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| November 14, 2005 | Monday | Shawwal 11, 1426 |
PPP to back national languages bill in parliament: Fahim
HYDERABAD, Nov 13: The president of the People’s Party Parliamentarians, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, has said that the PPP will not oppose the Language Bill of MNA Mujeeb Pirzado in the National Assembly as the party wanted the national language status for major languages of the country.
He was speaking at a dinner hosted in his honour by Sindh Taraqi Pasand Party chief Dr Qadir Magsi on Saturday night.
He said that democracy had been destroyed in the country where the decision of an individual dominated the entire scene.
He said that recently held local body elections had brought Sindh-friendly people closer to each other.
He said that people’s majority had been converted into minority in the polls which marked a black chapter in the history of Sindh and the situation had forced us to contemplate how to protect our common interests.
He said he believed that unless pro-Sindh forces evolved a common thinking and did not take a common stand people would continue to face difficulties.
He described the meeting with Dr Magsi as non-political as he did not come here to counter any political force.
He called for organizing youths of the country who were ready to follow the leaders.
He said that it was a positive indicator if all political forces were to unite on one platform on Sindh-related issues.
He stressed the need for raising common voice otherwise all the voices would remain ineffective.
He said that forum of intellectuals could also be formed if need be. He underscored the need for a joint struggle for restoration of democracy in the country.
Dr Qadir Magsi, Hyder Shahani and Muzaffar Kalhoro also spoke on the occasion.
STPP chief Dr Qadir Magsi said the people of Sindh were fed up with different patterns of democracies and they would only struggle for a real democracy in the country which guaranteed protection to rights of oppressed nations.
He said that everyone had the right to form his opinion over his meeting with Makhdoom Amin Fahim in his own way but the meeting would help in decision making in future.
He said that in the past those politicians were described anti-state whose basis of politics was Sindh and federal political parties used to avoid meeting nationalists but now situation had changed.
He said the meeting was a new turning point in history of Sindh.
He said that component parties of the ARD should highlight those promises made to oppressed nations and raise their voice in parliament.
He said that if the ARD and MMA formed an alliance then nationalists would also support them.
He said that 1940 resolution had not been implemented and various experiments had been conducted in the country.
Meanwhile, Makhdoom Amin Fahim expressed concern over appointment of military officials on important positions regarding monitoring of earthquake-related work.
He questioned formation of government-sponsored bipartisan parliamentary committee, saying the government should disclose its motives.
He was replying to questions of journalists at the residence of Awami Tehrik chief Rasool Bux Palijo on Saturday.
Mr Fahim offered condolence on the passing away of Jiji Zarina Baloch.
He said the government had done everything single-handedly in the earthquake tragedy whatever it wanted to do.
In all the relief work, a dictator had dominated the scene instead of government, he said.
“Perhaps the government wanted the opposition to share the blame because people by and large are not satisfied with the government’s performance in post-quake scenario”, he said.
“What are objectives and powers of the committee and whether proposals given by opposition would be implemented because the opposition had a bitter experience of its presence in the committee on issues of Balochistan province where none of its proposals was implemented”, he said. He expressed dissatisfaction over funding by international donors and attributed it to the poor foreign policy and performance of foreign ministry.
He said that soon after the October 8 earthquake in first session of the National Assembly, the PPP had offered to keep its political differences aside and served affected people adding that when the government did not respond to its offer then opposition made its opinion known to people.
He said he had visited Balakot, Mansehra and Muzaffarabad and complaints were received that the government did not provide relief to people.
He said that Rs25,000 were not sufficient to enable an affected family to build a destroyed house.
Referring to a proposal of settlement of quake-affected families in Sindh, he said he believed that these people lived in a natural habitat and shifting them to an artificial environment would be difficult.
He said that investigation by Swiss authorities was going on whether to send the case against Benazir Bhutto in the court or not.
The PPP leader said a meeting had been convened in London on November 27 by Ms Bhutto with an open agenda of the meeting to discuss whether she should return home or not.
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