August 2, 2003	Saturday	Jumadi-us-Sani 3, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 1: The Pakistan Muslim League-N has renewed its pledge to continue the struggle to politically empower the people and to restore democracy and parliament’s supremacy.

The pledge was made in a joint meeting of the Central Working Committee (CWC) and the parliamentary group of the party here on Friday.

The meeting, presided over by the party chairman, Raja Zafarul Haq, was attended by acting president Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, Tehmina Daultana, Pir Sabir Shah, Saranjam Zamindar, Ahsan Iqbal, Syed Zafar Ali Shah, Siddiqul Farooq and others.

Talking to the reporters after the meeting, PML-N chairman Raja Zafarul Haq said the party had decided that there would be no compromise on the issues of Legal Framework Order (LFO) and the president’s uniform.

He said the meeting felt that Gen Musharraf’s stubbornness on the issues of uniform and the LFO had pushed both the democratic system and the armed forces into a crisis. On one hand, he said, the parliamentary structure devised by Gen Musharraf remained paralyzed, and on the other, the prestige of armed forces was being rapidly eroded due to their controversial political and economic role.

He regretted that the entire nation had lost faith in the freedom and independence of the judiciary, which was evident in the expression of lack of confidence in judiciary by the representative lawyer bodies of the country.

Mr Haq said the meeting also renewed the pledge made by the combined opposition at the platform of all-parties conferences, which stated that the LFO was not part of the Constitution, and Gen Musharraf was not president of the country.

The meeting, he said, demanded appointment of a new army chief, and that the schedule of electing a president according to the terms and procedure laid down in the Constitution should be issued in order to complete the parliament.

The PML-N leader expressed concern over the pressure for dispatching Pakistani troops to Iraq. The resolution, passed in the meeting, warned the government that the deployment of Pakistani troops in Iraq would not only seriously hurt the sentiments of the people, but also cause irreparable damage to national interests.

The PML-N leader also condemned indiscriminate arrests of Pakistani citizens on mere suspicion of terrorism, and involvement of foreign agencies in these operations.

He condemned the murder of four judges in Sialkot jail, and said such incidents were the result of incompetence of law- enforcement agencies, whom the government had reserved for surveillance and harassment of political opponents instead of focusing on uncovering and punishing the criminals.

Mr Haq expressed sympathies with the families affected by recent rains and floods, particularly with the people suffering huge loss of life and property due to vast devastation in the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan.

The PML-N believed the government was directly responsible for the devastation, because it failed to warn the people of the affected areas and to take steps for their safety despite timely forecast by the meteorological department.

The participants of the meeting condemned the government for failing to provide adequate relief to the affected people. The called for free distribution of seeds and interest-free loans among the farmers to enable them sow new crops.

The meeting decided to set up a special relief fund of PML-N, and expressed the resolve to work with dedication for rehabilitation of the affected families.