Excerpts from a December 31 statement issued by Farooq Tariq, general secretary of Labour Party Pakistan:
A real war could erupt between the two nuclear powers, Pakistan and India ... both countries are speaking the war language ... initial steps taken include India's recall of its ambassador in Pakistan [and] the suspension of the only "Friendship Bus" service and train service between Delhi and Lahor. Pakistan newspapers also reported that India has called for the scrapping of the Indus Water Treaty.
The Indus Water Treaty of 1960 governs the distribution of water from the Indus River and its tributaries to India and Pakistan. Scrapping the treaty not only would starve the Punjab and Sind provinces, and Pakistan as a whole, but Afghanistan as well.
Both provinces are heavily dependent on canal irrigation systems coming from these rivers. Because of climate changes, there has been a draught for many years in the arid areas of Punjab. The food requirements of Pakistan are mainly met out of the canal-irrigated areas of Punjab and Sind. The two provinces constitute more than 80% of Pakistan's total population.
The Kashmiris want independence. The religious fundamentalists want to turn this national struggle into a religious struggle. Part of the ISI [Pakistan's intelligence agency] is helping these fundamentalists to achieve this goal.
The Pakistan and Indian working classes have to act and do so decisively now. They have to reject the excuse of their rulers to go to war ... The real loser of such a war will be the ordinary citizens of both countries. The rich and the capitalists will make money out of war and the workers will pay dearly in money terms but also with their lives.
Pakistan's economy is already on the verge of economic collapse ... The Afghan war has already ruined it and a war between India and Pakistan will roll back living standard of the masses to an unprecedented level.
From Green Left Weekly, January 16, 2002.
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