Replies to post #2257 on Foreign Correspondence

[CoalTrain]

Instead, China plans to divert the Brahmaputra northwards from Tibet. If so, the Ganga-Brahmaputra doab would dry up, and civilisation as we know it would end in North India. This is a national security issue of the highest order, and Indians ignore it at their peril.


Wars have been started over a lot less. Did you know that Bechtel is trying to gain monopolistic control over water rights high in the Andes?

[CoalTrain]

War crimes in Fallujah


Cutting water supplies to civilian is something explicitly forbidden under Article 14 of the second protocol of the Geneva Conventions.

http://www.casi.org.uk/

Water supplies to Tall Afar, Samarra and Fallujah have been cut off during US attacks in the past two months, affecting up to 750,000 civilians. This appears to form part of a deliberate US policy of denying water to the residents of cities under attack. If so, it has been adopted without a public debate, and without consulting Coalition partners. It is a serious breach of international humanitarian law, and is deepening Iraqi opposition to the United States, other Coalition members, and the Iraqi interim government.

On 19 September 2004, the Washington Post reported that US forces 'had turned off' water supplies to Tall Afar 'for at least three days' . Turkish television reported a statement from the Iraqi Turkoman Front that 'Tall Afar is completely surrounded. Entries and exits are banned. The water shortage is very serious'. Al-Manar television in Lebanon interviewed an aid worker who stated that 'the main problem facing the people of Tall Afar and adjacent areas is shortage of water' Relief workers reported a shortage of clean water . Moreover, the Washington Post reports that the US army failed to offer water to those fleeing Tall Afar, including children and pregnant women .

'Water and electricity [were] cut off' during the assault on Samarra on Friday 1 October 2004, according to Knight Ridder Newspapers and the Independent. The Washington Post explicitly blames 'U.S. forces' for this . Iraqi TV station Al-Sharqiyah reported that technical teams were working to 'restore the power and water supply and repair the sewage networks in Samarra' . Al Jazeera interviewed an aid worker who confirmed that 'the city is experiencing a crisis in which power and water are cut off' , as well as the commander of the Samarra Police, who reported that 'there is no electricity and no water' .

On 16 October the Washington Post reported that: 'Electricity and water were cut off to the city [Fallujah] just as a fresh wave of strikes began Thursday night, an action that U.S. forces also took at the start of assaults on Najaf and Samarra.' . Residents of Fallujah have told the UN's Integrated Regional Information Networks that 'they had no food or clean water and did not have time o store enough to hold out through the impending battle' . The water shortage has been confirmed by other civilians fleeing Fallujah, Fadhil Badrani, a BBC journalist in Fallujah, confirmed on November 8 that 'the water supply has been cut off'.

In light of the shortage of water and other supplies, the Red Cross Has attempted to deliver water to Fallujah. However the US has refused to allow shipments of water into Fallujah until it has taken control of the city.

According to the Cambridge dossier, the information reported above is more widely known in Iraq than in the US and UK, and has had become a significant political issue.

Condemnations of the tactic have been issued by several major Iraqi political groups. On October 1 the Iraqi Islamic Party issued a statement criticizing the US attack on Fallujah which 'cut off water, electricity, and medical supplies', and arguing that such an approach 'will further aggravate and complicate the security situation'. It also called for compensation for the victims .

Three days later Muqtada al-Sadr criticized both the denial of water To Samarra, and the lack of international outrage at it: 'They say that this city is experiencing the worst humanitarian situations, without water and electricity, but no-one speaks about this. If the wronged party were America, wouldn't the whole world come to its rescue and wouldn't it denounce this?'

[Amaunet]

XINJIANG’S THIRST THREATENS KAZAKH WATER RESOURCES

I question how far China will go in negatively impacting Kazakh’s environment when China requires Kazakh oil.

When oil starts flowing next year from Kazakhstan, China will get 10 million tonnes a year. This will be doubled in 2011.

In fact, the pipeline can be extended to Kazakhstan's even richer oil fields in the Caspian Sea area.

Said the People's Daily: 'China's energy diplomacy relating to Russia, Kazakhstan and Myanmar are of great importance as they concern supplies which could sustain the country during a crisis.
#msg-4186355

-Am

Antoine Blua 11/24/04
A EurasiaNet Partner Post from RFE/RL

Xinjiang’s growing thirst for water is raising fears of a major catastrophe in Kazakhstan.

Mels Eleusizov heads the Kazakh nongovernmental organization Tabigat (Nature). He said the Irtysh and Ili rivers, which both originate in mountainous areas of Xinjiang before crossing into Kazakhstan, are being increasingly drained to serve China’s needs.

"For Kazakhstan, the most alarm concerns two rivers -- the Ili and Irtysh," Eleusizov said. "The new infrastructure and factories in Xinjiang consume a lot of water. The drinking water needs are increasing, too. If China continues to increase water consumption in the area, it will certainly affect the water resources on our side."

The Ili flows through Xinjiang into southeastern Kazakhstan and terminates in Lake Balkhash.

The Irtysh rises in China’s Altai Mountains and also crosses into northeastern Kazakhstan, before flowing through Lake Zaysan to the Russian city of Omsk and then into the Ob River.

The increasing usage of river water in Xinjiang, which has relatively few water resources of its own, is inherent in Beijing’s aim of attracting ethnic Han Chinese to the region and developing the local economy.

Ann McMillan, a scholar at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, has been researching the interdependency between Xinjiang and Central Asia.

"There’s actually a lot of concern coming out in China in the government [media]," McMillan says. "There have been reports about the water table dropping, especially around Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. So they are aware that they’ve got major problems. And they’ve even started charging for water in some places. But for their development to go ahead, they need water. So you’ve got a ’Catch 22’ situation."

The Irtysh and Ili are crucial sources of fresh water for the Kazakh population. Both also play a vital role in the economy, providing water for the industrial, agricultural. and fishing sectors.

Myrzageldy Kemel is a member of the Kazakh parliament’s Committee on the Protection of the Environment and Ecology. He talked about the environmental consequences of the increasing usage of the Ili’s water:

"If the level of the [Ili] River decreases, the environment along the banks will be affected drastically," Kemel said. "Local citizens will suffer a lot. Now, nobody is paying attention to this, although in about 50 years [the situation] might be even worse than in the Aral Sea."

The Aral Sea has lost three-quarters of its volume since 1960, when Soviet-era planners began diverting its feeder rivers to irrigate cotton fields. The Aral Sea is widely acknowledged to be one of the world’s worst man-made environmental disasters.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has warned that Kazakhstan’s largest lake, Lake Balkhash, is in danger of drying out if Astana does not adopt better water management practices or else gain Chinese cooperation over the usage of the Ili, the lake’s main contributor.

The current construction by China of a canal -- 300 kilometers long and 22 meters wide -- to reroute water from the Irtysh is also of great concern.

Abai Tursunov is a professor at the Kazakh Institute of Geology and Geography in Almaty. He said he is worried about the environmental impact when the canal becomes fully operational, which is estimated to be in 2020.

"The completion of the canal will affect us drastically," Tursunov said. "Power stations will be very much affected. Nobody is raising the issue, but gradually all of this can lead to major environmental problems."

Hydropower stations and factories are located along the Irtysh, while the Irtysh-Karaganda canal makes agriculture possible in central Kazakhstan. The river also provides drinking water to the capital, Astana, as well as to three other major cities -- Karaganda, Semipalatinsk and Pavlodar.

Chinese authorities have provided little information on the canal project. But speaking to RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, China’s ambassador to Kazakhstan, Zhou Xiao Pei, tried to be reassuring: "We currently use 10 to 20 percent of the [Irtysh’s] waters. We are building a new infrastructure. [But] we are going to use no more than 40 percent [of the water]."

In 2001, Kazakhstan and China signed an agreement aimed at facilitating cooperation on trans-boundary water management. Through consultations, the two states agreed to share information concerning the Irtysh.

Zhakybay Dostay, also of the Kazakh Institute of Geology and Geography in Almaty, said the talks have led nowhere so far.

"The [joint Kazakh-Chinese intergovernmental] commission meets every year without results," Dostay said. "They just give figures, make statements and sign documents. The problems remain."

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev visited Xinjiang in September. But there is no indication that he raised the issue of trans-boundary rivers with Chinese officials.


Posted November 24, 2004 © Eurasianet
http://www.eurasianet.org