Twirp: Terrorist Wahabi Islamic Rep Pakistan 4

[Naresh]

<b>Mudy Ji :</b>

Pakistanis have not only been "Gifted" with "Soside Buming" but in addition their penchant for breeding like flea infested rodents is causing a "Fleas Infested Rodent-like Population Explosion" thus progressively reducing the available Water Resources on a Per Capita Basis.

Read on :

<b>Cassandra’s forebodings - Taj M Khattak</b>

The ancient Trojan princess, Cassandra, was blessed with a gift of prophecy but also burdened by the curse that prevented anyone from ever believing her, although she would be as right as rain predicting from weather to the outcome of wars, without crystal balls or any of the other hocus pocus. It Just shows how capricious those old Greek gods were, in handing out favours with their right hand and taking them away with the left; and perhaps all for the sheer sport of it.

The officials of Ministry of Water and Power are not exactly in the same league as Cassandra, for she was mythical and they humans, but have nonetheless done a sterling job warning us of the water shortage catastrophe awaiting us, unless the country takes immediate and bold initiatives, but only if the ‘kings of ancient Greece would listen.

Students in most Business Schools in the west are encouraged to visit Easter Island, a Polynesian Island first inhabited in 300-400 AD, in South Eastern Pacifica Ocean, about 2200 miles west of Chile. The Island has many mysteries, but the one with which the students of economics are seized with for a case study, is how, its denizens, the Rapa Nui civiliation, brought death and extinction onto themselves when they were not careful with their resource management.

The ministry of water and power has not been alone in crying hoarse from the rooftop. In 2005, Mr John Briscoe, a senior advisor to the World Bank, warned the government of Pakistan that — the survival of a modern and growing Pakistan is threatened by (lack of) water. Pakistan has to invest and invest soon, in costly and contentious new large dams.

“Pakistan has very little water storage capacity. The United States and Australia have over 5,000 cubic meters of storage capacity per inhabitant and China has 2,200 cubic meters, while Pakistan has only 150 cubic meters of storage capacity per capita.

“Pakistan can barely store 30 days of water in the Indus basin. If something goes wrong with the hydraulic regime of the basin, Pakistan has no alternative to feed its agriculture. There is no latitude for error—.” The warning was indeed dire. According to IRSA, water storage in Pakistan has been reduced to half of what is needed.

In 2007, the World Bank again published a new study (Pakistan Infrastructure Implementation Capacity). According to the study, Pakistan is now one of the most water-stressed countries in the world. For perspective, this would appear as marginal and precarious as a few weeks Forex for imports or POL reserves for energy, with the only difference that the Indus Water Basin hydraulic regime, though severely under stress, has not snapped, not yet at least.

In 1997, while standing in the vicinity of a barbed fence on the Syrian-Israeli border on the outskirts of Quneitra, the Syrian Army Colonel briefing our visiting NDC group about the Israeli surveillance paraphernalia, atop Mount Avital on the Golan Heights, suddenly pointed northward towards Mount Hermon and shook us out of our wits by saying something which left a mark on everyone.

He said that the real reason why Syria will fight Israel for ever is the whiteness on the top there (a reference to the snow-peaked ridges) and the not the rocks below the whiteness. It is that source of water, he said, which supports the organised agricultural activity across the fence and the lack of which is causing all the bareness on the Syrian side.

Little wonder, then, that one aspect of the Syrian-Israeli dispute on the Golan Heights involves the existence, prior to 1967, of three different lines separating Syria from Israel (or, prior to 1948, from the British Mandate of Palestine, at least one of which—i.e., the 1923 boundary between the British Mandate of Palestine and the French Mandate of Syria—was drawn with considerations of water resources in mind).

<b>To relate the above experience to our own region, the real danger is that the population of Pakistan is likely to exceed 220 million by the year 2020 and unless there is improvement in the water management strategy, the water storage capacity ratio, already at a low 150 cubic meters per inhabitant, will aggravate further. In the absence of any new dams, there would not be enough water to meet its basic needs.</b>

The load shedding and power outages situation, governmental pronouncements to the contrary notwithstanding, is unlikely to improve unless there is cheaper hydro electricity. Government revenues could plummet due to precipitous declines in agricultural and industrial production. Food prices could go through the roof and there could be insufficient funds to pay for imports. Vast areas could start to become depopulated, creating social unrest. The population below the poverty line will swell with consequential adverse effects on law and order.

There is no consolation in the thought that this ratio is more or less the same in the case of two of our neighbours, India and Afganistan. This, if anything, could further accentuate the threat of future instability in this region as mouths to feed exceed the croplands which support the population.

It should not be difficult for anyone with interest in military history to comprehend the full implications of the situation. It is worth mentioning that at one stage Britain seriously considered surrendering in 1943 when German U-boats in the western approaches critically disrupted her food imports. Since then, it has drained marshes and cut down fruit orchards and forests to raise crops and achieve self-sufficiency in food production.

Rainfalls, another source of water, have unfortunately been the cause of much havoc in our cities and countryside all too often. Studies at the Stockholm Environment Institute have categorisd rain water as Green (65 percent) and Blue (35 percent). The Green water represents the fraction of rainfall that generates soil moisture and supports terrestrial ecosystem. It is not returned to the ground water and rivers, but eventually evaporates or transpires through plants. The 65 percent is further broken down into 4% absorbed by water bodies, 1 percent wetlands, 5 percent arid shrubs and barren lands, 26 percent forests, 20 percent Savannas and grasslands, and 9 percent taken in by croplands.

The Blue water represents the fraction that runs into rivers and aquifers and has a potential for withdrawal. Out of this the environmental water flow is the amount of water needed to sustain ecosystem services and is about 11 percent, while the rest of the blue water, about 24 percent, is available for possible societal use. As concerned citizens, we hope that the esteemed ministry of water and power will launch some intelligent initiatives where greater use can be made of the rain water in the decades ahead.

If Musharraf had only used all his bulldozing potential on building at least one large dam, rather than wasting his dictatorial advantage on the judiciary and other institutions, he might not, after all, has been such a reviled person in Pakistan, which he finds himself to be today. Consensus is an option only when there is flexibility in choices. In the matter of building large dams, we no longer have any room for dilly dallying. The moral and legal argument may be on the side of riparian, but the writing on the wall is against the country.

We now have representative government which can be expected to better understand such perils and garner grass root support for remedial measures. Can the present democratically elected rulers of the country, therefore, deliver where the past dictatorial regime failed? Judging by the current cacophony from Islamabad, with the president and the prime minister not even on the same sheet of music, the prospects of a futuristic water strategy, getting any decent or scant attention are not very bright.

The tragedy of Cassandra’s forebodings will, as such, continue to play out like other Greek tragedies and the gods smiling as usual.

<i>The write is a retired vice admiral and former vice chief of the Naval Staff. Email: tajkhattak@ymail.com</i>

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