KARACHI: ARD wants NA to take up foreign troops issue
By Our Reporter
KARACHI, Nov 1: The Chairman Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD), Makhdoom Amin Fahim, has reiterated the alliance’s position on not attending the round table conference called by the government to deliberate on the devastation caused by the earthquake in the northern parts of the country.
He also called for it to be the parliament’s prerogative to decide when and where Pakistani troops should be deployed in a foreign land and when foreign troops should enter and operate on our soil.
He was responding to a question on the role of American and NATO personnel in rescue and relief work in the earthquake affected areas while talking to journalists at the residence of General Secretary PPP, Sindh chapter Nafis Siddiqui on Tuesday.
He said his colleagues would support any bill by two-third majority if tabled in the Parliament in this regard.
“The deployment of foreign forces in Pakistan or Pakistani troops in other countries should be done only under the constitution. For this purpose, the Constitution of Pakistan should be amended by two-third majority. We will support such a constitutional amendment,” he said.
About not attending a government round table conference, he said there was no guarantee that the Opposition’s suggestions would be implemented, referring to the fate of the committee on Balochistan.
He called it an irony that while the regime was willing to let NATO troops on our soil, and not hesitant about accepting Israeli aid, it was, however, not prepared to let the civil society and its popular leaders play their due role.
He said Gen Musharraf’s response to ARD’s gesture proved that the regime was not serious in addressing national problems at this critical juncture in the country’s history.
“Gen Musharraf should, in this grave national tragedy, rise above personal ego and allow all political leaders to come back and play their role in helping the nation in overcoming this trauma,” said Fahim.
The ARD president called upon Gen Musharraf to invite Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to return to the country so they too could join hands in rescue and relief works for quake victims. Likewise, Altaf Hussain should also return for the purpose, he added.
He said the parliament was not taken into confidence on the issue of relief, rescue, rehabilitation and reconstruction works in the quake affected areas in the NWFP and Azad Kashmir.
He was of the view that the purpose of the regime was to seek legitimacy for its unilateral and inadequate actions taken during the grave national tragedy.
Mr Fahim said the ARD leaders would spend Eid day with the quake victims and drive from Abottabad to Balakot to express solidarity with them.
He said the PPP and PML-N had been regularly sending relief goods, including tents, blankets, medicines and food items for quake victims, and treating the injured at medical camps set up in quake affected areas of the NWFP and Azad Kashmir. He said the PPP had also set up a Tent village in Muzaffarabad for the victims.
He claimed that the people in the affected areas were not being provided tents and blankets and feared many would perish in the freezing winter.
Sindh PPP Chief Syed Qaim Ali Shah, PPP Information Secretary Taj Haider, Provincial Information Secretary Waqar Mehdi, PPP Karachi Division President and Secretary General Rashid Rabbani, Rafiq Engineer and MNA Manzoor Wasan besides some leading industrialists were also present.
