22 November 2004	Monday	09 Shawwal 1425

PESHAWAR, Nov 21: The Labour Party Pakistan (LPP) on Sunday formally launched its NWFP chapter under the name of LPP (Pukhtookhwa) and supported the right of self-determination and the right of secession of nations.

The party's provincial congress, presided over by Salim Raz, chief of Aalmi Pukhtoon Congress, was organized at a local hotel. LPP secretary-general Tariq Farooq, Salim Raz and Farooq Ahmed Pohan spoke on the occasion.

The congress adopted a document outlining its future line of action. It demanded immediate return of the army to barracks, implementation of agricultural reforms, end of the "decisive role" of the World Bank and IMF in the country's economic and political affairs and restoration of "real" democracy.

A large number of left-wing politicians from Afghanistan also attended the congress. Some of these politicians termed the "Socialist Revolution" led by Noor Mohammad Tarakai a military coup which had imposed an imperial war on Afghanistan.

A spokesman for the LPP urged the estranged Afghan politicians to ponder over the failure of the Afghan revolution and learn from the mistakes committed by the revolutionaries.

The launch of the LPP, however, revived the dead issue of the Afghan revolution and the Pukhtoon national question in the province. Lauding the formal launch of the LPP Pukhtoonkhwa, Salim Raz urged its workers to equip themselves with Marxist philosophy and understand the class structure of the society for waging struggle for socialist revolution in Pakistan.

He supported the deployment of former Soviet armed forces in Afghanistan in 1979 and termed it a 'friendly support' rather than an aggression by a foreign power. He advised the LPP leaders to take a clear-cut stand on the Afghan revolution if they wanted to win the hearts and minds of the Pukhtoons living across the border.

LPP secretary-general Tariq Farooq said his party opposed those people who had joined forces with the CIA and Jihadi parties against Dr Najib and his Watan Party. Similarly, he said, the LPP opposed all such elements who had joined hands with the United States against fundamentalists, he added.