Nov 09, 2009

World Sindhi Institute: Statement on Sindhi Share of Indus Water Supply


The World Sindhi institute has released a statement demanding that the Sindhi people in Pakistan be allowed access to their legitimate share of the water supply from the Indus River.



The World Sindhi Institute, maintains that the incremental deprivation that Sindh has faced, from accessing it's legitimate share of the Waters of the Indus , has been a result of State policy on the part of the Central Government of Pakistan since April 1948.
 
In 1947, when the State of Pakistan came into existence , 94 million acre feet used to flow from the Indus into the Arabian Sea , from the coast of Sindh.
 
Today , at times the River Indus simply runs dry even before it reaches the sea .

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature , IUCN , has ascertained that a minimum of 7.3 million acre feet of water flowing through the Indus Delta is essential to keep it's eco-system alive.

The policies of the State of Pakistan have deprived Sindh and Sindhis from a fundamental right: The right of a lower riparian nation, from accessing its legitimate share of a great river that runs the length of Pakistan.

Unfortunately, even though this right is guaranteed by International Riparian Law , it cannot be evoked unless there is an international boundary that runs through the political entity that deprives and the political entity that is deprived.

Because Sindh is a province of Pakistan it cannot take its case to international forums and must rely on appeals to Islamabad to rectify a highly inequitable , unjust and illegitimate situation.

The World Sindhi Institute views the incremental deprivation of Sindh from accessing the Waters of the Indus (even under the inequitable 1990 accord, which itself is not being implemented ) as an act of Eco-Terrorism , by Islamabad .

When a whole nation is deprived from as fundamental a need as access to water it is an act of slow and deliberate annihilation of an entire people and nation designed to dis-empower, dis-enfranchise and ultimately wipe out an entire indigenous civilization that was born and has existed for millennia because of the River Sindhu/Indus.

WSI believes that Islamabad has decided not to deploy an overt and conventional military attack on the Sindhi nation , but instead has adopted a policy of slow annihilation by depriving Sindh and Sindhi's of water , thereby ultimately achieving the same aim of wiping out the Sindhi nation in the years to come.

The World Sindhi Institute is confident that the Sindhi Nation , will successfully resist these moves by Islamabad through deploying all non -violent means ,and will ultimately achieve its objective of regaining access to its legitimate share of the Waters of the Indus ; and that all sane, peace and justice loving , individuals and organizations within and outside Pakistan will support Sindh and Sindhis in this quest.