Daily Times

KARACHI: The National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), an organization formed by the federal government of Pakistan with a mandate to work for promotion and protection of human rights, has said that human rights of local communities in Thar are being violated in the wake of increased security arrangements in the area.

Addressing a press conference at NCHR Sindh Office on Friday, NCHR Chairman Justice (r) Ali Nawaz Chowhan said that an environment of fear had been created in Thar region, which is considered the most peaceful area in Pakistan.

Chowhan asked the provincial government and the Centre to review the entire Thar coal project from the prism of social benefits for the community and take serious measures to protect the environment.

“Many checkposts have been established in the entire Thar desert to check citizens, where security personnel regularly interrogate not even locals but tourists as well,” he said, adding: “Banned religious outfits are freely operating in Thar, resulting in forced conversions and early marriages.”

In this regard, the NCHR visited Tharparkar district on December 15, 2018, as a follow up on the commission’s monitoring of human rights situation in the district.

Sharing its observations, he said that the commission noted the concerns raised by the local community that might trigger extremism and intolerance in the region. “The rise in extremist ideology facilitated by an expansion in the seminary culture, especially set up by banned outfits, remains a cause of concern. Locals have also expressed a discomfort over the way the Thar Coal project is triggering change in local demography and the resultant social change may alter their peaceful environment.”

The commission also urged strong measures by the government to check the rise in infrastructure allegedly ‘threatening the peace and communal coexistence in the region’. “Pakistan has already paid a heavy price for the unchecked growth in structures of extremist ideology. We can no longer afford another such adventure, especially since the values of peace are intrinsic in the local fabric of the province of Sindh,” he maintained.

An array of billions of dollars coal development and electricity generation projects are being undertaken in Tharparkar. Out of the 19,000 square kilometers of the area of Tharparkar, about 9,000 square kilometers have been marked for the coal projects. The area has been divided into various blocks for the purpose.

The NCHR also met the local community and visited the Gorano Dam site. A meeting was also held with the representative of Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC).

Chowhan said that according to the locals, the Gorano reservoir was being used to discharge wastewater from Block II of the Thar Coal project, being managed by a private company.

“The exercise has met resistance from local villagers expressing deep discontent over the manner of the execution of the project. The dam site resulted in evacuation of land affecting a population of the surrounding villages.”

He added, “There have also been reports of harassment and threats against those resisting the land evacuation and displacement for construction of Gorano Dam. The NCHR will look into individual and community complaints against this exercise and use its mandate and power to address this specific rights violation,” he added.

The NCHR also expressed its concern at the “ecological degradation the project is likely to lead to”. “A research suggests coal as an environmentally damaging and toxic source of energy. Many developed countries are replacing coal with alternate energy sources such as solar and wind power. The current project in Tharparkar is not only capital intensive, it is also non-consultative in nature, threatening negative social changes that are fuelling anxiety and restlessness among the local population. Such development model, as executed in other parts of the country, has led to disturbing results including inequality and political polarization. Such projects have a higher social cost than economic benefits.

He said the Commission team noted that inaccessibility to food, underdevelopment, poor healthcare infrastructure, water supply, system of declaration of drought, and gaps in government relief efforts as prime factors behind the crisis in Tharparkar.”

According to a report submitted to the Supreme Court in October, he said 486 children had died in 10 months of this year alone. “Poor health infrastructure (including vacant posts in government hospitals), food inaccessibility, social factors such as early age marriage seem to continue. The NCHR demands urgent government attention and well planned structural measure to address the fundamental causes that trigger such large scale devastation in the region.”

Speaking on the occasion, senior architect Arif Hasan said that open-pit mining had been stopped in many countries of the world because of its dangerous effects. He asked both the federal and provincial governments to present an overall plan that should outline what would happen to the land that was going to be dug for coal mining and how resettlement of population would be addressed.

He said the government should also prepare a plan as how the water requirements for people and livestock would be met.

The press conference was also addressed by Anis Haroon, Member of NCHR from Sindh; Arif Hasan, senior architect and urban planner, Karamat Ali, Chief Executive Officer of Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) and labour leader Ghulam Fatima.

Published in Daily Times, December 22^nd 2018.