Australia Pakistan Solidarity

Pakistan Flood Relief Appeal

2010-08-14T09:01:00.000+10:00

Appeal issued on August 7, 2010

More than 12 million people suffering from floods in Pakistan

Please donate to Labour Relief Campaign to help people of Pakistan is facing worst ever floods of its history. Torrential rains have unleashed flash floods in different parts of the country since last three weeks. Water levies broke leaving the people exposed to flood water.

More than 12 million people have suffered due to these floods. More than 650,000 houses have collapsed, mainly in villages.

Thousands of acres of crops have been destroyed due to flood water. Houses, live-stock such as cattle’s and goats, household goods, clothes, shoes and other items have been destroyed. Residents of villages are currently without drinkable water, food, shelter and in need of clothes.

In particular, the situation is dire for children and women and they are in desperate need of food and clothing. Disease is spreading fast in the areas affected due to lack of drinkable water. In particular, flu, fever, diarrhea, cholera have been noted and are spreading.

The government’s response has made matters worse. They failed to act immediately, leaving tens of thousands of people unaided. They came after twenty four hours to the make-shift camps with paltry amount of food bags to distribute. The gap between the food being distributed and the large number of people desperate to eat led to fighting breaking out making matters even worse for these desperate people.

Despite the fact that there is very little coverage in the media, the fact remains that the situation in Baluchistan is just as bad as in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa and western and southern Punjab. As usual, also, they are not at the top of the government's priority list.

Situation is turning out to be worse with heavy rains started since last night in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province.

The Labour Education Foundation, Labour Party of Pakistan, National Trade Union Federation, Women Workers Help Line and Progressive Youth Front have set up Labour Flood Relief Camps in Lahore and so far have collected more than 300,000 rupees. Rs. 110,000 have already been sent to Baluchistan and more than 200,000 are on way to Southern Punjab to help flood victims.

We appeal our friends and organizations in Pakistan and abroad for donations of a monetary kind or in the form of drinking water, clothes (new), shoes, medicine.

For further information please contact:  
Khalid Mahmood
Director
Labour Education Foundation
Ground Floor, 25-A Davis Road,
Lahore, Pakistan.
Email: khalid@lef.org. pk
Tel: 0092 42 6303808, 0092 42 6315162, Fax: 0092 42 6271149
Mobile: 0092 321 9402322
 
If you wish to transfer funds, below are details of the account for sending money to the LRC.
A/C Title: Labour Education Foundation
A/C Number: 01801876
Route:
Please advise and pay to Citi Bank, New York, USA Swift CITI US 33 for onward transfer to BANK ALFALAH LTD., KARACHI, PAKISTAN A/C No. 36087144 and for final transfer to BANK ALFALAH LTD., LDA PLAZA, KASHMIR ROAD, LAHORE, PAKISTAN Swift: ALFHPKKALDA for A/C No. 01801876 OF LABOUR EDUCATION FOUNDATION.

Financial Appeal for LPP Martyrs

2010-02-16T23:50:00.001+11:00

In a tragic road accident on 13th December 2009 near Ormara, Balochistan,
Labour Education Foundation, Labour Party Pakistan and National Trade Union
Federation lost four most brilliant comrades. They were Najma Khanum, Rehana
Kausar, Abdul Salama Salam and Wahid Baluch. They were in the coastal
region, one of the most deprived areas of the country, to organize the home
based women workers (HBWW) on one platform. They held two focus group
meetings and a big consultation on 11-12 and 13 December in port cities of
Pasni and Gawadar to form core groups and clusters of local HBWW and planned
to organize more meeting in the region in month of January next year.

Comrade Abdul Salam, Najma Khanum, Rehana Kausar and Wahid Baloch were
dedicated member of the team who lost their lives for the cause of
downtrodden masses and were on mission till their last breadth.

Another member of team, Mohammed Rafiq Baloch, central president National
Trade Union Federation, Pakistan (NTUF) survived but severely injured in
that fatal accident.

Comrade Abdul Salam, Najma Khanum and Rehana Kausar were the staff members
of Labour Education Foundation (LEF). While Wahid Baloch was the trade union
activist in industrial city of Hub and by profession he was the driver.

Abdul Salam, 29 was the coordinator on peace, democracy and trade union
issues. He was elected central Finance Secretary of National Trade Union
Federation, Pakistan (NTUF) in 2007. He was the Secretary of Labour Party
Pakistan, Karachi chapter for 2007-2009. Comrade Abdul Salam had initiated
number of awareness activities for the trade union members, young students
and political activists. He conducted 6 study circles on social economic and
political issues monthly in different localities of working class. He was
the guiding force behind his last initiative of six month training course on
labour laws for new and young trade union activist in a view to have a team
of committed workers who represent the workers in labour courts.

He was on the of editorial board of Mazdoor Jeddojehad for two years,
regular contributor in respect of articles to Mazdoor Jeddojehad in Urdu and
Pashto, he was the main source for the LEF’s monthly “Newsletter’. He had
translated a Pashto naval of Noor Mohammed Tarakai in to Urdu. He was Pashto
poet of good repute and organizer of the “Jurs” a progressive Pashto
literary forum in Karachi. He belongs to working class family, his was
himself started his career as textile worker in Al Karam Textile Mill where
he was expelled from job nine year ago because of trade union activities, he
had contested the management in court and won the case in October 2009.

Najma Khanum, 38 was social activist and was the former councilor of the
area mainly comprising of working class. She had been staff member of LEF
since 2003. She was the social mobilizer to organize the home based women
workers. She was the leader of her community and always at the forefront of
all the political, trade union and woman right related rallies and demos.
She had form a women theatre group of young girls with the title of “Apna
Theatre”, means “Our Theatre”, their performances on May Day, Women day and
on other important events were always the important portion of the programs.
She was also the former member of Pakistan National Squad of field hockey.
She served LPP as women secretary for two years from 2007 to 2009. She had
been running the home based women workers cooperative in Yousuf Ghoth for
four years.

Rehana Kausar of 26 one of the youngest staff member of LEF, she had started
to work as part time teacher at adult literacy center in Gadap town. And
become social mobilizer in 2006. She was very energetic and committed with
the cause and greater fighter; she was the active member of LPP.

Wahid Baloch 40, basically trade union activist and was retrench from job
by the Bawani Air Products manufacturing company three years ago where he
work as driver because he was trying to form union in the factory. No
factory was inclined to give him job in Hub city industrial area due to his
union related activities. He was involved in all activities of National
Trade Union Federation and partly works as driver with NTUF.

All the comrades were from very poor and working class families. Three were
working with full time for the LEF and fourth one, the driver was an
unemployed trade unionist.

Comrade Abdul Salam leaves behind two little kids, two and four year old and
a young widow. Salam was the only one working. Najma leaves behind three
children but to some extent grown up, from 13 to 20, all are studying. Her
husband have job of contractual nature with very little earnings, living in
rented house.

Driver Wahid Baloch leaves behind 6 young kids, the eldest is only 14. Wahid
was only the source to run the home. His old father and mother also live
with his family in rented house.

While Rehana was not yet married, but one of the nine sister and brothers,
and one of the two bread winners among them. She was also only hope for her
old aged bedridden mother and father.

We as representatives of LEF, NTUF and LPP jointly pledge to do our best to
cater the needs of their families and to work hard for the accomplishment of
the cause for which they scarified their lives. In this respect we need your
help. We appeal to entire circle of their
friends, comrades and well wisher to come forward to show their solidarity
with the families of our shining comrades. We have launched this appeal to
all of you to support us to raise 3,000,000 Pak Rupees (35,300 US$) for the
permanent well being of the four families.

Your contribution will accommodate financial needs of families of our
departed comrades, strengthen the confidence in movement and further the
cause working people of Pakistan. Labour Education Foundation (
www.lef.org. pk) is a social organization set up in 1993; its main work is to
strengthen trade unions in Pakistan. It has done great work to unionize many
unorganized workers and strengthening trade unions especially National Trade
Union Federation, Pakistan (NTUF) in Pakistan.

You can send your contributions to the bank account of LEF as per following
details:

*From Abroad:
*A/C Title: Labour Education Foundation
A/C Number: 01801876
Swift: ALFHPKKALDA
Bank: BANK ALFALAH LTD., LDA PLAZA Branch, KASHMIR ROAD, LAHORE, PAKISTAN.

*From Pakistan:
*A/C Title: Labour Education Foundation
A/C Number: 01137752
Bank: BANK ALFALAH LTD., LDA PLAZA Branch, KASHMIR ROAD, LAHORE, PAKISTAN.

We have good response to our appeal; we have raised almost 30 percent of our
target of raising Rupees 3 million.

So far we have collected PKR 1,148,449 (US $ 13,511

Donations so far:
1

Moti Usmani (Grand Mother of Adaner Usmani, LPP member based in US)

200,000

2

Haji Bashir Ahmed (LPP Karachi)

75,000

3

Nasir Mansoor (Labour Secretary LPP)

50,000

4

Shakeel Malik (LPP member based in Germany)

50,000

5

Abeera Ashfaq (LPP Karachi)

50,000

6

Friends and family of Abeera Ashfaq

150,000

7

Rafiq Baloach (president National Trade Union Federation)

50,000

8

Zehra Akbar (Labour Education Foundation Karachi)

10,000

9

Mushtaq Ali Shan (LPP Karachi)

5,000

10

Husna Ali (LPP Karachi)

5,000

11

Ghani Zaman (General secretary NTUF)

5,000

12

Musarrat Jabeen (Women Secretary NTUF)

5,000

13

Khalid Malik (Labour Education Foundation)

25,000

14

Olof Palme International Center, Stockholm

340,000

15

Martin Gemzell (Sweden)

24,373

16

John Reimann (USA)

12,665

17

Felicity Dowling and Comrades from England

23,575

18

Joost Kircz (Holland)

25,836

19

Jimmy Kelly (Ireland)

30,000

20

Leif Larsson (Sweden)

6,000

21

Max Babri (Lahore)

6,000

Total

1,148,449

Looking forward for your encouraging responses,

Farooq Tariq, (spokesperson Labour Party Pakistan)

Nasir Mansoor, (Deputy General Secretary, National Trade Union Federation)

Khalid Mehmood (Director, Labour Education Foundation)

Building Progressive Space: LPP Appeal

2010-01-29T11:13:00.001+11:00

Building progressive space: we need your support now
Labour Party Pakistan holding its fifth congress on 27-29 January 2010.

On 29th January an international workers peasant’s conference is planned at famous Dhobi Ghat Ground Faisalabad. Over 30,000 are expected to attend.

The events are taking place at a time when the parties of the rich have abandoned the working people of Pakistan. They have been left on the mercy of the sheer exploitation of so called free market and the imperialist aggression. Prices are going up and there is no wage increase.

The religious and right wing parties are giving full political support to all the violent actions of the religious fanatics on the name of fighting “imperialism”. The daily drone attacks by Americans are giving some political justifications to the fanatics to carry on.
The space for progressive politics has been saturated by the conflict of right wing parties of the rich and the religious fundamentalism.

The LPP congress and the convening of the mass conference of workers and peasants is an effort to snatch the lost space.
The conference on 29th January is been organized jointly by Labour Qaumi Movement and Anjaman Mozareen Punjab, the two most militant and mass organizations of the workers and peasants. There is no parallel to the struggle of these two movements in different districts of Punjab.

The event is supported by almost all the progressive forces and parties in Pakistan and the Coordination Committee for Progressive Parties, a committee representing 8 progressive parties have announced a full support and the leaders of these parties including Workers Party Pakistan, Awami Tehreek, National Party, Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party, Awami Jamhoori Forum Sindh Taraqi Pasand Party, and others have confirmed to speak on the occasion.

The main leaders of different social organizations and movements are also speaking at the conference.
One of the main highlight of the conference will be mass participation of working class women. Workers and peasants are bringing their families to the event.

Labour Party Pakistan has been in the forefront of the struggle against the military dictatorship. It has helped labour and social movements to develop.

The main aim of the three days event is to build a progressive space in Pakistani politics. It is new beginning. This is our answer to the rise of religious fundamentalism. Mass mobilizations of the working class will strenghthen their voice and empower them to challenge for their rights.

We all are making financial contribution to these events by all mean. Day and night is been spent by many to build the event. However, we are in desperate need of raising at least 500,000 Rupees ($6000) during the next one week.
We have no rich backers. We need your support now.

We could have raised this amount earlier. However, the children and the families of the four comrades who died on 13 December 2009 in a road accident became a priority of ours. We have raised nearly one million Rupees and an appeal to raise three million is still on its way.

This is an emergency call to all our friends and supports to come to help us. We have all the hope of raising this amount within this week.

Please send your amount on line if you are in Pakistan to

Labour Party Pakistan
Account number 2679-3
MCB Bank,
Beadon Road Branch 0949 Lahore

From outside Pakistan
Account Title: Labour Education Foundation
Account Number: 01801876
Swift: ALFHPKKALDA
Bank: BANK ALFALAH LTD., LDA PLAZA Branch, KASHMIR ROAD, LAHORE, PAKISTAN
Or please send through any mean you consider is ok.

Appeal by:
Nisar Shah, Farooq Tariq, Nazli Javed
Labour Party Pakistan

Yousaf Baluch, Nasir Mansoor
Chairman National Trade Union Federation

Azra Shad, Bushra Khaliq,
Women Workers Help Line

Khalid Mehmood, Niaz Khan
Labour Education Foundation

Kashis Aslam
Progressive Youth Front

Mian Abdul Qayum, Aslam Meraj, Shamim
Labour Qaumi Movement

Nadeem Ashraf, Mehr Abdul Sattar
Anjaman Mozareen Punjab

Please indicate your support at
farooqtariq@hotmail.com
or call 0300 8411845

Farooq Tariq
spokesperson
Labour Party Pakistan
40-Abbot Road Lahore, Pakistan
Tel: 92 42 6315162 Fax: 92 42 6271149 Mobile: 92 300 8411945

labour_party@yahoo.com www.laborpakistan.org www.jeddojuhd.com

RSP Greetings to 5th National LPP Congress

2010-01-29T11:07:00.001+11:00

RSP Greetings to the 5th Congress of Labour Party Pakistan

Dear Comrades,

The Revolutionary Socialist Party ( Australia ) sends warm greetings to your 5th Party congress.

Revolutionary parties always struggle against seemingly overwhelming odds for the liberation of humanity. Today your deliberations take place at a time when the contradictions of capitalism threaten the very survival of the human species.

As Fidel Castro said a few short weeks ago

“One singular event, the battle over the climate issue that took place at the Copenhagen Summit, has contributed to knowledge of the imminent danger. It is not a matter of a distant threat for the 22nd century, but for the 21st; nor is it just for the latter half of this century, but for the coming decades, in which we will begin to suffer its terrible consequences.

“In Copenhagen, the Cuban delegation, which attended together with others from the ALBA and the Third World, was forced into a fight to the finish in the face of the incredible events that began with the speech of the yanki president, Barack Obama, and of the group of the richest states on the planet, resolved to dismantle the binding commitments of Kyoto — where the thorny problem was discussed more than 12 years ago — and to load the burden of sacrifice onto the emerging and underdeveloped countries, which are the poorest and at the same time the principal suppliers of the planet’s raw materials and non-renewable resources to the most developed and opulent countries.”

Of all human institutions, the one least able to save our environment is the capitalist state, because it has been created and structured to defend the very forces that are responsible for environmental destruction. It is up to working people, who gain nothing and stand to lose everything from environmental destruction, to create the necessary consciousness and the organisations that can stop the capitalists. To save our planet and therefore ourselves, working people will need to create their own state, a revolutionary state that destroys the political power and then the economic power of the capitalists. As was said by Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, in a speech at Copenhagen:

“Socialism, this is the direction, this is the path to save the planet, I don’t have the least doubt. Capitalism is the road to hell, to the destruction of the world.”

Capitalist governments, where they accept, or feel compelled to acknowledge climate change, invoke “market mechanisms” – carbon trading systems – as the only solution to the crisis. That is, they claim that the same mechanism that gave us global warming is the only one that can prevent it. In Australia the Rudd government’s proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is just such a “market mechanism”. But this method has failed and been counterproductive where it has been applied. On a global scale, it would be a disaster. It could allow pollution to actually increase in spite of any supposed target and would prevent the implementation of more straightforward and effective means of reducing emissions. Referring to the First World countries’ push for these false solutions to global warming at the UN’s December 7-18 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed warned Third World governments that they were being pressured to sign a “global suicide pact”.

On September 24 last year at the UN General Assembly, Hugo Chavez pointed to how the world could avoid this “suicide pact”. He pointed out the unsustainability of the global economic system supported and maintained by imperialism: “We are consuming our natural resources — coal, oil — in less than a century and they took centuries to build up … Capitalist economies are very destructive and so it’s very important to … look at some issues of climate change in relation to the economy … We need an economy that supports human beings — that is socialism … It’s not capitalism. Capitalism excludes the majority … And it destroys the world. It destroys human beings”.

On November 24 2008 Bloomberg.com reported that the global financial crisis had wiped out $23 trillion, or 38% of the stock market value of the world’s companies, and brought down three of the biggest Wall Street firms, as well as American International Group, the world’s biggest insurance company. It also reported that the “US government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday.” The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the US in 2007,were intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months previously.

The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.18 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s.

The next day, the US government announced a further $800 billion in loan programs, bringing its cumulative financial industry rescue initiatives to $8.5 trillion, equivalent to 60% of the total value of the US GDP in 2007.

These massive loans, and the accompanying partial nationalisations of banks and other financial companies implemented by the US and other governments across the capitalist world, will probably ensure that the capitalist financial system does not experience a 1930s-style collapse, but at the cost of saddling the developed capitalist economies with an even more enormous amount of debt. This in turn will mean that the recovery from the present global economic recession, when it eventually comes, will be slow and anaemic. And the bulk of the suffering will be borne by the working people of every country.

Similarly, the Australian government’s “economic stimulus packages”, worth $52 billion so far, are aimed at protecting the earnings and profits of capitalist businesses, rather than saving workers’ jobs. This is completely consistent with Prime Minister Rudd’s self-proclaimed mission statement, made in the February 2008 edition of The Monthly, “to save capitalism from itself”.

The capitalist economic crisis has brought home to millions that the capitalist system is inherently unstable, that it’s not permanent, that perhaps a different way of organising society might be possible.

US imperialism’s continuous war in the Middle East and Asia , essentially a war to ensure their control of the dwindling oil supply is costing a fortune, having a big impact on the US economy, creating millions of angry enemies of imperialism, and impacting on American poor and working class who have to fight these wars. Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iran, and the list expands, and no peace, just further exposure of US imperialism and its allies in Europe, Australia etc.

But a powerful challenge to capitalism is occurring in Latin America . Cuba has stood fast for 51 years, and now the Venezuelan Revolution has opened a new front in working class resistance. Millions in other Latin American countries are radicalising also. Washington is working hard to counter this process – on the ground in Venezuela, the Honduras coup, seven bases in Colombia and two more surrounding Venezuela, overflights of Venezuelan territory.

Chavez’s call for the Fifth Socialist International is a new offensive for progessive forces, advancing left unity and co-ordinating international solidarity, but also recognising that the best defence of revolutionary Venezuela will be further revolutions in other countries.

The RSP, like the LPP welcomes Chavez’ call for a new international. We will be sending representatives to the April Conference and look forward to closer collaboration with revolutionary organizations in the new formation.

Your party is coming out of a long struggle against military dictatorship in which the LPP played a principled and leading role from the day General Musharaf seized power. Despite Musharaf’s rhetoric of ending the corruption of the political parties in government his regime was responsible for corruption on a massive scale. Over 2,576 billion rupees were plundered by, or under the tutelage of, his regime, including 120 billion rupees destined for earthquake victims of 2005. The role of the advocates’ struggle in the last year of Musharaf’s rule and your role of guiding that struggle towards a fight for democracy was an inspiration to us in Australia . Musharaf was never able to recover from the impact of the advocates’ campaign and it played a crucial role in ending his regime and making it more difficult for the military to impose direct rule in the near future.

Despite these victories the working and peasant poor of Pakistan still suffer from the legacy of the Musharaf years as well as from the designs of imperialist powers and the right-wing agenda of religious fundamentalists.

Musharaf’s privatization scheme saw 1550 billion rupees plundered from Pakistan ’s wealth during his regime. Not only did the quality of goods decline and their price increase following the privatization of national assets but at least 600,000 workers lost their jobs at these institutions. The privatization scheme is being continued under the current PPP government.

The US ’ war in Afghanistan has spilled over into Pakistan and the US continually violates Pakistan ’s sovereignty and kills its people. Pakistan has become the new front line in the US ’ so-called ‘war on terror’. Top level US officials have made threats to further escalate their war in Pakistan if the Pakistani state does not assist them on their side of the border. This is what is behind the latest Pakistan military adventures in the Swat valley and Malakand district. The US ’ drone attacks in the North West Frontier Province , and in Waziristan in particular, intensified under the Obama administration (despite his Nobel Peace Prize). Supposedly directed at al-Qaida and the Taliban who fled there from Aghanistan, these drone attacks have killed many innocent civilians. Even the Pakistan government, closely allied to the US , has declared that 80% of the victims of drone attacks are civilian – the US refuses to comment. From 2004 to January 19, 2010 US drone attacks in Pakistan ’s north-west have killed over 880 people, over 600 of them under the Obama administration. Far from weakening the Taliban with these attacks the US is simply producing more embittered youth seeking vengeance for the massacre of their families and others are incensed at the West’s attack on their homeland. This is fertile ground for the religious fundamentalists and they recruit and strengthen from it. The reactionary backlash from these strengthened religious fundamentalists is being felt first and bloodily in Pakistan itself. The strength of religious fundamentalism in Pakistan is not just a result of US imperialism and the support given them by successive Pakistani governments. It is also at heart a result of the failure of Pakistan ’s civilian and military governments to solve any of the basic problems of Pakistan ’s worker and peasant majority.

A continuing series of fundamentalist terror attacks across Pakistan has been intensifying since the assault on the Red Mosque in 2007 and the military offensive in Swat and Malakand in 2009. The RSP mourns the loss of comrades Abdullah Qureshi in 2007 and Master Khudad Khan in 2009 to fundamentalist suicide bombings. Successive civilian and military governments in Pakistan have fostered various fundamentalist groupings to bolster their own position against India or internal opposition, and to have a presence in Afghanistan . With the Pakistan government spending less than 3% on education, religious schools, madrasas, fill the space for poorer Pakistanis and serve as a recruiting ground for religious fundamentalists. The partnership of US imperialism, and Pakistan ’s intelligence agencies, with the fundamentalists ensured their spread, at least until 9/11 when the US began demanding a military solution. Military action against the fundamentalists will have limited success until basic economic, political and social problems of the working majority are solved.

In Australia we struggle against the ongoing retreat of the organised working class. In the face of the serious capitalist economic crisis there is no mass expression of the working class alternative. The class-collaborationist leadership of the trade union movement is unwilling and incapable of challenging the ruling class solutions to the crisis – cutting deals for pay cuts, shorter hours and other solutions demanded by the bosses to supposedly ‘save jobs’.

At the same time we witness recurring outbreaks of mass resistance to ruling class attacks such as outrage at Israel ’s war on Gaza last year, the 2003 US invasion of Iraq , ongoing attacks by the Australian government on refugees, the introduction of WorkChoices which attacked trade union rights and the 1999 massacres in East Timor .

Australian revolutionaries face specific contradictions. We live in a stable imperialist country and our working masses are deliberately kept quiescent by class-collaborationist trade union leaderships and propaganda offensives by the bourgeois media. Yet there is widespread questioning of the system, cynicism about capitalism and all its consequences. Few of those who are questioning can quite see what to do, and so much of the traditional labour movement has become part of the problem – the vanguard must really be a vanguard, especially in the realm of ideas.

In such contradictory struggles it is easy for revolutionary parties to lose confidence in the masses and seek the seemingly easier path of left reformism.

In his call for a Fifth International, Chavez spoke about the history of the socialist internationals, stating “all four Internationals, experiments to unite parties and currents and social movements from around the world, have lost their way along the road for different reasons — some degenerated, lost their force, disappeared soon after their formation. But none of them was able to advance the original aims that they had set themselves”.

Our movement has suffered setbacks, but it has always recovered and as Lenin was fond of saying “defeated armies learn well”. Every setback enables us to learn the lessons. Historically, this is being demonstrated by the experience of 21st century socialism and through the Cuban revolution – which have learnt well the lessons of our movement’s biggest setback in the last century - the degeneration and defeat of the Russian revolution.

Eighteen months ago we were expelled from the DSP after a bitter faction fight about how to build a revolutionary party in Australia . The political issues under debate have been clarified by the recent dissolution of the DSP into the Socialist Alliance. Both politically and organizationally the DSP has liquidated into a left-reformist formation.

By contrast we established the RSP in the tradition of Resistance and the SWP/ DSP a continuum extending back to the Vietnam War in Australia and to Cannon and Lenin internationally.

Our current leadership includes comrades who initiated and led Resistance, the Socialist Workers Party, the Democratic Socialist Party, the Socialist Alliance, Links and Green Left Weekly for many years.

In the decline of the old DSP, our movement suffered real losses. Cadres who had been trained over decades in revolutionary party building conceded defeat to left reformism. We lost the assets that had been built up over decades. But every coin has two sides – the loss of the material resources of the DSP is a reminder that a revolutionary party’s real assets is not buildings or bank accounts: It’s comrades. The heart and soul of revolution.

Our revolutionary program is not just a book, a document to sit on a shelf – brought out for educationals and talks. It’s a program of action – a vision of a new world that is brought to life by activism, by people, by cadre.

It’s harder work with a smaller party. There’s less resources. There’s more pressure on comrades. But that’s a good thing too. Hard work is what a party of struggle is built on. And we’d better get used to it, because it’s never going to let up. As PSUV comrade Heryck reminded us – the revolution doesn’t just take away your afternoons, but your weekends and nights also.

In this we feel a commonality of spirit and purpose not only with the founders of our movement in Australia, but also with the LPP when you began your own party-building project. When you left the PPP in 1992 you had a handful of ambitious and committed cadres- a small force which has grown into one of the largest and most influential left forces in a country dominated by religious fundamentalism, military dictatorship and imperialist aggression.

In the previous 18 months we have published 18 editions of Direct Action, established 5 branches in major cities, recruited new members, organized two national tours by our Indonesian comrades in KPRM-PRD, held our first national Congress and recently held our first Marxist Education conference. We have initiated and involved ourselves in campaigns across the country such as the anti-war military veterans campaign, Stand Fast, Palestine solidarity committees, IWD rallies, environmental campaigns and pro-choice committees.

We look to the revolutions currently underway in Cuba and Venezuela for inspiration and instruction. Consequently we have toured PSUV youth leader Heryck Rangel, involved ourselves in the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network and established Cuba-Venezuela clubs on campuses throughout a number of Australian cities. We know it is young people who have the imagination, the energy and the passion to lead revolutions and so we look to Australia’s campuses for a new generation of revolutionaries.

We resist because we have confidence in working people. We get frustrated, we get tired, we get angry. There’s so much rotten in society to be angry about. But we know that human solidarity will win in the end. There’s a lot of words that capitalism has claimed and tainted, but there’s some that they can’t twist, they can’t contort. Solidarity. Humanity.

There’s the humanity of the struggle itself: of those who put their lives on the line for - the heroes and martyrs of our struggle. And we remember new martyrs: Najma Khanum, Rehana Kausar, Abdul Salam, and Wahid Baluch.

Nothing can match the humanity of a revolution. Nothing that capitalism could offer could even come close to the humanity that is borne of collective struggle and collective victory. And there will be no greater collective victory than a socialist revolution – of building a socialist world.

While we might not live to see it, as James Cannon once pointed out, by doing what we do today, by devoting ourselves to the struggle we do earn ourselves the one privilege that we should not shun – we earn ourselves the right to call ourselves citizens of the socialist future.

In solidarity

Linda Waldron and Raymond Fulcher

On behalf of the RSP

Report on 5th Congress LPP

2010-01-29T11:05:00.000+11:00

Report on 5th Congress LPP

By: Farooq Tariq

Labour Party Pakistan 5th congress opened here in Faisalabad at Centre For Peace And Harmony. Over 140 delegates representing over 6000 members of LPP are in attendance with score of observers.

Anti Capitalist Party (NPA) France representative Pierre Rousset, Simon Butler of Socialist Alliance Australia and Arif Àfghani from Afghan Labour Revolutionary Organisation (ALRO) are participating as international guests.

Fraternal Greetings from Cuban Ambassador Pakistan, Fourth International, Communist Party of India ML Liberation, Revolutionary Socialist Party Australia (RSP), South Asia Alliance For Poverty Eradication (SAAPE) Nepal, Workers International Network (WIN) and several others were received.

2 minutes silence was observed in memory of those died between the last LPP congress in December 2007 and till today. They are Abdullah Qureshi (killed in suicidal attack in Swat December 2007), Jamal Shah (March 2008) Asim Akhund (September 2008), master Khudadad (killed in suicidal attack in Peshawar) Najma Khanum, Rehana Khanum, Abdul Salam Salam, Wahid Baluch (killed in a road accident).

I introduced the discussion on international perspectives. Comrade Pierre Rousset spoke the crisis of capitalism and comrade simon Butler took the vital question of climate change and Arif Afghan explained the social and economical situation of Afghanistan.

It was agreed that capitalism is facing a very serious crisis of its history. The solidarity and struggle needed in this period is much greater.

The preparation for the rally on 29 January is going all over. Thousands of workers and peasants will gather at Dhobi Ghat Faisalabad 2pm. Red flags are being put up all over. Banners are seen in many part of this third largest city of Pakistan.

Today there will be a Mashal Bardar (torch lit) rally will taken out from Press Club Faisalabad to Ghanta Ghar.

All set for Workers Peasants congress

2010-01-21T14:53:00.002+11:00

All set for Workers Peasants congress
The administration of Faisalabad has formally granted a permission to hold the workers peasant conference at Dhobi Ghat ground Faisalabad on 29th January. This is a great victory. The administration tried its best to change the venue of the conference but the leaders of Labour Qaumi Movement were unwavering to hold the conference as planned. Thousands of workers and peasants are expected to attend the conference.

The conference is taking place on the occasion of the 5th Congress of Labour Party Pakistan. The congress will take place at Peace and Harmony Foundation centre Chack 7 off Sargodha Road Faisalabad on 27-28 January. Over 150 delegates from all Pakistan will attend the congress that will elect the new leadership of the Labour Party Pakistan.

Today on Sunday 24th January, Daily News International of Jang group printed a full version of the article “building the Labour Party Pakistan” in its political economy section.

The emergency finance appeal launched this week to ascend over $6000 has already raised nearly half of the amount. We are still short of the target. This is the final request to all LPP supporters to come forward to raise the amount. It will enable us to go as planned.
The International Workers Peasant Conference will be addressed on 29th January apart from others by Pierre Rousset leader of NPA France (Anti Capitalist Party) Simon Butler of Socialist Alliance and Prem Dengle of All Nepal peasants Alliance and a core committee member of South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE).

This is request to all of you to come and join us in Faisalabad on 29th January at 2pm at Dhobi Ghat Faisalabad and if you are not able to come, please send us a message of solidarity. We have already received messages of solidarity from Scotland, Australia, Britain and US. Also the Cuban Ambassador in Pakistan has sent us a message of solidarity.

Please send your message to this email address
farooqtariq@ hotmail.com

Farooq Tariq
spokesperson
Labour Party Pakistan
40-Abbot Road Lahore, Pakistan
Tel: 92 42 6315162 Fax: 92 42 6271149 Mobile: 92 300 8411945

labour_party@ yahoo.com www.laborpakistan. org www.jeddojuhd. com

Pakistanis for Palestine

2010-01-19T22:04:00.001+11:00

A Pakistani campaign of solidarity with the Palestinian people has just been launched in Lahore. As its first action of solidarity, the campaign calls on Pakistani academics and cultural workers—artists, poets, writers, singers and filmmakers—to join the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel that is spreading around the world.

We are focusing initially on endorsing the boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions, as called for by the PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel). In the wake of the recent slaughter in Gaza in winter 2008-09, we oppose any kind of normalization of relations between Pakistan and Israel, including normalization of Israeli discourse about terrorism that masks the realities of occupation and the denial of human rights. We wish to send a message to the Palestinian people who suffer daily dispossession and denial of their rights to sovereignty, that Pakistani people of conscience support them in their struggle for justice and equality as men and women, children and youth, workers and the working poor. We are fully aware that Israel is aided by the economic and military might of the United States, and we oppose their imperialist designs and aggressions that are enabling violence and devastating the region.

Online petition: http://spreadsheets .google.com/ viewform? formkey=dFNRb2pF bXQwT2ZXa2VHNUg1 Zk01S0E6MA

Why we believe such a campaign is necessary here in Pakistan:
1. Israel's policies are being normalized through the presence in Pakistan of

International/ Jewish American organizations that are funding NGO's and groups and supporting a pro-Israel agenda
American spokespersons and academics that are advocating Israeli positions, and,
products made in Israel that are marketed by American and European organizations.
2. There is a normalization of Israel's brutal policies under the guise of "counter-terrorism" by media commentators and members of the military and political establishment who, implicitly and explicitly, valorize the Israeli military.

All these attempts aim at justifying Israeli crimes and pacifying solidarity with Palestinians among Pakistanis.

We believe this campaign is part of a larger effort to re-energize ethical political engagement in Pakistan and the region, with the aim of opposing American imperialist policies and its favored Israeli enabler in the Third World. This campaign aims at channeling the potential for Third World solidarity in an attempt to resist American and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East and Pakistan.

The Palestinian movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (representing the overwhelming majority among Palestinian civil society parties, labor unions, networks and organizations) emphasizes fundamental Palestinian rights, sanctioned by international law and universal human rights principles, that ought to be respected by Israel to end the boycott. The principles of PACBI state:

“In light of Israel's persistent violations of international law, and Given that, since 1948, hundreds of UN resolutions have condemned Israel's colonial and discriminatory policies as illegal and called for immediate, adequate and effective remedies, and Given that all forms of international intervention and peace-making have until now failed to convince or force Israel to comply with humanitarian law, to respect fundamental human rights and to end its occupation and oppression of the people of Palestine, and In view of the fact that people of conscience in the international community have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice, as exemplified in the struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa through diverse forms of boycott, divestment and sanctions;

Inspired by the struggle of South Africans against apartheid and in the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency and resistance to injustice and oppression, We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.”
[For more information: http://www.pacbi. org/campaign_ statement. htm]

The campaign calls on all those in Pakistan who support these principles listed above to join the campaign.

Please contact us at:
Cell phones: 0344-4648479 & 0323-4160352
Email address: PakistanisForPalest ine@gmail. com

Sponsors of the Pakistani campaign of solidarity with the Palestinian people:

Qalandar Memon, FC College, Lahore

Khalid Mahmood, Labour Education Foundation, Lahore
Kashif Aslam, Labour Party of Pakistan, Lahore
Maqsood Mujahid, Labour Party of Pakistan, Lahore
Amanullah Kariapper, Young Professionals, Lahore
Cindy Zahnd, LUMS, Lahore
Farooq Tariq, Labour Party of Pakistan, Lahore
Niaz Khan, Carpet Workers Union of Pakistan, Lahore
Magid Shihade, LUMS, Lahore
Ziyad Faisal, National Students Federation, Lahore
Sunaina Maira, UC Davis, visiting academic in Lahore

The Punjabi and Pakhtun IDPs of Parachinar

2010-01-17T08:06:00.001+11:00

Analysis: The Punjabi and Pakhtun IDPs of Parachinar

by Farhat Taj

Someone recently informed me that there are Punjabi IDPs from Parachinar who live in deplorable conditions in Attock, Hasan Abdal and Rawalpindi. I had the opportunity to talk to some of these Punjabis who had settled in Parachinar during the pre-partition British era. Since then their future generations lived and prospered in Parachinar in peaceful coexistence with the majority Shia Pakhtun and minority Sunni Pakhtun tribes. They never felt the need to go back to their native areas in Punjab. Like the Pakhtuns of Parachinar, they also speak Pashto in a Kurmawal accent. They informed me that even if there had been tribal tensions or conflicts in Parachinar in the past, they were never threatened by any of the involved parties. This peace, protection and respect accorded to the tiny Punjabi minority â€” a total of 30 families â€” is truly in line with the Pakhtun tribal culture.

All this changed in November 2007 when rival Shia and Sunni sectarian gangs, with links to Punjab-based sectarian organisations and arguably financed and indoctrinated by eternal Arab and Persian rivals, unleashed a reign of terror on the Sunnis of Parachinar. The Sunnis, regardless of ethnic discrimination and gender, suffered death and destruction. Many were killed and their houses and other properties were burnt to the ground. The Punjabi IDPs informed me that they could only save their lives when they ran away and took refuge in compounds belonging to the Kurram Militia. â€œOur houses and shops were burnt to ashes when we were hiding with them,â€� said one of the Punjabi IDPs. Like the Sunni Pakhtun tribes of Parachinar, the Punjabis had no option but to become IDPs as they went to different parts of Punjab. â€œWe were prosperous people; we had homes, shops and other businesses. We have lost everything and live almost like beggars,â€� said one
Punjabi IDP who now lives in Attock. They say they have received no help at all from the government.

The Punjabi IDPs have an additional problem: no state authority is ready to own up to them. One man explained: â€œThey keep saying we are not their [state authorityâ€™s] responsibility. When we go to the government of NWFP, they tell us to go to the government of Punjab, which in turn says that we are not their responsibility. Similarly, the FATA secretariat has also shown us the door. We just do not know who is the state authority rendered to register us as IDPs and provide some help.â€�

There has always been a native Sunni Pakhtun minority in Parachinar of about 6,000 people. They belong to Zazi, Ghilji, Parachamkani, Ali Sherzai, Mengal, Muqbal and Utayzai tribes. The biggest tribe in Parachinar is Shia Toori where the Shia section of the Bangash tribe also lives. For centuries both Shia and Sunni tribes lived in harmony under the tribal code of Pakhtunwali. Most disputes were peacefully resolved through the jirga system. Armed clashes, if any, were tribal rather than sectarian over resources like land and water. The stateâ€™s inability or unwillingness to crush the Punjab-based sectarian gangs, especially Sipah-e-Sahaba (Sunni) and Sipah-e-Mohammed (Shia) bolstered them to engage in bloody clashes for control over the Shia-dominated Parachinar. In April 2007 there was a clash in Parachinar among people linked with external sectarian organisations resulting in a soured relationship between the Shia and Sunni Pakhtuns in the town. In
November 2007 there was another clash in which many of the Sunni tribesmen, women and children were killed, their houses and businesses burnt and a number of them were made to flee Parachinar. They now live as IDPs in many parts of the NWFP in miserable conditions.

The Sunni IDPs informed me that many of them have not even been registered as IDPs in over two years. Those who have been registered have received meagre help in the form of cooking oil, wheat, sugar and blankets, and that too only a couple of times.

The IDPs expressed concern over last weekâ€™s news in an Urdu daily that the FATA secretariat has stopped all kinds of aid to the Parachinar IDPs. According to the IDPs, the only people approaching them with some promise of help were linked with jihadi groups. The IDP mothers that I am in contact with are terrified that the jihadis will take their children for suicide missions. Many of the IDP children have never been able to re-enter schools since they left Parachinar and have ended up in child labour. Parents are especially worried about teenage boys who they fear might end up committing crimes due to poverty and lack of any educational facilities.

Both the Pakhtun and Punjabi IDPs have requested the government to either offer them material help in their struggle for survival or restore the writ of the government in Parachinar so that they can go back. In the latter case they have also requested for some help from the government, as they have to restart their lives from scratch. Both complain that state authorities in the FATA secretariat, the government of NWFP, and the government of Punjab treat them with arrogance and contempt. The Pakhtun IDPs expressed their disappointment in the parliamentarians, especially the gentlemen from Kurram agency, namely Sajid Tori, Munir Orakzai and Rashid Ahmed Khan. Whereas these parliamentarians enjoy luxurious lives, go on visits abroad and educate their children in good schools, they never visit the IDPs to see how they struggle to survive or consider their children worthy of education, claim the IDPs.

Both Punjabi and Pakhtun IDPs were of the view that the media and the government of Pakistan offered sympathy, attention and help to the victims of bomb explosions in Karachi and Lahore and all they requested was the same meting out of treatment from both the media and the government. They constantly kept asking, â€œAre we not Pakistani?â€�

It is lamentable and even strange that the state has not been able to establish its writ in a small city like Parachinar in over two years. Why do we have a strong army that has not been able to kill sectarian terrorists massacring Sunnis, Shias, Pakhtuns and Punjabis in the Kurram agency?

According to many people of FATA, the state has deliberately created this chaos in their area to hide the jihadis from the Arab world, Central Asia, Europe and North America and, of course, from Pakistan and Afghanistan in pursuit of strategic depth in Afghanistan. The more the chaos in FATA and the rest of Pakhtunkhwa, the easier to deceive the world and hide these Islamists who love to kill in this world for a place in paradise in the hereafter. The more the people of FATA suffer, the more the chaos being generated. Thus the people of FATA â€” Pakhtun, Punjabi, Shia, Sunni, Sikh, Hindu and Christian â€” must suffer for an indefinite period until â€˜strategic depthâ€™ is attained in Afghanistan.

Moreover, through this column I would also like to challenge the international â€˜scholarsâ€™ of the Pakhtun tribal culture who circulate around the â€˜pedanticâ€™ notion that whatever happened in Kurram agency is â€˜tribalismâ€™ rather than sectarianism, i.e. the Pakhtun tribal culture is the root cause of the massacre of the Shias and Sunnis in the area rather than the extreme versions of Sunni and Shia Islam, financed by the Arabs and Iranians, executed through the Punjab-based sectarian gangs and imposed on the helpless people of Kurram agency. I challenge them to elaborate how their â€˜scholarlyâ€™ opinion explains the tragedy of the Punjabis in Parachinar! The Punjabis did not belong to any of the local tribes. They did not take sides with any of the tribes. They themselves admit they never felt threatened during the tribal clashes in the past but in November 2007 they were targeted just because they are Sunnis. They say they suffered because of
sectarianism rather than tribalism; tribalism, they say, has always protected them.

The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy. She can be reached at bergen3
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\01\16\story_16-1-2010_ pg3_5

Protest Cancelled

2010-01-14T08:50:00.006+11:00

***Clinton visit cancelled due to tragedy in Haiti. Protest cancelled until further notice***

On Monday 18 January US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates will be meeting their Australian counterparts at Parliament House for annual face to face discussions. The outcomes of the talks will mean a strengthening of the US- Australian military alliance and further aggression on the peoples of the third world.

Come to Garema Place in Canberra's city centre to say no to US imperialism!

We demand:

* No more US attacks on Pakistan
* US and Australia out of Afghanistan
* End the occupation of Iraq
* Hands of Somalia, Yemen and Iran
* Close Pine Gap and all US bases in Australia

Pakistani school children killed in train accident

2010-01-14T08:48:00.000+11:00

School children killed as train and bus collide

Posted 11 hours 36 minutes ago

At least nine people, eight of them children, were killed and 18 others injured on Wednesday when a passenger train hit a bus packed with school children in central Pakistan, officials said.

The crash took place at an unmanned crossing with no barrier near Mian Channun town, about 100 kilometres east of the central city of Multan in Punjab province, which was enveloped in fog at the time.

"The Lahore-bound Jaffer Express collided with a school van, killing nine people including two girls and the driver and wounding 18 others," senior police official Kamran Khan said.

Mushtaq Ahmad, a senior doctor at the government's main hospital in Mian Channun, said the bodies of seven children and the driver reached his hospital, while 18 other people were being treated for injuries.

Officials said the parents of the eighth dead child may have taken the body home for burial.

The primary school children were all aged around eight to 10 years old and were on their way to class when the accident happened.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has ordered an inquiry into the "tragic" incident.

"The prime minister expressed deep grief and concern over the tragic road accident in which several school children lost their lives," a statement issued by his office said.

Mr Gilani also asked state-owned Pakistan Railways to "ensure proper vigilance at their unmanned crossings, particularly during times of fog".

Pakistan has one of the world's worst records for fatal rail and road accidents, blamed on poor infrastructure, badly maintained vehicles and roads and reckless driving.

- AFP

Outsourcing Occupation

2009-12-09T09:19:00.000+11:00

Outsourcing occupation

By Hamish Chitts

For the past few years, private military contractors have out numbered US troops in Afghanistan despite a doubling in the size of the US occupation under the Obama administration. There were more contractors than US troops in Iraq a year ago, but the number of contractors dropped slightly this year to 120,000 — equal to the number of US troops. These contractors often provide “logistical” support as cooks, truck drivers, in warehouse workers, etc. Even the actual “guns for hire” are not often used in offensive operations but provide bodyguards, security for embassies and private businesses and even guards for military bases.

The October 6 New York Times reported that the US plans to vastly expand its embassy in Islamabad, and create a consulate in Peshawar, the capital of the Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. Providing security for these projects are large numbers of contractors from Xe Services (formerly Blackwater) and DynCorp. According to the NYT, “the Pakistani military and the intelligence agencies are concerned that DynCorp is being used by Washington to develop a parallel network of security and intelligence personnel within Pakistan” and “there have been a series of complaints by Islamabad residents who said they had been ‘roughed up’ by hefty, plainclothes American men bearing weapons”. The NYT also reported on August 21 that at hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Xe contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 1100 kilogram laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft, work previously performed by CIA officers. They also provide security at the covert bases.

According to an October 16 Press TV report, the Pentagon has outsourced a new military intervention into Somalia: “Michigan-based CSS Global Inc. secured the contract under the plea of ‘fighting terrorism and piracy’ and ‘protecting’ Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government.” In the US itself, Blackwater was contracted to patrol the streets of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Xe Services is also a leading trainer of police, private security and military within the US.

These private security firms perform tasks that would in previous wars would have been performed by uniformed military personnel. This has allowed US politicians and the supportive corporate media to fudge the figures when it comes to the size of occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In September the Obama administration was able to increase the number of US combat troops in Afghanistan by 14,000 without announcing any increase in overall troop numbers by withdrawing 14,000 uniformed logistic personnel whose duties were taken over by civilian contractors.
Historical use of mercenaries

The use of mercenaries in differing forms predates capitalism. Early class societies were ruled by warlords who maintained their rule through a privileged warrior class. In times of war and territorial expansion, ruling classes used their accumulated wealth to employ the idle warriors of other societies not directly involved in the conflict. One of the earliest records of the use of mercenaries is from 484 BCE, when the Persian empire employed Greek mercenaries to assist its invasion of Greece. All the ancient empires supplemented their regular armies with mercenaries. In Europe this practice continued under feudalism and was common during the emergence of capitalism.

As European states began carving up the world and trade wars took on a global scale, there emerged a company that makes modern private military companies look like rank amateurs. The London-based East India Company started on December 31, 1600, with a charter, granted by Queen Elizabeth I, that awarded the company a monopoly of trade with all countries to the east of the Cape of Good Hope and to the west of the Strait of Magellan.

The English East India Company traded mainly in cotton, silk, indigo dye, saltpetre, tea, and opium, but through its own private army and navy, it helped establish the British Empire in South Asia. The company gradually reduced its trading operations and turned solely to conquest, assuming rule and administrative functions over more and more of the Indian subcontinent. Company rule in India began in 1757 and lasted until 1858, when, following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the UK government assumed direct administration of India and absorbed the company’s 24,000 troops into the British army. The company itself was finally dissolved in 1874.

The French and Dutch set up their own East Indies companies during this same period. In the Western Hemisphere, all the major European powers employed naval mercenaries known as privateers, who were essentially pirates contracted by a nation-state to disrupt the merchant shipping of its rivals. As the 19th century ended, the new imperialist states had gained enough wealth to afford large standing armies and navies. They no longer needed to supplement their military forces with mercenaries.

To maintain this advantage over smaller rivals, the idea was propagated that mercenaries were unsavoury and amoral. This went hand in hand with capitalist nationalism and the idea that for working people there was no greater honour than to fight “for your country” as a member of its national military forces. Many countries, including the US, Britain and Australia, outlawed their citizens becoming mercenaries. They became restricted to bit players in smaller conflicts during the Cold War.
Necessary for US imperialism

At the start of the 21st century, imperialist capitalism needs the widespread use of mercenaries once again. To overcome their bad reputation, these new mercenary forces have been re-branded as “private military companies” (PMCs) and individual mercenaries as “contractors”. The renewed outsourcing of war to privateers is due to sheer economic and political necessity as US imperialism struggles to maintain its global dominance without mass conscription into its official military forces.

The November 14 New York Times reported that White House budgeting uses $1 million per year per soldier in Afghanistan as a working number. The figure would greatly increase without contractors, who aren’t clothed, fed or equipped by the government. Nor does the government have to pay them when they leave the war zone. Contractors do not become veterans, so the government does not have to pay benefits or provide services that it does for its own troops. While the common image of contractors is of highly paid people from rich First World countries, the majority are drawn from poor Third World countries like Fiji and El Salvador or for the poorer countries of Eastern Europe. They receive high wages in comparison to wages paid in their home countries, but for the PMCs, the US and its imperialist allies, they are a cheap source of security and service task labour.

Another advantage for the imperialist occupying powers is the reduction in political costs. If another contractor dies, there is no flag-draped coffin. If PMCs cut costs by supplying inadequate equipment, as some relatives of contractors killed in Iraq have tried to prove, there is no political scandal. Similarly, when PMCs do not provide for their injured employees. Probably the most concerning advantage is provided by “corporate confidentiality”. This can be greater than military secrecy and allow government agencies to hide all sorts of illegal practices from public scrutiny, based on the legal right of capitalist businesses to keep secrets from competitors. This is probably why Washington now entrusts one of its most sensitive weapons, Predator drones, to Xe Services.
Not a moral issue

There is no moral difference between contractors and those in uniform. On September 16, 2007, when Blackwater contractors murdered 17 Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square, Baghdad, many on the left held this incident up to show that it is wrong to use reckless and amoral mercenaries. This ignores the fact that the US military uses similar tactics in built-up areas, known as “free fire zones”. The Iraq Veterans against the War “Winter Soldier” forums over the past few years have heard hundreds of US veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan testify to the regular killing of civilians by US soldiers.

The use of PMCs in Iraq and Afghanistan should be challenged because they are an attempt to reduce the political costs of these occupations and because they hide the real size of the occupation forces. Their use should be opposed because they add to the risks of the working people they employ. During World War I, Scottish socialist and anti-war campaigner John Maclean told a Glasgow anti-war protest: “A bayonet is a weapon with a working man at either end.” This is true whether the “cannon fodder” in the imperialist war machines wear military insignia or a company logo.

[Hamish Chitts is a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party and one of the founders of Stand Fast — a group of veterans and military service people against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For information about Stand Fast visit Stand Fast or phone 0401 586 923.]

Crisis in Nepal's capitalist democracy

2009-08-22T23:38:00.001+10:00

Crisis in Nepal's capitalist democracy

By Ray Fulcher
http://directaction.org.au/issue14/crisis_in_nepalese_capitalist_democracy

When Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal (widely known as “Prachandra”) became Nepal’s prime minister last August, his party — the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), UCPN (M) — pronounced it a “golden dawn” for Nepal after 10 years of civil war. Nepal’s unpopular monarchy had just been abolished, and the Maoists had won the largest number of seats in the Constituent Assembly (CA), the country’s new parliament.

But a year later, the Maoist-led government has been replaced by a coalition of rival parties, headed by PM Madhav Kumar Nepal of the social-democratic Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), CPN (UML). The coalition government includes six ministers from the conservative and formerly pro-monarchist Nepalese Congress (NC) party. Without the support of the biggest party in the parliament, the new government has little legitimacy in a country wracked by fuel and food shortages and mired in rampant corruption.

“What we have here is a crisis of governance — a weak state that has no control over much of the country,” Aditya Adhikari, comment editor of the Kathmandu Post daily, told Agence France Presse on July 20. Wendy Cue, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Nepal, told AFP that three years after the end of the civil war, little had changed for most people. “A lack of development was both the cause and the consequence of the conflict. Three years on, people are still waiting for the peace dividend.”

Dahal resigned as PM on May 4 following a fallout with Nepalese President Ram Baran Yadav, of the NC, over Dahal’s dismissal and Yadav’s reinstatement of army chief General Rookmangud Katawal. In his resignation speech, Dahal declared that he quit in order “to create a conducive environment and save the peace process”. His resignation was indicative of the Maoist party leadership’s perspective of seeking to create a stable parliamentary democracy in Nepal that would be conducive to the further development of Nepal’s capitalist economy.

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement of November 2006 — Dahal’s “peace process” — marked the end of a ten-year Maoist “People’s War”. Under the agreement, the Maoists joined an interim government to organise elections to a Constituent Assembly that would draft a new constitution. On May 28, 2008, the interim parliament legally abolished the monarchy and declared the country a republic. In July, Yadav was elected Nepal’s first president by the CA and a month later Dahal became prime minister of a coalition government that included most of Nepal’s parliamentary parties.

Under the peace agreement, the Maoists’ 19,000 rebel fighters were confined to UN-supervised camps, pending their integration into the Nepalese Army (NA). The pro-monarchist Katawal, who had received training from the US Special Forces, came into conflict with Dahal’s government over a number of aspects of the peace agreement. Key terms of the agreement included a freeze on recruitment by both the NA and the Maoists’ Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), and the progressive integration of the PLA into the NA. Katawal refused to even consider the integration of PLA cadre whom he considers “politicised” and withdrew the NA from the National Games, held between branches of the security forces, because the PLA was participating.

Katawal also oversaw three separate recruitment drives for the NA in direct violation of the peace agreement. When Dahal’s government decided not to extend the terms of eight brigadier-generals who had reached mandatory retirement age, Katawal ignored the government and reinstated these generals. In April Dahal’s government asked Katawal for “clarification” of these acts of insubordination. He did not respond.

On the day that Dahal sacked Katawal, the CPN (UML) and other key coalition partners withdrew from his government, and supported President Yadav’s resinstatement of Katawal. Following Dahal’s resignation, the UCPN (M) initiated protests in the streets and in the parliament over Yadav’s action, but have made no moves to return to armed struggle. This is consistent with Dahal’s and the UCPN (M)’s desire to “save the peace process”. Behind this desire is the Maoist leadership’s class-collaborationist perspective of forging an alliance with the “national, patriotic” capitalists to strengthen Nepal’s underdeveloped capitalist economy. This, in the Maoists’ view, will be beneficial to both the capitalists and the working class.

In a January 2009 interview, Baburam Bhattarai, Nepal’s then finance minister and UCPN (M) political bureau member, declared that “both management and workers have a common interest now, for the development of the economy” and “industrial capitalism or productive national capitalism caters to the market within the country and utilises the labour and resources of the country. We are in favour of that sort of capitalism.”

Consistent with its pro-capitalist politics, the UCPN (M) refuses to campaign for the most fundamental step towards creating a working people’s government — the replacement of the capitalist NA with a revolutionary national army. Even after General Katawal’s insubordination and the NA officer corps’ support for him against the Maoist-led government, the UCPN (M) leadership took no steps to mobilise its mass base to break the power structures of the Nepalese capitalist state, preferring instead to “save the peace process”. Even the Communist Party of India (Maoist), long time allies of UCPN (M), criticised the Nepalese Maoist leaders in June for allowing the “old Royal Nepal Army” to continue “to be the bulwark of the present state structure in Nepal while the PLA is a passive onlooker” confined to UN-supervised camps.

In a July 11 article, Adhikari noted that, “After the ouster of the Maoist-led government, staunchly anti-Maoist forces such as the Nepal Army have become increasingly emboldened; they will pressure the government to maintain a hard line against the former rebels, even as they try to expand their say over the government on other matters. In particular, the army will likely try to force the government to inform the Maoists that no integration of Maoist combatants into the army will take place, thus breaking a longstanding gentleman’s agreement…

“The hardline within the military would like to have a greater say over the affairs of the state, and it believes that it could intimidate the Maoists into ‘good behaviour’ by the threat of force; at the same time, though, it also knows that it does not have the credibility to directly take control of the state. As such, the army needs a political face, which could take the form of a broad group of anti-Maoist parties coming together in support of a president-led, military-backed regime.”

Escalating US proxy war in Pakistan

2009-08-22T23:37:00.001+10:00

Escalating US proxy war in Pakistan

By Ray Fulcher
http://directaction.org.au/issue12/escalating_us_proxy_war_in_pakistan

Since late April, more than 15,000 Pakistani troops have engaged militarily with 3000-4000 Taliban fighters in Pakistan’s Swat valley in North-West Frontier Province. The fighting has displaced more than 1 million civilians, driving the total number of internal refugees from Swat to more than 2 million. The refugee crisis began last year when the Taliban began a terror campaign to impose their version of Sharia law and retain control of the region.

The signing of the “Malakand accord” between the Pakistani government and the Taliban on February 16 wrote Sharia into the local law codes. All of Pakistan’s mainstream political parties — the Pakistan People’s Party, the Muslim League (Nawaz) and the Awami National Party — supported the accord. But it did not stop the Taliban’s reign of terror. Attacks on political opponents, government officials and offices and girls’ schools continued. Girls were attacked for not wearing the burkha and men for not having sufficiently long beards. Some local tribesmen have mounted armed resistance, but their struggle has been hampered by weapons inferior to those of the Taliban. The Pakistani military’s offensive and the subsequent mass displacement of tribal peoples has further obstructed resistance.
Indiscriminate offensive

Although the army is targeting the Taliban in this operation (unlike former offensives into the region ostensibly against the militants), its methods are causing more harm to the civilian population than to the Taliban. According to residents interviewed by Saeed Shah of McClatchy Newspapers on May 4, the army’s assault is “flattening villages, killing civilians and sending thousands of farmers and villagers fleeing from their homes”. One resident told Shah: “We didn’t see any Taliban; they are up in the mountains, yet the army flattens our villages”.

Washington orchestrated the latest offensive but has expressed public concern regarding the army’s tactics. Admiral Michael Mullen, head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters on April 27 that, in recent years, the Pakistani army had undertaken “bursts of fighting” against insurgents, but this was “not sustained” by follow-up measures. He spoke of the need for a “hold and build aspect” to military operations. According to Saeed Shah, US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told him that the Pakistani army is “just destroying stuff. They have zero ability to deliver [aid] services” and “They hold villages completely accountable for the actions of a few”. In the village of Kawga, for instance, the military had destroyed 80 of the 400 houses, according to local residents.

On the weekend of May 23-24, the military operations moved from rural areas of the valley to its major town, Mingora. Most residents fled, but an estimated 20,000 civilians remain in the fortified town, held by the Taliban. The move into urban areas threatens to involve bloody street fighting, with high civilian casualties and mass destruction of civilian infrastructure. Pakistani army spokesperson Major-General Athar Abbas said on May 25, “The pace of the operation will be painfully slow. So be patient. But the operation has started, and, God willing, we are going to take it to a logical conclusion.”
Pakistani army and Islamic militants

The Pakistani military has held direct power for 33 of Pakistan’s 60 years and wields indirect control during the brief periods of civilian rule. Washington has long been pressuring Islamabad to destroy Taliban bases inside Pakistan and has been frustrated by the military’s seeming reluctance to engage them.

On October 14, Washington leaked a national intelligence estimate that complained that “the Pakistani military is reluctant to launch an all-out campaign against the Islamists”. Indeed, the military waited 25 days after the Taliban swept from Swat into Buner (in the Malakand district) before responding. This delay allowed the Taliban to entrench themselves and take hostage 2000 villagers from the Pir Baba area in northern Buner. Buner is a strong anti-Taliban region, which had raised its own militia to oppose the Taliban. But soon after the invasion of Buner, the government ordered all anti-Taliban militias in the Malakand district to disband.

In the past three years, the military has mounted three separate operations against the Taliban in Swat but has failed to win control of the region or suppress Islamist operations. Taliban terrorism has escalated, and their political control has expanded.

The military’s reluctance derives from its ambiguous relationship with political Islam. While not subscribing to any one ideology, the military sees itself as the protector of the Pakistani Islamic state, so its interests have often coincided with those of the jihadist groups. The military established radical Islamic militias to help fight India over Kashmir. The army also encouraged the spread of Islamism in the Afghan border regions in order to suppress Pashtun nationalism. The military-linked Inter-Services Intelligence agency helped secure the Taliban’s 1993 victory in Kabul, with the assistance of US funds.
US Afghanistan-Pakistan policy

Although the army is targeting the Taliban and although all three mainstream parties support the offensive, the latest operation is essentially another half-hearted action brought about by pressure from Washington. The Taliban cannot be defeated in one province while remaining, as they do, under protection of the military in Punjab and Sindh. The military retains its doctrine of using jihadist forces for “strategic depth” in Afghanistan and against India.

The military was compelled to engage the Taliban in Swat because the US threatened to escalate its military activity inside Pakistan’s borders. Washington has made it clear that it sees Pakistan as part of the front line in its war in Afghanistan, because the Taliban use their bases in Pakistan border territories to launch attacks into Afghanistan. The US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, told a congressional committee on April 28: “We need to put the most heavy possible pressure on our friends in Pakistan to join us in the fight against the Taliban and its allies” and “We cannot succeed in Afghanistan without Pakistan’s support and involvement”. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and war secretary Robert Gates, in testimony before the Senate appropriations committee on April 30, put the Obama administration’s case for bolstering the Pakistan military’s capabilities to confront Islamic militants. Gates pushed the committee for US$400 million under the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund to assist the military to fight insurgents in Afghan border areas. He said that the money “is a vital element of the president’s new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy”. Clinton backed this argument, stating, “Success in Afghanistan depends on success in Pakistan”.

Pakistan’s military has a record of using border “counter-insurgency” operations as cover for suppressing political dissent and imposing its control over autonomous tribal areas. For instance, in October 2008, General Kayani sought approval from the new civilian government for a major anti-insurgency crackdown. This political cover was duly delivered on October 22, when all 16 parliamentary parties endorsed a new resolution for a national response to terrorism. Kayani welcomed the resolution, saying Pakistan’s role in the so-called War on Terror “is indicative of an emerging consensus in Pakistan that terrorism has to be squarely addressed with the help of the people”. The resolution gave the green light for military occupation of the semi-autonomous tribal regions of North-West Frontier Province.
Repeated attacks

The US threat to extend its operations further into Pakistan if that country does not contribute to attaining US “success” is not an idle one. Between August and October 2008, the US military launched 12 attacks from Afghanistan against the Taliban border stronghold of Bajur in Pakistan, prompting the Pakistanis to launch their own offensive in the area to capture the key town of Loi Sam from the Taliban. US troops invaded a South Waziristan village, killing 20 “suspected terrorists”, including women and children, on September 3.

Unsurprisingly, the US incursions incensed public opinion in Pakistan and assisted the recruiting drive of the Taliban, especially in the border regions. In the weeks following the September 3 attack, the US stepped up air strikes by pilotless “drones” and invaded the territory with ground troops four times. At least 700 people have been killed by drone attacks in Pakistan since 2006. These attacks didn’t stop with the election of Barack Obama: 164 Pakistanis have been killed in 14 pilotless drone attacks in the four months of Obama’s presidency. Obama himself has articulated Washington’s intention to continue pressuring Pakistan militarily. He told a April 29 press conference: “We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don’t end up having a nuclear-armed militant state.”

Washington escalates Pakistan's civil war

2008-11-07T23:00:00.000+11:00

Washington escalates Pakistan's civil war

By Linda Waldron

On October 25, Major-General Tariq Khan, commander of Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC), announced that his officers had captured Loi Sam, a key Taliban stronghold in the Bajaur region, part of the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Eleven days earlier, US officials had released a public version of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), compiled by the CIA and 15 other US spy agencies, complaining that “the Pakistani military is reluctant to launch an all-out campaign against the Islamists”. The 80,000-strong FC is commanded by regular Pakistani army officers, who serve for a period of two to three years.

The FC’s offensive into Bajaur began in early August. By October the FC claimed control over 70% of the region. Pakistani officials announced that “1500 militants” had been killed but only 73 Pakistani FC soldiers had died. No official figures regarding civilian casualties have been released but eyewitnesses report high civilian casualties from Pakistani airstrikes.

Since mid-August the US military has attacked Bajaur 12 times. On September 3, Afghanistan-based US special forces troops invaded a village in the FATA’s South Waziristan region to kill “suspected terrorists”. This was the first officially acknowledged use of US ground forces in Pakistan. Local police reported that at least 15 villagers, including women and children, were killed in the US raid.

On September 10 Pakistani chief of staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani described the US operation as “reckless” and said that Pakistan’s territorial integrity “will be defended at all cost and no external force is allowed to conduct operations … inside Pakistan”. Kayani’s comments were applauded by the Pakistani public and his comments were echoed by government officials who had previously been reluctant to speak on the issue.

In the weeks following the September 3 attack, the US military stepped up air strikes into the FATA by pilotless drones. Pakistan’s border area was invaded four times by US ground troops. On September 25, Admiral Michael Mullen, head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced that Pakistani troops had fired on two US helicopters that were supporting US ground troops. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari denied this, instead claiming that the Pakistani troops fired warning flares.

The US incursions into Pakistan prompted many media analysts to query whether Washington was planning to declare war on its longtime ally. The public release in mid-September of a presidential order made in July authorising US strikes inside Pakistan without seeking authorisation from the Pakistani government, spurred the media speculation. It is, however, nothing new for the US military to operate unilaterally inside Pakistan’s borders. Since 2002, Washington has routinely sent pilotless drones over Pakistan’s tribal areas to collect intelligence and fire missiles at suspected “terrorist” targets.

On a number of occasions the Pakistani government covered for these operations by claiming responsibility for the attacks. Pakistani authorities only denounced US military operations inside Pakistan when they resulted in large numbers of civilian casualties, such as occurred in the abortive attempt to assassinate al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri in 2006.

Raids by US ground troops do imply a more aggressive US military policy in the border regions, but do not suggest Washington regards the Pakistani government as a new enemy in its so called “Global War on Terror”. Zardari has repeatedly shown himself to be as close an ally of Washington as his predecessor, Pakistani military dictator General Pervez Musharraf. On October 4 Zardari, who became president in early September after his Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) won a landslide win in country’s February parliamentary elections, told the Wall Street Journal: “I am not going to fall for this position that it’s an unpopular thing to be an American friend. I am an American friend.”

Zardari demonstrated his support for US political interests by inviting the US-imposed Afghan President Hamid Karzai to attend his inauguration on September 10. At a joint media conference afterwards, Zardari and Karzai vowed to co-operate in fighting “terrorism”, code for endorsing the US-led war against the Taliban-led Afghan resistance to the imperialist occupation of Afghanistan. Replying to a question about the the withdrawal of some of 145,000 US troops occupying Iraq and their redeployment in Afghanistan, Zardari said: “Asking the US to leave Afghanistan is a luxury that we cannot afford.”

Zardari’s domestic policies also reflect his eagerness to defend US imperialist interests. Although the PPP came into government on the back of the judges and lawyer-led pro-democracy movement against Musharraf, Zardari has failed to reinstate the Supreme Court judges illegally ousted by Musharraf. Zardari has vowed to restore them but remains silent on the fate of former Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, whose sacking by Musharraf sparked the pro-democracy movement. Chaudhry proved a block to US corporate interests by opposing the planned privatisation of Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation.

The global financial crisis has driven Zardari’s new civilian government into seeking closer financial ties with the US government. By the end of October, Pakistan had US$3 billion in foreign currency reserves, only enough for one month’s supply of imported food and oil. The government’s top economic adviser, banker Shaukat Tareen, warned on October 20 that Pakistan urgently needed $4 billion in foreign loans, and up to $8 billion would be needed by the government to repay sovereign debts due to mature in 2009.

A US official who participated in drafting the NIE told reporters in Washington on October 14 that it portrayed the situation in Pakistan as being “on the edge” of economic and political collapse. Another US official summarised the NIE’s conclusions about the state of Pakistan as “No money, no energy, no government”.

The US Treasury-dominated International Monetary Fund has promised assistance of up to $6 billion to help Pakistan meet its immediate balance of payments needs. Reuters reported on October 29 that an IMF aid “package is usually contractionary and often involves cutting spending, raising taxes, accelerating privatisation, increasing interest rates, and exchange rate flexibility to correct fiscal and external imbalances and control inflation”. Mushtaq Khan, a London-based economist for CitiBank, told Reuters that Islamabad had already moved to eliminate fuel subsidies. “As subsidies have been cut”, Reuters reported, “Pakistan has raised retail fuel prices seven times since February and electricity rates have almost doubled.”

The October 29 International Herald Tribune reported that as a result, Pakistan is facing “the worst energy crisis in its 61-year history, with electricity cuts in the past year routinely averaging up to six hours a day during peak hours, contributing to widespread unrest and protests by angry residents and businesses.

“Demonstrations are a monthly occurrence in the business hub, Karachi, which suddenly goes black for a third of the day. The power cuts have added further strain to a country already coping with high food and fuel prices, crimping the economy. They have also led to water shortages, since most of the country’s water pumps run on electricity …

“A decade ago, Pakistan had a power surplus and was exporting energy to India. But a near-total neglect of investment in the industry under former President Pervez Musharaff, combined with economic growth of near 7 percent a year from 2003 until last year, and the emergence of a prosperous middle class snapping up electrical appliances, from refrigerators to DVD players, reversed the situation.”

While Islamabad and Washington are in political accord, the overriding influence of the Pakistani military has complicated US military objectives in Afghanistan. Washington has long been pressuring Islamabad to destroy Taliban bases inside Pakistan and has been frustrated by the Pakistan military’s seeming reluctance to wage all-out war on Islamist militias.

The military’s apparent reluctance derives from its ambiguous relationship with the Isalamists. The Pakistani military, which has ruled the country for 33 of Pakistan’s 61-year history, sees itself as the protector of the Pakistani Islamic state, so its interests have often coincided with those of the Islamists. Furthermore, the Pakistani military recruited and armed Islamic militias to help fight the war with India over Kashmir. The army also encouraged the spread of Islamism in the Afghan border regions in order to suppress Pashtu nationalism. The military’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency helped secure the Taliban’s 1996 victory in Kabul, with the assistance of CIA-supplied funds.

After 9/11, when Musharraf publicly supported Washington’s “Global War on Terror”, some Islamists in the Pakistan army and the ISI resigned, others were demoted or executed, but many remained. Musharraf used Islamists inside and outside the military as political buffers against the civilian parties, enabling unprecedented electoral victories for Islamist parties in the border areas in 2002. A September 2006 accord between Musharraf and Islamists in North Waziristan effectively handed control of the region to pro-Taliban groups.

The Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) siege in July 2007 signalled a turning point in the relations between Islamists and the military government. The Rangers military police lay siege to a state-sponsored mosque attached to an Islamabad madrassa. During the week-long siege, women and children were held hostage by Islamists inside the mosque and over 100 students and clerics were killed. Eleven soldiers died and 40 were wounded. Previously the Pakistani state had condoned the Wahabi version of Islam preached at the mosque and ignored a series of increasingly provocative actions taken by the mosque leadership.

Embarrassed when the mosque’s morality militia abducted six Chinese workers from a massage parlour, Musharraf’s government decided to make an example of the sect. The military’s assault on the mosque incensed Pakistani Islamists and Taliban supporters issued fatwas against Musharraf while suicide bombers attacked military targets.

In July 2007 over 2000 Pakistani soldiers were deployed into the Swat Valley in the North West Frontier Province to fight pro-Taliban militias. At first the army remained inactive, allegedly intimidated by the militias’ ability to capture soldiers. But in November 2007 the army began a major offensive into the region.

The army’s contradictory orientation to Islamism underscores Washington’s suspicions about its willingness to fight the Taliban and its Pakistani supporters. Washington also lacks confidence in the Pakistan military’s ability to conduct counter-insurgency warfare. It is these twin concerns that explain the recent escalation of US military activity inside Pakistani territory.

Despite the Pakistan army’s public opposition to these US operations, military co-operation between the two states continues to advance. In early September Washington announced a plan to supply Pakistan with 18 new F16 fighter planes. In mid-October the US sent 25 military personnel to train Pakistan’s Frontier Corps in counter-insurgency techniques. On October 16 the US commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, and the Afghan and Pakistani chiefs of staff, General Bismullah Khan and General Kayani, held a tri-national strategic planning meeting.

On October 14 US officials informed McClatchy Newspapers that Kayani sought political cover from Zardari’s civilian government for a major anti-insurgency crackdown. This political cover was duly delivered on October 22 when all 16 parliamentary parties endorsed a new resolution for a national offensive against “terrorism”. Kayani welcomed the resolution saying Pakistan’s role in the War on Terror “is indicative of an emerging consensus in Pakistan that terrorism has to be squarely addressed with the help of the people”. The resolution gives the green light for military occupation of the semi-autonomous tribal regions.

The US raids into Pakistan’s territory have therefore advanced the military objectives of both Washington and Islamabad. It is the oppressed tribal peoples in the border regions who will continue to pay the price for the US-Pakistan alliance.

http://www.directaction.org.au/issue6/washington_escalates_pakistan_civil_war

No support for religious fanatics and imperialists

2008-10-04T10:35:00.000+10:00

No support for religious fanatics and imperialists

By: Farooq Tariq

The 2 October suicidal attack on Asfand Yar Wali Khan,s Hujra in Charsada and the 20/9 deadly attack in Islamabad must be condemned by all. So is the case of all the suicidal attacks all over. There must not be any pretext, rationalization or any foundation for such an attack. These are gutless acts by groups claiming to be anti imperialist. The sheer volume of dynamite, over 800 kilogram, used in 20/9 suicidal attack shows that it is not a work of an isolated group. It could be an Alqaida work or a group having similar power and resources.

However, these attacks have created a ground for an all out brutalities by the Pakistani government and the American imperialism against the ordinary citizens in all parts of Pakistan. Any act of individual terrorism can only create a puzzlement, confusion, bafflement, disappointments, panic, alarm, fright, dread, and fear for the time being. In most cases, the state forces immediately reorganize it to respond to these attacks.

It is now feared that whole sale arrests will be made. More people will disappear. Many more will be killed in "defensive" attacks. There could be ban on public gatherings. "Democratic" government of Asif Zardari will be more closely linked with American imperialism. They will go even further in embracing the so-called war on terror. All sort of autocratic, tyrannical and vicious measure will be on the agenda without any hesitation. People like Rehman Malik, the unelected interior adviser (who has powers more than a minister) will do all sort of dictatorial measures on the name of security of Pakistan and the nation.

The killing of two American soldiers and Ambassador of Czech republic during the blast will give an open hand to American imperialism to have an open military basis in Pakistan. It was already agreed that Pakistan will have American military experts based near Islamabad to train the Pakistan military and police officers in curbing the threat of terrorism. This was the first time a public acceptance of American military official presence in Pakistan. The move came after American forces landed in tribal areas on 3 September to kill over 20 "suspected terrorist". Later it was revealed that women and children of a Mullah was the target in this attack. There were other four direct attacks by the Americans inside Pakistan within two weeks of this incident despite the duplicitous hue and cry by the Pakistan Peoples Party government. American commander in chief of army was quick to pay a visit to Islamabad and after talks it was agreed that American will not attack directly inside Pakistan. "We will do the job" was the offer of the Pakistani military chief. Few hours later of these talks of assurances of no more attacks, another American attack killed over 20 again.

The Inside Help

All this was happening within a week of this deadly attack in Islamabad. The 20/9 attack has left whole Pakistan in shock. It was clear that the religious fundamentalist could not do this without an "inside" help. Pakistani military intelligence agencies are littered with elements of religious fanatics. They can not get rid of their past. They had helped to form groups of religious fanatics in Afghanistan on the name of Jihad in early eighties against the threat of communism. That went on openly till 9/11. It is absolute clear that Pakistan military agencies had a lot to contribute in the formation of these religious groups. Those linkages are still not broken in absolute terms.

The changing relationship

After 9/11, the relationship of these forces changed publicly. Those who were friends were declared enemies. Most of the Inter Services Intelligence agents among the civilians doing a holy job paid a high price of their association with ISI. They were either sold to Americans or handed over to please them. Majority of the missing persons after 9/11 are those who had once conducted Jihad to please God and their families with American Dollars.

While helping the Missing persons families during 2007/2008, I found out that majority of the missing persons were closely associated with ISI and were paid regular amounts by the intelligence agencies to feed their families. The ISI had the lists and after 9/11 went on rampage. I heard many relatives crying, " why are they doing it, they were our friends, we have done a job for the country and gone for Jihad when they needed us, why are they ditching us, where are our loved ones, why they have disappeared and so on?

Friends becoming enemies

When a friend becomes an enemy, it creates more pain. That is what had happened in Pakistan. The state and the religious forces were friends. They became enemies at least in public for some times after 9/11. The reasons were not explained. The relationship went on for some time without hurting each other. They both believed that they can fool the American imperialism. The Musharraf dictatorship played both ways. For years after 9/11, it ensured the American imperialism that he is the best to deal with the religious fundamentalist and got a lot of financial help. However, this stage management could not go on very long. Musharraf dictatorship was seen an unproductive force to deal with the religious fanatics. A deal with Benazir Bhutto was agreed to share power. Benazir Bhutto unfortunate death on 27 December 2007 changed the relationship of PPP with Musharraf, but not with the Americans. It was clear that General has Musharraf gone on 18 August 2008 but not his policies.

Pakistan Peoples Party government went further in cooperation with American imperialism than even Musharraf could think of. It was during their seven months rule that American dared to attack directly inside Pakistan. The Americans knew if Musharraf could not do it, how Zardari, the husband of Benazir, could do it. They had to do it themselves. They can only kill people but not the ideas of religious fundamentalism.

The religious fundamentalist, roots and strategies

When analyzing religious fundamentalism, one must understand that the religion of Islam and Islamic fundamentalism are not the same. Islamic fundamentalism is a reactionary non scientific movement aimed at returning society to a centuries old social set up, defying all material and historical factors. It is an attempt to roll back the wheel of history.

Fundamentalism is a political and not social or religious phenomenon. It is best defined as counter-thesis of modernism. Partly, the growth of religious fundamentalism owes to its peculiar regional and national conditions- Pakistan is not a national state. It is an unnatural and unhistorical country with its borders drawn in the name of religion. Religion was and still is, used to provide a rationale for the country.

The religious fundamentalist groups organized in Mutihida Majlas Amal (MMA) were in power in NWFP during 2002-2007. They had got a massive electoral boast during the 2002 general elections under Musharraf. The 9/11 was afresh in mind. People wanted to go for revenge from the imperialists. General Musharraf also wanted to go a dual game. On one side he wanted to show the Americans the massive power base of the religious fundamentalists to get more aid. On the other hand, the relationship of the state and religious groups were not broken yet and the Musharraf dictatorship provided the needed state help for the religious groups.

The recent growth of Taliban

MMA once in power also played a dual game. They were not challenging the dictatorial rule of General Musharraf. They were all busy to provide all sort of help to those religious groups busy organizing themselves in Afghanistan against the NATO occupation. It was during these years when Taliban of Afghanistan had a place to hide and organise. The influence of Taliban started growing during the power period of MMA in NWFP. However, the Mullahs, once in power forgot all that what was told to them by the religion. They became part of the game. They made money.

The rich politician coming to power can hide their corruption easily but the Mullahs were seen by ordinary people growing in their wealth, and were driving in the most expensive jeeps and cars. They were once from them. The five years power in the province brought them too far from the people's life. They started living in expensive homes and hotels. A lot of land was allotted to their close relations. Finally, they were loosing the social base that they had enjoyed after 9/11. The MMA leadership provided no jobs or the peace in the area that was the need of the hour.

Loosing parliamentary majority

Come, the general election of 2007. The MMA was divided at the time. Jamaat Islami wanted to boycott the election on the bases of their long term strategy. They knew very well that they can not repeat the successes in parliamentary field that they had done in 2002. The Jamiat Ulemai Islam (JUI) of Fazal Rehman could not repeat the same success story of 2002. They ended up less than 3 percent of the total votes. It was over 15 percent of MMA in 2002.

Defeated in the parliamentary field, several new groups emerged to take an old road of Jihad. The religious fanatic groups escalated their effort of Jihad after the 2008 votes. The main target of these fanatics were mainly ANP and PPP before and after the general elections of February 2008.

The failure of negotiation

The masses in NWFP voted in favor of ANP and PPP in the hope of peace. The main slogan of ANP was peace. After the elections, however, instead of mobilizing the masses for peace, the ANP leadership took a road of negotiations. This was a wrong policy. It had been tested time and again and failed. You can not negotiate with the neo fascist trends. The fanatics do not believe in democracy. They believe in the physical elimination of the political opponents. The ANP leadership even went to accept the implantation of "Sharia" in trade of peace. The process of implantation of "Sharia" is itself a violent act. How could the "Sharia" implementation would bring peace in the region? This strategy of ANP and PPP brought even more disaster. Some of the known religious fanatics were released under the deal. They all went to make the time lost in prisons.

The religious fanatics went on all out war. They organized suicidal attacks, target killings and burning of the schools and other public institutions. They made the life of the locals hell. The suicidal attack on WAH ordinance factory killing over 100 workers opened the eyes of many. There started a new process, a process of countering the religious fanatics by themselves. The locals had also lost all hopes on ANP and PPP coalition provincial and federal government to bring peace.

The emergence of Awami lashkars

The Pakistani Taliban Tehreek, one of the new but the main religious fundamentalist organization and other fanatic groups are facing a massive resistance not by the state, but by the locals. In almost all areas, Awami Lashkar (Peoples Army) are been organized to fight these fanatics. The local life is been destroyed since the escalation of the war in these areas.
Many Taliban have been dealt by these Lashkars in the villages. This has emerged as a new hope for many. These Lashkars are sometime working hands in hands with the state forces. However there are many cases where an independent initiative is taken by the local civil society actors.

In Dir district, over 20,000 have joined such a Lashkar. In Swat valley, while thousands were protesting against the continuous bombing and killings, three persons were killed by army firing. They thousands were breaking the curfew. These Lashkars are also killing the known Taliban. Welcome by many, these Lashkars are also creating a civil war like situation all over. The violent responses of these private counter armies to Taliban are creating some immediate relief but it can not last without the intervention and support of the state. However, the creation of these Lashkars shows a vote of no confidence on the state actors.

What to do?

We must oppose the both, the religious fanatics and imperialist forces. Siding with any one is a recipe of political suicide. They both are not friends of ordinary people. We must create and establish an independent voice of the working people. We must build up a movement of working people to oppose the both particularly in the areas where there are growth of religious fundamentalism. We must not abandon the people on the mercy of the both.

The policies of the present civil government to side publicly and openly with the American imperialism and its so-called war on terror and neo liberal agenda are a real help for the growth of the religious fundamentalists. With the continuation of these policies, one can not expect that the fanatics will end their war and they will be defeated. May be defeated for the time being by military operations, they will come out in new areas with new faces and organizations. You can not kill ideas.

The civil society actors do not have to repeat the mistakes that some of them did after 9/11. They supported the occupation of Afghanistan in the hope that it will end religious fanatics. That did not happen. Let us not do it now, Let oppose the military actions, and the actions of the fanatics in one breath. There is nothing good to choose from them. There is no progressive action by any one of them.

Farooq Tariq
spokesperson Labour Party Pakistan 40-Abbot Road Lahore, Pakistan Tel: 92 42 6315162 Fax: 92 42 6271149 Mobile: 92 300 8411945
labour_party@ yahoo.com www.laborpakistan. org www.jeddojuhd. com

Arundhati Roy on Kashmir

2008-08-25T08:25:00.001+10:00

Land and freedom
Kashmir is in crisis: the region's Muslims are mounting huge non-violent protests against the Indian government's rule. But, asks Arundhati Roy, what would independence for the territory mean for its people?

Arundhati Roy
The Guardian,
Friday August 22 2008

For the past 60 days or so, since about the end of June, the people of Kashmir have been free. Free in the most profound sense. They have shrugged off the terror of living their lives in the gun-sights of half a million heavily armed soldiers, in the most densely militarised zone in the world.

After 18 years of administering a military occupation, the Indian government's worst nightmare has come true. Having declared that the militant movement has been crushed, it is now faced with a non-violent mass protest, but not the kind it knows how to manage. This one is nourished by people's memory of years of repression in which tens of thousands have been killed, thousands have been "disappeared" , hundreds of thousands tortured, injured, and humiliated. That kind of rage, once it finds utterance, cannot easily be tamed, rebottled and sent back to where it came from.

A sudden twist of fate, an ill-conceived move over the transfer of 100 acres of state forest land to the Amarnath Shrine Board (which manages the annual Hindu pilgrimage to a cave deep in the Kashmir Himalayas) suddenly became the equivalent of tossing a lit match into a barrel of petrol. Until 1989 the Amarnath pilgrimage used to attract about 20,000 people who travelled to the Amarnath cave over a period of about two weeks. In 1990, when the overtly Islamist militant uprising in the valley coincided with the spread of virulent Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) in the Indian plains, the number of pilgrims began to increase exponentially. By 2008 more than 500,000 pilgrims visited the Amarnath cave, in large groups, their passage often sponsored by Indian business houses. To many people in the valley this dramatic increase in numbers was seen as an aggressive political statement by an increasingly Hindu-fundamentalis t Indian state. Rightly or wrongly, the
land transfer was viewed as the thin edge of the wedge. It triggered an apprehension that it was the beginning of an elaborate plan to build Israeli-style settlements, and change the demography of the valley.

Days of massive protest forced the valley to shut down completely. Within hours the protests spread from the cities to villages. Young stone pelters took to the streets and faced armed police who fired straight at them, killing several. For people as well as the government, it resurrected memories of the uprising in the early 90s. Throughout the weeks of protest, hartal (strikes) and police firing, while the Hindutva publicity machine charged Kashmiris with committing every kind of communal excess, the 500,000 Amarnath pilgrims completed their pilgrimage, not just unhurt, but touched by the hospitality they had been shown by local people.

Eventually, taken completely by surprise at the ferocity of the response, the government revoked the land transfer. But by then the land-transfer had become what Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the most senior and also the most overtly Islamist separatist leader, called a "non-issue".

Massive protests against the revocation erupted in Jammu. There, too, the issue snowballed into something much bigger. Hindus began to raise issues of neglect and discrimination by the Indian state. (For some odd reason they blamed Kashmiris for that neglect.) The protests led to the blockading of the Jammu-Srinagar highway, the only functional road-link between Kashmir and India. Truckloads of perishable fresh fruit and valley produce began to rot.

The blockade demonstrated in no uncertain terms to people in Kashmir that they lived on sufferance, and that if they didn't behave themselves they could be put under siege, starved, deprived of essential commodities and medical supplies.
To expect matters to end there was of course absurd. Hadn't anybody noticed that in Kashmir even minor protests about civic issues like water and electricity inevitably turned into demands for azadi, freedom? To threaten them with mass starvation amounted to committing political suicide.

Not surprisingly, the voice that the government of India has tried so hard to silence in Kashmir has massed into a deafening roar. Raised in a playground of army camps, checkpoints, and bunkers, with screams from torture chambers for a soundtrack, the young generation has suddenly discovered the power of mass protest, and above all, the dignity of being able to straighten their shoulders and speak for themselves, represent themselves. For them it is nothing short of an epiphany. Not even the fear of death seems to hold them back. And once that fear has gone, of what use is the largest or second largest army in the world?

There have been mass rallies in the past, but none in recent memory that have been so sustained and widespread. The mainstream political parties of Kashmir - National Conference and People's Democratic party - appear dutifully for debates in New Delhi's TV studios, but can't muster the courage to appear on the streets of Kashmir. The armed militants who, through the worst years of repression were seen as the only ones carrying the torch of azadi forward, if they are around at all, seem content to take a back seat and let people do the fighting for a change.

The separatist leaders who do appear and speak at the rallies are not leaders so much as followers, being guided by the phenomenal spontaneous energy of a caged, enraged people that has exploded on Kashmir's streets. Day after day, hundreds of thousands of people swarm around places that hold terrible memories for them. They demolish bunkers, break through cordons of concertina wire and stare straight down the barrels of soldiers' machine guns, saying what very few in India want to hear. Hum Kya Chahtey? Azadi! (We want freedom.) And, it has to be said, in equal numbers and with equal intensity: Jeevey jeevey Pakistan. (Long live Pakistan.)
That sound reverberates through the valley like the drumbeat of steady rain on a tin roof, like the roll of thunder during an electric storm.

On August 15, India's independence day, Lal Chowk, the nerve centre of Srinagar, was taken over by thousands of people who hoisted the Pakistani flag and wished each other "happy belated independence day" (Pakistan celebrates independence on August 14) and "happy slavery day". Humour obviously, has survived India's many torture centres and Abu Ghraibs in Kashmir.

On August 16 more than 300,000 people marched to Pampore, to the village of the Hurriyat leader, Sheikh Abdul Aziz, who was shot down in cold blood five days earlier.

On the night of August 17 the police sealed the city. Streets were barricaded, thousands of armed police manned the barriers. The roads leading into Srinagar were blocked. On the morning of August 18, people began pouring into Srinagar from villages and towns across the valley. In trucks, tempos, jeeps, buses and on foot. Once again, barriers were broken and people reclaimed their city. The police were faced with a choice of either stepping aside or executing a massacre. They stepped aside. Not a single bullet was fired.

The city floated on a sea of smiles. There was ecstasy in the air. Everyone had a banner; houseboat owners, traders, students, lawyers, doctors. One said: "We are all prisoners, set us free." Another said: "Democracy without freedom is demon-crazy. " Demon-crazy. That was a good one. Perhaps he was referring to the insanity that permits the world's largest democracy to administer the world's largest military occupation and continue to call itself a democracy.

There was a green flag on every lamp post, every roof, every bus stop and on the top of chinar trees. A big one fluttered outside the All India Radio building. Road signs were painted over. Rawalpindi they said. Or simply Pakistan. It would be a mistake to assume that the public expression of affection for Pakistan automatically translates into a desire to accede to Pakistan. Some of it has to do with gratitude for the support - cynical or otherwise - for what Kashmiris see as their freedom struggle, and the Indian state sees as a terrorist campaign. It also has to do with mischief. With saying and doing what galls India most of all. (It's easy to scoff at the idea of a "freedom struggle" that wishes to distance itself from a country that is supposed to be a democracy and align itself with another that has, for the most part been ruled by military dictators. A country whose army has committed genocide in what is now Bangladesh. A country that is even now
being torn apart by its own ethnic war. These are important questions, but right now perhaps it's more useful to wonder what this so-called democracy did in Kashmir to make people hate it so?)

Everywhere there were Pakistani flags, everywhere the cry Pakistan se rishta kya? La illaha illallah. (What is our bond with Pakistan? There is no god but Allah.) Azadi ka matlab kya? La illaha illallah. (What does freedom mean? There is no god but Allah.)

For somebody like myself, who is not Muslim, that interpretation of freedom is hard - if not impossible - to understand. I asked a young woman whether freedom for Kashmir would not mean less freedom for her, as a woman. She shrugged and said "What kind of freedom do we have now? The freedom to be raped by Indian soldiers?" Her reply silenced me.

Surrounded by a sea of green flags, it was impossible to doubt or ignore the deeply Islamic fervour of the uprising taking place around me. It was equally impossible to label it a vicious, terrorist jihad. For Kashmiris it was a catharsis. A historical moment in a long and complicated struggle for freedom with all the imperfections, cruelties and confusions that freedom struggles have. This one cannot by any means call itself pristine, and will always be stigmatised by, and will some day, I hope, have to account for, among other things, the brutal killings of Kashmiri Pandits in the early years of the uprising, culminating in the exodus of almost the entire Hindu community from the Kashmir valley.

As the crowd continued to swell I listened carefully to the slogans, because rhetoric often holds the key to all kinds of understanding. There were plenty of insults and humiliation for India: Ay jabiron ay zalimon, Kashmir hamara chhod do (Oh oppressors, Oh wicked ones, Get out of our Kashmir.) The slogan that cut through me like a knife and clean broke my heart was this one: Nanga bhookha Hindustan, jaan se pyaara Pakistan. (Naked, starving India, More precious than life itself - Pakistan.)

Why was it so galling, so painful to listen to this? I tried to work it out and settled on three reasons. First, because we all know that the first part of the slogan is the embarrassing and unadorned truth about India, the emerging superpower. Second, because all Indians who are not nanga or bhooka are and have been complicit in complex and historical ways with the elaborate cultural and economic systems that make Indian society so cruel, so vulgarly unequal. And third, because it was painful to listen to people who have suffered so much themselves mock others who suffer, in different ways, but no less intensely, under the same oppressor. In that slogan I saw the seeds of how easily victims can become perpetrators.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani began his address with a recitation from the Qur'an. He then said what he has said before, on hundreds of occasions. The only way for the struggle to succeed, he said, was to turn to the Qur'an for guidance. He said Islam would guide the struggle and that it was a complete social and moral code that would govern the people of a free Kashmir. He said Pakistan had been created as the home of Islam, and that that goal should never be subverted. He said just as Pakistan belonged to Kashmir, Kashmir belonged to Pakistan. He said minority communities would have full rights and their places of worship would be safe. Each point he made was applauded.

I imagined myself standing in the heart of a Hindu nationalist rally being addressed by the Bharatiya Janata party's (BJP) LK Advani. Replace the word Islam with the word Hindutva, replace the word Pakistan with Hindustan, replace the green flags with saffron ones and we would have the BJP's nightmare vision of an ideal India.
Is that what we should accept as our future? Monolithic religious states handing down a complete social and moral code, "a complete way of life"? Millions of us in India reject the Hindutva project. Our rejection springs from love, from passion, from a kind of idealism, from having enormous emotional stakes in the society in which we live. What our neighbours do, how they choose to handle their affairs does not affect our argument, it only strengthens it.

Arguments that spring from love are also fraught with danger. It is for the people of Kashmir to agree or disagree with the Islamist project (which is as contested, in equally complex ways, all over the world by Muslims, as Hindutva is contested by Hindus). Perhaps now that the threat of violence has receded and there is some space in which to debate views and air ideas, it is time for those who are part of the struggle to outline a vision for what kind of society they are fighting for. Perhaps it is time to offer people something more than martyrs, slogans and vague generalisations. Those who wish to turn to the Qur'an for guidance will no doubt find guidance there. But what of those who do not wish to do that, or for whom the Qur'an does not make place? Do the Hindus of Jammu and other minorities also have the right to self-determination? Will the hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits living in exile, many of them in terrible poverty, have the
right to return? Will they be paid reparations for the terrible losses they have suffered? Or will a free Kashmir do to its minorities what India has done to Kashmiris for 61 years? What will happen to homosexuals and adulterers and blasphemers? What of thieves and lafangas and writers who do not agree with the "complete social and moral code"? Will we be put to death as we are in Saudi Arabia? Will the cycle of death, repression and bloodshed continue? History offers many models for Kashmir's thinkers and intellectuals and politicians to study. What will the Kashmir of their dreams look like? Algeria? Iran? South Africa? Switzerland? Pakistan?

At a crucial time like this, few things are more important than dreams. A lazy utopia and a flawed sense of justice will have consequences that do not bear thinking about. This is not the time for intellectual sloth or a reluctance to assess a situation clearly and honestly.

Already the spectre of partition has reared its head. Hindutva networks are alive with rumours about Hindus in the valley being attacked and forced to flee. In response, phone calls from Jammu reported that an armed Hindu militia was threatening a massacre and that Muslims from the two Hindu majority districts were preparing to flee. Memories of the bloodbath that ensued and claimed the lives of more than a million people when India and Pakistan were partitioned have come flooding back. That nightmare will haunt all of us forever.
However, none of these fears of what the future holds can justify the continued military occupation of a nation and a people. No more than the old colonial argument about how the natives were not ready for freedom justified the colonial project.
Of course there are many ways for the Indian state to continue to hold on to Kashmir. It could do what it does best. Wait. And hope the people's energy will dissipate in the absence of a concrete plan. It could try and fracture the fragile coalition that is emerging. It could extinguish this non-violent uprising and re-invite armed militancy. It could increase the number of troops from half a million to a whole million. A few strategic massacres, a couple of targeted assassinations, some disappearances and a massive round of arrests should do the trick for a few more years.

The unimaginable sums of public money that are needed to keep the military occupation of Kashmir going is money that ought by right to be spent on schools and hospitals and food for an impoverished, malnutritioned population in India. What kind of government can possibly believe that it has the right to spend it on more weapons, more concertina wire and more prisons in Kashmir?
The Indian military occupation of Kashmir makes monsters of us all. It allows Hindu chauvinists to target and victimise Muslims in India by holding them hostage to the freedom struggle being waged by Muslims in Kashmir.
India needs azadi from Kashmir just as much as - if not more than - Kashmir needs azadi from India.

Arundhati Roy, 2008. A longer version of this article will be available tomorrow at outlookindia. com.

First-ever home-based women workers union launched in Pakistan

2008-08-25T08:22:00.001+10:00

First-ever home-based women workers union launched in Pakistan

By Bushra Khaliq:

The first ever women union, Home-Based Aurat Workers Union Pakistan” (HBAWUP) was launched here at national congress held in Lahore on August 22, 2008. The congress was jointly organized by Women Workers Helpline, Labor Education Foundation and Action Aid Pakistan.

Over 600 home-based women workers representatives from Punjab, Balochistan, Sindh, NWFP and Azad Kashmir participated in the congress. Speaking at the congress the women workers narrated stories of their pathetic working conditions. They expressed hope that the union would help resolve their problems. The congress elected 31-member national committee and 11-member executive committee.

The newly elected office-bearers of the union include; Shahnaz Begum as president, Rozeena Saif as chairwoman, Jameela Baloch as general secretary, Fauzia Imran as information secretary, Shahida Shafeeq as finance secretary and Humaira Qureshi as joint secretary.

A grand women workers rally was followed by this congress. The rally started from congress venue at David Road to Shimla Pahari, Lahore Press Club. The participants were carrying banners and placards. In festive mood they were also chanting slogans in favor of their demands. The rally participants halted for some time in front of Press club to communicate their enthusiasm to media people.

In the afternoon a musical program was organized for the entertainment of the participants. They congratulated and hugÂ each other on the formation of the union. The contentment of being unionized for striving towards achieving their rights & defeating the‘Power of ExploiterÂ” was very much evident from their faces, expressions & actions.

Today, they laughed together, danced together and showed their power in their unionization, as it was THEIR DAY, the day that will surface the right path for them to achieve their goal. They sang songs and danced to the tune of music to celebrate their unity.

Next day on 23 August the union office-bearers held a press conference at Lahore Press club. They told the media that legal recognition should be given to home-based workers across the country and they should also be provided with facility of social security besides granting pension and stipends to their children.

The government should also apply rule of minimum wages level for these workers and ratify ILO Convention 177. Labour laws should also be applied on these workers, they demanded.

They asked for elimination of discriminatory laws against women. They were confident that the union would serve as a national-level platform for over 10 million home-based working women of Pakistan.

It may be mentioned that Pakistan is one of those countries where a large number of women are engaged in home-based work due to poverty and to supplement family income. Over 10 million women workers in Pakistan are engaged in Home-Based Work in sectors like garment, bangle making, shoe stitching, embroidery, carpet weaving, dry fruit picking, jewelry, leather products, steel scissors, mobile covers and prawn shelling.

Though their contribution to economy is 60 percent still they are the most unprivileged part of the society. Their incomes ranged between Rs 10 to Rs 50 (less than one dollar) a day despite the fact that they worked between 12 to 16 hours. They have no social and legal recognition of their work. Working in isolation, they have no rights as workers by law. Long working hours, poor working conditions and family pressure badly affect their health. (Ends)

************ ********* **

Bushra Khaliq
General Secretary
Women Workers Help Line
25/A Davis Road,Lahore, Pakistan.
Ph: 092-42-6363915
fax: 092-42-6363944
E-mail: wwhlpk@yahoo. com

LPP on Musharaf's resignation

2008-08-22T10:46:00.000+10:00

A dictator gone but not his policies

By: Farooq Tariq

Thousands across Pakistan celebrated the humiliated departure of dictator Musharaf on 18 August 2008. As he announced his resignation in an unscheduled nationally televised speech of one hour, private television channels showed instant response in all four provinces of jubilation and welcoming the decision. General retired Musharaf resigned as president of Pakistan as he was facing an impeachment move by the Pakistan Peoples Party led ruling alliance of four parties.

For the first time, any political party did not defend General Musharaf after the announcement of the move by the ruling alliance. He was very isolated in political field. Even Mutihida Qaumi Party (MQM) was not ready to defend him publicly, a party that he was associated for long time. All the four provincial assemblies had passed resolutions asking Musharaf to take a fresh vote of confidence from this electoral college of the presidency. Sind and Baluchistan voted unanimously while in Punjab, over 90 and in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) over 98 percent voted against Musharaf.

Such was the revulsion against Musharaf among the masses that many of those who were hand picked politician of General Musharaf decided to abstain from the votes. The resolutions in all four provinces brought the extreme weak social base of the dictator Musharaf supported by nearly nine years by American imperialism.

There were at least four occasions during the last one year alone when general Musharaf would have lost power.

General Musharaf must thanks to PPP leadership to provide him nearly eight more months in power after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on 27 December 2007. He could have lost the power, if PP leadership had decided to demand an immediate resignation of Musharaf. For five days after the assassination, Pakistan was under siege by the masses. Unfortunately, PPP leadership decided to take part in the general elections.

Earlier, after the restoration of the chief justice of Supreme Court of Pakistan on 20 July 2007, the top judges were indecisive about the fate of general Musharaf and allowed him to contest the election of president in uniform. He was “elected” president for the second time from a parliament, which was elected for five years only. A parliament elected for five year elected the president for ten years. However, the hesitation of the top judges to stop him doing that when challenged in Supreme Court of Pakistan provided him another chance to remain in power. He used the dictatorial powers on 3 November 2007 to suspend all those top judges before the final decision of the Supreme Court.

The outcome of the general elections on 18 February 2008 was totally against general Musharaf. Instead of asking resignation of general Musharaf after the elections, however, the PPP opted to work with him. This gave General Musharaf another chance to remain in power.

The PPP leadership did not restore the top judges within a month of coming into power as was promised. The restoration of top judges would have given the judges a chance to decide on the hearing of some petitions challenging the election of the president Musharaf. Hence, a fourth time was lost.

After implementing highly unpopular economic policies, the PP leadership lost popularity at a historic fast speed. Had they not taken a decision to remove Musharaf, General could have decided to remove the PPP led coalition government. PPP took this popular decision to reverse the gear of unpopularity. This paid off for the time being.

While general Musharaf had the dictatorial powers to remove the parliament at any time, he had lost the social basis for that. He was more unpopular than the leadership of PPP.

The departure of general Musharaf is one of the very good news that was heard after long time in Pakistan. It was defeat of the military generals. A major set back for those political trends always seeking refuge from the military generals. It was very welcome news.

General Musharaf lost the power as the direct result of the mass revulsion against him during the last one half year in particular.

There have been many important struggles against the military rule during the last nine years of general Musharaf. The peasant struggle for land rights at Okara Military Farms during 2001-2005 set the tone of the mood among the most exploited strata of the society. The 10 days national strike by the telecommunication workers against privatization in June 2005 was another manifestation of workers consciousness against the military dictatorship. The successful revolt of the Sindh masse against the building of controversial Kala Bagh Dam, the three days general strike by Sindh and Baluchistan province against the killings of Nawab Akbar Bhugti were the two other important events of struggle. However, these revolts did not have the national character and remained isolated in one or other part of Pakistan.

It was the militant lawyer’s movement after the removal of Chief Justice of Supreme Court of Pakistan on 9 March that was mainly responsible for the departure of the dictatorship. The 80,000 strong lawyer’s movement showed a tremendous energy to continue for over one and half year consistently. The young lawyers played a decisive role in this important movement.

The PPP led coalition government has earned a good respect by this move. However, Musharaf should not leave Pakistan unaccounted. A fare well guard of honor for a dictator even after his resignation showed some glimpse what been agreed under hand. It seems that the dictator Musharaf be offered a safe passage and luxurious retired life after his resignation.

The tradition of a safe passage for the military rulers after the departure from power has to be changed. A very popular demand has been to arrest Musharaf to face charges of murder and other crimes. General Musharaf must be arrested. “Military out of politics” must be the main slogan for future. 32 years out of 62 years of independence of Pakistan have been under the direct military rule. However, no military general yet been tried for the crime of breaking the constitution. The strong social movement in Pakistan at present would not be silenced and satisfied only by the departure of e a military dictator.

After the departure of General Musharaf, a new wave of class struggle will explode in Pakistan. The PPP government would have no excuse of not solving the main question of price hike. The implementation of neo liberal agenda will be challenged by all section of the working class. The PPP led coalition has no other economic plan accept to go the Musharaf way. They want to privatize the remaining public sector institutions. They want to remain partners with the American imperialism in their so-called war on terror. They want to do things that Musharaf could not do openly. They capitalist feudal led coalition government of PPP and PMLN will miserably fail in solving any of the basic problems of the masses.

The coalition honeymoon after the departure of Musharaf dictatorship will last very long. Mian Nawaz Sharif economic policies are no different from the PPP. Anyhow, the strong open support for the judges and for the accountability of the dictator has earned more respect for PMLN than PPP.

PPP have taken back some of the lost ground but not for long. The implementation of neo liberal agenda will clear some of the dust from the face of PPP. An extreme right wing party of the rich cannot base itself on the past reform agenda for long time. The restoration of judges, if done as promised will earn them some more respect. However, that will also be tested in the economic field by the masses. All the measures against the dictatorship are been welcomed by the masses in hope that it will help to end their miserable life. The expectations from the coalition government are much higher now than the past. However, none of this will be met with success. The masses will once again be on the move, this time not on political issues but on economic issues.

A new era of class struggle will be a challenge for the forces of the Left and social movements. The religious fundamentalist forces are in the field. Most of them have been seen wrongly as anti imperialist forces. They are also in the field to enhance their political bases. However, they have no solution the problems facing the masses. The Left forces have to fight against the pro imperialist forces and those who are wrongly seen as anti imperialists. It is a difficult objective condition for the forces of the Left, however, what other options are for the Left apart from fighting back.

A dictator gone but not his policies. That is a real challenge that Labour Party Pakistan and other Left forces are facing at present.

Farooq Tariq
spokesperson Labour Party Pakistan 40-Abbot Road Lahore, Pakistan Tel: 92 42 6315162 Fax: 92 42 6271149 Mobile: 92 300 8411945
labour_party@ yahoo.com www.laborpakistan. org www.jeddojuhd. com

Is Malalai Joya the Bravest Woman in Afghanistan?

2008-08-22T10:45:00.002+10:00

http://counterpunch .org/sulehria081 82008.html

Is Malalai Joya the Bravest Woman in Afghanistan?
An Afghan Woman Who Stands Up to the Warlords

By FAROOQ SULEHRIA

Afghanistan lives in the fear of the US-sponsored war lords. These hated warlords are not scared by the Taliban-monster raising its head in the south. Ironically, they live in the fear of an unarmed girl in her late twenties: Malalai Joya. To silence Joya´s defiant voice, war lords dominating national parliament, suspended Joy´s membership for three years in 2007. Earlier, at almost every parliamentary session she attended, she had her hair pulled or physically attacked and called names (`whore´). `They even threatened me in the parliament with rape´, she says. But she neither toned down her criticism of war lords (`they must be tried´) nor US occupation (`war on terror´ is a mockery). Understandably, she´s been declared the `bravest woman in Afghanistan´ and even compared with Aung Sun Suu Kyi.

A household name in Afghanistan (`Most famous woman in Afghanistan´, according to BBC), Joya shot to fame back in 2003 at the Loya Jirga convened to ratify Afghanistan´s new constitution. Unlike US-sponsored clean-shaven fundamentalists, Joya was not nominated but elected by the people of Farah province to represent them. She stunned the Loya Jirga and journalists present on the occasion, when she unleashed a three-minute vitriolic speech exposing the crimes of warlords dominating that Loya Jirga. Grey-bearded Sibghatullah Mojadadi, chairing the Loya Jirga, called her an `infidel´ and a `communist´. Other beards present on the occasion also shouted at her. But before she was silenced by an angry mob of war lords around, she had electrified Afghanistan with her courageous speech.

During the course of these three fateful minutes, the course of Joya´s life was also changed. In her native province of Farah, locals wanted her to represent them in elections. It takes guns and dollars to contest an election in Afghan electoral-battlefie lds. Joya had none. But she could not turn down hundreds of supporters daily paying her visits, urging her to stand. She decided to run for Wolesi Jirga (lower house of national parliament). Danish film maker Eva Mulvad, immortalised Joya´s courageous election campaign and subsequent victory, in her `Enemies of Happiness´ .

I happened to meet Joya in January unexpectedly at a dinner when she reached Peshawar (Pakistan) on her way to Canada. Since her passport has been confiscated and she is on Exit Control List, she had travelled to Pakistan in disguise. Politely refusing my request for an interview on the plea that she got to catch a flight early next morning, she promised to catch up with me in Kabul later in March.

Three months later, we met again in Kabul. As an MP, Joya was entitled to rent a villa in a posh neighbourhood designated to MPs. However, plagued with life threats, Joya hardly visits it. Her comrades discreetly pointed to the villa when we were driving past this neighborhood on our way to an underground home Joya sometimes uses to meet visitors. In an interview, interspersed by a delicious Afghan dinner, and post-dinner chat, this brave woman shared her hopes and fears with Arbetaren. Here are the excerpts.

Have you gone to court against your suspension. Did you contact Karzai against your suspension?

Joya: Here in Afghanistan, we have a mafia running the system. It is the same war lords in the parliament who head the courts. These Northern Alliance warlords dispense justice. I was suspended because I termed Afghan parliament as a stable full of animals. Though I think animals are useful. The warlords want me to apologize for this comment. I refuse to apologize for telling the truth aloud. I don´t see a chance in a court dominated by warlords to do me justice. However, another reason was, for the fear of personal security, no advocate was ready to plead my case. Now a lawyer has agreed to plead my case and I would move the court. (She went to court in April). However, I would tell the court that not me but war lords be brought in the dock.

As far as Hamid Karzai is concerned, he has been shamelessly silent on my suspension by an undemocratic parliament. I never contacted him. He should have contacted me. On the other hand, there were demonstrations across Afghanistan against my suspension. Karzai´s police proved good only at breaking up these demonstrations. But also what Karzai could have done? He is ridiculed by the people of Afghanistan as mayor of Kabul since his control does not extend beyond Kabul.

How come than Karzai is in power and how come you keep declaring Afghan parliament as undemocratic when it has been elected in general elections?

Joya: Well, this is a parliament in which 80 per cent of the members are warlords or drug lords. They either snatched their places in parliament at gun point or bought these seats off with US dollars. In some cases, both guns and dollars played a role. Even Human Rights Watch has accused some leading members of this parliament of war crimes. But this parliament, in a unique move, granted warlords an amnesty against crimes committed during the war. Even Mulla Umar can benefit after this amnesty.

Karzai, who was voted in as a lesser evil, has been co-operating with these criminals all the time. Hence, no wonder if he is unpopular today. But he is sustained in the presidential palace by USA and all the warlords co-operate with the USA:

By the way, one hears more about Karzai´s brother in Kabul than Karzai himself. Every other posh real estate project or every second case of corruption is attributed to the younger Karzai. He is also named when it comes to drug peddling?

Joya: Corruption and drug trafficking have become a big issues. In my view, security is the biggest issue. After that it is corruption. The so-called international community which in fact is US government and its allies, has sent a lot of money. This amount was enough to build two instead of one Afghanistan. But even Karzai himself confesses that the money has ended up in the pockets of ministers, bureaucrats and member parliaments. On the other hand, one hears about a mother in Heart selling her daughter for ten dollars. And not merely the brother of Karzai is a drug lord, foreign troops have been allegedly involved.

Really? Any proof? Press reports?

Joya: Yes some press reports have pointed that out. For instance, Russian state TV has hinted at US troops involvement in drug trafficking. That was reported in the press here. But this is like an open secret. Karzai in one of his speeches last year said that it was not only Afghans who are involved in drug trafficking. He hinted at foreign connections. Though he did not name any country or troops but people in Afghanistan understood what he meant. Now Afghan drugs are finding their way to New York and European capitals. Hence, no wonder today Afghanistan is producing 90 per cent of world opium. This is taking its toll on women. Now we hear about `opium brides´. When harvests fail, peasants are not able to pay back loans to drug lords; they `marry´ their daughters off to warlords instead.

Why is the USA letting all this happen?

Joya: The USA wants the things as they are.The status quo. A bleeding, suffering Afghanistan is a good excuse to prolong its stay. Now they are even embracing the Taliban. Recently, in Musa Qila, a Taliban commander Mulla Salam was appointed as governor by Karzai. The USA has no problem with the Taliban so long as it´s `our Taliban´.

Not merely Karzai, but also all these war lords have been sustained in power by the USA. That is why, when there are demonstrations against war lords, there are also demonstrations against foreign troops. People here believe that the warlords are cushioned by the US troops. If the USA leaves, the warlords will loose power because they have no base among our people. The people of Afghanistan will deal with these warlords once US troops leave Afghanistan.

Don´t you think security situation will get even worse once troops pack off?

Joya: Maybe. But tell the people in Sweden that Swedish troops are helping implement US agenda in Afghanistan. The democracy-loving people of Sweden should rather support democratic forces in Afghanistan and instead of sending soldiers; Sweden should send doctors, nurses, teachers and build schools and hospitals.

'Comrade' Zardari

2008-08-09T11:15:00.000+10:00

''Comrade" Zardari

Farooq Sulehria

This is an age of fantastic nonsense. At least, when it comes to politics. By twice electing George Bush as its president, the USA was an unchallenged master, until recently, in the arena of political foolishness.

The USA now stands outmanoeuvred by Socialist International that elected Asif Ali Zardari as its vice-president during its XXIII Congress, (30 June-02 July), held at Athens. Though Zardari's elevation as Socialist International vice-president was hopelessly surprising yet even surprising is Zardari's flirtation with socialism.

After seizing the leadership of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), he stunned many when he was seen hosting a Socialist International Asia-Pacific meeting in Islamabad on May 30. It was stunning not merely because any left-turn by PPP is impossible. It is surprising since any such turn under Asif Ali Zardari is absurdly unlikely.

Gone are the days when PPP, founded by charismatic Zulfiqar Ali Bhotto, upheld the principals:

Islam is our Faith
Democracy is our politics
Socialism is our Economy
All Power to the People

On coming to power, the first PPP government, headed by Zulfiqar Ali Bhotto, went for nationalization in three phases. In January 1972 and January 1974, banks, petroleum companies and shipping companies, oil refineries besides industries in iron, steel, engineering, chemicals, petrochemicals, cement and public utilities were nationalized.

On July 1, 1976 in yet another drive to nationalize the industry, the government nationalized 2815 cotton, ginning and rice husking units.

Similarly, in 1972 and 1977, land reforms were introduced. 2,826,4000 acres were appropriated. True, the land reforms proved half-hearted and nationalization degenerated into bureaucratisation. However, the first PPP government remains the only administration that introduced reforms benefiting working classes. This, however, does not in any sense make Ali Bhutto's government a socialist one.

On the contrary, the 'socialist measures' by a Bonapartist Bhutto government were aimed at pacifying the charged up working classes while keeping feudalism and capitalism in tact.
He himself candidly dispelled any illusion, on winning 1970 general elections, about his being a socialist. When asked if he received any monetary help from China to contest elections, he stated: ''The most angry people in Pakistan today are the communists for they know I have stopped the tide of communism by introducing Islamic socialism in this country..... ..In fact I have done more to combat communism in Asia than the Americans in spite of all the resources and the money they have piled into this part of the world. Before these elections the choice in Pakistan was a straight one between communism and capitalism'. How true.

The choice even after the elections was 'between communism and capitalism'. Bhotto was mistaken in lulling himself to the belief that he would strike a balance between his class of feudal lords and his electorate of serfs. He realized this mistake too. But only when he had landed himself in a death cell. In 1979, a military dictator sent Bhotto to gallows with tacit support lent by Washington. His murder was a multi-faceted tragedy as,among other things, it reduced PPP to a family heirloom.

Ali Bhutto's successor-daughter, Benazir Bhotto was never a radical or may be she thought it wise to seek shelter underneath the imperial umbrella. That her father had already purged the PPP of left radicals, made it even easy for Benazir Bhotto to eulogise Swedish model as the panacea for all the ills facing Pakistan.

Hence, when she returned from exile in 1986, the one-million crowd that welcomed her in Lahore was chanting in vain: Benazir aai hej, Inqlab lai hej. (Benazir has returned and has brought revolution).
What Benazir had returned with was an agenda for privatization, downsizing, right-sizing. She ruthlessly perused this programme when she came to power in 1988 even if 'Socialism is our Economy ' was still on the PPP statute books.

However, when in 1993, PPP went to elections; it rid even its statute books of 'Socialism is our Economy'.

Her second stint in power has been superbly portrayed by Tariq Ali: ''By the time she was re-elected in 1993, she had abandoned all idea of reform, but that she was in a hurry to do something became clear when she appointed her husband minister for investment, making him responsible for all investment offers from home and abroad. It is widely alleged that the couple accumulated $1.5 billion. The high command of the Pakistan People's Party now became a machine for making money, but without any trickle-down mechanism''.
Surrey Palace, SGS Cotectna, jam-eating horses, gem-studded necklace became catch phrases in Pakistan press and politics. Now an unofficial PPP manifesto had become:

USA is our faith.
Double-speak is our politics
Corruption is our Economy
All power to the Khaki people

The Vice President of Socialist International, Comrade Asif Ali Zardari is a superb delineation of new-PPP statutes. When Benazir Bhotto formed her first government in 1988,that lasted until 1990, he earned himself the sobriquet : Mr Ten Percent.

In three years time, during Benazir's second stint in power (1993-96), he pole-vaulted himself to Mr Cent Percent. And consequently landed himself in jail for almost ten years. It was to secure his release, many believe, that Benazir Bhotto kept on compromising with Musharraf regime.

He was, in due course, released as co-operation between Musharraf and Benazir evolved into a political compromise. Her return to Pakistan, October last year, was a part of this deal. However, on her return she wisely kept Asif Ali Zardari abroad. Alas! all her attempts proved futile. In her murder, a double tragedy struck Pakistan. First, Pakistan was deprived of her only national-level woman leader. Second, Zardari was back in Pakistan and also on the helm of party-government affairs.
Hardly had anybody any illusions in him when he became an unchallenged master of PPP government despite his trimmed down mustache and permanently stretched lips in an attempt to pose a changed image.

No facial re-doing helped him rehabilitate his image damaged beyond repair. But one must praise Master Zardari, whose rise to power every time is always in direct proportion to fall in PPP popularity, for being cagey. The day he came across membership card Benazir Bhutto had secured to enter Socialist club, he decided to give this camaraderie a try. Luckily, Socialist International is no crazy Marxist tendency founded by some V I Linen or Leon Trotsky. A bunch of degenerated social democrats, Socialist International is ready to embrace any party in the third world ready to serve global capital.

Its section in Nepal is pro-monarchy Nepalese Congress. Hence, Zardaris elevation as Socialist International? s vice- president is deservedly in a way.
Nonetheless, it is 'Comrade' Zardari who has benefited. First, he has been able to use the credentials lent by Socialist International to build his image. Secondly, he has sown a confusion among working class and advance layer of PPP activists . Every time Zardari will grace a Socialist International meeting, poor PPP sympathizers will, hoping against hope, expect a left turn. Unfortunately, such a turn will never come. (ends)

Interview with Farooq Tariq

2008-07-03T23:03:00.003+10:00

Revolutionary eye on Pakistan: Interview with Farooq Tariq
Direct Action
Issue No.2
July 2008

By Linda Waldron and Ray Fulcher

The Labour Party Pakistan (LPP) is a revolutionary party, founded in 1997, with a membership of around 3000. The LPP has shown inspiring leadership in the struggles against women’s oppression, dictatorship, religious fundamentalism and imperialism in Pakistan. Direct Action spoke to Farooq Tariq, LPP spokesperson, on the current situation in Pakistan.

Following the December 27 assassination of the Pakistan People’s Party leader, Benazir Bhutto, the PPP swept to government in the February 18 general elections. What does the PPP’s victory mean for the dictator, General Musharaf, and more generally for the military?

General Musharaf is still president of the country. The PPP speaks about impeaching him but has not taken any practical steps, simply demanding that Musharaf resign voluntarily. There is no doubt that he is the most hated president in Pakistan’s history. On June18, an American survey put him as the most hated president of any country in the world.

The PPP government does not threaten the economic interests of the military. The 2008/09 federal budget increased defence spending by 20 billion rupees [about A$310 million], which suggests it is “business as usual”. Some military officers have been recalled from civilian posts, but many more still remain. The PPP is the new face of the same economic agenda and priorities of the ousted pro-military government. In fact, the present PPP government has gone further in withdrawing state subsidies in the recent federal budget than even the previous Musharaf-Shoukat government was prepared to go. Price hikes are on the increase as before.

The elections were conducted under “emergency measures” or martial law imposed by Musharaf following the mass upsurge in the pro-democracy movement in March and November 2007. The LPP, as part of the broader All Parties Democratic Movement, decided to boycott the general elections. What were the achievements of the boycott campaign?

The campaign’s main achievement was to exert pressure on the Musharaf regime for fair and free elections. The Musharaf regime could not rig the elections as it intended. There was a massive anti-dictatorship vote on the day. Although there was not an effective boycott in three of the four provinces, it achieved its main purpose by forcing the regime to accept the verdict of the people. Another outcome was that the boycott of 22 anti-Musharaf political parties provided an undivided anti-Musharaf vote for the two main opposition parties, the PPP and Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) [PMLN] .

What factors limited the impact of the boycott?

The main reason that people decided to vote was because they wanted to punish the Musharaf dictatorship. We did not correctly assess the prevailing mood of the masses. But we did encourage the people’s mood by organising mass boycott rallies throughout Pakistan. We exposed Musharaf’s intention to rig the elections and declared that we would instigate an immediate protest movement if that happened.

What impact has the PPP forming a government had on the advocates’ movement in particular, and on the movement for the restoration of democracy more broadly?

The PPP government has not restored the judges to office, despite its pre- and post- election promises. Instead it has presented a so-called constitutional package to the parliament. The package includes restrictions on the judges who had not taken the oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order [PCO—the legislation used by Musharaf to sack the Supreme Court and install his own judges]. The PPP also wants to restore those judges who took the oath under the PCO. This means the judges who supported the emergency and justified all the dictatorial measures by Musharaf are to be treated equally with those who opposed dictatorial measures.

The PPP government are afraid of an independent judiciary because it could also make judgments against them. They want to preserve the status quo, in line with the policies of the Musharaf dictatorship and US imperialism. The deposed judges had raised concerns about the missing persons issue. These are mainly religious fundamentalists who have been abducted by intelligence agencies and probably handed over to the Americans. That is one reason that US imperialism has kept a criminal silence on the issue of the deposed judges.

The pro-Musharaf and anti-lawyers’ movement policies have had a detrimental effect on the support for the PPP within the lawyers’ movement. They have lost most of the bar councils, and PPP is now seen as a party from the other side. That is why the leader of the PPP, Asif Zardari, husband of Benazir Bhutto, is rapidly losing popularity.

The PPP leadership advised its members not to attend the 100,000-strong pro-democracy Long March from Karachi to Islamabad June 12-14. The People’s Lawyers Forum, a PPP front among the advocates, announced a complete boycott of the event.

Once the demonstrators arrived in Islamabad, Aitzaz Ahsan, the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, announced the end of the demonstration and that there would be no picket of Parliament. This sparked an immediate reaction by the young lawyers, who wanted to go all the way. Many wept that the main leadership of the lawyers’ movement had moved so quickly from resistance to reconciliation.

A picket of thousands of lawyers would have spoiled the uneasy relationship of PPP and Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), the two main parties of the capitalists and feudals. The PMLN is in power in Punjab and came out of the central government when PPP did not restore the judges as promised.

The defeated regime planned to begin construction of the Kalabagh Dam on the Indus river in 2016. On May 27, the Sindh information minister, Shazia Marri, announced the cancellation of the project. What compelled the PPP to cancel construction? Are mega-projects still on the PPP’s agenda?

There was a tremendous movement in Sindh against the building of this controversial dam prior to the PPP coming to power. People opposed the dam because it threatened to bring a near-drought situation for Sindh. The PPP’s main base is in Sindh, so, in response to the mass movement, they cancelled the dam’s construction. But there are other mega-projects that the PPP government is going ahead with, such as construction of several military bases in Baluchistan, the Gwadar city mega-project and the ring roads around Lahore. So we should have no illusions that this government is opposed to all mega-projects that are playing havoc with people’s lives.

Has the movement against fuel price rises been building for some time, or is this a new force in Pakistan? What political and class forces are involved in the protests?

There have been sporadic demonstrations against price hikes. But the main political parties have not taken any initiatives around this issue. The LPP demonstrations on June 6 were the only coordinated demonstrations across Pakistan. However, the LPP is a small political force.

Currently there is a mood of general apathy among the masses. They voted out the supporters of Musharaf at the general election with the false hope that PPP would take action against price hikes and unemployment. They have voted for PPP and are waiting to see the results of the party in power. The PPP leaders are saying, “We are in power for only three months, so do not expect miracles from us”. Once General Musharaf is replaced, the mood of the masses will change dramatically on this question.

In June, the LPP announced the formation of its first branch in Baluchistan, the resource-rich province on the Iranian and Afghani border and site of ongoing guerrilla warfare. What preparatory work was done to establish the new branch? What is the LPP’s involvement with the Baluchi national liberation struggle?

Some young people from the social movements joined the party and organised the first meeting on May 28-29 in Quetta. Those who participated were mainly from trade unions and social movements. Our weekly newspaper Mazdoor Jeddojuhd (Workers Struggle) played an important part in establishing us. We also organised a separate meeting of women, with 26 in attendance, to introduce the LPP to the province.

The comrades are young and the new to Marxist ideas but are very inspired by the LPP’s role in the campaign against growing militarisation in Baluchistan. They are also happy with the LPP position on the national question. We stand for the right of nations to self-determination. We have always opposed the Pakistani military’s attempts to crush the Baluchistan liberation struggle with force. The LPP demands more resources for Baluchistan, which is rich in natural resources but is the poorest province in regard to social development and industrial infrastructure.

It will take some time to develop the LPP in Baluchistan. We are based in only a few districts, mainly in Quetta. But it is a good beginning and we will grow quite rapidly.

This new branch is the most important development this year for our party. With the establishment of the LPP Baluchistan chapter, we now have a presence in all four provinces, the Northern Areas and Kashmir.

http://www.directaction.org.au/?q=node/116

one worker burnt to death

2008-06-29T13:12:00.000+10:00

one worker burnt to death

Dear all,

last night, we heard the terrible news that one worker, an active member of the power looms union body was found from a factory. We had reported to police that one of our workers is missing since 24 June. Last night his body was recovered from the burnt factory, which was under contrl of the same boss who has fired on the workers. He had three other workers forced to reamin in a room who were recovered live from the same factory by police. One Ajmal, a 20 year old worker's body, totally burnt by the bosses was found. A murder case been registered against the boss who is member of Punjab Assembly and a supporter of Gneral Musharaf. Yesterday, hundreds of workers went to faisalabad walking 15 kilometers ina rally while the negociations were going on with he administration. The administration has accepted most of the workers demands and it was agreed that the strike will end today. But after hearing the news of the death of a worker, factories remained close. Over 4000 attended the funeral of Ajmal this morning at Sudhar, Faisalabad. I will write a detail report later.

Comradely,
Farooq Tariq

spokesperson Labour Party Pakistan 40-Abbot Road Lahore, Pakistan Tel: 92 42 6315162 Fax: 92 42 6271149 Mobile: 92 300 8411945
labour_party@ yahoo.com www.laborpakistan. org www.jeddojuhd. com

PAKISTAN: No prohibition of torture in domestic law

2008-06-27T10:52:00.000+10:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AHRC-STM-174- 2008
June 25, 2008

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission on the Occasion of the
International Day against Torture

PAKISTAN: No prohibition of torture in domestic law

(June 26 is observed every year as the United Nations International Day in
Support of Victims of Torture.)

Pakistan signed the Convention against Torture and other cruel, Inhuman or
degrading treatment of punishment (CAT) on April 17, 2008, along with
ratification of the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (ICESCR). It also signed the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR). But torture in custody in Pakistan is a continuous
phenomenon. It is still being used as the best means by which to obtain
confessional statements. As yet, there has been no serious effort by the
government to make torture a crime in the domestic laws of the country.

In the latest recorded case of torture in custody of state intelligence
agency the victim, Mr. Abdul Wahab Baloch, was arrested on May 28, 2008,
after a demonstration against the tenth anniversary of nuclear experiment.
He went through severe torture during his illegal detention for six days but
the government has not taken any action against the officials of state
agency. Please see the link:
http://www.ahrchk. net/ua/mainfile. php/2008/ 2883/

Torture is prohibited in the constitution through Article 14 (2) that "No
person shall be subjected to torture for the purpose of extracting
evidence", but the criminal justice system has nothing to do with torture in
custody. Torture in custody is endemic in Pakistan and people generally do
not report torture because they have again to report to the police, the very
people who tortured them in the first place. Also, the lower judiciary
generally takes sides with the prosecution and that is why people do not
report cases of torture.

Currently there are no independent investigation procedures in Pakistan to
investigate cases of torture. In addition to this, there is an alarming lack
of sensitivity among the legal professionals including the judiciary
regarding the practice of torture in Pakistan. In such circumstances the
damage such practices causes in maintaining the rule of law in the country
goes understated. This lack of insensitivity is equally shared by
prosecution, law enforcement agencies like the police and also the
judiciary, particularly the lower judiciary. Due to this there is a lack of
development in the criminal law jurisprudence in Pakistan. Pakistan has thus
far failed to effectively address the question of torture.

It is in the day-to-day work of the lower judiciary that this
underdevelopment is visible the most. One example is the practice of the
lower court judges of allowing remand custody of the detainees with ease
while it is clear as daylight that anyone detained is a subject of torture
in Pakistan. This practice even fails to make use of the little space
available in the current criminal law of Pakistan, where a judge could
demand a reason from the investigating agency for handing over custody of an
accused to such agencies, than transferring the accused into judicial
custody. Put simply, the practice of torture continues because there is no
prohibition against it the domestic law in Pakistan.

Click here to
download the full Report on Torture on the UN International Day in Support
of Torture Victims.

# # #

About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental
organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong
Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

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PAKISTAN: The AHRC welcomes commuting of death sentences to life imprisonment

2008-06-26T11:45:00.000+10:00

AHRC-STM-168- 2008
June 24, 2008

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission

PAKISTAN: The AHRC welcomes commuting of death sentences to life
imprisonment

The Asian Human Rights Commission appreciates and welcomes the announcement
by the new government of Pakistan to commute death sentences to life
imprisonment. The AHRC hopes that the government of Prime Minister Syed
Yousaf Raza Gillani will abolish the law which allows capital punishment by
hanging.

On the occasion of birthday anniversary of Ms. Benazir Bhutto, the
assassinated former prime minister and chair person of the Pakistan People's
Party (PPP), Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, Prime Minister of Pakistan, announced
that his government would make recommendations to President Musharraf to
commute the death sentences of thousands of prisoners to life imprisonment
as a birthday tribute to Benazir Bhutto. The prime minister has also
directed the Ministry of Interior to send a summary to the president for the
conversion of capital punishment into life imprisonment. Around 7,379
persons will benefit by the commuting of their death sentences.

After the announcement by the Prime Minister Muslim clerics started opposing
the commutation of the death sentence as repugnant to Islamic fundamentalism
and the teachings of the Holy Quran. In this, a new environment is being
created by vested interest to dehumanize society by favouring the death
sentence, thereby condoning the violence perpetrated by the state power.
During the 60 years of Pakistan's independence the scope of the death
penalty in the law of the country increased to cover 27 'crimes' including
blasphemy, stripping a woman in the public, terrorist acts, sabotage of
sensitive installations, sabotage of railway, attacks on law enforcement
personal, spreading hate against the arm forces, sedition, and many more.
These all are covered under Islamic laws and Islamic Ideology, a slogan
under narrow nationalism and religious fanaticism.

During the rule of civilian or elected governments it was observed that
death penalties were rarely awarded. However, during military regimes the
numbers of executions by hanging rose by more than 100 in 2007. In 2005 52
people were hung, in 2006 the figure rose to 82 and in 2007 134 were were
executed. The death penalty is still being carried out and according to the
2007 figures a total of 7,379 persons, including 44 women await execution.

The power to pardon or to commute the death sentence lies only before the
president who, in many cases were military dictators who were happy to
please the Muslim fundamentalists to legalise killing by the state.

The private courts like, Jirga and Islamic courts themselves decide to hang
a criminal or to kill them by stoning. The president would normally have the
authority to commute the death sentence, however, the Islamic Federal court,
the federal Shariat court (FSC) have limited the power of the president by
ruling that only the legal heirs of the victim have the power to pardon the
convicted person. The "blood money" paid to relatives of victims is defined
by the FSC as the only way to escape the death of penalty. Most appallingly,
another method of commuting the death penalty is to hand over young girls as
compensation for a crime of murder. The so-called Islamic courts release the
person from the gallows only after receiving news of a compromise reached
between parties on the exchange of these young girls.

In 1970, the government led by the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto raised the
minimum term of a life sentence from 14 to to 25 years with the idea that
capital punishment would be abolished in the years to come. However, this
did not materialize and General Zia, the military ruler from 1977 to 1988,
kept both the death penalty and the increased life sentence intact through
one ordinance which was later on was made the part of the constitution.
President Musharraf has done nothing to alter either the death sentence nor
the minimum term.

Children, under the age of 18 years, are also subjected to the death
penalty. The Juvenile Justice System ordinance was promulgated to prohibit
the death penalty to persons under 18 years of age and made provision for
juvenile courts. However, once again the High Court of Punjab in 2004
stopped this process. Fortunately the Supreme Court after one year restored
the ordinance. It was difficult for courts to accept that death penalty is
no solution for crimes.

Under these circumstances there are chances that Muslim fundamentalists and
conservative forces will start using pressure tactics to stop the abolition
of the death sentences and launch a movement through the media and street
power. In fact they have already started. The government should not bow down
before the reactionary forces and must assert the right to life for every
one.

The Asian Human Rights Commission welcomes the intentions of the government
to commute the death sentences into life imprisonment and is preparing a
summery in this regard to forward the President of Pakistan to withdraw the
death sentence. The announcement of the prime minister was only on the
occasion of birth day celebrations of Ms. Benazir Bhutto. However, the AHRC
urges the prime minister to immediately withdraw the amendment from the
constitution in regard to the death sentence introduced by an army general
at the behest of fundamentalists. A constitutional guarantee is required.
Otherwise in the coming days executions will carried out via Federal Sharia
and some private courts like the Jirga and tribal courts as they will pay no
heed to the announcement of the prime minister.

As the government had signed the ICCPR and CAT and ratified the ICESCR,
which is again a bold step of a new government, they should immediately go
one step further to abolish death sentence from, the constitution of
Pakistan.

# # #

About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental
organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong
Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

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A workers day at Faisalabad

2008-06-26T11:43:00.000+10:00

A workers day at Faisalabad
by Farooq Tariq

Over 10,000 workers picketed a power loom factory in Sadhar Faisalabad for over 8 hours on 24 June. They were demanding the arrest of the owner of the factory and his gangsters. The factory owner, Asif, a Muslim League Q member of Punjab Assembly (MPA), directed its gangsters to open fire directly on the 300 workers protesting outside the factory for higher wages. Seven workers were shot at and severely injured. They were rushed to the Allied Hospital in Faisalabad. One of them was in critical condition.

On hearing the news of the firing, the workers of all the power looms and textile factories of the area walked out in protest and picketed (Gherao) the factory from where the firing started. The workers were led by the local leaders of Labour Qaumi Movement, an organization of textile workers, supported by Labour Party Pakistan and several radical social movements.

The main leaders of LQM were busy elsewhere in Faisalabad where workers has taken action for better wages. Almost half of the Faisalabad power loom workers were on strike for the last two days on the call of LQM. Faisalabad is the largest textile city of Pakistan and third largest city of Pakistan. A private television channel Express started a live broadcast from the scene of the picket. This brought more workers on the spot.

Those who had fired on workers were forced to remain inside the factory. The police wanted to take them out, workers will not allow the police to enter the factory. They did not have any trust on police. They were demanding the arrest of the MPA, who had fled the scene already. Hundreds of police was mobilized from all over the district. As police tried to enter the factory to rescue the gangsters, the workers resisted. Police fired tear gas, and fired in the air but some even fired directly.
The workers retaliated with stones and forced the police to retreat. They could not enter the factory. In the meantime, there were more and more workers coming in and joining the picket.

Earlier on 8 June 2008, the LQM had organized a workers conference in the area. It was attended by over 5000 and was addressed by Labour Party Pakistan general secretary Nisar Shah, Sarwar Bari of Pattan Development organization and other labour leaders. The speakers announced that that Peshgi (advance) system is illegal and no boss can cut the Peshgi from workers wages. They also demanded a social security card for every worker and implementation of labour laws. The conference set a very radical mood among workers. It was first largest manifestation of workers power in the area.

As we heard the news in Lahore, four of us left for Faisalabad immediately, a two and half hour drive from Lahore. When we arrived around 5.30 pm, police had already been on retreat. As we waved our red flags, hundreds of workers came to shout slogans against police and for workers unity and solidarity. We went to the besieged factory and workers started gathering around us. I warned the bosses of a nationwide campaign if the bosses are not arrested particularly the MPA. We also told workers not to burn factories and no violence. “Violence will always play in the hands of the bosses and the state” I declared. Earlier, some enraged workers had burnt three factories owned by the same boss.

As I finished my speech, I was told that there is yet another injured worker hit by bullet found in near by field. I rushed the injured worker to the hospital in my car. He was hit by a bullet in his foot. The injured workers told me that he was asked by the gangsters to run away, he refused, then they fired around him, he did not run, then they fired at his foot, he was unconscious for some time and hours later, he was rushed to the hospital. Workers feared of his arrest if they dare to take him to hospital. I went through hundreds of policemen and asked them to give way to take the worker to hospital.

A nearby main road was closed by women belonging to the families of the workers. They were also in hundreds. They took the decision on their own to close the road to insert more pressure on the administration. This was the result of the speeches of LPP leaders at the conference who had asked the workers to involve women in the movement.

In the meantime, the workers allowed the police to enter the factory.
After admitting him to hospital, I came back to the area with Aslam Meraj, labour secretary Labour Party Pakistan Punjab, who was at the hospital to take care of the seven injured workers brought in the afternoon. We arrived back to hear that Punjab Labour Minister is rushing to the area. In the meantime, all the main private media had arrived at the scene and it had become national news. Ashraf Sohna, the labour minister arrived and came straight to the place we were standing. Aslam Meraj gave a brief of what happened and made it clear that until the demands are not met, we will not lift the picket of the factory. The Labour Minister told the big crowed that I will get the MPA arrested and will not leave Faisalabad until the arrest. He also said that all the demands of the workers will be met.

We then proceeded to negotiate with top police officers. Aslam Tareen the senior superintendent of Police Faisalabad told us, that he has arrested the MPA and nine other gangsters and recovered fifteen sophisticated guns from the factory. On hearing this, we agreed to provide a safe passage to the arrested gangsters. We asked the workers to let the police van come close the factory and take away the arrested ones. This was done although some workers still threw stones in anger when the police van was leaving.

While we were leaving to Lahore around 10pm, all the roads around the area were stopped by young workers. We were stopped at several places and when they knew who we were or they recognized us, they allowed us to leave.
It was a workers day at Faisalabad and in Pakistan. A new history of militant struggle has been written by the power loom workers. They had shown the power of the industrial workers.

Farooq Tariq
spokesperson Labour Party Pakistan 40-Abbot Road Lahore, Pakistan Tel: 92 42 6315162 Fax: 92 42 6271149 Mobile: 92 300 8411945
labour_party@ yahoo.com www.laborpakistan. org www.jeddojuhd. com

Pakistan: Corruption in Privatization

2008-06-24T10:46:00.000+10:00

Pakistan: Corruption in Privatization
1550 Billions Rupees ($ 23.84 billions) Corruption in Privatization process during 8 years of Musharaf dictatorship

by Farooq Tariq

There has been a massive corruption during the eight years of Musharaf Shoukat power period from 1999 until 2007. It will be very clear that privatization process has not been proved as a key to economic development as was claimed by the government, but a total disaster for the economy.

On 12 November 2007, the former Prime Minister Shoukat Aziz claimed that we have earned 417 billion Rupees ($6.41 billions) through privatization, a record amount according to him. While, only 57 Billion Rupees ($.870million) were fetched altogether from 1991 until 1999 by the civilian governments. He said the corner stone of our economic growth has been liberalization, deregulation and privatization.

Today, in June 2008, it is clear to every one in Pakistan that there has been massive economic decline during the period of military led civilian government of Shoukat Aziz. According to conservative estimate of Anti privatization Alliance Pakistan, a massive 1550 Billion Rupees ($23.84 billions) corruption has taken place during 8 years of Musharaf Shoukat Aziz privatization push. This is a record during any time of 61 years of independence of Pakistan by a government in loot and plunder of the state assets.

A record 700 billion Rupees ($10.76 billions) corruption has taken place during the privatization of financial institutions. When Habib Bank Limited (HBL) 51 percent shares were sold out to Agha Khan Fund For Economic Development in December 2004 for only 22 Billions Rupees, its total assets were more than 570 billion Rupees ($8.76 billions). While another large bank, United Bank Limited (UBL) was sold out only for 13 billion Rupees. HBL had 1437 branches and another 40 braches abroad in 26 countries with ownership of the buildings that the branches are functioning. The sale of these two banks on a very throw away prices is the largest financial scandal in Pakistan history.

The 26 percent shares privatization of Pakistan Tele Communication Limited (PTCL to Dubai based Aitsalat with management rights for only 157 Billions Rupees ($2.59 billion) is another gross violation of the rules set up even by Privatization Commission Pakistan. The Aitsalat bought PTCL after a 10 days strike against privatization by workers was crushed by the military regime in June 2005. The company then refused to take over and wanted more concessions. At the demand of the private company, it was agreed by the PC that another $370 million be reduced from the original price and the rest of the amount to be paid in installments.

Aitsalat announced at the time of privatization in 2005, that none of the 70,000 workers would loose their jobs. However, in 2007, the company has kicked out 30,000 workers on the name of so-called voluntary scheme.

Karachi Electrical Supply Corporation (KESC) was sold out for only 16 billion Rupees. It failed to improve any electricity supply, on the contrary, there has been regular load shedding and most of the political parties have demanded to renationalize the KESC.

There has been a sever crises of agriculture due to the privatization of fertilizer public companies. Pak Saudi Fertilizer in Mir Pur Mathelo wan handed of to Fauji (military) Foundation in 2002 for just 8 billion Rupees. At the time, it annual profit was more than 4 billion Rupees. At Multan, Pak Arab Fertilizer was handed over to Arif Habib Group for only 13 billion Rupees. The price of the land of this factory was over 40 billion Rupees at the time of sale in 2006. On 15 July 2006, the largest Public sector factory Pak American Fertilizer was handed over for just 16 billion Rupees.

After the privatization of these factories, the price of a pack of fertilizer has gone up from Rupees 1300 to 3700 Rupees. This has put a massive extra burden on the peasants and all agricultural inputs have gone up.

Lahore historic Fallaties hotel is sold out for only 1.21 billion Rupees. It is located in the heart of Lahore with over 50 canal of precious land.

A large-scale corruption is witnessed in almost every deal done by the PC. There has been improvement of the quality of the good produced by these companies according to one independent research. There has been a massive price hike of the product produced by these privatized companies. The economy is in consistence decline. As a result, the trends of monopolizations have increased and the multi national companies have further monopolized the economy. These all facts negate the very justification of privatization.

Unfortunately, the present Pakistan Peoples Party government has continued the policies of the former Musharaf Shoukat regime. The former government proudly declared that three main pillars of the Pakistan so called economic growth rest on liberalization, deregulation and privatization. The PPP government has no different options than these three.

The new finance minister of PPP has been the chairperson of Privatization Commission and minister privatization during the previous two periods of Benazir Bhutto government (1988-90, 1994-1996). He declared on 30 April 2008 that we have learned a lot from our previous experiences and we will do a “clean” privatization. He also tried to justified privatization as “pro worker and pro people”.

The issue is not of clean or corrupt privatization. The process it self is anti worker and anti people as has the experience shown in Pakistan and internationally. The result has been that it has promoted unemployment, price hike, monopolization, low quality, inefficiency and huge profits for the rich.

Under Nawaz Sharif power period from 1990-1993, it was declared that proceeds of privatization will be distributed equally for defense, repayment of the foreign loans and social welfare. The Nawaz Sharif government did not practice this formula but at least that was the declared purpose. Under Musharaf Shoukat Aziz, this formula was changed and it was made clear that 90 percent of the income will go for the repayments of the foreign debts. The rest of 10 percent would be used for expenditures Privatization Commission and social welfare.

The Musharaf Shaukat regime earned 2.5 billion Dollars during 2006-2007. The target for the next year was around 3.5 billion Dollars. If the chief justice of Supreme Court of Pakistan had not stopped the privatization of Pakistan Steel Mills Karachi in 2006, the former regime would have sold most of the public institutions on throwaway prices. This would have been like selling Pakistan.

Still, the website of Privatization Commission updated in March 2008 announces the planned privatization of Pakistan Railways, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), State Life Insurance Corporation, Oil and Gas Development Corporation, Sui Northern and Sui Southern Gas Companies, Faisalabad Electric Supply Corporation, Peshawar Electric Supply Corporation, National Fertilizer Corporation, Port Qasim Authority, Civila Aviation Authority, Karachi Port Trust, Printing Corporation of Pakistan, All Utility Stores and Corporation, Rice Export Corporation, Cotton Export Corporation and Convention Center Islamabad.

We demand from PPP government that it stop the process of privatization. An independent commission should be established to investigate the corruption involved in the previous privatizations. Abolish the Privatization Commission and Privatization Ministry. The Protection of Economic Reform Ordinance should be withdrawn. The Ordinance gives constitutional protection to the process of privatization.

Here are some facts

According to the Privatisation Ordinenece 2000, the purpose of privatization is Pakistan poverty alleviation and repayments of foreign debts. During 15 years of privatization in Pakistan, these two purposes have not been accomplished. When privatization started in 1991, the foreign debt was 23.323 billion Dollars. Now, in 2008, it has gone up to 45 billion Dollars. While internal debts are on ever increase. Poverty has increased according to all the surveys by government and independent organizations. It is estimated that over 45 percent of Pakistan population lives under poverty line. The national growth of economy during the previous decade (1981-1991) has been on everage 6.7 perecent. However, during the decade of privatization (1991-2001), it has been reduced to 4.4 percent.

The direct negative impact of privatization has been seen on working class. 600.000 workers has lost their jobs during the 15 years of privatization from the institutions that has been privatized. Most of privatized factories work on contract system. There are no permanent jobs in these factories. Labour patron have been changed the privatization has pushed flood of informal sector. A swear exploitation of workers particularly women workers is taking place in informal sector. No labour laws has been imposed in informal sector. According to the report of Public Inquiry Committee of National parliament 2002, there is no clue of 80 billion Rupees earned by Privatization Commission.

The Privatization process help create cartels. 5 large cartels has been established during the last 10 years which has looted the masses on unprecedented level. They are

* Oil cartel based on 10 oil companies,
* Brokerage cartel based on 4 groups,
* Auto mobile cartel based on 3 companies,
* Sugar cartel based on 24 companies,
* Cement cartel based on 10 companies.

The creation and effective functioning of these cartel has resulted an unprecedented price hike and an incredible profits of the companies associated with these cartel. The privatization process in Pakistan has weakened the trade union movement as well. The membership is on ever decline. The membership of the registered trade unions was 870000 in the early eighties, now in 2007, it has declined to 296250.

Privatization is a political weapon in the hands of the capitalists. It is not just an economic attack but a political attack as well. It stop the growth of social, political and class based consciousness. It reduces the social capital and increase the private capital. Instead of social need, it creats and increase the private greed.

The World Bank, Transparency International and other international institution talks of state corruption but never speak about the corruption involved in privatization process. The stories of corruption during the privatization process are in abundance in every country. But are ignored for political reasons. We are happy to hear the stories of re-nationalization of privatization companies in several Latin American countries. That is the only answer to be followed by all countries.

Privatization in Pakistan must stop otherwise the PPP government will also see the same results of price hike, unemployment and monopolization of economy in Pakistan thus loosing its remaining social basis among the working class of Pakistan. The Anti Privatization Alliance will do its best to stop the path of privatization by launching the movement and exposing the corruption and other irregularities in the process.

English translation of Anti Privatization Alliance(APA) press conference by members of APA
Farooq Tariq, Khaliq Shah, Azra Shad, Yousaf Baluch, Maqsood Mujahid
11 June 2008, Lahore Press Club

Farooq Tariq
spokesperson Labour Party Pakistan 40-Abbot Road Lahore, Pakistan Tel: 92 42 6315162 Fax: 92 42 6271149 Mobile: 92 300 8411945
labour_party@ yahoo.com www.laborpakistan. org www.jeddojuhd. com

A Historic Long March

2008-06-19T19:01:00.000+10:00

A historic Long March that fell short of picketing parliament
Lawyer’s leadership on the road from resistance to reconciliation

By: Farooq Tariq

We started our Long March from Lahore around 6pm on 12 June 2008. Four vehicles were carrying around 100 Labour Party Pakistan activists. The destination was Islamabad where the leaders of the lawyer’s movement announced a picket of parliament. This was to put pressure on the Pakistan Peoples Party Government to fulfill their promises to restore the top judges.

The judges had refused to take oath under a Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) after General Musharaf announced an emergency on 3 November 2007. The taking of oath under PCO would have meant to legalize the Musharaf dictatorial measures.

Pakistan Peoples Party came onto power after the general elections of 18 February. PPP had promised to restore the top judges within 30 days of coming into power. However, they failed to fulfill their promise and wanted to put some conditions on the independent judiciary before they are get their job back.

We arrived at Islamabad on 14 June at 2am. The 44 hours spent to cover, a distance of around 300 kilometers, was not a very good speed. On average, we drove at a speed of 7 kilometers an hour. This was due to the massive presence of ordinary people all the way to Islamabad. They were reception camps and many thousands people were queuing many hours to receive the Long March and say to them a good luck.

No one had any rest but attended all the public meetings, replied to all the slogans against Musharaf regime, put stickers, spoke to people, waved hands all the time and walked some time ten kilometers along thousands.

The mood was euphoric. They all wanted Musharaf to go. I have never heard so much muddy language against a ruler as was used by many who saw this opportunity to express their real inner feeling. They all were happy that at last something is going to happen. “Go and get Musharaf out, we are with you” was a comment we heard very regularly. It was an all out anti Musharaf consciousness expressed all the way.

Imagine people queuing up in thousands even after 12 pm. We attended a public meeting at 4am at Gujrat where few thousands have refused to go home until out caravan arrive and speak to them. This is a city where he leader of Musharaf supported Pakistan Muslim League was defeated despite all his best efforts. Here we saw for the first time the flags of Pakistan Peoples Party within the crowed that were waiting for the participants of the Long March.

PPP leadership had advised its members not to attend this long march. The Peoples Lawyers Forum, a PPP front among the advocates, had announced a complete boycott of the event and many PPP leaders were making jokes of the Long March. They were using very hurtful remarks about the Long March.

Javed Bhatti called me, an LPP activist, who told me that some private television channels are commenting about the “low turn out” of the Long March. I was surprised about this dirty tactics of PPP leadership who had used some of its journalist supports to propagate this lie. This was all contrary to the factual position.

However, the PPP activists in hundreds had defied the main leadership to become part of the lawyer’s movement. This was a welcoming sign and the speakers at the public rally at 4am recognized the importance of this participation.

I had started using my mobile to write every few hours a running commentary on the long march and was posting to Labour Party Pakistan supported email list “Socialist Pakistan News (SPN)”.

However, here in Gujrat, my revolutionary tempo had a break. I lost my mobile and so was the hard labour of at least six months to collect all the telephone numbers and emails addresses. The leaders of Pakistan Bhatta Mazdoor Union at Gujrat offered us a cup of tea. I had almost lost my voice because of the consistent sloganeering. While I was using some hot water to freshen up my throat, my mobile was taken away within seconds and the sim was thrown out immediately. It took few hours before I recovered from this great shock.

Those who had erected the reception camps offered a lot of drinks, food and biscuits on many places. We were quite pleased with this gesture.

At Jehlum, around 6am we had a meeting of all the comrades of LPP and discussed our strategy so far and the improvement. It was a very good road side meeting which brought good results in shape of more active participation of all the comrades.

We entered Rawalpindi around 2pm and saw some LPP flags welcoming the Long March. We also saw an LPP flag waving on the main truck of the lawyer’s leadership, a truck that would lead us to the parliament. It was the work of Rawalpindi comrades.

Here we saw the red flags of other Left groups like the Peoples Rights Movement, Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party, Awami Jamhoori Itehad, Awami Tehreek and National Workers Party. While the green flags of Jamaat Islami and Muslim League Nawaz were the major part of the caravan, but it was difficult to ignore the red flags as well. Flags of Imran Khan Tehreek Insaaf were also seen all along the route.

It took us around 12 hours from Rawalpindi to Islamabad. Alia, an activist of People Rights Movement inspired many thousands by her creative slogans and speeches. We all were now out of our vehicles and gathered around the truck of PRM who had good arrangement of loud speakers. All Reds were there. A good unity action by all the Left groups.

We were the last one to reach the parliament area. The reason was that none of us had a rest or a proper hot food for the last eighteen hours. Comrades wanted to eat something before we reach for the final destination. Here the comrades from Rawalpindi had also joined us. Over 100 of us started walking to the parliament from Aab Para Chouck at around 1.30am. It was around two kilometers. We all had our red flags and started the final chanting of slogans.

We had heard already that over 100,000 had arrived before our main caravan to reach at the main venue. At Rawalpindi, it was an ocean of heads. Everywhere, there were people waving flags and chanting slogans.

As we arrived at the main area where over 100, 000 had gathered already, we started moving to the front of the gathering and raised slogans. We saw thousands of lawyers in their suite lying on the ground because of long distance they covered to come here. Some have already erected the camps in anticipation of few days of picket. For them, it was now or never situation.

We came very near to the main platform and Mian Nawaz Sharif was just going to speak at the time. He spoke well about the issue of the judges but in the end, he advised the lawyer’s leaders to rethink about the picket of the parliament. He in fact asked them not to go ahead for the picket and that it was ok what they have done.

We immediately realized that the leadership of lawyer’s movement had been in discussion with PMLN and that they had not announced publicly what they will do at the end of the Long March. The impression given by the leaders of the movement was very clear. “It is now or never”.

A picket of lawyers in thousands would have spoiled the uneasy relationship of PPP and PMLN, the two main parties of the capitalists and feudal. The PMLN is in power in Punjab and had come out of the central government when PPP had not restored the judges as promised. However, they did not want to go very far in this regard. The chief minister of Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif had already come out openly against the picket of parliament.

Aitzaz Ahsan, president Supreme Court Bar Association announced the end of Long March while speaking to thousands. It sparked an immediate reaction by the young lawyers who wanted go all the way. Many wept and tears in their eyes on this open reconciliation policy of the main leadership of the lawyer’s movement. The leadership had moved quickly from resistance to reconciliation. No one agreed to the arguments of Aitzaz Ahsan that we do not have the resources for the picket.

Much more could have been gained if the leaders of the lawyer’s movement would have stood according the predominant rebellious consciousness. It was a gross tactical mistake to loose this opportunity to put more pressure. It left a very bitter mood in the end and a movement divided on the issue. A bitter end in short terms of a historic gathering. It was a crisis of the leadership. It may be the beginning of the more and more conciliation by the leaders of the movement.

Despite the conciliation of the lawyer’s leaders in the end of the Long March, this was one of the great events of the movements in Pakistan against the military dictatorship. It brought hundreds of thousands in the street against militarization. It helped developed new layers of political activists It was a great manifestation of the working class joining hands with the middle class. Not only those who participated will not forget it but by those as well who joined to welcome the caravan. It has put a lot of pressure on the parliament but it could have been done decisively.

We arrived back in Lahore on 14 June evening. However, the comrades who had started their participation on 9 June from Sind arrived back to their homes on 16 June evening. For them, it was week long on the roads. So were the case that started their Long March from Quetta and other cities of Baluchistan.

Farooq Tariq
spokesperson Labour Party Pakistan 40-Abbot Road Lahore, Pakistan Tel: 92 42 6315162 Fax: 92 42 6271149 Mobile: 92 300 8411945
labour_party@ yahoo.com www.laborpakistan. org www.jeddojuhd. com

Blaming Others

2008-06-19T18:57:00.000+10:00

Blaming others

Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Farooq Sulehria

The Amnesty International report on human rights for the year 2007 is out. The Muslim world constitutes, as usual, bleakest chapter. Every single country across the Muslim world has been pointed out by the Amnesty International either for executions and torture or discrimination against women and ethnic and religious minorities. Punishments never handed down even during the Stone Age, have been awarded in 21st century Muslim world. In one case, two Saudi nationals were awarded 7,000 lashes. Yes, 7,000. And executions? Well, 335 in Iran, 158 in Saudi Arabia and 135 in Pakistan. Violation of human rights, it seems, is the only thing that unites the otherwise divided Muslim world.

The report is no exception. The Muslim world cuts a sorry figure every time a global watchdog releases its findings. Freedom of expression here remains curtailed, Reporters Sans Frontieres annually reports. Regarding freedom of expression, there is a joke often told in Arab world. At a meeting, a US journalist says: "We have complete freedom of expression in the US. We can criticise the US president as much as we like." The Arab journalist replies. "We also have complete freedom of expression in Arab world. We can also criticise the US president as much as we like."

Similarly, it is either Bangladesh or Pakistan or Nigeria which is on top of Transparency International' s corruption indexes. However, when Nobel laureates gather in Stockholm every December, Muslim scientists and writers are conspicuous by their absence. In case, as Naguib Mahfouz is crowned, he is stabbed and rendered paralysed. The irony, or tragedy, is that his attacker had not even read his excellent books. Or we disown Dr Abdul Salam just because he belonged to the Ahmadiya community. Salam's case deserves special mention since it underlines the absurdity that characterises this part of the world.

When all else fails, "Jews" and "Christian" West are there to lay the blame for all our ills. Conspiracy theories instead of scientific, rational thought holds sway across much of the Muslim world. And every time a rights abuse is highlighted in Iran, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, a typical Muslim answer is: Look at Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Chechnya. True, imperialism and Zionism have a hand in our predicament. However, there are many wounds one can only describe as self-inflicted.

Take, for instance, the Iran-Iraq war, one of the last century's bloodiest conflicts. There is no denying the fact that the United States backed the Saddam regime. But it was the Arab sheikhdoms, panicked at the Iranian revolution, that stoked the flames of war. And, ironically, now in the post-Saddam era when the "Christian" West has written off Iraq's Saddam-era debt worth $66 billion, Iraq's Arab brothers refuse to write off that country's $67 billion loans.

Similarly, last century's bloodiest Muslim genocide was not carried out by Serbs, Israelis, Americans, Europeans or Hindus. It was Pakistan's military that refused to respect a democratic verdict and plunged East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, into an ocean of blood. Millions were killed, maimed, raped and rendered homeless. Luckily, Pakistan has a "Hindu" neighbour. "Hindus are born enemies of Islam'. Hence, Pakistani children are now taught that a Bengali traitor (revered by Bengalis as founder of Bangladesh), in connivance with our "Hindu" neighbour, dismembered Pakistan. Ironically, of all her South Asian neighbours, Pakistan enjoys most cordial relations with the world's only Hindu state, Nepal. The other big genocide was perpetrated by Indonesia. The target was: its own citizens who were members of the Communist Party.

Figures are not available but Israel perhaps cannot match Iran in executing Arabs. Iran's confessional regime is a champion of the Arab cause in Occupied Territories but Arabs of its Khuzestan province are regularly sent to the gallows. Seizing the opportunity, one may also point out how only recently Afghan refugees were driven out of Iran as if Afghan refugees were not as Muslim as Palestinians. And, by the way in the fallen "Emirate of Afghanistan" itself, Hazaras were slaughtered by the Taliban in their thousands almost a decade ago РђЊ mainly because Hazaras are Shia. In Iraq, more people have been killed in Shia-Sunni clashes than in resisting the US occupation. Shia-Sunni clashes in Pakistan have claimed more lives than those lost in its wars against India. Ironically, this only "nuclear power" of the Muslim world is not being occupied on its eastern front by its "Hindu" neighbour but is losing territory on its western front to its own citizens.

One can mention from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait to the recent Hamas-Fatah infighting (a shameful tribute to Israel on its 60th anniversary) . The list is long. Indeed, unending. However, the solution to all our problems is always simple: return to an imagined past which, mercifully for the people of the seventh century, never existed. Every time, a scientist in the West is ready with an invention, our readymade answer is: we knew about it 1,400 years ago what the West has found only now. We kill Theo van Gogh when confronted with a film. We burn down our own cities in response to a blasphemous and racist caricature. Still, we refuse to understand that our answer to every "provocation" is either a fatwa or mindless violence РђЊ perhaps because creativity is anathema to us. Not because we lack fertile minds, but because we lack liberation and freedom -- liberation from self-imposed mental, moral, and cultural censors. And freedom to think and express.
Time to heed the great Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani, who said:

Five thousand years

Growing beards

In our caves.

Our currency is unknown,

Our eyes are a haven for flies.

Friends,

Smash the doors,

Wash your brains,

Wash your clothes.

Friends,

Read a book,

Write a book,

Grow words, pomegranates and grapes,

Sail to the country of fog and snow.

Nobody knows you exist in caves.

People take you for a breed of mongrels.

Farooq Sulehria

V├Хstertorpsv 85

129 46.H├цgersten. Sweden
Mob 00 46 709 305 436
www.laborpakistan. org
www.jeddojuhd. com

HRW: Abolish the Death Penalty in Pakistan

2008-06-19T18:55:00.000+10:00

I/II.
http://hrw.org/ english/docs/ 2008/06/16/ pakist19141. htm

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Letter to Pakistan's Prime Minister to Abolish the Death Penalty
June 17, 2008

Yusuf Raza Gillani
Prime Minister
Islamabad
Pakistan

Re: Death Penalty

Dear Prime Minister Gillani,Human Rights Watch is a nongovernmental organization that monitors human rights in more than 70 countries around the world. We appreciate the policy goals you have announced to address many of the human rights problems your government inherited after more than eight years of military rule. We welcome the goals related to lifting media restrictions, freeing detained lawyers and judges, and releasing political prisoners.

We also appreciate the steps that your government has taken to embed international human rights standards into Pakistani law by ratifying the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and signing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Another subject requiring your attention is the death penalty. Human Rights Watch is opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances because it is a punishment of an inherently cruel, inhuman and final nature. Wherever it is in force, the death penalty is plagued by arbitrariness, unfairness, and racial, class or other bias, highlighting the necessity of its abolition.

Charges carrying the death penalty have significantly increased in recent years in Pakistan, resulting in a much higher number of death sentences and executions. Pakistan has over 95,000 people in custody for criminal offenses, of which approximately 67 percent (about 63,600) are pre-trial detainees. Out of the more than 31,400 convicts, nearly a quarter№┐йover 7,000 individuals, including almost 40 women№┐йhave been sentenced to death, and are either involved in lengthy appeals processes or awaiting execution after all appeals have been exhausted.

The number of persons sentenced to death in Pakistan and executed every year is among the highest in the world, with a sharp increase in executions in recent years:

* In 2004, 394 prisoners were sentenced to death and 15 were hanged.

* In 2005, 477 people were sentenced to death and 52 were hanged.

* In 2006, 446 people were sentenced to death and 82 people were
hanged, including one juvenile offender.

* In 2007, 309 prisoners were sentenced to death and 134 were hanged.

Most of those sentenced to death are poor and illiterate. Some face discrimination as members of religious minority communities. Many were held without due process of law and faced trials that did not meet international fair trial standards.

As you know, torture is endemic in Pakistan. This is due in part to the absence of a scientific, systematic and up-to-date system for investigation. For example, forensic facilities, including inadequate training, equipment and laboratories are poor. In the absence of proper forensic tools, police more often than not obtain №┐йevidence№┐й based on confessions and witness testimonies through various kinds of torture, mistreatment, and intimidation. Although there are many cases of detainees being severely injured and even dying in police custody, the courts rarely dismiss cases where there are credible allegations or evidence of torture, and few police officers are ever prosecuted, let alone convicted, for torture or illegal detention. Given the brutality of methods used№┐йincluding beatings, sleep-deprivation, upside-down hangings, rape and electro-shock№┐йit is not surprising that detainees often confess to crimes they did not commit.

Torture can lead to wrongful convictions and the execution of innocent people. Lawyers and human rights activists believe that there are many cases where the person executed was innocent.

Human Rights Watch is also concerned by the use of the death penalty by special courts like the anti-terrorism, narcotics and military courts, all of which fail to deliver fair trials, not least because these courts are not independent of the executive. Appointments to the special courts are meant to be made in consultation with the High Courts, but this requirement is often ignored.

Due process of law is also violated when the prisoner is denied an adequate opportunity to present a defense. Of special concern in death penalty cases is the right to counsel. Individuals sentenced to death are disproportionately poor and unable to afford competent counsel. Poor people lack access to competent counsel at both the trial and appellate stages. According to one study on condemned prisoners conducted in 2002, 71 percent of condemned prisoners in the North West Frontier Province were uneducated and over half (51 percent) had a monthly income below Rs 4,000 (US$50). The average fee for an appeal to the High Court in murder cases is around Rs 60,000 (about US$900). This creates an unequal system of justice, in which those with financial or political resources are able to obtain better legal services and avoid the death penalty.

State-funded legal counsel in death penalty cases in Pakistan is wholly inadequate. In cases where the possible punishment is death or imprisonment for life and the defendant is unrepresented, or declares him or herself financially unable to afford counsel, the court is obliged to engage a lawyer at state expense. Lawyers who voluntarily place their names on a list maintained for this purpose are paid a paltry Rs 200 per hearing (less than US$5). It is therefore not surprising that the Pauper Counsel list is mainly composed of either young and inexperienced lawyers or those without briefs№┐йlawyers who should not be representing persons in death penalty cases. Pakistani law provides no redress or remedy on the grounds of incompetent or ineffective legal representation. In many death penalty cases it appears that the absence of effective counsel is the difference between whether the death penalty is confirmed or set aside. Thus, many end up receiving the
death penalty, not for the worst crime, as international law requires, but for the worst lawyer.

A recent case that resulted in an execution highlighted several problems, including lack of access to counsel, torture in custody, and possible religious bias. In 2003, an illiterate army janitor named Zahid Masih was arrested along with three others for allegedly molesting and murdering the child of an army officer. Masih№┐йs family was not told of his whereabouts for more than two years, until after he was convicted without counsel on March 10, 2006 by a military court. The court sentenced Masih, a Christian, to death while acquitting the other three accused (who were all Muslim). Masih was allegedly tortured for 28 days and made a series of confessions. He also maintained that some army officers and their orderlies had convinced him that he would be absolved of charges if he confessed. On March 12, 2008, Masih was hanged in Peshawar Central Prison.

Pakistan currently has 26 criminal offenses that allow for the death penalty№┐йas opposed to just two, for murder and treason, at the time of independence in 1947. Several of these laws were enacted as a specific response to specific law and order situations, for example, when kidnapping for ransom was on the rise or when some particularly heinous cases of violence against women had been reported. Criminal offenses carrying the death penalty include murder, armed robbery, treason, mutiny, railway sabotage, giving false evidence that causes an innocent person to be executed, kidnapping, gang rape, stripping a woman of her clothes in public, child smuggling, hijacking, arms trading, drug smuggling and trafficking, extortion, terrorism, blasphemy and illegal sexual intercourse (including between partners not married to each other). This list includes many crimes that cannot be justified as a №┐йmost serious crime№┐й as required for the death penalty under
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Until the death penalty is banned in Pakistan, there is an urgent need for a review to remove the death penalty as a sentence for many of these crimes.

Consistent with international trends, Human Rights Watch urges Pakistan to abolish the death penalty in all circumstances. We recognise that there will be resistance to this move, particularly in cases of murder and other violent crimes. Steps will need to be taken to assure victims and families of victims of such crimes that they, too, are receiving justice, and that there are other ways to achieve justice.

We realize abolition of the death penalty will take time. Until the death penalty is abolished by an act of Parliament, we urge you to announce an immediate moratorium while your government establishes a commission to review the application of the death penalty, the many offenses for which it can be applied, and implement reforms to ensure that international fair trial standards are met. There is precedent for this: when Benazir Bhutto was elected prime minister in 1988, one of her first acts was to commute all death sentences to life imprisonment.

On December 18, 2007, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution by a wide margin calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions. When the General Assembly reopens discussion on this issue in September of this year, we hope that Pakistan will have already either abolished the death penalty or joined in this moratorium. Until that time, Human Rights Watch requests that at a minimum you ensure that the following key issues are addressed before any death sentence is handed down or carried out. These include:

* Ensure that defendants in death penalty cases have prompt access to competent counsel.

* Ensure that torture and other ill-treatment is not used to obtain confessions or evidence, and that any confessions or evidence so obtained are excluded from trial.

* Ensure that all fair trial rights provided under Pakistan and international law are met.

* Limit the offenses under which the death penalty can be awarded to only №┐йthe most serious crimes.№┐й

* Review the laws and witness requirements for crimes in which the death penalty is applicable to ensure compliance with international due process standards.

* Ensure that Pakistani federal law with a bearing on death penalty issues, such as the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, is applied to the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Thank you in advance for your consideration, and we look forward to an open discussion with you and members of your government on this matter and others of mutual concern.

Yours sincerely,

Brad Adams
II.
http://www.flonnet. com/stories/ 2008070425130810 0.htm

Deadly gamble
V. VENKATESAN
A report studies Supreme Court judgments in death penalty cases in India from 1950 to 2006 and uncovers many inconsistencies.

THERE is very little officially compiled information on the award of capital punishment in India. This makes the task of understanding the relationship between the punishment and the incidence of crime for which death could be awarded as punishment challenging. Add to this the phenomenon of conflicting judgments coming from trial and high courts and from the Supreme Court itself on the nature of the crimes that can attract this penalty, and the challenge facing the researcher is likely to be insurmountable.
A recent study, jointly produced by Amnesty International India and the PeopleРђЎs Union for Civil Liberties Tamil Nadu & Puducherry, fills the void and exposes the inconsistencies in these judgments. The report was researched and written by Bikram Jeet Batra, consultant to Amnesty International India. Part I, written by Dr. V. Suresh and D. Nagasaila of the PUCL-TN&P, sets the tone for the entire report with its focus on the need to re-examine the death penalty in India.
Part II of the report cites Prison Statistics India 2005, compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Ministry of Home Affairs, and states that there are 273 persons sentenced to death, as on December 31, 2005. But it does not clarify whether the figure refers to those whose sentences were passed by a trial court or those whose sentences were upheld by a High Court or the Supreme Court or whose mercy petitions were pending or had been rejected. In November 2006, Minister for Home Affairs Shivraj Patil told Parliament that there were 44 mercy petitions before the President, some of which had been pending from 1998 and 1999.
The NCRB states that there were 25 executions between 1995 and 2004. Twenty-four of these took place between 1995 and 1998, pointing to the fact that executions have decreased in the past decade. The NCRB has admittedly no data relating to the death penalty before 1995. The report cites a newspaper article (which itself refers to the 1967 Law Commission report) that suggests that at least 1,422 people were executed between 1954 and 1963 alone. The report notes that the Supreme Court admitted in judgments upholding the constitutionality of the death penalty that there had been no systematic study on whether this penalty was a greater deterrent to murder than the penalty of life imprisonment.
The research for this report involved the study of over 700 judgments reported in law journals between 1950 and 2006. In the first phase ending in 1975, the study found that Supreme Court judgments relied on a rather abstract phrase РђЊ Рђюends of justiceРђЮ РђЊ to disguise the arbitrariness in the use of judicial discretion in sentencing. Thus, judgments regularly concluded with the mere assertion that the death sentence was being commuted or confirmed Рђюto meet the ends of justiceРђЮ. The study found that there were no clear, systematic principles governing sentencing.
In 1973, Parliament amended the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) to require judges to take note of Рђюspecial reasonsРђЮ when awarding the death sentence. The amended CrPC also required a mandatory pre-sentencing hearing in the trial court. It was, as the Supreme Court noted later, a Рђюgradual swing against the imposition of such penaltyРђЮ. The report found support to the thesis, advanced by a scholar (A. R. Blackshield) in an earlier study, that a key factor in determining a question of life or death was which judge heard the appeal. The report noted that all those convicts whose appeals were heard by a bench featuring Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer (who personally believes in the abolition of the death penalty) were more likely to receive a sympathetic hearing and even a suggestion of a presidential pardon, if not a commuted sentence. The amended CrPC could do little to limit this arbitrariness even though it perhaps ensured that the overall number of
persons sentenced to death was reduced, the report observes.
Rarest of rare cases
The judgment of the Supreme CourtРђЎs Constitution Bench in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980), which limited the death sentence to the rarest of rare cases, reinforced the exceptional nature of the death penalty. This is what Parliament had secured by amending the CrPC. The requirement that the judge concerned weigh aggravating and mitigating factors added a new element to the sentencing process. A major innovation was the specific reference in the mitigating factors to the fact that the state had to establish РђЊ with evidence РђЊ that the accused was likely to commit a crime again and could not be reformed, before the death sentence could be awarded.
But as the report points out, this requirement was sometimes observed in the breach in cases where the Supreme Court confirmed the death penalty. The reason for this was the courtРђЎs flawed understanding that the non-fulfilment of this requirement alone could not undo all the aggravating factors such as the gravity and brutality of the crime. According to the report, the Bachan Singh formulation saved many from the gallows in the early 1980s, with the Supreme Court commuting sentences. In the mid-1980s and thereafter, however, the impact of the judgment and its guidelines was less impressive, says the report.
In Machhi Singh and others v. State of Punjab (1983), the Supreme Court expanded the Рђюrarest of rareРђЮ formulation beyond the aggravating factors listed in Bachan Singh to cases where the Рђюcollective conscienceРђЮ of a community may be shocked. But the bench in this case underlined that full weightage must be accorded to the mitigating circumstances in a case and a just balance had to be struck between aggravating and mitigating circumstances. In the post-Machhi Singh period, considerable inconsistency marked the Supreme CourtРђЎs judgments in death penalty cases. Thus, the court considered the age of the accused as a mitigating factor in some cases but not in others. Again, it found the gruesome nature of the crime sufficient to ignore the mitigating factors in a few cases but not in every case.
In an unusually candid judgment delivered on December 12, 2006, in Aloke Nath Dutta and ors. v. State of West Bengal, Justices S.B. Sinha and Dalveer Bhandari admitted the courtРђЎs failure to evolve a sentencing policy. They suggested that different criteria had been adopted by different benches of the Supreme Court for similar offences. The bench commuted the sentence in this case, asking the question: РђюNo sentencing policy in clear-cut terms has been evolved by the Supreme Court. What should we do?РђЮ The report concludes: РђюDespite legislative reform and reform-minded jurisprudence over a number of years, the death penalty has continued to be a lethal lottery.РђЮ
The report, for instance, found that the Supreme Court had not upheld the death sentence in any dowry murder case brought before it. Although the court gave a variety of reasons for each commutation in such cases, the message is indeed disturbing even though the report has refrained as such from drawing any conclusions. Again, it is striking that the court has not upheld a death sentence in any case of rape and murder of an adult woman, while it has done so in a number of cases where the victim was a child.
However, the report noted that between 1999 and 2006, all rape and murder cases involving minors that came before the Supreme Court resulted in commutations. In one case (Akhtar v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 1999), Justices G.B. Pattanaik and Rajendra Babu commuted the sentence of death, finding that the death was unintentional and without premeditation as the victim died because she had been gagged while the rape was being committed. A similar approach was followed in Amrit Singh v. State of Punjab (2006), wherein the court held that the death occurred as a consequence of the rape and commuted the sentence. The judges reasoned that rape might be brutal, but it could have been a lapse on the appellantРђЎs part on seeing a lonely girl at a secluded place, and therefore, it could not be said to be a rarest of rare case. Such reasoning not only smacks of gender insensitivity but strengthens the argument in favour of a clear sentencing policy.
It is deplorable how the court viewed the killings committed by a mob as a mitigating rather than an aggravating factor. In Kishori v. State of Delhi (1999), the court noted that the acts attributed to the mob of which the appellant was a member could not be stated to be the result of any organised, systematic activity leading to genocide, and commuted his sentence. In Manohar Lal alias Manu and anr. v. State (NCT) of Delhi (2000), the court, ignoring evidence that the attacks on Sikhs had been orchestrated, held that while the killings were most gruesome, the accused were berserk and Рђюon a rampage, unguided by sense or reason and triggered by a demented psycheРђЮ, and commuted the sentence.
In view of these inconsistencies, the report calls for an immediate moratorium on executions, pending abolition of the death penalty in India. The report will have served its purpose if it leads to introspection within the legislature, the executive and the judiciary on the relevance of the death penalty in India.

Thousands Join Long March

2008-06-12T13:23:00.000+10:00

Thousands Join Long March

By: Farooq Tariq

Thousands of lawyers, political, trade unions and social movement activists are on their way to Islamabad. They are participating in the Long March called by the lawyer’s movement. This is to push the Pakistan Peoples Party government to restore the top judges without any conditions.

The Long March started from Karachi on 9 June arrived in Sukhar at early hours of 10 June. Here they were joined by the participants of different groups from Baluchistan. They arrived at Multan on 10 June late hours, where the deposed chief justice Iftikhar Choudary had arrived to welcome this rally. They are still at Multan at the time of writing this report on the morning of 11 June. They would leave for Lahore around 1pm.

At Lahore, thousand will go to Lahore airport at 5pm to receive the chief justice Iftikhar Choudary and other deposed judges. The caravan will come to Lahore High Court where Iftikhar Choudary will speak to a convention of lawyers.
On 12 June, the participants of the Long March will leave for Islamabad. The lawyer’s leadership has not yet announced the plans for Islamabad. But it is understood that the activists will “Gherao” (picket) the parliament.
Labour Party Pakistan activists have joined the Long March from Karachi and on the way and they are joined by other LPP activists. They will be joined by another 50 LPP activists from Lahore. At Islamabad, the LPP is setting up camp to welcome the Long March participants.

The Long March was called after the newly elected parliament failed to restore the top judges as promised before the general elections. The Pakistan Peoples Party had promised to restore the judges within one month of coming to power but failed to do so. They want these judges restored through a constitutional package that include many conditions on the freedom of the judiciary.

The lawyer’s movement started on 9 March 2007 is entering its decisive phase. The Long March has caught up the imaginations of many workers and peasants and has started to join the movement.

Farooq Tariq
spokesperson Labour Party Pakistan 40-Abbot Road Lahore, Pakistan Tel: 92 42 6315162 Fax: 92 42 6271149 Mobile: 92 300 8411945
labour_party@ yahoo.com www.laborpakistan. org www.jeddojuhd. com

Victory for anti- Kalabagh Dam Campaign

2008-05-28T10:21:00.000+10:00

Labour Party Pakistan welcome shelving Kalabagh Dam project

Labour Party Pakistan welcomes the shelving of controversial Kalabagh Dam project by the government of Pakistan Peoples Party. Farooq Tariq spokesperson LPP said in a press statement. “The struggle against Kalabagh dam has won a decisive victory; it was never a project for people’s welfare. It was clear from the beginning that there is not enough water for construction of this mega dam which would put the lives of millions in danger,” he said.

“LPP had always been in the forefront to campaign against building this mega project particularly in Punjab where it was not a popular demand. Three out of four provinces had opposed the construction of this dam. This dam would have been like a white elephant on the economy if would have been built”

“Now Musharaf must be put on accountability why he insisted all the times to build this dam and wasted billions of Rupees in beginning this project. He must be charges for wasting billions on this project, LPP demanded.

Plight of Women Workers in Karachi Industry

2008-05-12T16:34:00.001+10:00

Plight of Women Workers in Karachi Industry
by Sheher Bano

The Daily News, Karachi

What made women's labour particularly attractive to the
capitalists was not only its lower price but also the greater
submissiveness of women.

- Clara Zetkin

While the world celebrated International Workers'
Day on May 1, the women workers of Pakistan still have a long way
to go before they achieve their rightful place in the society.
Just a glance at the industrial area of Korangi will reveal the
harsh working environment and bitter lives of an estimated 50,000
women working in the vicinity. They travel all the way from areas
like North Karachi, Landhi and Malir to Korangi so that they can
earn a living. They not only face challenges at work but are also
responsible for educating their siblings or children, marrying
off the female members of the family and at times even making
arrangements for their own dowry.

Mumtaz is one of the many working women in the Korangi industrial
area whose story is depressing yet not unique. She was married
off to a lawyer and was leading a happy life as a housewife. But
after the death of her husband, she was forced to work in a
garment factory in order to nurture her 11 children. She gets a
meagre pay of Rs. 2500, which all goes into the house budget. The
landlord of their house was sympathetic enough to let the widow
keep a small portion of the house on little rent. To help her
out, her three elder children started to work as well, of whom
two are in the same factory. Similarly, the private school where
the rest of her children are studying also wrote off their fee.

As far as the facilities are concerned, the workers in the
factory are given 10 days annual leave with no medical cover. At
work there are no unions or platform where workers can raise
their voices. "Factory owners become harsh towards those who
speak for their rights. So, we prefer to stay quiet, else we can
get in more trouble," narrated Mumtaz.

After the death of her husband, she had to sell all her
jewellery, valuables and household items. Her daughter Mehwish,
after completing her Bachelors in Fashion Designing from Punjab
University, did some odd jobs but ultimately unemployment forced
her to take a packing job in the same factory. "Designing clothes
is my passion and I even did my specialisation in it. If I had
financial support, I could have started my own boutique,"
lamented Mehwish.

Khadeeja bears a similar life. She earns a living through
cropping work in the Korangi Industrial Area on contractual basis
and gets Rs. 90 per 100 pieces. After her father died, her mother
remarried leaving her to bear the responsibility of her
11-year-old brother along with her own eight children. She is a
divorcee and hence the sole earner of the family. Earlier, she
used to work as a maid and did bead work for extra income on the
side. However her job as a maid, besides being humiliating,
didn't bring enough money to run the house. With no transport
facility available, she goes to work on foot even in the extreme
hot months of the year.

Shahnaz, a graduate, has been working in a chicken feed farm for
the past four years and is earning Rs. 5000 per month. A
divorcee, Shahnaz complains that the company does not cover the
medical for her or her children. At times, even with protection,
she develops a cough due to the nature of her work. However, when
she gets ill during work, the company arranges for the medical
treatment. "We can't even ask them to give full time medical
allowance because if we raise more of our matters, we might
infuriate our employers. And, we can't afford to get expelled
from our jobs," shared Shahnaz.

Samira works as a quality checker (QC) in an ISO-certified
factory in Korangi, which deals in jeans and denim pants.
Although the company takes care of its employees with many
incentives and facilities, Samira feels that the Rs. 3500 she
gets for her intricate work is not justified. As far as promotion
is concerned, it depends on the level of education and the
experience of the worker so one has to wait for a considerable
period of time to expect a raise. Unfortunately, union activity
is not allowed in her factory, hence there is no platform
available for the workers to put their concerns forward.

Let's now see what Saba goes through in her daily routine. She
has been working in a garment factory for the past five years as
a checker and is getting Rs. 4800. None of the workers are
allowed to sit or speak to other colleagues. If someone talks,
their supervisor takes a strong note of it. The lucrative
overtime offered can't be undertaken by most of them because the
factory is located in a remote area. The transport facility is
available for all workers, but in case of any unpleasant incident
the driver or the industrial unit refuses to take any
responsibility. "On 27th December, we reached home in the middle
of the night, because the driver dropped us at odd places and we
had to walk back home. While, if we miss work because of a
strike, our salary is deducted," said Saba.

None of the women working in the area gets the minimum wage of
Rs. 6000, which is fixed by the government. Women who work on a
per piece basis have no loan or advance facility available. And
because they are on contractual basis, they are not even entitled
to any privileges or rights provided to the permanent employees.

When asked about workers' problems and the role of factory
owners, Mian Zahid Hussain, Chairman All Pakistan Lubricant
Manufacturers Association, reported that the pick and drop
facility is provided to all female workers with strict warning to
the transporters regarding their safety. "In the wake of a
situation like that of 27th December when the whole city was in
chaos, no one could really be blamed. The management tries to
ensure the safety of every worker but sometimes things turn the
way you don't plan them to go."

Speaking specifically about unions he said that they are allowed
by law, but their misuse has created problems for the factory
owners in the past. The industry can't afford a strike, due to
petty issues created by the unionists. However, the labour
leaders have matured and instead of resorting to aggressive
tactics they now settle issues in a docile manner.

The major industrial countries of the world work on value
addition and export their products on higher prices. Pakistan is
lagging far behind in this sector. One of the main reasons is the
lack of latest technology. If the industrialists ship in modern
machines, they will be able to produce more in less time. This
will make the market more efficient and will benefit the workers
in return.

Short contracts, no or very limited medical cover, nominal
salary, strict job rules and forced overtime with no extra money
compels these women, specially the young ones, to change their
jobs frequently. In addition, the absence of unions causes the
women to confront their employers, and in most cases they are
fired from their jobs. The women, who choose to stay, have no
other option because finding another job is a hassle all in
itself. All we can do is to hope that the hardwork of these women
pays off and they soon get a friendly working environment with
sufficient facilities for them and their families.

Plight of the people of Gilgit Baltistan

2008-04-19T09:35:00.000+10:00

Two Conference on April 8/9, 2008

‘Constitutional, political and socio-economic deprivation, miseries and plight of the people of Gilgit Baltistan Northern part of Kashmir’

Speech delivered by
Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri on April, 2008 in European- Parliament

Respected Baroness Emma Nicholson, Member European Parliament, Vice Chair Foreign Affairs Committee and Vice Chair sub- committee on Human Rights in the European Parliament, architect of first European Parliament resolution on Jammu Kashmir.
Madam Chairperson,
Chair IKA Dr Nazir Gillani Sahib, Mumtaz Khan, Vice Chair IKA, Dr Shabir Chaudhry, Abbas Butt Abdul Hamid Khan Chairman BNF, dear journalists, ladies and gentlemen.
I would warmly welcome you in this august conference and taking this opportunity to bring you constitutional, political and socio-economic deprivation, miseries and plight of the people of Gilgit Baltistan Northern part of Kashmir. People of Pakistani Administered Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan have special respect and honor for you Madam Chairperson.
Dear Delegates,
Before going into the historical perspective of Gilgit Baltistan I would like to present my views on Jammu Kashmir and its political, constitutional, socio-economic, cultural, educational, religious, and lingual history and its long history of relations with Northern Part Gilgit Baltistan. Jammu Kashmir is north western region of the Indian sub-continent.
Until the mid 20th century, the term “Kashmir “referred to the Valley lying between the great Himalaya and the Pir Panjal range; since then, it has been used for a larger area that today includes Jammu Kashmir consisting of Kashmir valley, Jammu, Ladakh, Pakistani Administered Kashmir, Gilgit, Baltistan Chinese administered region of Aksai Chin.
The oldest account of Kashmir history is Rajtirangni of Kalhana which was written in 1147-1149 CE.Though Kashmir has long history of foreign occupation but it’s important feature is that the prominent Chak ruler of Kashmir and Ali Sher Khan Anchan who is known as Ranchan Shah in Kashmir was belonging to the Gilgit region that proves that the Gilgit Baltistan region had a strong influence in Kashmir political affairs in the past. Under the paramountcy of the British crown that lasted until 1947 when the former princely state became disputed territory between its neighbors India, Pakistan and China. The total area of the state is 84471 Sq Miles and 12million population bigger than many independent nations in terms of population and area particularly five European countries, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland together.
At this point I would say that the founding father of this state was Maharajah Gulab Singh despite our differences with treaty of Amritsar of 1846.
I would also pay tribute to the loyalty and patriotism of Maharajah Hari Singh and I would say that If Maharajah Hari Singh had not enacted the law of “State Subject Rule” of 1927 Kashmiri people under different administrations and political systems would have been turned as minority particularly those who live under illegal administration of Pakistan since 1947.
Respected Delegates,
At this moment when different lobbies are trying to distort the facts and misleading world community I would like to put forward my submissions so that historical misconception can be clearly understood.

* It is evident that India came into Kashmir through a treaty of accession while Pakistan infiltrated it’s tribal in Jammu Kashmir and illegally occupied about 36000Sq Miles of State.
* Under UNCIP resolutions Government of Pakistan failed to comply with the UNCIP resolutions as UNCIP resolutions clearly asked Pakistan to withdrawal all its armed and para-military forces and civilians simultaneously from state and India was to withdraw bulk of its forces after that.
* Therefore, unless Government of Pakistan fulfills the UNCIP resolutions condition, asking India to revisit the treaty of accession and seek the opinion of Kashmiris on the treaty. But it is the duty of Indian government to protect the life, liberty, property and dignity of the Kashmiri unless final solution is sought. While on the other hand government of Pakistan has denied the fundamental rights and freedoms of people of Gilgit Baltistan.

We call Karachi agreement as conspiracy against the identity and unity of Kashmiris by the Pakistani authorities and reject it for following various reasons.
1- At the time of Karachi Agreement on 28th April-1949 there was no representative of that region.
2- The people of Gilgit Baltistan are kept deprived, politically, constitutionally and forced to live unprivileged and underdeveloped since 1949.
3- No legislature was formed for the people of these areas.
4- There are no notable institutions like healthcare and hospital except Agha Khan Rural Support Program (AKRSP).
5- As Karachi agreement was clearly infringe to the autonomy and fun political, democratic, and cultural and human rights of the people of the region. Through Karachi agreement Pakistani authorities have assumed extraordinary powers and region became sole domain to ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas (KANA)
6- Muslim Conference and its leadership had no democratically legitimate mandate for the people of Gilgit Baltistan to sign such agreement on their behalf with Government of Pakistan.

It is irony that Government of Pakistan takes a very different route to govern the affairs of Gilgit Baltistan unlike in Pakistani Administered Kashmir which consist of 4000Sq Miles was given a nominal institutions like Legislative Assembly, President, Prime Minister, Supreme Court, National Flag and National Anthem, but Gilgit Baltistan which is 28000 Sq Miles was put under the mercy of a low rank officer in Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas.

The population of Gilgit Baltistan consists of many diverse linguistic, ethnic and religious groups’ isolated valleys separated by some of the world's highest mountains. Urdu is the lingua franca of the region, understood by most male inhabitants.
The Shina language (with several dialects) is the language of 40% of the population, spoken mainly in Gilgit, throughout Diamer, and some parts of Ghizer. The Balti language, a sub-dialect of Ladakhi is spoken by the entire population of Baltistan. Minor languages spoken in the area include Wakhi spoken in upper Hunza, and some villages in Ghizer, while Khowar is the major language of Ghizer. Burushaski is an isolated language spoken in Hunza, Nagar, Yasin (where Khowar is also spoken),

Some parts of Gilgit and some villages of Punyal. Another interesting language is Domaaki, spoken by the musician clans of the region.

Gilgit Baltistan is rich in natural resources. Its major resources are gold, emerald, uranium, forests and water blue gold in modern terminology. Government of Pakistan is collecting billions of rupees from the tourism of this area. World highest and tallest peaks are situated in this area. Mount K2 and Godwin- Austin are one of them which attract expeditions and mountaineers across the globe. Trans Karakoram route which is the only link of Pakistan with China trade and commerce but local people are kept isolated of any benefit of such business. This area is blessed of huge assets of water resources. Kashmir has five rivers which are
1. River Indus
2. River Kishanganga
3. River Jhelum
4. River Chenab
5. River Poonch

This area is most marginalized in the field of health and education. There is only one university for the population of 2 million people, but no medical and engineering college or polytechnique institute for the population of entire region. The women situation in the area is even worst due to poor health care facilities have deteriorated health conditions in female and they are particularly victim of Pakistani state fundamentalist policies in this area. There are only two colleges in the area and literacy rate among men is 14% and 3.5 % is among women. There is no major hospital in the area except Agha Khan Rural Support Program (AKRSP), which is the only Non-Governmental- Organization (NGO) providing primary health care to the people of this area. There is no industry in this area. Water and sewerage system is non-existent so is the electricity where more than two third of the population of the area. The attempts to wage a political struggle through the Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC), have been handicapped by the ban imposed by the Pakistani authorities on any one contesting elections unless he or she pledge that the Gilgit Baltistan is an integral part of Pakistan. Similarly constitutional restraints are in placed in Azad Kashmir to bar political opponents from participating in the elections those stipulations are clear violations of UNCIP resolutions.

High court of so called Azad Kashmir verdict of 1993 and clear verdict of Supreme Court of Pakistan in 1999 define that Gilgit Baltistan is part and parcel of Jammu Kashmir’ and Government of Pakistan was asked to hand over administrative control of this area to the so called Government of Azad Kashmir or least they should be given opportunity to form their own legislative Assembly.

But these verdicts went unnoticed under red tape of ministry of Kashmir affairs that enjoys the total control and absolute administrative powers and financial affairs from Islamabad and local people are treated as slaves. More than two hundred political activists are facing so called sedition charges in this area while constitutionally and legally this region is not part of Pakistan.

Dear Delegates,
I’m grateful to you for your keen interest in poliitical, constitutional and socio-economic deprivation of the people of Gilgit Baltistan and would like to put following suggestions in this regard.

· We welcome the end of military rule and installation of democratically elected Government in Pakistan and we should support democratic forces.

· We warmly welcome ban lifted on trade unions and students organizations, and we also express jubilance over the release of top judges of apex courts. Yet an independent judiciary is a dream in today’s Pakistan. We should support the Lawyers’ movement in Pakistan.

· Borders should be opened between Gilgit Baltistan and Ladakh like some crossing points have been opened in Pakistan Administered Kashmir.
· A bus service should immediately be started between Ladakh and Gilgit Baltistan so that the divided families and cultural links could be reunited and revitalized between both regions.

· We strongly urge world community and particularly European Parliament to establish a fact finding mission to be sent in Pakistani Administered Gilgit Baltistan and in Pakistani Administered Kashmir to see ground realities and particularly the worst situation of earthquake victims of October -2005.

· Having regard of the world community most generous support to rehabilitate effected people, Government of Pakistan and local administration in Pakistan Administered Kashmir have failed to do so accordingly.

· We urge world community and European Parliament to oversee the funds allocated to earthquake victims and misuse of those funds by the concerned authorities and Government officials.

· We strongly condemn attack on a member of Pakistani Administrative Legislative Assembly Mr. Tahir Khokhar who was asking in the assembly about misusing the public funds but was beaten in the house by the government ministers. We demand that independent inquiry should be held in this regard and allegations labeled by him must be fairly investigated.

· We recommend that to empower women of the most deprived region there should be special quota be allocated for them so that they can also participate in socio-economic and political advancement of 21st century requirements

· We also recommend that to provide them free and cheap justice to the people an independent judiciary of world standard be established for the people of Gilgit Baltistan.

Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri
Chairman
United Kashmir peoples National Party
Secretary General, International Kashmir Alliance
Email: shaukatkashmiri_shaukatkashmiri@yahoo.com
www.ukpnp.info

State of Women in Balochistan

2008-04-19T09:31:00.000+10:00

*State of women in Balochistan*
by Sanaullah Baloch
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=107243

Thursday, April 17, 2008

In spite of being commonly liberal, politically conscious, and culturally
well-endowed, resource-rich Balochistan is Pakistan's least-developed
province with high rates of infant and maternal mortality, poverty,
illiteracy and malnutrition.

Although women are suffering due to the inflexible culture, customs and
practices throughout Pakistan women, there is a larger story to tell about
the state-sponsored discrimination against women in Balochistan.

From the beginning Islamabad has outrageously tried to cover up its
ill-conceived and discriminatory policies by blaming the Baloch themselves
for their appalling state. However, facts and findings on health, education,
communication, political empowerment and economic development clearly
indicate that human development in Balochistan has been deliberately ignored
by successive central governments, to gain strategic benefits out of the
vast and geostrategic location of the province and its immense resources.
Women are discriminated against in the country at large. But in Balochistan
they are discriminated against by state. They have no access to enabling
opportunities required for the empowerment of women in any modern and
civilised society.

Under Article 25 of the Constitution, and of the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR),
women are entitled to a number of economic and social rights, such as rights
to food, social security, housing, education, an adequate standard of
living, and healthcare. But policy commitments have hardly been translated
in to practice.

The endless military operation, internal displacement, disappearances,
intimidation and the prolonged Baloch-Islamabad conflict are hitting hard
the already deprived women in the province. Central government
discriminatory policy is not only resulting in slowdown of gender
empowerment but its effecting overall social and economic development
process in province.

The most devastating consequence of underdevelopment in any society is a
high fatality rate. Balochistan has highest infant and maternal mortality
ratio (MMR), compared to that many Asian and African underdeveloped
countries. For example, the MMR in Karachi is 281 compared to 673 in rural
Balochistan. Pakistan's chief planning health officer told IRIN in June 2007
that "the maternal mortality ratio is 650 per 100,000 live births in
Balochistan - nearly two times the national average,".

The increasing rate of preventable maternal mortality is a symptom of the
larger social injustice of discrimination against women and violation of
women's human rights. Thousands of avoidable maternal deaths each year
indicate the government's unfaithfulness to domestic and international laws.
The expert has indicated the basic lack of safe drinking water and
sanitation as major cause of infant and maternal mortality in the province.
The Pakistan Living Standard Measurement Survey (PSLM), 2004-5, identifies
sharp a interprovincial disparity with regard to access to safe drinking
water. Reports state that 52 per cent of the population in Balochistan uses
wells and open ponds for drinking water, compared to three per cent in
Punjab, 13 per cent in Sindh and 35 per cent in NWFP. Balochistan' s women
played a vital political and human rights role during the current conflict
in the province. The Baloch Women's Panel very bravely organised a number of
protests, rallies and sit-ins in front of the press clubs in Quetta, Karachi
and Turbat against arbitrary arrests and for the release of missing Baloch
activists.

Despite being a signatory of major international conventions, Islamabad
continues to ignore the basic rights of women to education in Balochistan.
Planned discrimination remains to deprive the majority of girls the right to
knowledge in Balochistan.

Access to all levels of education is crucial to empowering women and girls
to participate in economic, social and political life of their societies.
Education unlocks a woman's potential, and is accompanied by improvements in
health, nutrition, and well-being of their families. The PSLM survey
reported alarming regional disparity in education sector. According to the
survey only 27 per cent of the students in Balochistan complete primary or
higher education, compare to 64 per cent in Punjab. The increasing dropout
rate is due to the unavailability of middle- and high schools.

Islamabad is totally inactive and ignorant about the need to reduce or
remove the interprovincial gender disparity and bring the neglected women of
Balochistan at par with rest of the provinces. Interprovincial gender
inequality in employment sector is unspeakable. According to State Bank of
Pakistan's 2005-06 report Balochistan and the NWFP have the highest rate of
female unemployment rate of 27 per cent and 29 per cent, compared to seven
per cent and 20 per cent for Punjab and Sindh.

A large number of women's vocational and training centres in Punjab make
women more capable and confident to qualify for market jobs. Punjab has 111
women's vocational institutes, however Balochistan has only one. Due to the
lack of girls' schools in the province only 23 per cent rural girls are
lucky enough to be enrolled in primary as compared to 47 per cent in rural
Punjab. In fact, acute poverty at the margin appeared to be hitting hardest
at women. As long as women's access to healthcare, education, and training
remain limited, prospects for improved social status of female population
will remains bleak.

The Social Policy Development Centre 2005 report discovered that the
percentage of the population living in a high degree of deprivation stands
at 88 per cent in Balochistan, 51 per cent in the NWFP, 49 per cent in Sindh
and 25 per cent in Punjab. According to poverty-related reports the
percentage of the population living below the poverty line stands at 63 per
cent in Balochistan, 26 per cent in Punjab, 29 per cent in the NWFP and 38
per cent in Sindh.

No development policy could succeed unless it is based on the needs and
participation of people in the process. In Balochistan' s case, what people
need is socio-economic development, political empowerment, clean drinking
water, electricity, practical education, basic health facilities, proper
roads and infrastructure connecting rural towns to the main centres. But
central government is doing the opposite. The Baloch are subject to extreme
discrimination. No state in the present era singles out its citizen on the
basis of region and ethnicity. The regime in Islamabad must respect Baloch
rights and stop its systematic discriminatory policies.

The writer is a senator. Email: balochbnp@gmail.com

--
Senator Sanaullah Baloch
Member Senate of Pakistan
http://www.sanabaloch.page.tl

AHRC Statement on State-sponsored Disappearances

2008-04-16T10:49:00.000+10:00

*PAKISTAN: Thirty nine persons recorded disappeared during the first quarter
of 2008*

*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
*AHRC-STM-085- 2008
April 03, 2008

*A Statement by the Asian Human Rights
Commission
http://www.ahrchk. net/statements/ mainfile. php/2008statemen ts/1454/
*

Thirty nine (39) persons, mostly young people, remain missing after arrest
during the first quarter of 2008; their whereabouts are unknown to their
families. The state intelligence agencies are still operative in arbitrarily
arresting people, keeping them in custody for several months and torturing
them to confess their involvement in crimes against the state. After the
general elections of February 2008, about 27 persons disappeared after
arrests by the Elite Force, a state intelligence agency working under the
Pakistan Army. According to the reports collected by the Defence of Human
Rights, an organization working on the recovery of disappeared persons, and
Baloch Rights Council, an umbrella organization of several Baloch
nationalist organizations, more than 65 persons have been disappeared after
the imposition of the state of emergency by President Musharraf, (who was
then General Musharraf) on November 3, 2007.

The latest disappearance is that of Mr. Asad Ali Shah, a 24 year old teacher
of Saint Paul, Rawalpindi, who was arrested on March 22, 2008, just two days
before the new elected assembly took oaths. Mr. Shah's mother and father who
were interviewed by the BBC said he was arrested by the Elite Force. He was
taken from his home in the early hours of the morning by personnel from the
Elite Force who told his parents that they would return him within 15
minutes as they wanted him to support a statement. However, until now there
is no news about him. His family is afraid that wherever he is, he is being
severely tortured. The Baloch Rights Council claims that 23 persons are
missing from districts of Dera Bugti and Sui, Balochistan province after
their arrest by plain clothes men driving in police vans since the start of
March 2008, just weeks after the general elections of February 18.

Since 2001, when the war on terror began, it is reported by the several
nationalists and religious groups that about 5000 persons remain disappeared
after arrests. In the southern province of Balochistan, nationalist groups
and political parties are claiming that about 4000 persons are missing since
the military operation began in the province in year 2001 and that the
Pakistan Army has killed several hundred persons in aerial bombardments. In
the North Western Frontier Province, where the Pakistani military and
foreign forces are carrying out operations against militants, the media and
political parties are claiming that more than 1000 persons are missing and
that their whereabouts remain unknown. The nationalist forces of Sindh
province claim that about 100 persons have been disappeared but that some of
them were released after the intervention of the Supreme Court and Sindh
High Court. In Punjab province most of those arrested were from some
religious groups working in southern and north western areas of the Punjab
province. The figure goes to more than 100 persons.

The newly formed civilian government of Pakistan particularly, the Prime
Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani have still not mentioned about the fate of
disappeared persons after their arrests by the state intelligence agencies.
The issue of the disappearances was one of the main issues which caused the
dismissal of the deposed Chief Justice and whole higher judiciary by the
military rulers. The state agencies are still operating freely to arrest any
one with out any legal authority and keeping persons incommunicado for
several months during which time they are tortured. The new government must
realise that their indifferent attitude towards the issue of disappearances
will only strengthened the resolve of the intelligence agencies of the army
to run a parallel rule of law contrary to constitution and civilian laws.

This is the time for the newly formed coalition government to take the issue
of disappeared person as one of the priority issue for their government's
100 days task, which was announced by the prime minister after formation of
his government. The government of Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani
should announce policy statement about the fate of disappeared persons and
their release and make a committee of parliamentarians to record statement
from all those persons who were released from the captivity of intelligence
agencies. The government should also seriously take the notice of the
testimonies of the released persons about the military torture camps in all
big cities of the country and immediately start a probe of them.

# # #

*About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional
non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in
Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.*

AHRC Statement on Possible Civil War in Pakistan

2008-04-16T10:46:00.001+10:00

*PAKISTAN: Immediate actions required to prevent a possible civil war in
Pakistan*

*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*
AHRC-STM-094- 2008
April 13, 2008

*A Statement by the Asian Human Rights
Commission
http://www.ahrchk. net/statements/ mainfile. php/2008statemen ts/1470
*

The brutal attacks on April 9, 2008, in Karachi claimed the lives of 14
persons including a child. Six persons were burned alive of which four
persons were lawyers and the other two their two women clients. 19 lawyers
are reportedly missing who are feared to be abducted, tortured and killed.
More than 70 offices were ransacked and burned, including the office, house
and the vehicle of the General Secretary of the Karachi Bar Association. The
offices of the Malir Bar Association, 20 kilometer away from Karachi city
courts, were burnt to ashes. Five journalists were severely beaten. Of them,
one was a female journalist working for a local television channel. Her arm
was fractured in the incident. More than 50 vehicles were burned and
smashed; mostly cars owned by lawyers. Two private bus drivers were shot
dead.

The media and sources close to the bar associations reported that these
attacks on the lawyers, looting, killing, burning and abductions were
carried out by the members of the political group, the Muttahida Quami
Movement (MQM). The MQM is very close to President Pervez Musharraf and was
a coalition partner of the previous dictatorship led by Musharraf.

It was also reported by the lawyers' associations that the MQM was involved
in the incidents of May 12, 2007, when Justice Iftekhar Choudhry, the then
deposed Chief Justice, was not allowed to enter Karachi city and was stopped
at the Karachi Air Port. On May 12, more than 40 persons were killed. The
lawyers reported to the media that the attackers were in possession of
incendiary weapons that exploded when thrown at a target.

Some lawyers who witnessed the incidents said that the rioting mob had
brought two bags full of such weapons and were hurling them at targets,
instructed to them over mobile telephones. The attackers started setting
fire to a building which housed the office of Mr. Naeem Querashi, the
General Secretary of Karachi Bar Association. Mr. Querashi's car was also
destroyed in the attack.

After the April 9 incident, five charred bodies were found from room number
616 at Tahir Plaza. The room was occupied Mr. Haji Aftab Abbasi. Abbasi was
a local lawyer. It is reported that when the lawyer was with his junior
colleagues briefing two women clients, Ms. Razia Batool and Ms. Sobia, some
persons came into his office by force and threw chemicals inside the room,
ran out and locked the door from outside. Those inside the room, the lawyers
and their clients were not allowed to go out. Then a fire suddenly blew up
the whole room. One newspaper reported that two beheaded bodies were also
found from the building. The charred bodies were recognised only from their
belongings. A DNA test is scheduled to confirm the identity of the bodies.

The Karachi Bar Association claims that 19 lawyers were missing after the
attacks. It is feared that many of them might have been tortured and/or
killed. Mr. Choudhry Shujaat Hussain, the head of the Pakistan Muslim League
(Q) -- the ruling party during Musharraf's dictatorship -- issued a public
statement on April 8, a day before the carnage, that a situation will be
created that "no 'black coat' wearing person will be able to come on the
streets" (Daily Jang). Mr. Hussain was addressing a press conference in
Islamabad, the capital of the country.

The Bar Associations of Sindh High Court, Karachi city courts and even other
bar associations of the country in their resolutions have accused MQM as
being responsible for the carnage of May 12, 2007 and April 9, 2008. But the
local media is under so much pressure from MQM hooliganism that it is forced
to avoid naming the real culprits, which were pointed out consistently by
the lawyers and their associations.

The MQM claims that their lawyers were holding a demonstration outside the
city courts buildings and that they were attacked by the lawyers who were
protesting in favour of the deposed Chief Justice. The MQM claims that six
of their workers were killed and several lawyers were injured. The MQM
accused the leadership of the bar associations for the attack on its
lawyers, whereas the entire bar associations in the country are denying that
there was any clash between the two groups of lawyers.

The Karachi Bar Association said in a press statement that they (the
lawyers) were holding a lawyers' general meeting protesting the attack on a
former minister in Musharraf's ousted cabinet. Suddenly some people came and
started demonstrating, chanting slogans against the lawyers and against the
former Chief Justice. As the general body was over, more than two hundred
people came around the building and started damaging the building, hurling
fire bombs and also burning the nearby buildings that housed law firms. Cars
that were parked outside the court building were also burned.

The lawyers and their bar associations have mentioned in press conferences
and their resolutions that the attacks on the lawyers, their property,
incidents of firing and burning alive of the lawyers were 'pre-planned
actions' of President Musharraf's political groups who enjoyed power for
about five years during Musharraf's dictatorship. The bar associations are
arguing that the incidents of April 9, were actually part of a malicious
campaign sponsored by Musharaf and his allies.

To divert the whole issue of restoration of deposed judges the cronies of
the former military government resorted to attack the lawyers and their
institutions. The lawyers argue that when the lawyers all over the country
are protesting against the attacks on the former ministers and when there is
no dispute over the issue, why then they are attacked and burned alive?

It is expected, that the newly elected government will restore the deposed
judiciary, as the parties now sharing power in Pakistan have entered into an
agreement concerning this. The parties have agreed to restore all deposed
judges within one month of the formation of the government. The decision was
made in March 2008. This is widely known as the Marri Declaration. The
period of one month declared earlier to restore the judges will end in the
coming weeks.

The leadership of the bar associations were pointing out that President
Musharraf is creating hurdles for the implementation of the Marri
declaration. It is reported that the President fears that once the judges
are restored, his already lost moral grounds to continue as the president
will receive its last blow, forcing him out from the president's office.

If his criminal involvement in these attacks by promoting the above
incidents and conspiring with the criminals are proved, it would be one more
addition to his illegitimacy to remain in office and he could face a
shameful impeachment. Such proofs regarding the President's involvement in
criminal acts will further confirm that Musharraf has no intention to serve
Pakistan as its legitimate President, but that he is only one more hurdle
towards Pakistan's fresh move towards democracy.

The assault upon the former Chief Minister of Sindh province was on April 7,
when the newly elected Sindh provincial assembly was holding a session for
electing its speaker and deputy speaker. The attack was condemned by newly
elected members. Two days before the incident, the MQM announced an alliance
with Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and declared that it will remain in
alliance with the PPP for generations and this group also announced its
disassociation with the parties of President Musharraf. Apart from these
promises, on the day when former chief minister was attacked, suddenly and
unexpectedly, the MQM announced a boycott of the session and the next day
announced an indefinite boycott of assembly sessions. This backpedaling is
MQM's unique character.

In the follow up, on April 8, a delegation from Islamabad under the
leadership of Mr. Choudhry Shujaat Hussain, the president of PML-Q, with two
former chief ministers of the previous regime, visited the MQM head quarters
and reportedly discussed in detail the future line of action. The MQM which
had a public commitment with the PPP has quickly shifted its loyalty towards
their former partners. On the same day and time, Mr. Sher Afgan, a former
minister in Musharraf's dictatorship, was beaten severely by a mob. The mob
reportedly comprised of persons in plain cloths and some lawyers. The
incident was condemned by everyone.

Mr. Aitzaz Ahsan, the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, had to
save the former minister from the mob since the law enforcement officers had
conspicuously disappeared from the scene by then. But in the evening on
April 8, Mr. Altaf Hussain, the chief of MQM, residing in self-exile in
London for the past 15 years, accused that the lawyers and their leadership
as "vandals, nefarious 'goonda' (hoodlums) and street dwellers". These words
were broadcasted throughout the night by the electronic media and later in
print the next day.

On September 10, 2007, when a full bench of the Sindh High Court was
conducting a judicial enquiry about the incidents of May 12, the MQM
attacked the Sindh High Court building. This compelled the bench to postpone
the hearing. During the attack, a senior lawyer and former Vice President of
the Karachi Bar Association, Mr. Raja Riaz was shot dead. He was on his way
to the Court to give evidence in the hearing.

On the same day another senior lawyer, Mr.Mohammad Ali Abbassi, the former
President of Karachi Bar Association, was attacked by the cadres of MQM. He
was told not to give evidence against the carnage in Karachi at the hearing.

This is not the first time that Mr. Altaf Hussain is using filthy language
against the lawyers and the peoples' movement for establishing the supremacy
of judiciary and rule of law in Pakistan. On May 12, 2007, the MQM had not
allowed the former Chief Justice to visit Karachi on the invitation of Sindh
High Court Bar Association. The former judge was to participate in the
swearing in ceremony of the newly elected office bearers of the Bar
Association. The MQM had total control of the province and its city
government then.

It was evident from the media reports that courts including the High Court
were taken over by the MQM, and, all judges who went to the court were
detained till the late evening and some judges and their staff were
assaulted. Throughout the day, armed bandits were patrolling the cities and
killed more than 40 persons. In the evening the MQM held its own public
meeting in which Mr. Altaf Hussain, the chief of MQM, used abusive language
against lawyers and the former Chief Justice.

On May 12, 2007, the MQM raised slogans in favouring Hussain throughout the
day. Hussain, in a telephonic address from London on the same evening,
threatened the journalists, who had written about the involvement of the MQM
in the attack on the Sindh High Court building and that their (journalists' )
hands would be broken if they did not write the "truth". Hussain also termed
the journalists as prostitutes. Hussain also used derogatory remarks against
the Sindh High Court judges who were conducting the inquiry against the
violence of May 12.

With regard to the violent incidents of April 9, 2008, Musharraf blamed the
leadership of the bar associations and lawyers before proceeding to China
for a five-day visit. The same statements were repeated by the allied
political parties of his ousted dictatorship. These political groups also
announced an indefinite boycott of the national assemblies.

These incidents and the very redundant attitudes against the legal community
and judiciary emanating from the president's house and its benefactors
strongly suggests that as long as Musharraf remains in office his cronies
from the previous dictatorship will not allow the deposed judiciary to be
restored and the movement for the rule of law to succeed. The militancy is
likely to prevail while Musharraf retains the highest constitutional post of
the country.

The newly formed elected government must at least now realise that it will
be a difficult task to run the state until and unless the issue of
restoration of judiciary is not solved. To ignore or to delay in solving
this issue, as decided in the Marri Declaration, will question the
sustainability and legitimacy of the new set up. More importantly, the
forces of tyranny will take advantage of the weakness of the government. The
restoration of deposed judges is the only way to constitutionally guarantee
democracy in Pakistan. The new government must also start an independent
probe into the incidents of May 12 and April 9 and the culprits must be
brought before the law with out any political expediency or compromises.
Until this is done the people of Pakistan will soon loose faith in the new
government.

The events of the April 9, 2008 and May 12, 2007 are directed to destabilise
all norms of rule of law, individual freedom and the supremacy of civil laws
in the country. It is an attempt to backpedal the democratic movement in
Pakistan. This will only favour the return of military rule in Pakistan.

The history of the world stands proof to reasons for a civil war.
Thoughtless political actions for petty personal benefits and unjustifiable
political compromises triggering the loss of peoples' faith in their
government are all mistakes that lead to civil unrest. Persons within and
outside Pakistan, wielding direct or indirect command over power must not be
allowed to act as malicious catalysts who work overtime to crush the dreams
for democracy and rule of law of the ordinary Pakistani citizen.

When lawyers and their associations, the civil society including the
journalists are clear about the identities of those who were responsible for
the killing and burning alive of so many people, it is the duty of the Prime
Minister of Pakistan and the Chief Minister of Sindh province to hear them
and to take legal actions against these criminals. Any delay in such an
initiative will promote the use of violence as a crude political instrument
to suppress the peoples' movement in the country and is so evil and powerful
to push Pakistan into a civil war.

# # #

*About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional
non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in
Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984. *

MQM burns people alive, Zardari to reward them with ministries!

2008-04-13T09:39:00.000+10:00

MQM burns people alive, Zardari to reward them with ministries!

by Aziz Narejo

As the lawyers and other civil society members are unanimous in condemning the MQM for the reign of terror in Karachi yesterday when the London and Karachi based terrorist organization targeted lawyer’s offices, residences, their properties and bars and burned alive people including women and shot to death a number of people, the PPP is set to reward the hoodlums with ministries in the Sindh provincial government. If Zardari had his way, he would induct the members of the terrorist organization into the federal cabinet too.

Reports say that the deadlock (another term for MQM‘s latest round of blackmail) was broken after Zardari talked to terror boss Altaf Hussain over telephone yesterday (daily Times) and his point man Rehman Malik had talks with an MQM representative.

This would be the most condemnable act of the PPP leadership if it rewarded the fascist group with ministerial positions instead of holding independent probe into the recent killings and arson activities in Karachi and bringing the culprits to face the law. The PPP should have by now actually announced an independent probe into the May 12 Karachi massacre, Nishtar Park and October 18 Benazir Bhutto rally bombings.

One wonders why Zardari and his close associates are not listening to the voices of their voters and instead giving more weight to the advices from Musharraf and US diplomats. Why don’t they realize that Musharraf is a disgraced dictator and anyone who sides with him or his collaborators like MQM would loose any esteem in the masses?

Looks PPP leadership has not learnt a thing from its blunders of 1988. If it had, it won’t be repeating them. Well, who knows? It may end up with the same fate.

There is another perplexing thing about the PPP leadership: it is true that the party has stood to dictatorships in the past and its leaders and workers have offered tremendous sacrifices. Then why is it that the PPP leaders and workers are not standing up to Zardari and telling him not to associate himself with Musharraf, his collaborators like MQM and not to listen to the advices from US envoys? And that he should be unambiguous in his alliance with the democratic forces and immediately act to restore pre-November 3, 2007 judiciary and release all political prisoners.

Would any principled PPP leaders and workers stand up and be counted?

Lahore demonstration against MQM

2008-04-13T09:38:00.000+10:00

Lahore demonstration against MQM

By Farooq Tariq

On Thursday, over 3000 lawyers demonstrated in Lahore against the brutal burning of 6advocates in Karachi by MQM gangsters.

We wrote around 20 playcards against the killings. It was "no to MQM killings, Musharaf MQM a gang of murderers, MQM is a fascist organisation, No to MQM fascism, It was not fight between two lawyers group but a planned attack by MQM, murderer the MQM"

We were around fifty altoghether when we arrived at Awan Adal, here the Lahore Bar Association had planned to take out the demonstration.

We went inside the hall where speakers were condemning the Karachi killings. There were over a dozen women activist of LPP with us. We all stood in a line holding the playcards inside the hall. The advocates were reading the playcard with a real anger in their eyes. Then one of us raised a slogan, no to MQM murderers, the response was messaive. It uplifted the mood of anger.

We came out of the hall with the advocates and the emotions were very high so were the slogans. May be not a single lawyer who was not participating in raising the slogans.

At Lahore High Court, several hundreds more joined us. The media was around our contingent all the time. They were taking the pictures of our playcards which had very clear message and has caught the mood of tghe demonstrators.
At Charing Cross on Mall Road, the highly charged demonstration ended. The defensive mood of some after the beating of Sher Afghan Niazi, a former minister, had changed into a real anger against the dictatorship.

We were the only group carrying playcards. It helped to change the mood and a clear message of fighting back.

The BBC and several others printed the playcards and several private television channels showed the footage of the demonstration.

In the afternoon, another demonstration along with CMKP activists and lawyers was organised at Shimla Pehari Chouck.

We received several calls by the lawyers thanking for participating at a crucial time.

The Balance Sheet of Boycott strategy and PPP government

2008-04-06T09:03:00.000+10:00

The Balance Sheet of Boycott strategy and PPP government

By: Farooq Tariq

The All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) boycotted the general elections on the appeal of the Pakistan Bar Council, arguing that “After 3 November 2007 imposition of emergency, most of the top judges have been suspended and put under house arrest. The measure is mainly to stop the top judges from making a decision on General Musharaf’s election as president. This is also to ensure that the regime gets favorable results from future general elections.”

The Pakistan Peoples Party was the first party to declare that it would not observe the boycott. Benazir Bhutto Shaheed had returned to Pakistan and earlier had held several rounds of talks with the military dictatorship about power sharing in a new government. Unlike past political tradition, these talks were open and regularly commented upon in the mainstream media.

Mian Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) initially joined the boycott camp. But Nawaz Sharif decided to take part in the election, offering the argument that he could not leave the field open to other major parties, like the PPP and Awami National Party (ANP), which opted to participate.

The argument put forth by the PPP, ANP and PMLN in favor of participating was based on using the elections to get rid of the General Musharraf’s military dictatorship. The APDM did not buy the argument but said the fraud election that would be used to legitimize the dictatorship. It argued that a mass movement alongside the lawyer’s movement would rid the country of the dictatorship.

Both camps started their campaign, one arguing to boycott and other saying that the elections would be rigged. Dozens of press conferences and public statements by the PPP and PMLN leadership warned that the Musharraf regime was making plans to rig the elections. Benazir Bhutto constantly repeated this charge. For their part, the APDM, in their massive public rallies, threatened that if the regime rigged the election, a mass movement will immediately respond.

Ten days before the elections, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. With the Musharaf regime unable to provide the necessary security for the PPP’s top leader, the massive outpouring crystallized as anti-Musharaf sentiment. Had the PPP leadership demanded Musharaf’s immediate resignation, he would have had no option but to go.

However, the day following Benazir’s assassination, Amin Fahim, senior vice chairperson of the PPP, announced that there will be no emotional decision about participating in the elections. Three days later, the PPP leadership announced their decision to participate in the election. Their political agenda was to work alongside Musharaf, and share power with him, not to get rid of him. Their decision to go ahead with the election put water on the fire and worked to pacify the mood of rebellion.

Added to the political crisis, following Benazir’s assassination, was a economic crisis. Combining one of the worse shortages of electricity, gas and wheat flour with a massive price hike on all food, and tripling of the price of cooking oil, convinced many to oppose General Musharaf.

The APDM boycott appeal met differently at different places. In Punjab and Sind, it did not have much effect and people went to poll to defeat Musharaf. The MQM, using its neo-fascist tactics, was able to hold on in Karachi but the rest of Musharaf’s supporters were defeated.

In Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), where religious fundamentalists have been in power since the 2002 elections, the boycott campaign was able to break up the MMA alliance of religious fundamentalists. Believed to be work of several intelligence agencies, the alliance initially appeared to some as an anti-imperialist platform, and thus gave false hope to many. But the alliance was shattered under the heat of boycott as the Jamaat Islami (JI) joined the APDM.

While the JUI of Fazal Rehman, closely associated with the Musharaf regime, wanted to take part in the elections, the JI was under the immense pressure of lawyer’s movement and opted to boycott. The strategy of the religious fundamentalist forces having a united voice proved impossible to maintain.

Some commentators have concluded that the rejection of Musharraf regime in the general election indicates the boycott campaign was useless. Others argued that it paved the way for the victory of the PMLQ, Musharaf’s supporters, in Baluchistan. Still others concluded that the boycott campaign aided Musharaf’s supporters in the elections. But all these arguments have been washed away with the political development unfolding in Pakistan today.

The boycott campaign helped the anti-Musharaf votes to be shared by only three political parties, PPP, PMLN and ANP. The balance sheet of the boycott campaign reveals the PPP to be in power at the center. It shares power with other parties in all four provinces.

However, in Baluchistan it is forming a government of its own, with a lone opposition member. Yet it was here that the APDM was accused of bringing Musharaf supporters to power! Had the powerful nationalist parties of Baluchistan taken part in the elections, PPP might have taken one or two seats at the most in the province.

Who helps who is now very clear? The masses supported PPP and PMLN ANP against Musharaf and now, the PPP leadership is making alliances with the pro Musharaf parties like MQM. This shows very clearly the future trends of politics.

Subsequent to the installation of the new government at the Centre, Ahmad Mukhtar, the foreign minister and PPP leader, told a private television channel on 3 April 2008 that his party will work with Musharaf and announced that, in fact, Musharaf has introduced some good policies to curb the growing incidents of terrorism.

By announcing some radical measures, restoring trade unions and student unions, upping the minimum wage of 6000 Rupees ($100) a month and not saying a single word against Musharaf, the PPP leadership has signaled that “something can be done with Musharaf as well.”

Still the government is committed to the same economic polices as General Musharaf. It praises the market economy and privatization, event appointing a privatization minister. Mr. Naveed Qamar, who was a minister of privatization during 1994-96, will take the job once more, this time claiming privatization will be carried out in a transparent process.

The PPP leadership is trying its best to save the life of a dying and isolated military dictatorship. But this is being done against the wishes of all who voted in the February elections. While the PPP leadership seems intent to organize a safe transition for the military generals and officers and the managers of economy who have played with the lives of millions, the people went to the polls with the slogan “GO Musharaf GO.”

And Musharaf will go. The lawyers’ movement is still strong and the restoration of the judges is the most popular demand. Meanwhile the
PPP leadership is creating confusion and disillusionment even among their own ranks. One clear example is in Sind province where the government is composed of the PPP leadership and the MQM, a major party that went hand-in-hand with Musharaf for all eight years. The MQM was responsible for the murder of over 100 PPP and ANP workers on 12 May 2007, when they gave the order to open fire on those welcoming the chief justice. This MQM-PPP alliance will weaken the PPP.

Another central issue is the PPP government’s efforts to implement a neoliberal agenda and go along with American Imperialism and its goals in the region. The reality is that PPP is a feudal-dominated capitalist party that creates an illusion among the masses from time to time that it is a populist party. In the face of reality, illusions do not live long.

It is high time to build a party of the working class with a politics of working class. It is time to oppose those willing to go along with the agenda of American imperialism. It is time to unite the forces of the Left and organize the peasants and workers on a class basis. It is time to put on trial those whose corruption and desire for power have ruined the lives of the majority. It is time to stand for justice. ENDS
Farooq Tariq
spokesperson Labour Party Pakistan 40-Abbot Road Lahore, Pakistan Tel: 92 42 6315162 Fax: 92 42 6271149 Mobile: 92 300 8411945
labour_party@ yahoo.com www.laborpakistan. org www.jeddojuhd. com
______

What about General Musharaf?

2008-03-28T11:27:00.001+11:00

What about General Musharaf?

By: Farooq Tariq

No one in the newly elected parliament is talking directly about General Pervez Musharaf. After Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani of the Pakistan Peoples Party took the oath of office, administered by Musharaf on 25 March he spoke about “the need for cooperation of the president.” But General Musharaf has no right to be president of Pakistan. He is a dictator and must go.

Yousaf Raza Gilani ordered the release of the judges in his first speech. How could he not? The PPP failed to win a number of seats because they did not demand their reinstatement. The reality is that no one can stop their reinstatement. Thanks to the strengthening of the Pakistan lawyers’ movement not even General Musharaf imposition of the emergency decree on 3 November 20007 stopped the demand.

Yet in his first speech, Prime Minister Gilani did not say a single word about General Musharaf. He did please the Bhutto family by demanding a probe of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s judicial murder. In 1979, Bhutto was hanged by the orders of the Lahore High Court, with the decision subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court Yet in his speech Mr. Gilani only demanded that parliament apologize to the nation. Why parliament? Why not the generals and the judges who conspired to hang Bhutto?

There have been two occasions since Bhutto’s murder that the Pakistan Peoples Party has come to power. During those periods Mr. Gilani served as a minister under Benazir Bhutto and as a speaker in parliament. Why didn’t he raise the issue then?

Back then there was a deal with the military generals: No truth commission, no investigation, no arrests, no public hearings and no public trial. But now Prime Minister Gilani is raising the issue as if to reconfirm his credentials as a supporter of the Bhutto family. Yet what about Benazir Bhutto’s recent murder? Who is the single person most responsible for failing to provide proper security measures? General Musharaf. Nevertheless not a single word is uttered. How unfortunate that the new PPP leader is not ready to demand Musharaf resignation.

Another unfortunate fact is the PPP leadership’s seeking collaboration from General Musharaf’s allies, the MQM. Why this alliance? The PPP leadership wants to establish a government of reconciliation, which will be a government of the rich by the rich and for the rich, but in the name of the poor.

The PPP has no program that could solve any of the basic problems ordinary people have. The party’s head, Asif Ali Zardari, was sure to reiterate in his recent interview with an American news channel that he wants to move ahead with privatization.

Also eager to demonstrate the PPP’s willingness to continue neoliberal policies, the leadership welcomed the visit of U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher to Pakistan. They want to show that they are good partners with U.S. imperialism in the so-called “war on terror.” They are saying, “The plan will work. We are going as we planned, but unfortunately not with Benazir.”

General Musharaf wanted to rig the election, but was unable to do so. For ourselves, we are happy that the Musharaf political forces are in retreat. But we cannot welcome a government that walks hand in hand with the U.S. imperialism. We can celebrate the release of the judges, although this is more the result of the lawyers’ movement than the PPP’s leadership.

The present change of faces has come about because of the incredible sacrifices of the lawyers and many more political and social activists. These activists did not put their careers first but carried out their campaign for an independent judiciary. They boycotted the election for a principled reason. Red salute to those who boycotted this election and exerted maximum pressure on the regime. Red salute to PPP leader Aitzaz Ahsan, who boycotted despite his party’s strategy.

Shall we congratulate those who are making compromises with the murderers? The German Social Democrats and the so-called communists did this in the early 1930s with the result that fascism came to power without a single shot being fired. Will the Pakistan Peoples Party alliance with MQM be paid with such a heavy price? Today even Mian Shahbaz Sharif of the Muslim League raises no objection to this unholy alliance. The Muslim League Nawaz is too busy preparing to assuming power in the state of Punjab.

Those who allow Musharaf to remain in the presidency are not respecting the wishes of the Pakistani people. He is a dictator who has used every dirty tactic to maintain his power. He is not a democratically elected president. The majority feel the so-called president has got to go.

Yet Amin Fahim, senior vice chair of the PPP, was angry about the anti-Musharaf slogans being shouted from the press gallery on parliament’s opening day. He even called for the newly elected speaker Fahmida Mirza to take action. But the “Go Musharaf Go” slogans represent the voices of millions throughout Pakistan. We salute those who raised these slogans inside parliament.

I personally was not arrested repeatedly to see half of a democracy. “Democracy” under Musharaf was a farce, it was a fraud in past and it will be a fraud, if he is allowed to hold on to the presidency, in the future as well. We must continue our struggle for a real democracy and get rid of all the remnants of the military dictatorship.

Farooq Tariq
spokesperson Labour Party Pakistan 40-Abbot Road Lahore, Pakistan Tel: 92 42 6315162 Fax: 92 42 6271149 Mobile: 92 300 8411945
labour_party@ yahoo.com www.laborpakistan. org www.jeddojuhd. com

Baloch National Insurgency

2008-03-20T08:19:00.002+11:00

RAFI A. PERVAIZ BHATTI
-----------
DAILY DAWN 7th January 2006

The current state of militancy

THE impression one gathers from the media reports
about a crackdown of law enforcing agencies on
tribesmen in Kohlu area is that there exists a popular
resistance movement in Balochistan and that it is
being crushed with brutal force. The facts are
contrary to this impression.

It all began with a rocket fired at the public meeting
addressed by President Pervez Musharraf in Kohlu. A
few days later, there was an attack on a helicopter in
which the inspector-general of the Frontier Corps was
travelling. Earlier, there was a rocket attack on the
residence of the chief minister. The question arises:
What message were the attackers sending across?

Even if one ignores these incidents, how can the
killings of innocent citizens in terrorist activities
in the province since 1999 be ignored? An explosion at
the busy Mezan Chowk in Quetta on December 10, 2004
killed 11 persons. Earlier on July 22, 2000, seven
persons were killed in a bomb blast in Jinnah Market.
Two persons were killed in an explosion in a moving
public bus in Quetta on October 28, 2001. Police
officers, and even judges who dare to challenge the
terrorist network, are threatened with death. Justice
Nawaz Marri, a judge of the Balochistan High Court who
resisted the tribal sway of the sardars, was gunned
down in the vicinity of the high court.

Investigations have revealed that a certain sardar and
his sons were involved in the planning and execution
of these terrorist acts. The uniforms, badges and
propaganda material of the so-called Balochistan
Liberation Army (BLA) were also recovered in good
quantity in police raids.

But things have not remained confined to Balochistan
alone. On November 15, 2005, multiple blasts shook the
high security zone around PIDC house in Karachi. The
BLA claimed responsibility for the explosion.
Inquiries show that a blast in Icchra, Lahore, a few
months earlier was also the work of this group. In a
way, terrorism was being exported to other parts of
the country.

The current wave of lawlessness in Balochistan was
originally started by tribal elements in 1999 but
lacks any credible rationale and is not based on
popular discontentment. In stark contrast to this,,
the insurgency in 1970s was backed by strong political
causes. One may note that only five years ago the
nationalist political parties were themselves in power
in Balochistan when Sardar Akhtar Mengal (son of
Sardar Attaullah Mengal) was chief minister. Mir
Humayun Marri was also in that government. They had
every opportunity at the time to solve the problems of
the people of Balochistan, if they so desired.

Since then no new development generally affecting the
people of Balochistan has taken place. On the other
hand, the funding of Balochistan's special projects of
Gwadar and Saindak has been increased. Gwadar project,
which has been highlighted in the media as a source of
discontentment, too was initiated while the
nationalists were in power in Balochistan. If Gwadar
was the reason, the nationalists should have been
popular in that area and won at least one assembly
seat from there on that basis. But ironically they
have never secured a single seat of national or
provincial assemblies from there, even in the 1997
polls which gave them the chief ministership of
Balochistan.

The nationalist political parties were rejected by the
electorate in the 2002 elections. These parties, all
put together, could win only 12 out of the 65
Balochistan Assembly seats, which reduced their
representation in the house to a mere 18 per cent.
Sardar Attaullah Mengal's Balochistan National Party
(BNP), which in the 1997 elections had emerged as the
single largest party, could bag only two seats. The
Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP) of Nawab Akbar Bugti could
secure only three seats. Nawab Khair Bux Marri's Haq
Tawar won only one seat.

Compared to that, Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA), which
rejects nationalism, emerged as the single largest
political party winning 14 seats, while the PML-Q and
its allies bagged 28 seats. The election results gave
a clear message. Nationalist politics had exhausted
its limits and was now reaching a dead-end.

The insurgency in Quetta started on May 27, 1999, with
planting of explosives below the electricity generator
of the Governor's House. This device was detected and
defused. Since then the province has been reeling from
one wave of terrorism to the next. In the year 2000
there were 16 bomb explosions and eight rocket attacks
in Quetta in which 12 persons were killed. There were
239 rocket attacks in 2003, 626 in 2004 and 663 in
2005 (during the first four weeks only) in
Balochistan. Similarly, there were 37 bomb blasts in
2003 and 122 in 2004.

Balochistan is ethnically divided into two distinct
regions: the Baloch belt and the Pashtoon belt. The
Pashtoon belt is spread over the districts of Quetta,
Ziarat, Pishin, Killa Abdullah, Killa Saifulah, Sibi
and Loralai (excluding Barkhan area). About 40 per
cent of Balochistan's population is Pashtun, which is
indifferent to Baloch nationalists' activities.

In the Baloch belt itself, the PML-Q and its moderate
allies represent Balochs more effectively than the
nationalists do. The chief minister of Balochistan,
Jam Mohammad Yousaf, is also the Jam Sahib of Lasbela.
Because of his family's political hold in the region,
Lasbela district is clearly outside the pale of Baloch
nationalism. The people of Gwadar have traditionally
remained away from militant Baloch nationalism.

The areas consisting of Barkhan, Jafferabad,
Nasirabad, Kharan and Kachi District had never been
attracted to nationalist politics and were quiet
during the 1973 insurgency. In the current political
scenario the main political strength of the PML-Q,
(some leading figures being Mrs Nasreen Khetran, Mir
Zafarullah Jamali, Mir Zulfiqar Magsi, Asim Kurd
Gailoo, Sardar Yar Mohd Rind and Sardar Shoaib
Nosherwani) is drawn from these areas.

In the remaining Baloch belt itself, Baloch
nationalism has silently but inevitably changed its
direction from militancy to political activism. The
Baloch Nationalist Movement (BNM) is the single
largest party in the 12-member opposition in
Balochistan Assembly. Its leaders Kackol Ali, Dr Abdul
Hayee Baloch and Hasil Bizenjo, all coming from the
middle class have never supported militancy.

They represent the younger generation of Baloch
leadership, which does not bank on tribal loyalties
but political organizations for popular support. The
veteran tribal leaders Nawab Marri, Nawab Bugti and
Sardar Mengal may have been out of step with the
forces of transition but the younger Baloch leadership
pays great respect to them and is not prepared to
abandon them in the political field.

Militant nationalism today revolves around the trio of
Mengal, Bugti and Marri tribal chiefs. But the area of
influence of these veterans, and also the support base
of militant nationalism, is confined to Dera Bugti,
Kohlu and Wadh. Sardar Ataullah Mengal, who dominates
the Wadh area, has, however, not been as much active
in the current wave of militancy as he had been in the
past ones. The main theatres of activity, therefore,
happen to be Dera Bugti and Kohlu.

Torture of Baloch Nationalist Activists

2008-03-20T08:13:00.000+11:00

BNP student activist reappears after 6 months in 'torture cell'

** Speaks of 'indescribable torture' being inflicted on large number of
detained Baloch, including the elderly, women and children

Staff Report*

QUETTA: A young Balochistan National Party (BNP-Mengal) activist resurfaced
here on Friday after presumably languishing in intelligence agencies'
'torture cells' for six months.

Plainclothes intelligence and Anti-Terrorist Force (ATF) personnel picked up
Babu Sumalani, a 28-year-old University of Balochistan graduate student, on
September 22, last year.

On Friday, addressing a press conference at the Quetta Press Club, Sumalani
claimed he had been taken into custody by an intelligence agency and the ATF
from Smungli Road, Quetta. He said he had been blindfolded, shoved into a
vehicle and taken to a 'torture cell'.

Indescribable: He told reporters he had found a large number of political
activists, students, professionals, the elderly, women and children in the
torture cells, and spoke of indescribable torture being inflicted. "They
used to beat us so much that it is beyond description. Most of us were
apparently victimised because of our political views. I saw with my own eyes
several Baloch old women, elderly citizens and children being put into these
torture cells," he told reporters.

The student leader also disclosed that Javid Lehri, a missing journalist
from Khuzdar, was in the ATF jail, and was continuously being put through
"inhumane mental and physical torture".

He cited "security reasons" for not clearly answering many questions
concerning his detention and the nature of torture that he had endured and
that was being inflicted there. Sumalani said the Baloch were being
persecuted for standing up for their due rights. "We are being punished
because we Baloch talk of our right of ownership on our coast and
resources." But, he warned, "this tactic applied by the state to deal with
the Baloch dissent is likely to backfire."

Sumalani, who hails from a generation of Baloch youth that has vocally
opposed President Pervez Musharraf's policies in Balochistan, thanked the
Baloch Women's Panel, other human rights groups and columnist Fatima Bhutto
for their "unlimited support" while he was detained, and credited them for
his release.

Around 4,000 Baloch people from all walks of life are currently in the
custody of intelligence agencies, according to BNP Secretary General Habib
Jalib, who accompanied Sumalani at the press conference.

"Even the courts of the land have failed to deliver justice to the victims
and their families," said Jalib. "The courts seem to be totally helpless in
front of the intelligence agencies. The unchecked practice of illegal
detentions is rapidly increasing in Balochistan, with too little
intervention by international human rights organisations. "

--
Senator Sanaullah Baloch
Member Senate of Pakistan
http://www.sanabalo ch.page.tl

Remembering Gulzar Begum Shaheed

2008-03-20T08:07:00.002+11:00

Gulzar Begum Shaheed; great trade unionist and fighter

Gulzar Begum, you are still alive in our hearts

23rd March 2008 is the second death anniversary of Gulzar Begum
(Shaheed), great female trade unionist, one of the unique
examples in the working class movement.

Gulzar Begum, chairperson of Pakistan steel Progressive Workers
Union was brutally assassinated two years ago on March 23, 2006
in Karachi by the stooges of anti democratic forces.

She was the pioneer of trade union movement in Pakistan Steel
Mill and had started trade union in 1977 when the martial law of
general Zia was the order of day, political and trade union
activities were banned and media was under the siege.

As a woman it was very strange phenomenon for many to accept her
as their leader at a time when state was in full swing to
promoting all discriminatory laws against women and was trying
hard to confine womenfolk in four wall of home. She had initiated
to form real union of workers in Pakistan Steel Mill (PSM) when
she was fade up with pocket union of administration led by Mr.
Allvi.

She formed and registered union with the name of Pakistan Steel
Mill Progressive Workers Union (PSMPWU) in late seventies and
challenged the administration for the rights of twenty thousand
plus workers of Pakistan Steel Mill (PSM). Because of her
restless struggle workers get the right to elect their
representative Collective Bargaining Agent (CBA) through
referendum in 1979. The referendum was won by Progressive Workers
Union with hug numbers of votes under her leadership.She forced
administration to accept charter of demands of the union which
was historic agreement in favor of workers, which addressed the
basic demands of workers of SM.

In 1984 PSMPWU again won the referendum with huge margin and one
of biggest procession in term of participants from one factory was
organized, thousands of workers with red flag with symbol of
hummer march on the streets of Karachi to show the strength of
workers power under the leadership of Gulzar begum. Again another
landmark agreement was signed between the union and PSM
management, it was first time given the right to common workers
to purchase all home appliances including TV, Fridge, washing
machines and also house purchase loan on very easy installments
without any markup or interest.

The main and everlasting work done by the PSMPWU under the
leadership of great Gulzar Begum was the acquiring the land for
the accommodation of the PSM workers. It was her struggle that
PSM workers got their own town ship with the name of Gulshan
haddeed. Two days weekly off was another demand of workers which
was accepted by the management.

As we know it was Martial Law era, PSM was run by the on-duty
Generals and they didn't like radical and progressive trade union
activism in the mill so they kept watch on all radical activists
and union leaders. Hundreds of workers were sacked from the job
but due to firm stand on the issue all workers were reinstated
with all back benefits. She announced in a rally if any body
informed about the sacked worker s/he would get five hundred
rupees and the sacked workers immediately reinstated on the job
with all privileges and back benefits.

She was the leader who challenged the military dictator Gen. Zia
at his zenith; she hackle the dictator during his speech along
with thousands of workers and raised slogan against military
rule. Military dictator offered her seat in assembly but in
prompt reply she said she hadn't recognize his government, she
would never become the part of illegal and anti democratic setup.

She was very critical about the raise of sectarian and ethnic
sentiments and divides among the workers and thought the
phenomenon poison for the unity of working class. She was upset
because of strengthening of an ethic based organization in the
urban centers of Sindh. She had been forced to join the ethnic
party; she had refused the offer but lost her life in
assassination attempt on fateful day of 23rd March 2006.Working
class scarified another outstanding daughter on that day just as
Bughat Singh Shaheed did bravely 75 years ago.

Her legacy in shape of Progressive Workers Union still alive and
workers are gathered around it. Her sacrifices and services for
the well being of workers never die down. She lives in the hearts
and minds of thousands of PSM workers.

Progressive Workers Union is affiliated with National Trade Union
Federation (NTUF) and is the only union which bitterly opposed
the privatization of PSM.

Progressive Workers Union is going to organize a reference
program on the second death anniversary of great soul of working
class on 20Th Mach 2008 @ 5pm @ Jahangir Hotel hall, Gulshan
hadeed, Phase II, near Telephone Exchange, Pakistan Steel Mills.

The reference will be addressed by Comrade Ghani Zaman ,leader
NTUF, Comrade Azra Perveen, member National Committee Labour
Party Pakistan, Mohammed Wasim ,General Secretary Progressive
Workers Union, Comrade Shehla Rizwan, Leader Labour Party
Pakistan, Sarwar Khan Niazi, President Progressive Workers Union
and Nasir Mansoor, Secretary labour affairs LPP.

Nasir Mansoor Secretary labour affair, Labour Party Pakistan
628, Mashrik Center,
Gulshan Iqbal , Block 14,
Karachi , Pakistan
Phone # +9221-485-4643, Fax No. +9221-414-1898,
Mobile # 0300-358-7211

Musharraf Cuts Rs. 50 Billion from Public Sector

2008-03-18T09:36:00.002+11:00

Poor to suffer more as Musharraf regime cut Rs. 50 billion from Public Sector Development Programs

by Syed Abdul Khaliq

On the eve of its exit, the caretaker government of Pakistan under Musharraf has decided to cut Rs. 50 billion (about US $ 840 million) out of the Rs. 335 billion Public Sector Development Program to manage its day to day affairs.

This anti-people decision is taken on March 14, 2008 due to a slowdown in the economy and a reduction in revenue collection, the government was facing difficulties in meeting its growing financial needs. The very fact has exposed the tall claims of the Musharraf regime that Pakistan is gaining economic stability in his period. It is shocking disgrace to the public of Pakistan, already crippling under unprecedented price hike.

The Musharraf regime is quite tactful in this regard as it is using the word 'withdrawal' or 'extraction' for the cut in PSDP. They are afraid that the word 'cut' will send a wrong signal. Therefore, better call it 'taking out' funds or 'extraction' from the current PSDP.

According to the English daily "Dawn" as result of the decision all social sector development projects would heavily suffer except for a few big projects. That means no funding would be available for a number of social sector projects during the current financial year. Thus big projects including Mangla Dam rising, Chashma-2 nuclear power plant, Diamer-Bhasha dam, Kurrum Tangi and Munda dams would have to be continued without any interruption, but those projects which have not yet been started are being deferred and no funding will be available for them during the current financial year.

These financial constraints are the direct result from the mismanagement of the economy by the Musharraf regime during the last 8 years. Principally the PSDP funding should not be touched as it is meant for development of the poor. Moreover, it has already been abused beyond limits. According to economic experts, after this decision none of the targets set at the start of the financial year 2007-08 are likely to be met.

It is pertinent to mention that Musharraf is not ready to cut his own expenses as he continues to spend Rs. 316 million on his palace every year but the burden of state financial constraints has been shifted onto the poor people of the Pakistan who are supposed beneficiaries of the social sector development programs. In other words it is dishonor to the masses in the light of the fact that development allocation funds are being snatched away from a public that is already grappling with a food inflation rate in excess of 15 percent - one of the highest current account deficits in history - and an economy that depends on remittances and foreign aid to survive each day.

It may be mentioned that the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) is the main instrument for providing budgetary resources for development projects and programs. As a percentage of GDP, the PSDP has declined sharply from 7.5 per cent in 1991-92 to 2.5 per cent in 1999-2000. Since then it is absued.

The PSDP has been designed to achieve the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), i.e. eradicating poverty, ensuring equitable development of regions and various social groups, empowering women and minimizing wastages.

The PSDP sectoral program prioritization at national level indicates that infrastructure sector would get 48.6% of total outlay followed by Millennium Development Goals (35.0%), balanced development (13.2%) and accelerating output growth (3.2%). In the infrastructure sector, energy has been given the highest priority with 19.8% of total allocations followed by transport and communications (14.9%) and water resources (13.5%). Within the Millennium Development Goals, education and vocational training including higher education would receive 10.8% share followed by physical planning and housing, health and nutrition and science and technology at 4.6%, 4.3% and 2.6% respectively.

Looking at figures in sectoral prioritization one can easily guess that big energy projects especially construction of new dams will continue, but the masses welfare projects like education, health, sanitation, transport, roads and housing would be halted in the name of 'national interest'. The government economic gurus will soon be out to negate the negative effects and justify the decision by using the development jargon and jugglery of economic figures. Anyway the decision is highly condemnable and would also affect the development policies of the future PPP government.

Workers Occupy Sindh Sugar Mill

2008-03-14T10:15:00.000+11:00

Workers take over Sugar Mill in Sind

by Farooq Tariq

Over 1600 workers from Alnoor Sugar Mill Moro, Sind took over the factory today on 12 March 2008. They occupied all the administration departments of the Mill and asked the General Manager (GM) of the Mill to sit on the floor. The GM was a retired army brigadier. The GM was then forced to tour around the factory under workers control.

The occupation ended at 5pm when the local Member of Parliament from Pakistan Peoples Party assured the workers that their demands would be met within next 48 hours.

Their union called Mahnatkash Labour Union Alnoor Sugar Mill led the workers. The union was recently registered after an interval of 8 years of non-unionization of the factory. There was a terror of this GM at the factory. Most of the concessions of the workers were taken back under the military rule of general Musharaf. The demand notice of the union was ignored.

The workers were demanding the reinstatement of their 28 workers back to their jobs and their demand notice to be met by the administration. They were demanding better wages, more house rent, at least government recommended minimum wages and a bonus to all the workers.

At present, the factory was running in full capacity and the mill owner was unable to afford that the Mill should be stopped for a single minute. It was a workers day at the factory.

It all started at 11am when the union leaders went to meet the GM at his office. The union asked him to accept the demands. He categorically refused to accept any demand. He had miss judged the mood of the workers leaders. The union leadership immediately took over the office and asked him to leave his office and come with them to the union office. He was forced to accept the workers orders. At the union office, the retired army brigadier, who has ruled the factory under his terror, was asked not to sit on a chair but on the floor. His face was colored and then some workers torn apart his cloths as well.

He was then asked to round the factory where workers humiliated him as he did with the workers for eight years. With a colored face, the GM was begging the workers to spare him and that he will accept all the demands. It was a “Gherao” and occupation at the same time.

In the mean time, all the gates of the factory were closed and the local police could not enter the Mill to rescue the GM. It became news for some private television channel and they broadcasted the news about Mill occupation.

The local MP from PPP arrived at 4pm and asked the workers to let the GM go and that he will guarantee that all the demands will be met. He told the workers, that there will no victimization and no police case registered if they listen to him. On his guarantee, the workers handed over the factory to the administration and let the GM go free.

This is the first incident of such kind. There is no civil government yet but the workers have come forward to have a go on those who had exploited them all the eight years under military rule.

Labour Party Pakistan has a strong group at Moro. Eight years ago, the factory was under the control of Labour Party Pakistan local leadership. They were thrown out of the factory and there was none of LPP activists inside. However, the new union was working under the close relationship of Local LPP leadership. Today after the occupation, the LPP leadership in Sind gave a fill support to the union action.

It seemed that the mill administration will register a case against the workers leaders and there will be more trouble tomorrow.

Farooq Tariq
spokesperson Labour Party Pakistan 40-Abbot Road Lahore, Pakistan Tel: 92 42 6315162 Fax: 92 42 6271149 Mobile: 92 300 8411945
labour_party@ yahoo.com www.laborpakistan. org www.jeddojuhd. com

Gender Oppression: Women of Dir

2008-03-14T09:12:00.000+11:00

Women of the Dir lower face numerous political, social and economical problem.

Where as the world is going to celebrate the international women day to day in order to focus mainly on women rights and development across the globe, there the women folk of the Dir Lower are facing numerous problems relating to their status and their lives.

According to a recent survey conducted by Anjuman Behbood-e-Khawateen (ABKT) Dir to highlight women rights and empowerment, it was learnt that women in Dir, a conservative area, had been barred to exercise their political, social and economical rights as the area is totally men dominated as compared to other parts of the country.

Recently in general elections held on February 18, 2008 no women in the district exercised their right to vote. The survey revealed that killing of women relating to honor killing incidents are on the rise while there were found some “SWARA” cases as well in the district.

According to reports collected from different police stations and national news papers 16 women were fell victims to honor killings crime while 9 men were also shot dead during the last year.

According to Khall police, one Muhtaj S/O Mian Gul shot dead Awal Zeb 23 in Toormang when he was on his way to home last year in June. Later on Muhtaj went to his home and killed his sister-in-law on suspicion that she had illicit relation with Awal Zeb.

Similarly on February 03, a resident of Haya Serai Muhammad Jan killed his sister-in-law and a man Gul Zar S/o Haider on the charges of having suspicious relations.

On February 24, a girl and a boy Ihsanullah were murdered over suspicious illicit relation in Dog Dara, sources said.

In June a couple was barbarously killed in Gujran Wala Punjab.

Sources told that Uzma 18 had married a boy Shabir in her neighbor on her own free will against the permission of her parents. The couple then had fled to Karachi and then shifted to Gujran Wala Punjab where they were traced out and were killed.

Similarly another couple was killed in Ouch Dir Lower on November
11, sources said, adding that the girl Khaista Begum and the boy Islam Zeb had married on their own violating family’s decision.

People told that elders of the girl’s family deceived the couple and invited them to their home but when they reached they were allegedly killed by the girl’s relatives.

On March 27, a man Amir Hassan shot dead his wife Shamim Akhtar in village Bakandai in the Jurisdiction of Ouch polling station. The man believed that his wife had illicit relation with some one other.

Similarly a man Rehmat Zeb, allegedly opened fire on his wife Zeenat while she was offering prayers, in Khadag Zai village on March 26. Later on the accused also killed his brother Bahadar Zeb, on the pretext that his wife and his brother had illicit relations.

On June 1, a women Naheed Bibi and a man Bakht Shah Zeb were allegedly killed by Naheed’s in laws in Osorai village.

On July 9, a man gunned down his wife Zahira, infant baby and two other relative women in Rabbat Dara due to unknown reasons, police and residents told this scribe.

On August 28, police intervened to save a three years old girl in Chakdara from becoming victim of the un-human custom of SWARA by taking an undertaking from her father that he would not hand her over to his rivals. The girl had to be handed over on August 31, but police foiled the bid. Later on they arrested sixteen people including the prominent religious leader Maulana Muhammad Rahim alias Darbar Maulana, along with jirga members for their decision to give away the girl in SWARA.

On August 30, a man Nadar Khan allegedly shot dead his wife Sumera and younger brother Famir in Timergara on suspicious of illicit relations, sources said, adding that the accused first stabbed them and then shot them dead.

On September 06, a man Muhammad Khan entered a woman Iqbal Bibi’s house in Ouch and killed her while a child was injured in the accident, police said.

On October 06, a man Gul Khan 23 was gunned down in Malakand Timergara by relatives of a woman Hameeda who later on shot her dead. They believed that the deceased had illicit relations.

On September 22, a retired army Solider Bakht Rahman allegedly killed his wife Bakht Mina, residents said; adding that later on the accused pretended that she was killed by some attackers from outside the home when she was fast asleep. Witnesses said Bakht Mina was a modest and innocent woman.

On November 21, a man Liaq Zada shot dead his wife Risalat Bibi in Darmal Bala village, informed sources told this reporter.

All these incidents indicate the real status, the women of Dir face. The women of Dir had never been allowed to take part in political activities. They had never been used their right to vote or contest election. Though in local government elections 2001 and 2005 women elected by men voters on union, Tehsil and district council’s level, yet they had been discouraged to attend councils meeting.

Women rights activist working in Dir have expressed their grave concerns on the violation of women rights on a large scale in the Dir Lower and said that literacy ratio was the need of the day to be increased. They demanded of the present governments and international donor agencies to focus on boosting female education in the area and women be protected to become easy victims to men done crimes.

Mrs. Shad Begum
Executive Director
ABKT- Dir

Two Journalists Kidnapped in Balochistan

2008-03-13T10:50:00.002+11:00

Two journalists kidnapped in Balochistan, a third missing since
November

http://www.balochwarna.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1423

Reporters without Borders is very worried about two journalists employed by
the Urdu-language Baloch daily Azadi, Hameed Baloch and Khalil Khosa, who
went missing in the province of Balochistan within three days of each other,
on 29 February and 3 March, and who were probably kidnapped.

"The current deterioration in press freedom in Balochistan has become quite
intolerable" , Reporters without Borders said. "These abductions, coming on
the heels of the 9 February murder of Chishti Mujahid, are part of the
disastrous consequences of the fighting between government forces and Baloch
separatist groups. We urge the authorities to do everything possible to
protect journalists and to come to the help of those who are still missing."

According to the Balochistan Union of Journalists (BUJ), Baloch was
kidnapped on 3 March in Taftan, near the Iranian border. "His disappearance
may be due to the security services, tribal rivalry or political parties",
BUJ president Mujeeb Ahmed told Reporters without Borders.

Another BUJ member said : "In my view, influential tribes must be
implicated, as was the case with Riaz Mengal [of the newspaper Intikhab],
who we thought had been kidnapped by the security services but in fact had
been kidnapped by tribal chiefs."

Khosa has not been seen since attending a news conference in the southern
Baloch town of Nasirabad on 29 February. His family thinks he may have been
kidnapped because of articles criticising Baloch nationalist parties that
took part in the recent parliamentary elections while other Baloch
nationalist groups boycotted them.

Based in the Baloch provincial capital of Quetta, Azadi is still without
news of its young reporter Javed Lehri, who has been missing since 30
November. Editor Muhammad Asif Baloch thinks he was kidnapped by the
security services, who kidnapped the head of the Baloch Voice TV station,
Munir Mengal, in June 2006. Mengal was eventually handed over to the police,
who are still holding him despite court orders for his release.

Urgent Appeal Against Execution of Pakistani Torture Victim

2008-03-08T10:34:00.003+11:00

[NOTICE: The AHRC has developed an automatic letter-sending system using
the "button" below. We encourage you to send your letters by clicking the
button. Those who can not access to email are also encourage to send your
letters by fax or post. Fax numbers and postal addresses of the authorities
are attached below with this appeal. Thank you.]

ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT APPEALS PROGRAMME

Urgent Appeal Case: AHRC-UAC-043- 2008

5 March 2008
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- ------
PAKISTAN: Death by hanging of a man set on March 12 after confessing due to
torture by military

ISSUES: Death penalty; torture; unfair trial; military court; incommunicado;
denial of legal assistance
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- ------

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information regarding
the death sentence of a man from minority community, who is due to be
executed on 12 March 2008. He was charged with murder however, he was
allegedly severely tortured after the illegal arrest. It is also alleged
that he was not provided any legal representative during the military trial.
He was not allowed to communicate with his parent during his two years of
military custody and meet his parents only after the military court
convicted him.

CASE DETAILS:

According to the information received, Mr. Zahid Masih son of Salamat Masih
was recruited in the Pakistan Army as a sanitary worker and sweeper in
August 2001 at the cantonment of Multan city, Punjab province. After some
months he was transferred to another cantonment at Tarbella- Punjab
province, 600 kilometers far from Multan, his hometown. He served in
Tarbella cantonment for almost two years and in 2003 he was again
transferred to another place, the Chirat, a cantonment at Peshawar in
province of North Western Frontier Province (NWFP) as a sweeper because of
his good work and loyalty to officers.

He joined Regiment/Unit 4 Commando Battalion (Special Service Group) Chirat.
When he reached and joined service at Chirat cantonment he heard that a
9-year-old boy was sexually molested and murdered by unknown persons among
the staff of the cantonment and there was a military investigation going on.
After one weak of joining service he was given two months leave to go home
for recreation as it is a common feature that, whenever there is a transfer
the staff is allowed to have leave. Zahid Masih went to Multan to meet his
parents and other family members and after two months he returned to Chirat
to resume his duties. Till that time the investigation of murder was going
on. Suddenly, one month after his return Zahid Masih was disappeared from
the work place and his whereabouts were not known to the family for about
two years.

Zahid's family later found him in Central jail at Peshawar charged with
murder under Section 302 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). He was accused of
committing sodomy and killing the nine-year-old boy, Muhammad Adnan on 1
March 2005. The Military Court found Zahid guilty and sentenced him death on
10 March 2006.

While in the military custody for 2 years, he was extensively interrogated
for 28 days consecutively and he was severely tortured to confess to the
murder of the boy. Due to the severity of the torture he had no choice but
to confess even though he alleged that he was innocent. Some Orderlies of
officers came and persuaded him that if he confessed the officers would
provide him with relief. Mr. Mohammad Khusheed son of Mohammad Nawaz, the
orderly of an army officer, conveyed this message to him with saying that
his confession would save the image of Pakistan Army. Zahid Masih informed
these facts to his brother in a letter. However, Zahid was not allowed to
meet with his family during his trial in the cantonment by a military court
and the family did also not know about that.

When Zahid Masih was allowed to meet his family in early 2008, he told his
family that he was made an escape goat as he was Christian and a sweeper. He
further said that the messengers from officers of Chirat cantonments
convinced him that he would be free from the charges if he confessed the
crime. He alleged that military persons at cantonment killed the boy and
they wanted to shift the offence to weakest person.

On 20 January 2008, Zahid's mother wrote a mercy appeal to the President and
human rights groups and the Church leadership wrote letters to the
authorities, including the President. Due to this intervention, the
execution date was delayed for 20 days however, it is again scheduled on 12
March 2008.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

Pakistan is among the top in the list of countries with the highest number
of executions (along with China, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and USA). It has
approximately 7,400 convicts awaiting execution. According to the Amnesty
International 2007 report, 82 persons were executed in 2006. A local source
claimed that 109 people have been awarded death sentence in the first 9
months of 2007 and about 10,000 were executed in Pakistan in the past 11
years.

According to the PPC 302, which Zahid Masih is charged under: whoever
commits pre-meditated murder shall be punished with (a) death as
"retaliation" ; (b) death or imprisonment for life as corporal punishment to
be administered at the discretion of the judge; and (c) imprisonment of up
to 25 years, provided it is not committed in the name or the pretext of
honour.

According to the PPC section 304, the proof of murder could be in form of
voluntary and true confession before a competent court that the accused
committed the offence; and by evidence as provided in Article 17 of the
Qanun-e-Shahadat, 1984 (P.O. No. 10 of 1984), based on the competence of a
person to testify and the number of witnesses required accordingly.

Local sources claim that the penal system in Pakistan is full of loopholes
and defects. It may be better sometimes not to hang the alleged killers due
to mal-administration of justice, police service dereliction, and cultural
prejudices affecting women and religious minorities.

It has also been commented that the laws have become "tools for personal
vendettas against vulnerable segments of society, including the poor and
minorities" and are often "manipulated, especially in blasphemy cases, where
both judicial system and police department investigate with bias, without
checking veracity of the facts."

SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please write the letter and fax to the following authorities showing your
concern of what appears to be an unfair trial and a confession obtained by
torture. Please also demand clemency as he is innocent of this crime and at
the time of murder of young boy he was doing job in anther cantonment of
Tarbela. After his transfer to Chirat he was booked in the case only because
he was from a minority community and a weak target as being the sweeper, the
most lowest job.

The AHRC writes letters to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Question of
Torture and working group on arbitrary detention calling for urgent
intervention in this case.

To support this appeal, please click here:

------------ --------- --------- -

SAMPLE LETTER:

Dear __________,

PAKISTAN: Death by hanging of a man set on March 12 after confessing due to
torture by military

Name of victim: Mr. Zahid Masih, son of Salamat Masih, 27 years old,
Sanitary worker, Chirat Cantonment, Regiment/Unit 4 Commando Battalion
(Special Service Group) Chirat, Peshawar, North western frontier province;
resident of Saeed Colony near Purani Chand Mari, Farooq Pura post office,
Purana Shuja Abad Multan-Punjab province
Currently detained at: Peshawar prison, North Western Frontier Province
Date of scheduled execution: 12 March 2008

I am writing to voice my concern regarding the case of Mr. Zahid Masih who
is to be hanged on March 12 after his and his family's appeal of clemency
were turned down. Mr. Zahid's family has been asked to meet him on March 11,
2008 as a final meeting. On March 4, some persons from the military have
taken thumb impressions of his mother on mysterious papers and they had not
informed on several enquiries that why they were taking the signatures.

Mr. Zahis was also denied a fair trial and case was tried at military court
without providing him any legal assistance.

According to my information, Mr. Zahid Masih son of Salamat Masih was
recruited in the Pakistan Army as sanitary worker/ sweeper in August 2001 at
the cantonment of Multan city, Punjab province. After some months he was
transferred to another cantonment at Tarbella- Punjab province, 600
kilometers far from Multan, his native place. He served in Tarbella
cantonment for two years and in 2003 he was again transferred to another
place, the Charat, a cantonment at Peshawar in province of North Western
Frontier Province (NWFP) as sweeper because of his good work and loyalty to
officers. He joined Regiment/Unit 4 Commando Battalion (Special Service
Group) Chirat. When he reached and joined service at Chirat cantonment he
heard that on young boy of 9 years was sexually molested and murdered by
unknown persons among the staff of cantonment and there was military
investigation was going on. After one weak of joining service he was given
two months leave to go home for recreation as it is a common feature that
when ever there is transfer the staff is allowed to have leave. Mr. Zahid
Masih went to Multan to meet his parents and other family members and after
two months he came back to Tarbella to resume his duties. Till that time the
investigation of murder was still going on.

It is very shocking for me that as he reached Charat and that after one
month he was disappeared from the work place and his whereabouts were not
known to the family for about two years. The question is very pertinent that
when he was under interrogation why the authorities have kept in
incommunicado which means that he was pressured to confess the offence and
face the severest kind of tortue.

Zahid's family later found him in Central jail at Peshawar booked for murder
under Section 302 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). He was accused of committing
sodomy and killing a nine-year-old boy Muhammad Adnan on 1 March 2005. The
Military Court found Zahid guilty and sentenced him to death on 10 March
2006.

I am shocked to know that during two years of his disappearance he was
extensively interrogated continuously for 28 days in the military custody
and he was tortured severely, inhumanly to confess the murder of 9 year old
boy, which he confessed for not finding any other option. He was told by the
Orderlies of officers that if he confesses murder of the boy then officers
will provide him relief. Torture in custody to get the confessional
statement is very much against the UN Convenient Against Torture (CAT) and
Pakistan being the elected member of UN human rights council should have to
follow the charter of human rights of the UN.

Mr. Zahid Masih is scheduled to be hanged on March 12, 2008. On 20 January
2008, Zahid's mother wrote a mercy appeal to the president and on 28 January
2008 human rights organizations and his Church leadership wrote letters to
the authorities, including the President, to consider mercy for Zahid Masih.
They responded by delaying the execution for 20 days (31 January--20
February 2008). But now it is fixed on March 12.

I appeal to you to provide clemency to Zahid Masih and order the authorities
to retrial the whole case in ordinary courts of the country and provide him
fair trial according to the laws of the country.

I also appeal to investigate the whole issue of trial in military court when
the offence comes under the criminal procedural laws of Pakistan and hold a
enquiry that he was kept in incommunicado for confessional statement and
military trial.

I hope that you will do best for providing clemency to him as he is innocent
and was not provided legal assistance and was kept in incommunicado and was
tortured.

Yours sincerely,

------------ ----

PLEASE SEND YOUR LETTERS TO:

1. General Pervez Musharraf
President
President's Secretariat
Islamabad
PAKISTAN
Fax: +92 51 922 1422, 4768/ 920 1893 or 1835
Email: (please see->
http://www.presiden tofpakistan. gov.pk/WTPreside ntMessage. aspx)

2. Mr. Afzal Haider
Minister of Law, Justice and Human Rights
S Block Pakistan Secretariat
Islamabad
PAKISTAN
Fax: +92 51 920 2628
E-mail: minister@molaw. gov.pk

3. Federal Minister of Interior
Room#404, 4th Floor, R Block,
Pak Secretariat
Islamabad
PAKISTAN
Tel: + 92 51 9212026
Fax: + 92 51 9202624
E-mail: minister@interior. gov.pk

4. Secretary
(Criminal Prosecution) SGA &CD Department
Government of Sindh
Sindh Secretariat,
Karachi, Sindh Province
PAKISTAN
Tel: +92 21 9213327-6
Fax: +92 21 9213873
E-mail: secy.cpsd@sindh. gov.pk

5. Dr. Faqir Hussain
Registrar
Supreme Court of Pakistan
Supreme Court Building
Islamabad
PAKISTAN
Tel: +92 51 9213770
Fax: +92 51 9213452

Thank you.

Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission (ua@ahrchk.org)

Baseer Naveed

Senior Researcher, South Asia Desk

Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)

19/F Go-Up Commercial Building

998 Canton Rd, Mongkok

Kowloon, Hong Kong, China

Tel: (852) 2698 6339 Ext 113

Fax: (852) 2698 6367

Mob: (852)6402 5943

The Advocates' Movement: 12 Month assessment

2008-03-08T10:22:00.001+11:00

Advocate movement: a year on

By: Farooq Tariq

2008 will be a year of decisive struggle in Pakistan . Over the past year a lawyers’ movement rose to confront the Musharraf dictatorship. Its aim is to create an atmosphere where the judiciary can work independently, without being under the influence of any regime, whether military or civil. Only a year old, it has achieved impressive results.

The movement began on 9 March 2007 when Iftikhar Choudry, Chief Justice of Supreme Court, negatively responded to the request from five generals--including General Pervez Musharraf--that he voluntarily resign. Offered several other lucrative posts, he responded with a firm "No," resulting his immediate arrest and termination from the Supreme Court.

Why did the generals want to get rid of Pakistan ’s chief justice? Simply, his decisions were blocking growing repression and implementation of General Musharraf’s neoliberal agenda:

· After 9/11, thousands of Pakistanis just disappeared; Choudry publicly questioned their disappearance. He tried to force accountability from the country’s powerful secret service.
· He issued a decision against the privatization of the country’s largest industrial unit, the Pakistan Steel Mill Karachi.
· Iftikhar Choudry was operating like a human right activist, doing his best to address the question of growing human rights violations. He took special notice of anti-women traditions and customs and prohibited the selling and trading of women.

General Musharraf did not foresee the mass reaction this arrest and termination would cause since there were no other examples of prominent people standing up to his brutal and high-handed actions.

Chief Justice Choudry’s "No" was a hallmark in the history of judiciary. Never before had people been willing to risk opposing the status quo. Every previous military coup had been legitimized by the country’s top judges. Out of the 61 years of so-called independence, Pakistan has spent 32 years under military rule.

As the private television channels broadcast the news of Choudry’s dismissal and arrest, they asked leading lawyers for their opinion. Every single one explained it as an extraordinary action: there was no previous record of such an action against the chief justice. They called on other lawyers to come forward in a mass response.

Year One of the Pakistan lawyers’ movement is unprecedented, and there have been several ups and downs. It has witnessed ugly scenes of police and army brutality, but the lawyers never gave up. One of the main characteristics of this marvelous movement is its clear demand, which was accepted by every one: the demand for an independent judiciary. The Musharraf dictatorship is clearly seen as a brutal regime trying to curb the rising consciousness of independent judicial system.

The movement lead by the lawyers can be divided in three phases:
· The beginning phase, ending on 20 July 2007, when an 11-member bench of Supreme Court Pakistan reinstated Iftikhar Choudry.
· The second phase, from 20 July till 3 November, when the Musharraf dictatorship imposed an emergency degree.
· The third phase, from the imposition of the emergency until the general elections on 18 February 2008.

During the first phase, leaders of the lawyers’ movement did not directly attack the Musharraf. They also asked Choudry not to speak the media. Instead they build an effective base by speaking to Bar Associations across the country. This meant that they did not immediately seem to be doing anything out of the ordinary.

Iftikhar Choudry toured around the country by road to speak to various bar councils. His caravan was welcomed by hundred of thousands of ordinary people. But he did not speak a single word to the press. He concentrated on making general democratic remarks at the bar council meetings, which were open only to lawyers. Political activists made no fuss about this exclusion but cooperated with the lawyers.

These rallies were the largest mobilizations during the years of the Musharraf dictatorship and signaled the lawyers’ total support for Choudry. This method of proceeding meant that he was speaking “under the radar.” It did not seem that he was organizing a "political" campaign against the regime. In this manner Choudry was able to speak about the political situation without being “political.”

Initially the leaders of the lawyers’ movement were divided over whether they wanted the participation from political parties. Some argued that parties might create problems or take over the movement. Some feared that if they invited the political parties, then the religious fundamentalist parties would gain control and they did not want to see that happen. During the first month there was a fierce debate among the lawyers’ elected bodies over these questions. After coming to the conclusion that they could not win the struggle on their own, they invited all the civil society organizations to participate.

When Choudry’s case was scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court, the lawyers called for a "gherao" at the Court. “Gherao” is a picket line, a practice used by the industrial working class all over the world. This very popular tactic of picketing was used effectively by the lawyers’ movement and made headlines in all the main electronic and print media. The media popularized the movement to an extent that the Musharraf dictatorship responded by introducing new electronic laws to curb the growing radicalization of the media.

In its first phase the lawyers’ movement was able to mobilize and unify the 80,000-strong lawyers’ community. The Bar Associations across the country have deeply democratic traditions, including yearly elections. Those who have been elected don’t run the following year so that there is a constant development of new leadership. These democratic traditions enable the lawyers to develop an evolving leadership that is always alive and deserving of respect. Normally, once a decision is taken, all lawyers follow. Those within the lawyers’ community who were not supportive of restoring Choudry to his office were socially isolated and, in many cases, their licenses to practice were suspended by the Pakistan Bar Council.

In this first phase the state tried to suppress the movement by arresting the lawyers, dispersing the demonstrations and rallies by force. But this did not succeed. Every repressive act motivated more militant actions. The lawyers’ black coats became respectable dress and many ordinary Pakistanis bought black coats from second-hand shops just to get maximum respect from everyone.

The lawyers organized weekly demonstrations, usually every Thursday. It was mainly the young lawyers who found new hope in the shape of this movement and its weekly actions. Young and particularly female lawyers showed absolute bravery as they fought pitched battles with the police. It was their first political action and they brought new energy to the movement.

The main political parties that fully supported the movement and participated in the weekly the actions were the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN), Pakistan Tehreek Insaaf (PTI), Labour Party Pakistan (LPP), Khaksaar Tehreek, National Workers Party (NWP) and Awami Tehreek. Activists of these parties were arrested several times for the crime of participating in the rallies.

Most of the radical non-government organizations and movements also fully supported this movement. Their support gave new meaning to civil society organization. The concept, civil society organization, became well known because of their total support to the movement. In fact every one participating in this unique movement earned respect from all sections of society.

The First Victory

The full bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, which was hearing Choudry’s case, decided to reinstate the Chief Justice on 20 July 2007. This was a historic victory of a mass movement and was not viewed as “political.”

Iftikhar Choudry immediately took office, became Chief Justice after a nearly four-month interval. Following his reinstatement, he began releasing political prisoners. He ordered the immediate recovery of missing persons; and some were eventually released by intelligence agencies. He stopped the construction of high-rise buildings that violated the building code. He also took notice of corrupt state actors. Iftikhar Choudry now had the full support of the other top judges, as well as those who already had become "people friendly" judges, the lawyers’ community and the people of Pakistan .

Meanwhile the regime was angrily waiting for a time to take action against the top judges once again. The Musharraf dictatorship, already unpopular, was weakened by this reinstatement. The power of the judiciary was contesting the power of the military generals and bureaucrats. In that sense there were some elements of dual power at work within the country.

Unfortunately, when the case of the presidential candidacy of General Musharraf came before the Supreme Court, it hesitated in issuing a decision. The Supreme Court had provisionally allowed him to contest the election, but his candidacy was challenged because the Constitution does not allow the same person to be president and chief of the army at the same time. Additionally, he was elected by a pro-Musharraf parliament that had been seated since 2002 and was overdue for re-election. In fact Musharraf was "elected" with a shameful support of PPP, which opted not to oppose the candidacy of General Musharraf and abstained from the vote.

In fact Benazir Bhutto, living in exile, was in contact with Musharraf to work out a power-sharing deal. But the two sides were afraid of the rising power of a movement that could challenge their own political hegemony. Benazir, leader of the PPP, saw an opportunity to come to power once again. Both the American and British governments had lost confidence in General Musharraf’s ability to fight effectively as their partner in the so-called "war on terror," and pushed this unholy alliance as the means through which Musharraf would be able to continue to rule. For his part, Musharraf needed to regain time since his attempt to unseat Choudry had failed. So he went, although reluctantly, to the negotiating table with Bhutto.

The Pakistan People Party also had considerable influence among the lawyers’ movement. While the main leadership of the lawyers’ movement was now calling for Musharraf’s resignation, the PPP directed its leaders not to raise this demand. This created confusion and division among the lawyers’ community all over Pakistan . The majority wanted to push ahead and end the military dictatorship, but now there was division in their own ranks.

It took two months of fierce debate and discussion among the lawyers’ elected bodies to work out their future course of action. Finally, an absolute majority came out in favor of continuing the movement. It decided to continue its weekly rallies, although, without the presence of the PPP activists did not have the same power as it had earlier.

Meanwhile, after striking a deal with Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan from eight years of exile. The state withdrew all the charges of corruption against her in the name of "national reconciliation." The day of her arrival, 18 October, religious fundamentalists carried out a suicide attack on the caravan welcoming Benazir Bhutto back. This intervention killed over 150 people.

Musharraf Strikes First

Musharraf could not be sure what would be the Supreme Court’s final decision about his eligibility as president and opted to strike first. On 3 November, he suspended the Constitution once again and arrested all the top judges. He introduced a new Provisional Constitutional Order and demanded all of the top judges to take a new oath under the PCO. To his surprise, over 60 top judges refused. In the fight against the military dictatorship, Iftikhar Choudry was now joined by two-thirds of his colleagues. All were placed under house arrest but it was difficult for the regime to find judges who would take the PCO oath.

The PCO was the second martial law decree issued by General Musharraf in the name of emergency. There was a new wave of terror with over 25,000 lawyers and political activists were arrested and private television channels were closed down.

After a month the arrested advocates were released, and so were most of the political activists. But the Constitution was hobbled with repressive amendments giving power to the military to try any civilian in military courts. The independent judiciary had been eliminated, the movement suppressed. Having done his homework, General Musharraf then announced a general election for 8 January 2008.

In this repressive situation the lawyers’ movement appealed to all the political parties to boycott the general elections. They argued that by participating they would be legitimizing General Musharraf’s dictatorial measures. With the vast majority of the lawyers in favor of boycotting, the political scene was divided into two distinctive trends, those advocating the boycott and those participating in the elections. Unfortunately the two main parties opted to contest the elections.

With both the pro-election campaign and the boycott movement gaining steam, Benazir Bhutto’s assassination on 27 December altered the political scenario. A mass reaction against the assassination brought a wave of sympathy for PPP, which had been campaigning. General Musharraf was isolated to an extent never seen before. Added to that factor was the country’s economic collapse. These factors caused a decisive change in the consciousness of the Pakistan working class. Their passive negativism toward the regime turned into active opposition.

Had PPP leadership opted to boycott the general elections--now postponed until 18 February 2008--and demanded the resignation of General Musharraf, the scenario would have been different. Musharraf would have no choice. But the PPP once again ignored the advice of the lawyers’ movement and decided to take part in the general elections.

Those who went to poll on 18 February voted against the pro-Musharraf political parties. But whichever side one was on over the question of participating in the elections, and whichever tactics employed, everyone was united in their opposition to Musharraf.

We have now entered the next phase of the unfolding struggle. The question remains: Will those coming to power reinstate the judiciary, a popular demand that would be very difficult to ignore, force Musharraf out, and restore the Constitution? Such a step would be the first toward building an independent democratic society where exploitation should be a word of past. The building of a genuine democratic Socialist Pakistan is the only way forward.

ENDS

Note: This is article is being published by Women Workers Help Line in a booklet, "women and advocate movement" on the eve of 8 March 2008.

Farooq Tariq
spokesperson
Labour Party Pakistan
40-Abbot Road Lahore, Pakistan
Tel: 92 42 6315162 Fax: 92 42 6271149 Mobile: 92 300 8411945
labour_party@yahoo.com www.laborpakistan.org www.jeddojuhd.com

Gojra Community Fights Back Against Sexual Violence

2008-03-06T10:36:00.000+11:00

Fighting back against sexual violence in Pakistan
Linda Waldron

Gojra is a city with 135,000 residents in the Toba Tek Singh district of the Pakistani province of the Punjab. Over a period of a few days in early December, five girls, ranging in age between five to seven, were abducted while on their way to primary school in Gojra by gangs of young men. The girls were raped, beaten and left for dead.

Residents came together and with the support of progressive organisations in Lahore — the nearest major city, with more than 6 million inhabitants — organised a campaign against sexual violence.

This is an inspiring development as such crimes are often ignored, condoned or even encouraged in Pakistani law and society. Women of all ages suffer from high rates of rape, sexual assault and domestic violence, particularly women in rural areas. Seventy-five per cent of Pakistan's female population lives in rural areas, are largely illiterate, face constant motherhood and poor health.

According to a report by the Sahil children's rights organisation, issued on December 22, 197 female children were raped in Pakistan in the first nine months of 2004. The NGO complied this figure from monitoring 27 national newspapers.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimates that the actual incidence of rape of young girls is probably double or triple the officially reported figure.

There is great social pressure upon rape victims and their families not to report the attack to the police. Rape victims and their families who do, will frequently be ostracised by friends and neighbours. Perpetrators and their families can threaten further violence if a “compromise” or “forgiveness” is not offered by the victim's family.

Further discouraging rape victims from reporting the attack to the police is the way victims are treated by the courts. Not only is the victim's sexual history up for public examination and discussion, but women who file rape charges can be prosecuted for illicit sex under the 1979 Hadood Ordinances.

Under these regulations, the victim's statement has no testimonial value and should the victim be unable to produce four male witnesses to testify on her behalf, she can be charged with zina (having had sex outside of marriage). This “crime” carries a maximum penalty of stoning to death in public.

Failing this, a lighter sentence of imprisonment and whipping can be imposed. The usual punishment for zina is 4-10 years imprisonment and 30 lashes. Minors can be convicted of zina, with a lighter sentence of up to five years imprisonment and 30 lashes.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 50% of women who report rapes end up being charged with committing zina.

Pakistani law therefore condones and reinforces the idea that it is the rape victim who is to blame for the attack.

The Gojra community, however, refused to condone or accept the attacks on the five girls and started organising to fight back. The Labour Party of Pakistan, a well-known left-wing party, responded by organising a protest on December 10 in Lahore demanding that compensation be paid to the victims, that the chief minister of Punjab visit the victims, and that the local administration be removed. It also called on local communities experiencing such attacks to form defence committees and for a national awareness campaign to be organised against violence on women and children. The protest took place at the Lahore Press Club, and the headquarters of the main private TV channel, GEO.

Azra Shad, the chairperson of Women Workers Helpline, one of the sponsors of the Lahore rally told Green Left Weekly: “We need to explain why these crimes take place and address the root causes. Social customs such as karo kari — honour killing — and exchange marriages, regressive laws such as the Hadood Ordinances and Law of Evidence all encourage violence against women and children. We need to abolish these laws and customs if we wish to see an end to sexual crimes.”

On December 15, Father Bonnie Mendes, a Catholic priest in Toba Tek Singh, convened a community meeting to discuss the rapes of the primary schoolgirls. The meeting resolved to publicise the issue by distributing leaflets and talking to the local press, for parents to organise defence units to escort young children to school.

Under mounting public outrage across Pakistan, Punjab Chief Minister Chaudry Pervaiz Elahi visited the families of the five schoolgirls on December 20, and ordered the suspension of, and dismissal proceedings against, four senior police officers for negligence and dereliction of duty in the rape cases. This sent a strong message to the entire Pakistani police force to take reports of such crimes seriously.

From Green Left Weekly, February 2, 2005.

A Secular Persepctive on Shari'ah in the West

2008-03-06T10:24:00.000+11:00

ISLAMIC SHARI'AH IN THE WESTERN WORLD

Asghar Ali Engineer

(Secular Perspective March-1-15, 2008)

As the population of Muslims is increasing in western countries like U.K., USA, Canada etc. the demand for applying Shari'ah law to Muslims is being voiced. The Government of Canada was toying with the idea of enforcing Shari'ah law in the state of Toronto but none other than progressive Muslim women and men themselves opposed government's intention to apply Shari'ah law and in view of stiff opposition by these Muslims, government gave up the idea'

Now comes the news that the U.K. Government may also think of applying Shari'ah law to Muslims of U.K. the Archbishop of Canterbury has also favored this measure. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop is reported to have said that the adoption of some aspects of Shari'ah law in the UK seems unavoidable. May be Archbishop is extending hand of friendship towards the Muslim minority which is of considerable size by now and is seeking some kind of accommodation with Muslim leaders. Or, may be he is under pressure to approve of application of Muslim law.

The BJP in this country wants Muslim law to be abolished although Muslim majority in India is much greater in size than in the UK. At one time it was unthinkable for Muslims of UK to have Islamic law applied to them but fast increasing population is creating pressure on the government. Though as yet we have not heard any opposing voice from progressive Muslims of UK, it may be matter of time before it is heard.

If Islamic law as codified by Muslim jurists of medieval ages is applied, it will create more problems for Muslim women. Our 'Ulama voice stiff opposition to any change in the law in keeping with the Qur'anic spirit, it can certainly better the modern laws pertaining to marriage, divorce and property rights. But problem is our jurists and 'ulama are too rigid to agree for any re-thinking even in the sprit of Qur'an.

Also, as rightly pointed out by some commentators there is no single law. Islamic law is different for Muslims of different sects. Even Sunni Muslims are divided into various legal schools like Shafi'I, Hanafi, Maliki and Hanbali and in U.K. there are Muslims, following all these schools besides Shi'ah Ithna 'Asharis and Isma'ilis. Though marriage may not be much of a problem but divorce and inheritance laws can cause major problems in these different schools of law.

Though men will certainly gain but Muslim women will be great loosers, if one goes by traditional Shari'ah laws. The Qur'anic provisions were interpreted in medieval cultural ethos and women, in that cultural milieu was far from equal. In western countries discrimination on the basis of gender is a major issue and educated Muslim women mainly complain against discriminatory practices in the extant Shari'ah laws.

In all Muslim countries there is movement for change in existing Shari'ah laws and particularly women are demanding change and progressive men conscious of gender equality support them. If Shari'ah law is applied in countries like UK, will it be applied as it exists, say in Sunni schools or it will be reformed? If it is reformed who will bring about reforms? In India Muslim women are against oral divorce pronounced in one breath and 'Ulama oppose any such change. It is ultimately secular courts, which are rejecting triple divorce insisting on proof for divorce.

The Muslim women in India are also pressing for standard nikahnama which is perfectly Islamic as marriage is contract in Islam and yet 'Ulama are not agreeing to nikah contract favoring women in Iran too, there is women's movement and many women have been condemned to death by stoning on charges of adultery and the Islamic jurists are not prepared to effect any change in traditional Ithna Ashari law prevalent in Iran. Those women demanding reforms have been sent to jail. There is also muta' marriage in force in Iran which again favors men.

In Saudi Arabia there are much severer problems and women cannot even enter into business deal directly without a male member apart from being forbidden to drive vehicles. They cannot vote in elections also. Recently municipal elections were introduced in Saudi Arabia but women were not allowed to vote despite demand from women.

I have met many 'ulama in UK. They are as conservative as in Islamic countries, perhaps even more in the alien environment of UK and other Western countries. If any attempt is made to apply Islamic law in UK it will trigger off bitter controversy between Muslims and non-Muslims, on one hand, and between Muslims and Muslims, on the other. The Muslim women are bound to protest.

Large number of Muslims is from various Arab and African countries with extremely conservative background and if 'ulama oppose any change in Muslim law or its selective application and these conservative Muslims will fully back up these 'ulama. Obviously, progressive Muslims wanting change in Shari'ah law will be outnumbered and the Government will have to listen to the conservatives.

Though there is provision for re-thinking in Islamic law called ijtihad, to this day 'ulama never allowed any one including one of their own tribe, to resort to ijtihad. An 'alim of standing of Muhammad 'Abduh in Egypt in late nineteenth century and early twentieth century had to face stiff opposition for his advocacy of change and re-thinking of Islamic laws. Though he rose to the high status of grand mufti of Egypt, yet he could not bring any change.

When the then President Sadat's wife Jehan Sadat used her influence to introduce a law by interpreting a verse of the Qur'an that a marriage would be registered only if husband bought a house in the name of his wife, it was removed immediately after the assassination of Sadat. Hosni Mubarak, the present president of Egypt also faced stiff opposition from the 'ulama of al-Azhar when he introduced a bill empowering women to obtain khula' (women's right to obtain divorce without husband's consent). He had to agree to a compromise formula before he could get the law passed.

This is the state of affairs in Islamic countries where reform should have been easier in totally Islamic milieu. How difficult it would be in non-Islamic countries, one can well imagine. In India where there are largest number of Muslims next only to Indonesia, ulama have opposed any change saying it is Muslim minority country and non-Muslim government has not right to interfere in Islamic laws.

When the Supreme Court of India granted maintenance to an aged woman beyond iddah period, the 'ulama, as well as Muslim political leaders, raised storm of protest and ultimately Government of India reversed the judgment of the highest court by enacting a law restricting maintenance within the iddah period. Thus UK Muslims will also face these dilemmas once Islamic law is introduced in UK or for that matter in any European and other western countries like USA or Canada.

The 'ulama consider formulations of medieval ages sacred and even divine. For them the Qur'anic concept of justice is secondary to men's authority over women. Men's right to divorce is considered as absolute whereas women's right is constrained by men's consent. Thus it is men who has authority to divorce although there is no such authority given by the Qur'an to men.

The 'ulama consider women as weak and emotional and incapable of taking proper decision and hence only men should take crucial decisions though women could be consulted. By the same reason they also think that a woman should not become head of state as it would be disaster for the state. This view is supposedly based on one hadith authenticity of which has been questioned.

Today there is great need for re-codification of Islamic laws and if Qur'anic spirit is followed in re-codification of Islamic laws in the areas of marriage, divorce and inheritance, these laws will be as good as modern laws based on the concept of gender equality and also much of the differences between various madhahib (schools of law) can be minimized.

These differences between various schools of law are precisely because of differences of opinion between jurists as also due to impact of local conditions, customs and traditions. Despite these differences all the jurists of the time were agreed on one thing: women are sinferior to men in every respect though there is no such assumption in Qur'an at all. This assumption of inferiority of female sex was introduced by the 'ulama and jurists who were themselves product of patriarchal ethos.

The Qur'anic injunctions on personal laws have no such direct or even indirect assumption and hence these injunctions prioritize women's rights. However, the right-based discourse for women could not be accepted by patriarchs of the time even though it was divine and hence Shari'ah laws were based more on patriarchal opinions and divinity was subjected to patriarchy.

Gender equality, originally found in Qur'an and lost in medieval patriarchal ethos has to be rediscovered buried in Qur'anic revelation and then only gender justice can be restored.

Brick Kiln Labourer Demands Right to Education

2008-03-06T10:20:00.001+11:00

Brick by brick: Narrative of a bonded labourer who made bricks and studied alongside

By Aoun Sahi

He is not the man next door as you may like to think in your first meeting. Liaqat Javed, 29, of Bhobattian, a suburban Lahore village, is the son of a debt-slave brick kiln labourer. He has worked with his family at different brick kilns for more than a decade. Though, unlike his brothers and friends, he did not miss his school. Till the time that he passed matriculation examination in 1997, he went to school in the mornings and worked at the bhatta in the evenings.

He always dreamt of getting rid of that terrible life. His friends at the kiln used to make fun of him. They thought he had no right to dream about getting out of there because they had all been sent to the world 'to serve as slaves'.

Not everyone around was discouraging though, least of all his parents, especially his father, who had to pay a price. They worked extra hours to manage his education expenses but never forbade him from pursuing his studies.

Fighting against all odds, he finally managed to do his Masters in Political Science from Forman Christian College Lahore. "My father had to borrow money on interest to pay my college fee. During my college days we lived in Landianwala Vara, a village situated on Multan Road, some 50 kilometres away from the college. I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning to reach the college in time. Throughout the day I did not eat because I couldn't afford it and had my meal after getting back home around 5 in the evening. I have spent days when I had only one or two rupees in my pocket but never missed the college" he says.

Javed now runs an organisation, Backward's Rehabilitation and Improvement Commission (BRIC) aimed at educating the children living at brick kilns with their families.
Before doing his matriculation Javed wanted to become a doctor, but one incident changed his entire life. "In 1990 an international NGO opened a school at the bhatta where we used to live. My younger sister Shahnaz and her friend Amina started going to that school. In 1995 a Swedish television channel made a documentary 'My Life is Mine' about that school with special focus on Shahnaz and Amina. In 1997 that NGO took both Shahnaz and Amina to Sweden where the media portrayed them as heroines and leaders of change. We still have copies of many Swedish newspapers and magazines that gave special coverage to both of them. But when they returned to Pakistan after one month the NGO closed that school and these girls were again forced to work at brick kiln with their families."

Javed was shocked at how the heroines of yesterday were pushed back to square one -- helpless brick-kiln labourers. That was the time when he promised himself to help them get rid of this slavish existence.

This was the beginning of his struggle. By now he had started thinking about all the children of brick kiln labourers. "I started teaching Shahnaz and Amina in the night and within one year both of them succeeded in passing their matriculation exams as well."

In 1997 they (Javed, Shahnaz and Amina) also started visiting different brick kilns on their own to motivate people to educate their children. "We also started giving basic education to these children. It was a challenging task as nobody was ready to help us. Even the international NGO that had publicised Shahnaz and Amina was not ready to listen to us. But we did not lose hope and confidence in ourselves," he says.

In a few years some youth brick workers became part of their struggle but they were unable to finance them and that was the reason they started raising funds by visiting different schools, madrasas and churches. "We used to ask for one rupee from each student and in this way our struggle continued. But it was not enough to meet all the needs. In 1999 we opened a primary school at a brick kiln near Manga Mandi but most of the time we were unable to even pay the salary to the only teacher of the school. He was a very nice person and did not demand a salary every month. But before Eidul Fitr he asked for salary and was justified. At that time I had no money. I borrowed 400 kg wheat from a woman in a village and sold it to pay him Rs 3300 as salary. So these were the conditions under which we were working," he continues.

In the year 2000 they decided to establish the BRIC and for the first time also hired an office for the organisation. "This was the year when I left living at a brick kiln for the first time in my life," he recalls. In 2003 the organization was registered as an NGO and the same year Rotary Club Mozang Lahore provided BRIC funds to establish 23 literacy centres on different brick kilns. "We ran a literacy centre for six months on a brick kiln and all the people from ages 10 to 24 were given basic education. The Rotary Club was even ready to fund us for 100 literacy centres but we were not content with the curriculum they wanted us to teach because we thought it was not appropriate for brick workers. In 2005 after having consultation with experts and keeping in mind the brick workers' psyche, economics and atmosphere we developed our own syllabus."

From 2003 onwards the BRIC has run 74 literacy centres with the financial support of Rotary Club, Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF) with Pastor Stanley Sjoberg of Stockholm Sweden at different brick kilns of Lahore, Kasur, Chiniot and Jhang districts. So far they have been able to educate 1604 brick kiln workers. "This year 16 students will appear in primary level exams and that is a big achievement for us," Javed announces proudly.

According to him funds are still the basic problem for BRIC. "So far none of the members is getting a salary. This year for the first time that we have received Rs 20,000 per month as structural expenditures from Pastor Stanley Sjoberg," he says. The entire staff of BRIC resides in the office of the organisation because none of them has his own house (as they come from families of brick workers).

One of Javed's student, Azeem Rashid, a 13 year old brick worker at Madina Brick Kiln will appear in primary examination this year. He says he has been working as brick worker that since his childhood and now he can make more than 700 bricks a day. "But I want to study and live a normal life."

"Javed bhai and other people came to our place in 2005. I was also a student at literacy centre. After completion of literacy centre duration of six month, I requested him that I want to study and since then BRIC has been providing me complete guidance and this year hopefully I will pass primary level," he says. Rashid too wants to liberate his family from this 'terrible' life "like Javed bhai".
He does not know that Javed has not succeeded in getting his whole family out so far. "It is right that I am now living a life many times better than brick workers and have succeeded in arranging education for one of my younger brother and sister but one of my elder brother still works as brick worker." Two brothers of Amina, his early day colleagues at BRIC, are also working as debt-slaves at the bhattas. "If we want to free them, we need to pay a heavy amount which they took as advance from the owners. Majority of them are illiterate. The brick kiln owners most of the time pay them upto Rs 2,000 but instead get signatures on a receipt of Rs 5,000."

He says the prime focus of his effort is to give the brick workers have basic education to get rid of this unjustified practice. "I know that my effort may have a minimal effect on the working conditions and lives of brick workers but one thing is clear that more than 90 per cent of those 1604 brick workers whom we have given basic education will at least educate their children. And that will be a huge contribution, " he says. Along with educating the brick workers BRIC also provides health facilities and legal aid to them.

The most beautiful day in Javed's life came in 2005 when he paid Rs. 23,000 to the brick kiln owner to free his father. "I still have that receipt with me that mentions that my father has paid all the amount that he took as advance and now he is a free man." It took his father more than 30 years to become a free man again. "I am working hard and hopeful that in coming June I will also succeed in paying the debt of my brother. I wish every brick worker family has a Javed. This is what I am striving for."

for feedback: aounsahi@gmail. com

http://jang. com.pk/thenews/ mar2008-weekly/ nos-02-03- 2008/enc. htm#1

AHRC Statement: Assault of Daughters of Asma Jehangir

2008-03-05T10:41:00.000+11:00

PAKISTAN: Daughters of Asma Jehangir assaulted and threatened by gunmen of the ruling party

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AHRC-STM-002-2008
January 2, 2008

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission

PAKISTAN: Daughters of Asma Jehangir assaulted and threatened by gunmen of the ruling party

The two daughters of Ms. Asma Jehangir, a well known lawyer, human rights activist and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of religion or belief, were assaulted and illegally held for several hours along with their friends by armed persons of the Pakistan Muslim League Q (PML-Q); they were beaten severely and threatened to be killed. One of the girls was pushed into a room and this was only prevented due to the intervention of their mother. Ms. Asma. Ms. Asma herself was also threatened by the gunmen who used very filthy language against her. When police were called to the scene they took the side of the gunmen who claimed to be police officers. However, only two out of this group were policemen and the 20 other gunmen belonged to the PML-Q.

This incident happened at 1.30am when Ms. Muneeza Jehangir, Asma¡¦s eldest daughter along with her younger sister Ms. Sulema Jehangir and other friends, were making a video clip for her television channel, the Geo TV. She was filming the ripped posters and banners of the political parties in Lahore city, Punjab province, after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former premier who was killed on December 27.

When they were filming the torn posters of the ruling party, which contained photographs of President Musharraf and other party leaders, some armed men arrived and held the two sisters and their companions at gun point. They were then ordered to follow the gunmen and when they resisted the gunmen beat them in public and dragged them to the PML-Q main election office of the province. At the office they were once again beaten and the men trained their guns on them. Someone then told the gunmen that the girls were the daughters of Asma Jehangir. The leader revealed that he was aware of their identities and then four of the gunmen started dragging the youngest one into a small room.

When she heard about this incident Ms. Asma Jehangir reached the party office but was refused entry as they physically restrained her and threatened her with their guns. Fortunately she managed to climb the iron gate of the party office and she saw that her eldest daughter and her friends were detained by more than ten armed persons and her youngest daughter was being carried by some other persons to a separate room. She immediately informed the Ghalib police station who reached the scene after some time. The police took the side of the armed men and pressurized the parents of the friends of her daughters to hand over the video tape which they did. The police then threatened the parents that they should not report this incident otherwise the girls would be kidnapped, raped and killed. The police also pressured the parents to stop Ms. Asma Jehangir from making this incident know and claimed that she would bear the responsibility for whatever might happen in the future.

The Asian Human Rights Commission condemns this incident of kidnapping, the illegal holding and threats of violence against the daughters of Ms. Asma Jehangir by the armed elements of the PML-Q. This incident is an attempt to harass human rights activists and their family members for speaking out against the military regime.

The AHRC condemns this attack and calls upon the government of Pakistan to conduct an inquiry into this matter and to arrest the culprits. However, at the same time the AHRC is quite skeptical as to whether any inquiry will be made into this matter unless there is pressure from the civil rights movement in the country and the international community. In the aftermath of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto it is quite likely that the military regime and the ruling party will attempt to silence the human rights and democratic activists. As the judges who defied the imposition of the state of emergency have been virtually dismissed from their posts there is little to be expected from the present judiciary of Pakistan by way of protection to citizens against acts of the regime and the ruling party. The AHRC calls upon the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to cause an inquiry into this incident and to take other appropriate action.

# # #

About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

Equality Now Action: The Case of Dr. Shazia

2008-03-05T10:13:00.000+11:00

Women's Action 26.1
August 2005

Pakistan: The Hudood Ordinances--Denial of Justice for Rape: The Case of Dr. Shazia

It is extremely difficult for me to recount those horrible moments, but I will do it for those thousands of sisters who are stuck in the grind of this society, this savage society. I will recount that sad story so I can be the voice for all my sisters who also suffered like me. I will do it so no court can just do paperwork and be a puppet for the government and victimize the victims. I will do it so every woman should be treated with respect.

Dr. Shazia in a statement to the Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Women

Dr. Shazia is a 32-year-old Pakistani physician who worked at a hospital run by Pakistan Petroleum Limited, a state-owned natural gas supplier in Baluchistan, a remote area of Pakistan. On 2 January 2005, Dr. Shazia was attacked and raped in her home, a guarded compound, by an intruder who broke in at night while she was sleeping. She reported the crime to the police despite intense pressure to keep silent, but instead of apprehending and punishing her attacker, the government of Pakistan has forced Dr. Shazia and her husband Khalid to flee the country under threats of death. Here is her story in her own words, as told to journalist Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times:

It was a routine day. I left for the hospital and I locked the gate to my residence. At 8pm, I returned and unlocked the gate and then relocked it. I went inside and I ate dinner and said my prayers. I watched a little television and then went to sleep at 10pm. I was sound asleep, and I felt someone pushing my hair. At first, I thought I was dreaming. When he started pushing harder, I woke up. The room was dark. I felt him pushing my neck even harder and I couldn’t breathe. I tried to scream. I tried to shout for help. He took a cord, and put it around my neck and began strangling me. I yelled and fought to get away from him, but all my fighting was useless. I was helpless. I tried to reach for the phone that was beside the bed, but he took the receiver and hit me on the head, and then he raped me. I said to him, “For the sake of God, for the sake of Mohammad, I have not wronged you, why are you doing this to me?” He said, “Be quiet.” He told me there was a man named Amjad outside with a can of kerosene, and they would set me on fire if I didn’t keep quiet. I said to him, “You must have your own sisters, or daughters, or mother.” He told me to shut up. He blindfolded me with my scarf, he pistol-whipped me, and he raped me again. When he was done, he covered me with a blanket and tied my wrists with a telephone wire, but he didn’t leave. He stayed in my room and watched the English language television. I was badly beaten and I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was so scared I couldn’t breathe. Eventually, I tried to loosen the bindings on my wrist, and I was able to get a hold of scissors to free myself. I then fled to the home of one of the nurses. I was in trauma and shock. I didn’t say it, but she could see that I had been raped.

Doctors of Pakistan Petroleum were called in, but they told Dr. Shazia not to tell the police about the rape. They later told the authorities that she did not want to pursue the case. Her head was bleeding from the attack, but they let her sit there without tending her wounds and would not let her contact her family. Instead they sedated her and sent her secretly by charter airplane to a psychiatric hospital in Karachi, from which her brother and sister-in-law brought her home and contacted her husband Khalid, who was working in Libya. In her words:

Khalid immediately called me, and I told him everything that happened. He said he was with me and that I was innocent and that I should go give a statement to the police. He told me not to worry and that it wasn’t my fault. On January 9th the police took my statement. We were told by the military intelligence that within 48 hours, the culprit would be caught. We were then moved to another house by the government. We were held there under house arrest. I wanted justice. I know the government knows who the culprit is. A military intelligence officer told us they knew, but they haven’t done a thing. In the capital, while we were under house arrest, we saw the President on television. He said that my life was in danger. Meanwhile, Khalid’s grandfather declared that I was “kari” [a stain on the family honor] and that Khalid should divorce me and that his family should not have anything more to do with me. I thought I was going to be killed to save the honor of Khalid’s family. If I was to be murdered, I thought I should commit suicide. I took a knife, and I went to the bathroom. Khalid sensed what was happening, and he and my adopted son came to stop me. My adopted son said to me, “Mum if you kill yourself, I will also kill myself.”

The government forced Dr. Shazia to sign a statement saying that she had been given government help and that she wanted to close the matter. Officials let it be known that if she did not sign, it was likely she and her husband would end up dead. She was told that the safest thing for them was to leave Pakistan. She was told that if she tried to take action against Pakistan Petroleum, they would make life very difficult for her family. The case had already provoked additional unrest among tribal residents in Baluchistan hostile to government forces there. So she left the country with her husband, but the government would not let her son go with them. She was also told not to go and see any human rights organizations. Dr. Shazia is effectively in exile, and she has been unable to get political asylum in Canada where she has family. She would like to see justice done. In her words:

The government of Pakistan must understand that a basic need of their country is to provide justice to the victims. They must care about the rights of women. And if unfortunate incidents like mine occur, justice should be given to the woman. They shouldn’t do what they’ve done with me. They’ve exiled me and my husband and closed my case. The culprit is still able to walk the streets of Pakistan. It is not an example of justice. They need to know that women are also part of the country.

According to press reports cited by the Pakistan Human Rights Commission, a non-governmental organization, more than 10,000 women are raped every year in Pakistan, although the real figure is thought to be much higher. As in all countries, women are often reluctant to report rape, for social reasons as well as distrust of the judicial process. In Pakistan, there are additional legal barriers to pursuing a rape conviction. The rape law itself, one of the offenses of zina under the Hudood Ordinances, requires either the confession of the perpetrator or the eye-witness testimony of at least four Muslim adult male witnesses to the rape. If she is unable to prove rape, a woman who reports rape to the police is vulnerable to prosecution herself under the Hudood Ordinances for fornication if she is unmarried or adultery if she is married. In addition to these formidable legal barriers to the prosecution of rape, there have been several reports of police involvement in rapes and gang-rapes and of police protection of those accused of rape, particularly when they are from influential families. Women who have been raped are also at risk of “honor” killings, whereby a male relative kills them because they are thought to have dishonored the family’s name in the community by transgressing social norms, which is seen to include having been raped. It has been estimated that on average one thousand “honor” killings take place each year in Pakistan.

Even the Pakistan Government’s National Commission on the Status of Women has recommended repeal of the Hudood Ordinances on the grounds that they are discriminatory towards women and not in accordance with Islamic injunctions. They are also contrary to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), to which Pakistan is a party, and to the Constitution of Pakistan, which states at Article 25 that “(1) All citizens are equal before law and are entitled for equal protection of law. (2) There shall be no discrimination on the basis of sex alone.”

Recommended Actions
Please write to the Pakistani officials listed below. Ask them to take immediate steps to ensure the repeal or amendment of the Hudood Ordinances to remove the discrimination against women and ensure that women who have been raped receive equal protection under the law in accordance with Pakistan’s own Constitution and its obligations under CEDAW. Urge them to ensure that Dr. Shazia’s case is immediately and fully investigated and that those responsible for her rape, as well as those who threatened Dr. Shazia with death or other harm, are brought to justice. Please also write to the Canadian authorities to ask that Dr. Shazia, Khalid and her adopted son be allowed to live and work in Canada where they have relatives and are hoping to resettle. Letters should be addressed to:

General Pervez Musharraf
President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Aiwan-E-Sadr
Islamabad, PAKISTAN
Fax: +92-51-922-1422
To e-mail President Musharraf, please go to: http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/WTPresidentMessage.aspx

Mr. Muhammad Wasi Zafar
Minister of Law, Justice & Human Rights
S-Block, Pak Secretariat
Islamabad, PAKISTAN
Fax: +92-51-920-2628
E-mail: minister@molaw.gov.pk

The Honorable Diane Finley, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
Jean-Edmonds South Tower, 21st Floor
365 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 1L1, CANADA
Fax: +1-613-957-2688
E-mail: Minister@cic.gc.ca

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