Militants Try to Cash in on Pakistani Farmer's Water Woes, The National, 27 January 2010
"The decrease in irrigation water to the Roohi desert region – a place that since 1988 has been a recruiting ground for militant groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir – was first noticed by residents five years ago. 'There was ample water until 2005 – more than enough to grow our crops. Then, suddenly, the number of days that water was available to each village started to drop off and has now reached the point where it has become a serious concern,' said Ansar Rasheed Sindhu, a farmer from the village of Chak 205...which is 700km south-east of the capital, Islamabad. The effect of the water shortfall has been particularly severe on subsistence farmers, whose families depend on the harvests of wheat and sugarcane for much of their food and on the sale of cotton for cash income... The growing alarm among farmers has not escaped the attention of militant groups still active in the area. They include the Jaish-i-Mohammed and Lashkar-i-Taiba (LiT), both of which are responsible for attacks in India over the past decade. In the nearby village of Chak 206, Jamal Din 'Afghani', the local head of the Jama’at-ud-Dawah, the charitable front of the LiT, blamed the water shortages on India’s construction of the Baglihar dam upstream on the Chenab River."
Read the full story.
Related articles:
Drought fears for wheat farmers, IRIN News, 28 January 2010
A charitable front for personal interest in Pakistan, The National, 25 January 2010
Potential for water conflict between India and Pakistan, ABC News [transcript], 15 August 2009
Water, Kashmir rankle in India, Pakistan talks, Reuters, 26 November 2008
Musharraf wades into water conflict, BBC News, 13 September 2003
Related reports:
Kashmir and water: Conflict and cooperation, Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security // University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign via the Human Security Report, 30 September 2009
Related posts:
Water challenges a "crucial" issue in central-south Asia, 19 January 2010
