ISLAMABAD: The participants of a multi-party conference (MPC) organised by the Awami National Party (ANP) on Tuesday vowed to resist the government’s alleged plan to change the route of the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor.

The speakers, mainly from the nationalist parties of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, warned that the federation could face “serious consequences” if the PML-N government insisted on excluding the backward areas of the two smaller provinces from the economic route.

Also read: Corridor furore

The event was attended by representatives of almost all the political parties, including those in the coalition governments with the PML-N. However, no one from the ruling PML-N attended the conference to respond to the criticism.

Speaking on the occasion, ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan said the changes in the economic corridor would increase the sense of deprivation among the people of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and smaller provinces.

The ANP chief said Pakistan was the only country where leaders had not learnt from the past mistakes.

He said all the parties had supported Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif when he was facing a political crisis, but now all of them were being pushed away. He said Mr Sharif was the only prime minister who created crises for his own government.

Mr Khan regretted that the PML-N leaders had not even consulted their coalition partners while changing the design of the proposed economic corridor. He vowed to make the project controversial like Kalabagh Dam if the original route was not restored.

Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah said such controversial decisions would weaken the federation. Claiming credit for the project, Mr Shah urged the government not to change the route that had been agreed during the PPP government. He also called for raising the issue at the Council of Common Interests (CII).

Vice-chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Shah Mehmood Qureshi termed the project useful for the whole region, saying that no sane person could oppose it. However, he said, the government was bent upon making it controversial. He alleged that the centre had not consulted the provinces before changing the plan.

Abdul Rauf Mengal of the Balochistan National Party-M alleged that the Baloch people were still collecting bodies of their loved ones during the so-called democratic regime.

He asked the government to ensure peace in Balochistan before embarking upon such a huge project.

Hasil Bizenjo, whose National Party (NP) is a coalition partner with the PML-N in Balochistan, was of the view that the project was vital for China as well and the government should not make it controversial. Interestingly, instead of the Balochistan chief minister who belongs to his own party, Mr Bizenjo asked the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister to take the matter to the CCI.

Aftab Sherpao of the Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) said only strong provinces could ensure a strong federation.

The participants approved a declaration urging the government not to change the route.

“As we know, the Karakorum Highway enters Hazara division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province from Gilgit-Baltistan. So the shortest and logical route would have been through southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Zhob, Quetta and Gwadar,” said former KP information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain, who read out the declaration.

“In fact, it is the route that was selected originally as the maps on the website of the Planning Commission indicate,” he said.

He said the government now argued that since the building of original route would take a lot of time, it had decided to fill some gaps in the existing road systems and start using them for connecting Gwadar with the Karakoram Highway. The proposed route, he said, would now be passing thorough Islamabad, Lahore, Multan and Sukkur and then enter Balochistan.

“This development has created serious concerns and doubts in the minds of people in KP, Fata and Balochistan,” says the three-page declaration.

“The federal government is supposed to represent the interests of all the federating units. There can’t be core areas and peripheries. That will be against the Constitution of the country and unacceptable to the people of smaller federating units. The other fact is that there is uneven socio–economic development in Pakistan.

“Unfortunately, the unevenness has deepened over the last many years. Fata and KP have been used more as strategic space for playing ‘Great Games’ rather than an area where there are human beings with aspirations of their own,” it says.

“Terrorism, which has been an unfortunate product of the misguided state policies, has brought death and destruction on a large scale in Fata, KP and Balochistan. To rectify these heavy losses, the Pakistani state will have to make proactive policies. Sticking to the original route of the Pak-China Economic Corridor and building it will show that it is honest and sincere in rebuilding the most under-developed part of Pakistan. “If our legitimate rights were trampled upon once again we shall have no other option than resorting to peaceful political agitation,” the declaration concludes.

Published in Dawn February 18th , 2015

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