October 12, 2007	Friday	Ramazan 29, 1428

PESHAWAR, Oct 11: The Awami National Party (ANP) has urged the government to stop what it calls the anti-Pakhtun military operation in North Waziristan and allow fleeing tribesmen to return to their villages.

Talking to journalists at a protest camp set up by the party here on Thursday, ANP’s provincial chief Afrasiab Khattak said bombardment of peaceful villages around Mirali and other parts of North Waziristan by helicopter gunships had left scores of tribesmen dead and hundreds of others injured.

He said a vast area was littered with human organs and corpses, but there was no one to collect and bury the same. The tribesmen had never faced such an operation in which the military had used helicopter gunships.

He said the ANP had asked the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and other international organisations to send their teams to the area and monitor atrocities allegedly committed by the troops stationed in the agency.

He said it was a national issue and they would approach political parties, human rights organisations and bodies of lawyers and journalists to take a joint stand against the killing of peaceful tribesmen by the military. Mr Afrasiab claimed that the troops had failed to capture even a single terrorist in the area, but they had gunned down scores of tribesmen to hoodwink their masters. He said military leaders could not hide facts from the nation by shooting ordinary people.

ANP’s senior vice-president Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, central information secretary Zahid Khan, provincial general secretary Mian Iftikhar Hussain, Niaz Khan Mohmand and other party leaders were present on the occasion.

The protest camp was decked out with banners inscribed with slogans against the military operation in Fata. Party’s additional secretary-general Mohammad Adeel termed the air strikes genocide of the people.

He said that neither foreign warlords nor the local Taliban were the target of the air strikes and only the local civilian population had suffered at the hands of the troops. He said the troops had killed women, children and elderly people in the so-called operation against the elusive terrorists.

He alleged that helicopter gunships had also targeted bodies being taken for burial. He said neither villages nor graveyards were safe in North Waziristan.

He said that on the one hand a number of military units had surrendered before local warlords and taken refuge with the Taliban and on the other tribesmen were being bombed inside their houses.

He appealed to human rights organisations to come forward and express solidarity with peace-loving tribesmen and unveil the ugly face of the ‘killers’ in Waziristan. He said bombing civilian population was a crime under the Geneva Convention, but the troops were targeting villages in the agency.

Meanwhile, at a news conference here, the provincial chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami, Sirajul Haq, claimed that Nato forces stationed in the neighbouring Afghanistan were supervising the military operation in North Waziristan.

He said the United States was trying to make Pakistan another Iraq in this part of the world.

JI’s provincial general secretary Shabbir Ahmed Khan, former health minister Inyatullah Khan, Mushtaq Ahmed Khan, Dr Iqbal Khalil and other leaders were also present.

He alleged that the US-backed military regime in Pakistan had been killing tribesmen in the name of war on terrorism, but now these operations had turned into a full-fledged war between the Pakistani forces and local tribesmen.

He said military regimes had used each and every type of ammunition against tribal people in the past, but now they were using gunship helicopters against its own people to make a reason for the presence of the US forces in Afghanistan.

He said the military troops had killed a number of peaceful people in various villages. They had attacked civilians, including women and children, and razed their houses.

Mr Haq alleged that the US wanted to balkanise Pakistan, and President Gen Pervez Musharraf was carrying out its agenda. He said expulsion of Gen Musharraf was essential to thwart US designs in the region.

He called upon the government to stop the war in North Waziristan forthwith and find out a peaceful and lasting solution to the problem. He said the JI had set up relief camps for tribesmen who had started leaving their areas.

He said that on Friday the party would hold protest demonstrations at district level against the air strikes.