`Flood victim` a new ruse for international aid for Pakistan
Pakistan’s loud protestations about being a `victim` of the global climate crisis is nothing but a new ruse to extract money from international agencies.
Earlier, Pakistan had collected a few billion dollars and a host of concessions on being a `victim of terrorism` even though it was one of the key instruments of spreading global terror. This time around, Pakistan has carried out massive infrastructure projects in sensitive areas like Gilgit Baltistan, causing high melting rate of glaciers and blockage of river systems in the high Himalayas and created urban nightmares like Karachi.
Ever since a serious flooding submerged large parts of Pakistan, especially in Sindh and Balochistan provinces, Pakistani spin doctors have been busy creating a narrative of `cataclysmic` floods and of being a victim of climate change to demand the rich countries to pay for the damages. Climate crisis is a global phenomenon and no country remains free of its consequences. Pakistan certainly faces such challenges like many others. The World Meteorological Organization recently said that weather-related disasters such as Pakistan’s flooding had increased five-fold over the last 50 years, killing 115 people each day on average.
Understanding climate change is an evolving science but some factors have been found to be key reasons for these unprecedented changes in weather patterns and events. One such factor is man-made, like deforestation, rapid urbanisation, damaging fragile ecosystems, mining and construction in mountains that have a direct impact on glacier melt and resultant impact.
General Javed Bajwa, during one of his tours of flood affected areas, has remarked about rampant construction in urban and rural areas. An international group of scientists, World Weather Attribution, in its September 2022 analysis has pinned the blame on human-caused climate change for the deadly floods in Pakistan. People living in harm’s way is one of the main factors in the current disaster, the analysis said. Mr Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, an expert on climate change and development, wrote more categorically in the Dawn on August 25,2022, that “ Our flawed development model has made our lives insecure in both the urban and rural areas. No doubt the downpour itself was unprecedented in many areas, but the monsoon waters are furious primarily because we have choked their passages and encroached on banks and shoulders. The floodwaters are only reclaiming their right of way.“
It is quite well known that climate disasters are often caused by man-made development and corrupt administration. So is the case with Pakistan. Two cases are sufficient to illustrate the real reasons for Pakistan’s tragedy–flood of Karachi and China Pakistan Economic Corridor Project (CPEC), issues that are rarely talked about.
On July 9,2022, when the first scenes of flooding hit the mass headlines, an architect, Arif Hasan, wrote in the Dawn, the case of Karachi. He pointed out how inept planning and administration have caused Karachi to flood every time there was rain. Roads, he said, turn into raging rivers and low-lying areas become lakes every time it rains. The reasons for this continued flooding are simple. Water running down from the roofs and compounds of all Karachi residential and commercial buildings and of real estate colonies have no passage to the sea. Many roads are higher than the areas they pass through and these settlements thus tend to become lakes with no exit for water. The architect pointed out that “some sections of Karachi are so low that the water cannot drain out into the sea, and at high tide there is often a backwash from the sea, as in the case of certain sections of Defence Housing Authority (DHA), Lyari and Keamari.“the DHA is owned and run by Pakistan Army’s subsidiaries.Another main reason is the encroachment of outfalls to the sea and mostly by elite developments, causing water ways to be constricted or built up.
Construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, running through some of the most vulnerable regions in Pakistan, has caused global melts, flooding, landslides, massive deforestation and river blockages. A large part of Karakoram Highway, an integral part of CPEC, continues to experience massive landslides and flooding. According to the Federal Flood Commission, Ministry of Water and Power, 2015 report, the CPEC region has experienced 25 significant flood events in the past 70 years. The flood disaster had caused more than $30 billion in losses to Pakistan. About 25,502 people were killed, 197,273 villages were destroyed, 616,598 km2 of land had been affected, and the flood disaster had become one of the main challenges affecting local economic and social development.The cumulative impact of CPEC projects on the 2022 flooding could only be known if there were to be a comprehensive and independent study which is unlikely given the critical importance of the project for both China and Pakistan.
But for rulers of Pakistan, both civilians and military, floods offer another chance to seek grants and donations, to help themselves.
