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Water dispute fuels Indo-Pak tensions
Everything fuels Indo-Pak tensions ...
GUJRAT: A bitter dispute over limited water resources is fuelling India-Pakistan tensions at a time when the neighbours are trying to rebuild trust and resume peace talks.
Trust won't be rebuilt until the Mumbai murders have been resolved.
It's a long-running feud that has worsened in recent months as a dry spell focuses attention on Pakistan's growing water shortage. Three days of talks in March ended with both sides trading barbs and failing to reach a resolution.

The issue was raised on Thursday when the leaders of the two countries met at a regional summit in Bhutan and agreed on the need to normalise relations, the Pakistani side said.

Further complicating the situation, extremists are trying to capitalise on allegations that India is stealing water from glacier-fed rivers that start in Kashmir. Independent experts say there is no evidence to support those charges, but they warn that Pakistan's concerns about India's plans to build at least 15 new dams need to be addressed to avoid conflict.

"If you want to give Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and other Pakistani terrorists an issue that really rallies people, give them water," said John Briscoe, who has worked on water issues in the two countries for 35 years and was the World Bank's senior water adviser. Farmers in the country's central breadbasket are certainly angry. "India has blocked our water because they are our enemy," said Mohammad, a 65-year-old farmer in Gujrat.

Indian officials blame any reduction on natural variation and climate change, which have hurt India as well. They add that Pakistan's antiquated irrigation system wastes large quantities of water. "Preposterous and completely unwarranted allegations of stealing water and waging a water war are being made against India," Indian Ambassador to Pakistan Sharat Sabharwal said in a speech in April.

"The issues of Kashmir and terrorism are going to be much more difficult if we don't have an agreement on water," Briscoe said.

Indus water commissioner Jamaat Ali Shah does not accuse India of stealing water, but he says India is not providing information required under the 1960 pact to prove that it is not. India denies any intention to cut off water to Pakistan and maintains that it has complied with the treaty. But as with other issues between the two countries, mistrust runs high.
Posted by: Steve White 2010-05-01
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=295772