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| October 3, 2005 | Monday | Sha’aban 28, 1426 |
ARD calls for joint action against govt
MUZAFFARABAD, Oct 2: Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) Chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim has said that military dictatorship is the mother of all evils in Pakistan and urged the democratic forces to launch a joint struggle to rid the country of despotism.
“The People’s Party wants to take along all the democratic forces for restoration of true democracy in the country and it is binding upon all democratic forces to launch a joint struggle to rid the country of dictatorship,” he said.
The ARD chief was addressing a function held here on Sunday at the AJK University Auditorium to pay homage to PPAJK leader and former deputy speaker of AJK assembly Syed Shaukat Hussain Naqvi. Mr Naqvi was killed in a bomb blast in a Sialkot mosque on Oct 1, 2004.
The death anniversary function was also addressed by PPP Secretary General Jehangir Badar, PPAJK President Sahibzada Mohammad Ishaq Zaffar and Secretary General Chaudhry Mohammad Yasin among others.
“Today Pakistan is hemmed by problems only because of the dictatorship and the whole nation has been made to suffer its repercussions. It is therefore our national duty to rid the country of tyrants who have usurped the right to vote of hundreds of thousands of people,” the ARD chief said.
“First of all every political party should join hands with the other to free the country of dictatorship and then play the game according to its own choice and convenience. Until we purge the country of dictatorship we cannot bring here true democracy and prosperity,” he added.
Tracing the history of dictators, he said Gen Ayub had doled out three rivers to India, Gen Yahya dismembered the country and Gen Zia gave the gifts of heroin and Kalashnikov culture to the nation.
He said: “But the worst-ever crime committed by Gen Zia was sending the first elected prime minister of this country who also gave a unanimous constitution to it to the gallows.”
He alleged that Gen Zia had enforced the divide and rule policy to linger his illegal rule and in return the country got ethnic and sectarian violence.
Referring to some comments by speakers that the perpetrators of the Sialkot blast could not be punished, he said removal of the dictator was also essential for freedom of justice in Pakistan.
He said: “Unless the PPP workers and the general public struggle for freedom of justice, their rights cannot be safeguarded.”
The PPP secretary general accused the government of pushing its opponents to the wall on the strength of money and state machinery but vowed that his party would not allow the practice to succeed.
Of Benazir Bhutto’s return to Pakistan, he asserted that no power could stop their leader from returning to her country.
“The moment our committee makes a decision to that effect she will instantly return to Pakistan irrespective of the after effects,” he said.
He said his party had neither compromised its principles regarding democracy in the past nor would it resort to any such step now.
Praising the vision of Ms Bhutto about the Kashmir issue, Mr Badar recalled that when she had suggested that meetings of the Kashmiris from both sides of the Line of Control should be held to facilitate a peaceful solution of the lingering problem, myopic politicians had strongly opposed it but today everybody was toeing her line.
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