17 April 2005	Sunday	07 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1426

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

ISLAMABAD, April 16: The People’s Rights Movement (PRM) and its constituent member Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) have condemned the government’s continuation of a policy of corporatizing the fisheries sector.

In a statement issued here, Aasim Sajjad of the PRM and Mohammad Ali Shah of the PFF said in 2004, the government agreed to withdraw Rangers from coastal areas in Badin, thereby ending decades of contract fishing that had destroyed the livelihoods of local fishing communities.

Under an agreement between Sindh government and representatives of the PFF, fishing rights along the coast and inland were to be granted to indigenous communities.

However, the government has not lived up to its commitment in this regard, the statement said. In the first instance, the Sindh government attempted to auction fishing rights to the private sector in Badin’s coastal areas only two months after the initial agreement, thereby attempting to replace Rangers with private companies.

When the PFF and its allies resisted the attempt through mass mobilization, the provincial government again vowed to abolish contract fishing entirely. However, recently, the Sindh government has once again publicly announced that it will be auctioning rights to fishing at Manchar Lake in Sanghar, an area already damaged after years of neglect, the statement said.

The auction scheduled to be held on April 15 was postponed after a protest rally in Sanghar on April 13.

The government’s insistence on corporatizing sectors such as agriculture and fisheries has badly undermined the livelihoods of a vast number of working class Pakistanis.

In particular, on the 1,800km southern coastline spanning Sindh and Balochistan, foreign corporate trawlers have been issued licences to plunder the seas at the expense of local fishing communities and the marine ecology at large, the statement said.

It is estimated that 95 per cent of Pakistan’s fish stock is already finished as a result of over-fishing, it said.

The PRM and PFF leaders said global capitalism was creating greater polarization than ever before and repressive state apparatus such as that in Pakistan is victimizing those working class groups that are attempting to resist this onslaught.

They said despite repression, the corporatization of subsistence sectors would continue to be resisted at all levels.

They warned the state of the long-term consequences of pushing working Pakistanis to a situation that would necessarily elicit a massive reaction. The working classes are regrouping and a nationwide movement of working people opposing neo-liberal expansion and the neo-colonial Pakistani state will eventually emerge no matter how long it takes, they said.