The Musharaf regime in Pakistan plans to commence construction of a
massive dam in 2016 on the Indus river at Kalabagh near the border
between the Punjab and North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The
regime declares that the dam is necessary for Pakistan’s economic
development, water and food security and flood mitigation and will
provide an estimated 3,600MW of hydro electric power and 35,000
jobs. Opponents of the project see the dam as another grab for water
by the ruling Punjabi elite, who dominate federal politics in
Pakistan. The dam’s opponents cite it’s negative impact on the
environment and the economic and social wellbeing of many thousands
of Pakistani working people and villagers. General Musharaf has said
that the dam will proceed against any opposition and that the
Federal and Punjabi governments will topple any provincial
government that opposed the dam. Of Pakistan’s four provinces three
provincial parliaments - NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan - have passed
resolutions opposing the dam.

On 31^st December, four progressive parties in the Punjab province of
Pakistan united to protest against the proposed Kalabagh Dam (KBD).
The rally, in Lahore, was lathi charged by police, and activists of
the four parties - National Workers Party (NWP), Labour Party
Pakistan (LPP), Pakistan Mazdoor Mehaz (PMM) and Mazdoor Kissan
Party (MKP) - were beaten. Farooq Tariq, an organiser of the rally
and National Secretary of the LPP told GLW "The LPP opposes the KBD
because it will deny Sindh its share of water and turn it into a
desert. We oppose the construction of big dams on environmental
grounds and see KBD itself as a question of democratic and national
rights. KBD will benefit the Punjab ruling class and will add to the
exploitation of Sindh. All provinces except the Punjab have
repeatedly opposed the construction of this dam. This democratic
verdict should be taken as a referendum and the dam abandoned. For
the dam to proceed, especially under an unelected, military
dictatorship, is a violation of all democratic norms".

Two days earlier, protestors at Jehangira, 60km east of Peshawar, closed the
Grand Trunk road between Peshawar in NWFP and the country’s capital
Islamabad for seven hours. That rally was organised by the Awami
National Party (ANP) and was attended by representatives of almost
all political parties, including the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP),
an ally of Musharaf. The Mutehida Majlas Amal (MMA), a coalition of
Islamic fundamentalist organisations that form the provincial
government of NWFP, also sent representatives to the rally. The
ANP’s president, Asfandyar Wali Khan, told the rally: "Pakistan and
Kalabagh Dam cannot co-exist". He said that proceeding with the dam
against the wishes of three provinces could lead to a "1971-like
situation", referring to the civil war that saw East Pakistan split
off to form Bangladesh. "We are opposed to the disintegration of the
country, but if the establishment is bent on drowning its own
people - then we will choose how we want to die" he said.

The Musharaf regime already faces an insurgency in Balochistan
ostensibly over inequitable treatment of the Baloch people and
diverting resources from that province. On 29 March 2005 a Long March' of 500km ended in a rally of over 100,000 opponents of the dam in Karachi, Sindh's capital. As early as 12 June 1998, the day after the KBD project was announced, protests of thousands of people around the country erupted against the proposal and protests throughout the country have continued to date. To understand the passion that this dam arouses it is necessary to understand the importance of the Indus river system to Pakistan and the effects the dam will have on the workers and peasants of Pakistan. {{{The Indus River}}} The Indus River originates some 5,000 metres above sea level in the glaciers of the northern slopes of Kailash Parbat in Tibet collecting melting snow and rainwater from a wide catchment area. Flowing north-west through Ladakh-Baltistan into Gilgit just south of the Karakoram range it gradually turns south into Jammu-Kashmir, coming out of the hills between Peshawar and Rawalpindi in Pakistan. On its 2,900km journey to the Arabian Sea it is augmented by ten major rivers and passes through the Punjab and Sindh provinces of Pakistan. The river's annual flow is some 207 billion cubic metres (twice the size of the Nile), with its peak flood season July - September. The river's flood inundates a section of land about 4km wide. Along this strip, known as "Katcho" land, and dependent on the river's flood, is approximately 240,790 hectares of dense riverine forests and 242,814 hectares of rich grazing land. At its mouth the river's delta is 210km wide and home to 263,048 hectares of mangrove forest. The river also has significant flood events 1 in 5 years and severe floods 1 in 10 years, with catastrophic floods 1 in 100 years. Since 1859, 19 barrages and 43 canal heads have been built and the world's largest contiguous irrigation system constructed. A massive 61,000km of canals and 105,000 built water courses irrigate 14,164,150 hectares of farmland. There are already two storage dams on the Indus - the Tarbela and Chashma. The Indus also suffers from pollution by raw sewerage, industrial waste and farm run-offs. {{{Pakistan's water supply}}} Pakistan depends almost entirely on the Indus river system for its irrigated agriculture. Around 130,000,000 of its 200,000,000 population depend on the erratic flows of the Indus for their water needs and millions are directly or indirectly reliant on it for their livelihoods. It is not surprising therefore that water distribution and control of the Indus and it's canal system has always loomed large in Pakistan's politics. Indeed the dispute over the Indus' water goes back before the creation of Pakistan to the 1870s when conflict erupted between Sindh and Punjab when the latter began constructing irrigation infrastructure on the Indus. By 1945 the British imposed a solution on the two provinces whereby the right of Sindh to receive the waters of the Indus was held supreme. This arrangement continued until 1977 when the federal government of Pakistan began an ad-hoc process of water apportionment between provinces, which favoured distribution to the Punjab. Disputes between the provinces and the federal government over water allocation led to the signing of the Indus Water Accord on 16 March 1991 by the Chief Minister of Pakistan and representatives of all four provinces. The Accord was ratified by the Council of Common Interests on 21 March 1991 and became law binding on all provinces and the federal government. The Accord set out guidelines for developing a regulation pattern for water usage based on a "ten daily basis". The scheme was designed to allocate water to the provinces on a 10-day seasonal adjusted system based on water flow in the Indus in a 10-day period. Under the Accord the provinces were allocated a certain percentage of "balance river supply" which accounted for the need for a minimum flow through of water to the sea. Under the Accord the allocations were: Punjab 37%, Sindh 37%, NWFP 14% and Balochistan 12% of available supply. Water shortages and surpluses were thus to be shared equitably among the four provinces. However, in May 1994 the Punjab government proposed a different formula for water distribution known as the "Historical Uses Formula". This formula used as its baseline for calculating "historical uses" of water the 13 year period from 1977 to 1990. That is, the period during which the federal government'sad-hoc’ distribution in favour of the
Punjab was in force.

The matter was referred to the Federal Law
Division which declared that the proposal would be a breach not only
of the Accord but also the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of
Pakistan. Using its physical control over canal heads and dams, as
well as other measures, the Punjab government has been able to
impose its “Historical Uses Formula” on the rest of Pakistan. So,
for instance, during the Kharif' growing season (April-September) in 2000 water availability in the Indus was very low. Under the Accord this shortage should have been shared equally amongst the provinces. But in flagrant violation of the Accord the water was distributed unevenly, with the provinces further down the river suffering the most from water restrictions. The Punjab received 20% less than their allocation under the Accord, NWFP 6% less, Sindh 30% less and Balochistan 42% less. Out of the 1510 daily periods’
during Kharif, Sindh suffered nine periods with water shortfalls of
20-50%, Balochistan 14 periods, Punjab 2 periods and Balochistan nil
periods. During the first half of Kharif (April-July), when Sindh
has its main growing season, the two main reservoirs, Tarbela and
Mangla (on the Jhelum river), retained their water. The water was
released in September - exclusively to Punjab and NWFP. This
inequitable distribution of water is set to become worse with
construction of the Kalabagh dam in the Punjab.

 The Kalabagh Dam Site

The proposed dam will be located 286 metres above mean sea level on
the river Indus about 148km downstream of the confluence of the
Kabul and Indus rivers and 26km upstream of the existing Jinnah
barrage. The site is a deep, narrow channel extending over 8km where
the river is some 395 metres wide.

The dam site is in close proximity to the massive Kohat and Khewra
salt ranges, the latter containing the oldest operating salt mine in
the world. The leaching of large quantities of salt from these
ranges into the river system as a result of ground saturation and
changes to hydrology in the region because of the dam are major
concerns for opponents. There are also five oil fields located near
the site. The massive earthquake that hit Pakistan’s north in
November 2005 highlights another problem with the location of the
dam. The site is cut NE-SW by the Kharjawan and Kalabagh fault lines.

The dam wall will be 79.2metres high and will store 7,550 million
cubic metres of water. The reservoir will extend 148kms up the Indus
from the dam site, 58kms up the Soan river and 16kms up the Kabul
river from its confluence with the Indus. The estimated cost of the
dam when it was first proposed in the late 1980s was US$2.65
billion. The estimated cost now is US$8-10 billion.

 Impact of the KBD

Pakistan’s Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) puts the
total cultivable land to be permanently submerged at around 14,000
hectares. However, independent assessments have put the figure as
high as 74,000 hectares. Neither figure includes lands that will be
inundated during a river flood event. Nor do these figures take
account of the effect of the rise in river levels above the dam.

The dam will raise the water level throughout the Attock gorge and
through the Haro river confluence up to the Akora Khattack on the
Kabul river. This will threaten the Nowshera valley in the NWFP with
inundation during flood events. Also threatened with flooding will
be Nowshera City which straddles the Kabul river and has a
population of 200,000. WAPDA originally planned to build 19 metre
high dykes along the Kabul river to protect towns and villages from
flooding.

This idea was abandoned in favour of lowering the height
of the dam wall by about 8 metres, but is unlikely to save Nowshera
from flooding. In the long term Nowshera City and the surrounding
areas are likely to become uninhabitable due to waterlogging from
the raised water levels and increased salinity. In the Karak
district, near KBD, the drinking water of thousands of people is
derived from shallow wells. This shallow aquifer is separated from a
deep-water reservoir that is heavily polluted with salt
concentrates. The KBD will cause both lateral flow of saltish water
into this shallow sweet-water aquifer and its vertical mixing with
the deeper salty reservoir. This will make the people’s wells
brackish and unusable.

The agricultural, economic and cultural heart of the NWFP is centred
around the Peshawar, Charsadda, Nowshera, Mardan and Swabi
Districts. These areas together have some of the richest soils in
the country. The fertility of these lands has been enhanced by the
Salinity Control and Reclamation Projects (SCARP). These salt
reclamation and drainage systems are likely to operate effectively
during normal KBD reservoir levels. However their outfall drains
into the Kabul river are at such a level that a flood event of the
type that occurs 1 in 5 years will raise the river sufficiently to
cause backflow throughout the SCARP system. The impact of this on
the fertile lands of the region will be significant and combined
with the 1 in 10 and 1 in 100 year flood events will be catastrophic
for the agriculture of the NWFP in the long term.

WAPDA projects that 83,000 people will be displaced by KBD upon its
construction. Other sources, including the government of NWFP put
this figure at over 100,000 people. WAPDA has said that all those
displaced by KBD will be compensated and resettled. However WAPDA
does not have a good track record in relation to its dam projects.
Two decades after the commissioning of the Tarbela dam in 1977 many
of the displaced people were still waiting for resettlement and
compensation. These figures moreover only reflect the immediate
displacement of people due to submerging of the land. They don’t
take account of long term displacement due to destruction of fertile
land, waterlogging, increasing salinity and other impacts on the
river’s economic life, including impacts far from the dam itself.

Desertification is already a major problem in Sindh. Successive
Punjab and Federal governments have diverted water from the Indus to
satisfy agriculture and industry in the Punjab at the expense of
Sindh. The fertile plains of Sindh have been contracting for decades
and the farming population that once inhabited what are now sand
dunes have moved to the cities seeking a livelihood. The
construction of KBD includes the construction of a new canal on the
left bank that will take irrigation water to the Rasul-Qadirabad
sector of Punjab to open up new agricultural potential. The
government of Sindh believe that they will then be presented with a
fait accompli of more water diverted away from Sindh. The lessened
natural flow of the Indus caused by the KBD combined with the
existing political restriction of water flow will accelerate Sindh’s
desertification.

The Katcho' lands, as noted above, contain rich agricultural land dependent on the flooding that will be further restricted by KBD. In Sindh about 100,000 people live on and are sustained directly from theKatcho’ lands. A further 1 million people derive income
from Katcho' land through the timber trade, fishing and boating. As well as the farm land, there are also the riparian forests that contain some unique species of plants that are also threatened. One species unique to the area, and fast approaching extinction, is the Enphratica, a species of tree used to produce Sindh's famous craft of Janjhi (brightly coloured furniture). TheKatcho’ lands have
suffered severely over the past 50 years as water flow down the
Indus has been increasingly restricted. Currently only around 20% of
the area receives any flooding and from 1995-98 regeneration was
noted in only about 10% of forest areas.

Located in Sindh are some of Asia’s largest natural lakes, the
Manchchar, Haleji, Hadero, Keenjhar and Chotiari. The inundation of
the Indus helps to fill these lakes. They are home to thousands of
migratory birds from Kazakhstan and Siberia who use the "Indus Fly
Way" to fly thousands of kilometres to escape the northern winters.
The lakes also provide fish for the local communities and are also
threatened by the lack of water flowing down the Indus.

A number of animal and plant species are threatened with extinction
if the flow of water in the Indus is not restored, or is further
restricted. One such animal endemic to the Indus is the Indus Blind
Dolphin, or Bullahan. These dolphins were once found throughout the
Indus river system in their tens of thousands. With the construction
of dams and barrages along the river and it’s increasing pollution
the dolphin’s numbers have dwindled dramatically. It is now
restricted to a short stretch of the river between the Sukkur and
Gudu barrages and numbers are estimated at between 200 and 1,000
individuals.

A striking feature of the Indus river delta is its extensive
mangrove forest, the 6^th largest in the world. The health of the
forest is directly dependent on fresh water outflows and the rich
silt deposits carried by it. From 1977 to 1990 this mangrove forest
diminshed by 38%. The Sindh Forestry Department estimates that an
outflow of around 33,300 million cubic metres of water into the
Arabian sea is necessary to sustain the remaining forest. This is
roughly 8,635 million cubic metres more than is currently flowing
into the sea.

The KBD will reduce this flow even further. A 1991
World Conservation Union paper stated that "...wildlife species
supported by the mangroves are porpoises, jackals, wild bears,
reptiles, migratory fowl birds and three species of dolphins. If the
mangrove habitat is destroyed, the continued existence in the Indus
delta of all these species will be threatened". As well as the
habitat of these animals being threatened the livelihood of 100,000
people directly dependent on the mangroves for existence, including
shrimp, crab and other fishermen will be in jeopardy. Those
indirectly dependent on the mangrove for their existence may run
into the millions, including those who fish along the Sindh coast as
many of the fish species caught there have breeding grounds amongst
the mangroves. About half the fish exported from Pakistan are netted
along the coast of Sindh.

Two other major problems result from the decreased flow of the Indus
river. Salt water intrusion into the Indus is contaminating water
supplies and adding to the salinity of agricultural land. Salt water
intrusion has occurred up to 100km inland from the sea. People in
some areas of Sindh are suffering from various diseases as a result
of having only brackish water to drink. Throat swelling as a result
of drinking brackish water is a common complaint in some areas. As a
result, hundreds of villages in the Badin and Thatta districts of
Sindh have been abandoned and their populations forced to migrate.
Secondly, the decreased flow has meant an increase in the
concentration of industrial (including heavy metals), domestic and
agricultural (including pesticides) pollutants in the river.

General Musharaf, with the support of the World Bank (who is
providing loans for the project), is determined to push the dam
through against all opposition - even in his own government. Against
this is the ongoing and strengthening coalition of anti-dam forces
throughout Pakistan. What is required is international support to
the anti-dam movement.

Send messages of opposition to the Kalabagh dam to WAPDA via their
website: http://202.38.51.251/htmls/auth-index.html

Send copies and messages of support to the anti-dam movement to the
LPP: labourparty gmx.net