October 29, 2002	Tuesday	Sha’aban 22,1423

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 28: The People’s Rights Movement (PRM) held a demonstration here on Monday against the unholy alliance of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and the government.

The participants held placards expressing their dissatisfaction over the ongoing arrangements the government had worked out with international donor agencies. They marched from the Constitution Avenue to the World Bank where they met the bank’s country director, John Wall.

They then went to the Asian Development Bank and met with the bank’s senior economic adviser, Naved Hamid, and presented him with a charter of demand.

The protesters chanted slogans against privatization, corporate farming, mistreatment of landless tenants across the Punjab, kutcha abadi dwellers, affected people of Chashma Right Bank Irrigation Project funded by the Asian Development Bank, Ghazi Barotha Hydropower Project (GBHP) and the corporatization of education, health, agriculture and fisheries. According to the charter of demand, the military’s commitment to unbridled corporatization in education, health, agriculture, fisheries and a host of other sectors be stopped, furthermore we strongly protest against the dictates of IFIs and demand that they stop interfering in the political process in the country.

It further said the demands of Anjuman Mazarain Punjab (AMP) be accepted as legitimate whereby harassment and violence that had been committed against them be investigated and all activists in jail be released.

Similarly, the tenants of Hashtanagar who are currently facing eviction should also be accorded permanent ownership rights, it maintained.

In this connection, the PRM demands that the corporate agriculture farming (CAF) initiative and related amendments in land reform legislation be immediately suspended. It further added that the corporatization of health and education be brought to an immediate halt and the provision of basic services such as health, education, and water should remain in public domain.