January 23, 2006	Monday	Zilhaj 22, 1426

KARACHI, Jan 22: The ongoing struggle in Balochistan is the struggle by the oppressed people and will continue until they achieved their rights on all natural resources of that province. This was stated by the speakers at a rally held here on Sunday to express solidarity with the people of Balochistan.

The rally was organized by the local chapter of the Awami Tehrik outside the Karachi Press Club and was addressed by AT chief Rasool Bukhsh Palijo, Balochistan National Party chief and a former chief minister of Balochistan Sardar Akhtar Mengal, Secretary-General of the National Workers Party Yusuf Masti Khan, Awami National Party leader Amin Khattak, Rauf Sasoli, Ms Akhtar Baloch, Ms Shazia Baloch and others.

They deplored the government for terming Baloch activists ‘miscreants’ and condemned the government for resorting to conducting a military operation.

Mr Palijo said the army rulers in Pakistan were, in fact, ‘a curse on the country’, observing that their similar policies in the past had resulted in the disintegration of Pakistan. “The army has no role in the governance,” he said, and quoted Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah in this context.

He accused Gen Musharraf of depriving 40 million people of Sindh of the Indus water by insisting on the construction of dams over the river.

He said that Pakistan could survive only if the country was run in accordance with the perception of the Quaid-i-Azam who had assigned no role to the army in running the country’s affairs and favoured autonomy to provinces. He said that the Quaid-i-Azam wanted the federation to keep only two-and-a-half subjects with it.

Sardar Akhtar Mengal, in his hard-hitting speech, asked the oppressed people of Balochistan, Sindh and the NWFP to forge unity as only then they could get rid of the Punjab’s supremacy.

Expressing gratitude to the AT chief for organizing protest rallies in all big cities and towns of Sindh against the army operation in Balochistan, Sardar Mengal said that it was not the first operation against Baloch people, and predicted that the fresh one would usher in a new era and eliminate repression for good.

He castigated Gen Musharraf for describing the Balochistan people’s struggle as “a struggle of three Sardars and their private militias having held the country hostage,” and retorted that it was he (General Musharraf) who had been holding 140 million population of the country hostage along with their parliament and assemblies since October 12, 1999.

The BNP chief said that the people of Balochistan would never welcome any development or progress, aimed at establishing or promoting the supremacy of Punjab, at the cost of their self-respect and national identity.

Yusuf Masti Khan told the protesters that the people of Sindh and Balochistan had been maintaining harmonious relations for thousands of years and they had always demonstrated unity and solidarity with each other.

The solidarity shown by the people of Sindh with their Baloch brethren at this moment of trial and tribulation truly reflected Sindh’s tradition of siding with oppressed people. Mr Khan recalled that the movement against the ‘One-unit’ had also started from Sindh and Balochistan which had forced the then rulers to do away with their unpopular plan.

He observed that it was not a new struggle that was going on in Balochistan, but a part of the one launched by the people of the country for their rights ever since the birth of Pakistan.

Reminding the military rulers that it was the federating units which gave the federation the shape of Pakistan, he warned that it would be the same units which could think otherwise if the military rulers did not change their attitude.

ANP leader Amin Khattak observed that pressure from masses had forced Gen Musharraf to defer the construction of Kalabagh Dam. He rejected the claim that the general had changed his mind on the demand of a particular party or leader.