KARACHI, Aug 31: Indian delegates on arrival here on Sunday to attend a two-day conference called for renewed efforts for peace by Pakistan and India and the need for more concrete support at grass-roots level.

They however pointed out that as political and diplomatic channels were busy with the peace process, marginalized and working classes were visibly missing from the scene.

They accused the United States of sowing the seeds of discord and exacerbating conflict in the region to achieve its nefarious objectives of world domination.

The delegates expressed these views on arrival at the Karachi Cantonment railway station from Lahore for the South Asian Labour for Peace conference, which opens here on Monday.

The conference will be the first ever attempt to bring the trade union leaders and representatives of labour-support organizations of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka to a single platform on such a large scale, to explore venues of a joint struggle for securing fundamental human rights, including Core Labour Rights and express their solidarity with the peace movement.

South Asian Labour Forum, in collaboration with Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) and Centre for Education (CEC), Delhi, has organized the conference.

Twenty-six delegates reached here by Karachi Express from Lahore where they had arrived by bus from New Delhi.

At the railway station they were greeted by the organizers including representatives of the People’s Labour Bureau, Pakistan National Union of Trade Unions, Muttahida Mazdoor Alliance and Railways Workers Federation.

They called for forging unity among the people of the region to thwart the attempts at subjugating people of the region and taking control of their resources.

Srilata Swaminathan of the All India Central Council of Trade Unions, Surendar Mohan of Hind Mazdoor Sabha and Ashim Roy of the New Trade Union Initiative called upon governments and leaders of the regional countries not to waste their energies and resources on building war machines and instead divert those resources for the welfare of their people.

The delegates noted that all South Asian states in general and Pakistan and India in particular were engaged in internal and external armed conflicts.

They were of the view that anti-people and pro-war activity only produced poverty, instability, financial insecurity, religious intolerance, and threat to peace.