LANDI KOTAL (Khyber Agency), Sept 14: ANP leader Begum Nasim Wali Khan on Saturday warned that construction of Kalabagh dam would spell disaster for Pakistan and that Pukhtoons would not let this controversial dam be constructed.

Addressing a public meeting here to mark the merger of Qabail Jamhouri Party in the ANP at Jamrud, Begum Nasim recalled that Pakistan had got dismembered because of the wrong policies of the past government.

She said that President Musharraf, by raising the controversial issue, had opened a Pandora’s box. She said the federal government was not respecting the will and aspirations of the three smaller provinces and was bent upon bulldozing its decision to please one big federating unit.

The ANP’s provincial president said that Pukhtoons had never accepted dictatorship. She said that those supporting the construction of Kalabagh dam did not have a place in the national politics.

She said the ANP would never accept the ban on political activities in the tribal areas, and called for allowing tribesmen to express their will and preserve their autonomous status.

She said that tribal people were Pukhtoons and urged them to forge unity with the rest of their people to end the administrative divide between them.

Begum Nasim said that Pukhtoons could live in Pakistan as brothers but were not willing to live like slaves.

Castigating the religious parties alliance, the ANP leader said the MMA was a product of the military establishment brought into being to defame the Pukhtoons in the name of Islam.

Afrasiab Khattak said the British used Afghanistan as a buffer zone against the Russians while the tribal areas served as a buffer zone between the Pukhtoons living on both sides of the border.

He said the whole tribal belt was subservient to the will of one man. He demanded that the tribal people be given their social, political and economic rights.

Decrying reports that Osama bin Laden was hiding in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, Mr Khattak alleged that the Al Qaeda leader had been brought in to fight in Afghanistan by Pakistan and it was for the government to find him and bring him to justice.

Former minister Farid Toofan supported political and administrative reforms in the tribal area. Malik Nadir Khan Zakhakhel and the party’s provincial secretary information, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, also spoke on the occasion.