PAKISTAN: More than ten thousand flood victim families have been denied compensation since 2007

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that more than ten thousand flood victim families have been denied approved compensation by the authorities since 2007 and are displaced without having a proper source of income. The floods of June 2007 destroyed thousands of fruit trees, acres of agriculture land and hundreds of houses. This havoc in Balochistan occurred when a dam was constructed which was generally opposed by the residents of the area. Design planners told the martial law authorities that the dam could not bear the pressure of torrential rains because of its technical faults.

Many times the concerned authorities held meetings with the affectees and agreed to pay the compensation but then failed to do so. More than 15 villages situation along the banks of the Dasht river which inhabited the area and more than 100,000 people were directly affected by the construction of the Mirani dam for the want of water.

CASE NARRATIVE:

The affectees of the Mirani Dam disaster have held several hunger strikes to press for the payment of compensation and every time authorities from the Balochistan provincial government, Water and Power Department Authority (WAPDA) and the Planning Commission promised in writing to arrange the payment but as of yet have failed to do so. More than ten thousand families have been waiting for compensation since 2007. These are people who lost their houses, agriculture land and fruit trees.

The Mirani Dam was inaugurated on the Dasht River, Turbat, Kech district, Balochistan province, by former president General Musharraf to much fanfare in 2007. Promises were made that it would irrigate over 33,200 acres of land and thus ‘develop the people of Balochistan’. While plans were being hatched between the servants of the ‘visionary’ state and the Saudi sheikhdom for leasing these ‘future’ irrigated fields, disaster struck. On June 26-27 the people suffered what they had predicted: the dam created a flood. The short sightedness of the planners was very evident when floods hit the dam. Only one spill way was built which was only 600 feet in length and too far away from the nearby river so the overflowing water submerged the fields and destroyed the crops.

Due to torrential rains the dam was unable to control the flow of the water and a flood was created upstream of the dam. Over 36 people died while 250,000 were rendered homeless as homes were swept away, date palm fields were flooded and the small canal (karez) system, the indigenous mountainous irrigation method, was destroyed. Over 50,000 acres of arable land were rendered unusable: flooded and without a viable irrigation source in the future.

With the construction of the Mirani Dam people were told that if the floods came the water will not go beyond the area of 244 feet from the Dam. However in its first experience, just in a few months of its inauguration, the backflow flood defied the ‘expert’ prediction and reached 271.4 feet above the Average Mean Sea Level (AMSL), causing destruction in vast areas like the Nodez, Nasirabad and Kech districts.

The concerned authorities, the provincial government of Balochistan, WAPDA and the Planning Commission of Pakistan (PC), after long deliberations, promised to pay the amount of Rs. 4,305.89 million to all the affected people for the destruction of houses, agriculture land and fruit trees. However, to-date, the authorities have paid only Rs. 1,680 Million for the houses that came coming under the 264 AMSL but not for the more than 200,000 date trees and other fruit trees and crops. The concerned authorities also promised to pay compensation for the houses and fruit farms that were coming up to the 271.4 feet AMSL.

The compensation for more than 190,000 ‘date’s trees’, coming under the 244 feet AMSL has also yet not been paid by the authorities which was promised in 2007. On December 3, 2012 a meeting of representatives of all the three authorities and representatives from the affectees was held and again it was decided to pay the total amount as compensation for the resettlement of the affectees.

However when the affectees realised that the promises would not see the light of the day they started a hunger strike before the WAPDA house, Lahore, Punjab province on February 18. They travelled more than 2,000 kilometer from Turbat sub district, Balochistan province. They carried out their protest hunger strike for eleven days and again the authorities intervened and promised to sit again on March 10 for the settlement of the dispute. The authorities are continuously putting the responsibility on each other by saying it is federal government’s responsibility and others are saying it is provincial government’s responsibility. Some legislators have raised this issue in both the houses of parliament but no one is taking up the responsibility to follow the agreement made with the affectees.

The people have gone into debt and are facing hardships; they are unable to pay for the replacement of the houses and lands which they have lost.

The River Dasht in Balochistan fed many districts of the province. It runs for up to 235 kilometers and meets the sea at Gwader port. More than 15 villages were getting water from this river for drinking and agriculture purposes. This river stores torrential rain water but with the construction of the Mirani Dam the river has dried up and the Dam is not able to store water. The people of the affected districts have started to leave their villages for the search of water and of course, for their economic survival. Furthermore, the education of thousands of children has suffered and the victims have no health facilities.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The agreement to release the Rs. 4.3 billion promised seems unlikely as bureaucrats continue to wrangle with the question of “who is to pay” the compensation. The 18th Amendment in the Constitution has become the new tool for federal bureaucrats to absolve themselves for even that which is in their power; water and power projects are still a federal subject as per the constitution. But deeper suspicions remain fixed on the so-called restoration project planned. While the Mirani Dam was under construction, it emerged that the 33,000 acres plus area supposed to be made cultivable was being shown around to Saudi and UAE-based sheikhs. The then Water and Power Minister Naveed Qamar had touted it to the Arab kingdoms and locals who were being offered Rs 600-1,000 per acre per year to ‘lease’ their land to the Arabs, with Gwadar Port ensuring that all the produce was dispatched to their homelands immediately. The question is: if the dam does become functional at some point, however unlikely it may be, will any cultivable lands be corporatised or deliver something for locals? WAPDA still maintains that the “Mirani Dam was vital for the socio-economic uplift of backward areas”. However, the fact that the Gwadar Port was handed over to China after the dismissal of the Balochistan government reeks of the same logic: Balochistan’s resources to be exploited while the Baloch people are labeled as slaves to the Sardars (please note that Turbat does not have any Sadars).

The spectacular failure of the Mirani Dam should be a watershed moment for planners. Locals remember that when the Mirani Dam was being made, one of the DESCON engineers on the project, cursed General Musharraf for building a dam in an area without rain. A few months later, when there was a flash flood after torrential rains hit the area during dam’s construction phase, he cursed General Musharraf for making a dam which would be unable to sustain the floods. Locals had delivered the same warning when the dam construction started: they pointed to rain patterns, water flows, irrigation patterns and flood histories to say that the dam would cause devastation.

But six years after the floods, WAPDA still does not mention any adverse effects of the floods in its official press releases. The reason is simple: WAPDA cannot admit a dam has failed. They would be out of job. And dams continue to be touted as a solution to “the water shortage in Balochistan”. Over 46 new dams are planned in the province, a number of which have already raised controversy, including the Shahdikot Dam in Pasni and Hingol Dam in the Lasbela district. (By Hashim Bin Rashid “The Baloch who was developed?”)

SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please write letters to the following authorities calling on them to immediately release the amount of Rs. 4305.89 million to the affectees of the Mirani Dam disaster as promised by the representatives of the Balochistan government, WAPDA and Planning Commission of government of Pakistan. Please urge them to make arrangements on an urgent basis to stop the inland migration of more than one hundred thousand people. The authorities must restore the actual position of the Dasht River and make more spill ways or at least increase the existing spill way from 600 feet in length to 1200 feet so future flood waters should fall in the Dasht River.

The AHRC is writing a separate letter to the UN Special Rapporteur on Right to Food calling for his intervention into this matter.

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