Opposition MPs stage token hunger strike outside parliament
By Our Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD, Sept 23: The combined Opposition on Tuesday staged a token hunger strike outside the parliament building to protest against President Pervez Musharraf’s visit to the UN to represent Pakistan at the world organization.
MMA and ARD leaders declared that General Musharraf was a “disputed person” as he was not an elected president and hence not competent to represent the country at any international forum.
The Opposition MPs, joined by a small group of youth, chanted slogans against President Musharraf and the LFO and announced that they would continue their protest inside and outside parliament against the LFO.
The MNAs and senators belonging to the ARD and allied parties, except the MMA, marched to the gates of the Parliament House after the walkout from the National Assembly and sat across the Constitution Avenue where they kept chanting anti-President and anti-LFO slogans.
The demonstrators carried banners inscribed with slogans such as: “This fight for democracy will continue”, “Give the non- elected ones and the traitors of the Constitution a last push”, “Mir Jaffer of the 21st century — Gen Musharraf”, “Hamara Naara Dictator Say Chutkara”, “Article Six, Gen Musharraf in a fix” and “Down with the friends of Gen Musharraf.”
Though the MMA did not participate in the demonstration in full strength, its leaders Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Liaqat Baloch and Hafiz Hussain Ahmed visited the camp and remained there for some time and announced their solidarity with the hunger strikers.
MMA parliamentary leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed told reporters that they saw no other alternative but to launch a forceful movement in order to get the 1973 Constitution restored in letter and in spirit.
He said there was no evidence so far of any preparations for dissolution of elected institutions but the Opposition must guard against such an eventuality.
He asserted that the MMA had offered “maximum flexibility” on the issue of uniform but the constitutional package delivered to it by the government made no mention of the issue.
Meanwhile, an ugly situation developed when PPP Parliamentarians lawmaker Naheed Khan leading a group of youth at the Gates of parliament blocked entry of one Treasury MNA.
Ms Khan, a close confidant of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto, came with a group of People’s Youth and PSF youngsters and kept chanting slogans at entry gates of the Parliament House while other Opposition leaders spoke to journalists at the hunger strikers’ camp nearby.
Makhdoom Amin Fahim, chief of PPP Parliamentarians, Javed Hashmi, Parliamentary leader of PML-N and ARD, PPP leaders Mian Raza Rabbani, Raja Parvez Ashraf and MMA leaders Liaqat Baloch and Hafiz Hussain Ahmed were the main speakers besides a large number of male and female lawmakers who expressed their views on the occasion.
They said no one could becom president through a “sham referendum” and if any government servant was eager to become the president, he should first give up his military uniform, keep himself away from politics for two years and then contest the election in accordance with the method given in the Constitution.
Referring to President Musharraf’s US visit and address to the UN General Assembly the Opposition leaders said it was violative of the internationally-acknowledged parliamentary traditions.
They said that by staging a token hunger strike against President Musharraf’s address to the UN General Assembly, the combined Opposition had given a message to the world that “being a dictator who has abrogated the Constitution and trespassed his constitutional powers, he was an individual who does not represent the nation.”
The Opposition leaders said the nation was determined to send the army back to barracks.
They said that institutions which were supposed to deliver justice and resist pressures of the dictators, had become a tool in the hands of the Generals.
They warned that President Gen Musharraf would have to face one day the death penalty proposed for a traitor whenever Article 6 of Constitution was invoked.
Some other MPs who spoke on the occasion were: Sahibzada Fazal Karim, Dr Razia, Sher Mohammad Baloch, Rana Mehmudul Hasan, Khawaja Saad Rafiq, Zamurad Khan, Ribana Sadat Khakwani, Sahibzada Jalil Sharkpuri, Syed Qurban Ali Shah, Yusuf Talpur, Shahid Bhutto, Tehmina Daultana and Mehrin Anwar Raja.
