72. Somw are born lucky.

Very interesting.

While water disputes are the hallmark of many conflicts, as another interactor pointed out, (including Palestine) it would behoove Pakistan to find answers more acceptable to Mirpuris.
1. Can Pakistan afford to claim responsibility of Mirpur and the lives and futures of Mirpuris?
2. Should they when there seem to be Mirpuris who have another understanding and perspective altogether?

My information is somewhat old but provides the rationale for enlarging the reservoir created by the Mangla dam. The useful life of the Mangla reservoir was estimated at 50 years when it was built. According to these estimates, the existing reservoir is already approaching the limit of its useful life. There were reservations before building this dam due to its limited useful life but an argument was made that its life could be extended by building a dam at Dina on the downstream side.

The life of the reservoir is limited due to the high concentration of sediments in Tawi river that feeds the reservoir. Most of these sediments are deposited within the reservoir and are continually filling it. Dina reservoir will have a very long life because the bulk of the sediments will be trapped in the Mangla reservoir and sediment free water will flow into Dina reservoir. This proposal made a lot of engineering sense particulary when it was realized that the Mangla dam could not be economically raised to create more storage. May be subsequent investigations have established the feasibility of raising the existing dam.

Good informative piece. It`s sad to note that the government always betrays people on these matters. It would still be good to hear an `pro-Mangla dam` side of the story.

It would also be good to hear the `pro-Kalabagh dam` side of the story. Why not build Kalabagh indeed? Raising Mangla idea recently emerged it seems. Kalabagh dam`s feasibility studies for construction etc. are rusting away for decades.

a question concerning tarriffs: 2.85 in pakistan and 4.75 in kashmir? are these separate from the 6.plus rates Pakistanis have to pay or components of that six plus rs per unit?

Just wanted to mention, that the article was published with permission of Shams Rehman and is not my own work.

Urstruly wrote at # 1:

``In next 25- 30 years there will be civil wars for water if we fail to plan and execute now. ``

The futurists are predicting that 4 countries are going to have unsurmountable water related problems by the year 2020. These are India, Pakistan, Egypt and China. Therefore, I tend to agree with you. We need dams, but before that an extensive confidence building exercise has to be undertaken to obtain the buy-in of the people.

Recent announcement of foreign investment by a Canadian company (if I recall correctly) in building water desalination plants in Karachi is also a good step. At least coastal cities can be diverted to this source of water to ease pressure on our conventional sources.