PESHAWAR, March 13: The Fata Lawyers Forum (FLF) has called upon the government to stop the military operation in North Waziristan, lift the curfew and set up an independent commission to settle the issue.

Taj Mahal Afridi, general secretary of the FLF, at a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Monday said that the military government was targeting innocent civilians in North and South Waziristan, and added there was no proof that 45 people killed in North Waziristan in a military operation launched just before the visit of US President Bush were foreigners. Most of them were innocent local people.

He said that the government should set up an independent commission consisting of local elders, parliamentarians, members of the opposition and elders of the entire Fata to solve the issue with negotiations.

Mr Afridi criticized the military operation in North Waziristan. He said: “We (tribesmen) are neither terrorists nor have we ever been involved in such activities. Whatever is happening today in tribal agencies is due to the double standards of the Pakistani government and the puppet Afghan administration.”

He said: “The presence of Afghans in tribal agencies has brought this problem to the tribal areas. Afghan refugees should be immediately expelled from tribal agencies. Tribal agencies bordering Afghanistan are crowded with Afghan refugees. Afghan refugees involved in illegal activities have brought a bad name to the tribal people and all tribesmen are now labelled as terrorists. All refugees should be evicted from the tribal areas.”

A. Karim Mahsud, president of the FLF, said: “If the government can not send them back to their homes, they should be given Pakistani nationality under the Citizens Act so that these refugees could leave the NWFP and Fata for other Pakistani cities and reduce the burden on tribal areas.”

Mr Mahsud, who is also president of the Peshawar High Court Bar Association, said that tribal people had sacrificed for their Afghan brothers but in return they got labelled as “terrorists”.

He said that innocent tribesmen, women and children had been killed in the operation in Miramshah and Mirali during the last few weeks, and added that people had been forced to leave their homes, the public transport system had been destroyed and those who could not migrate to other places had been killed in the military operation.

He said that schools, hospitals and public property had been destroyed during the bombing, and added that hospital staff had moved to Bannu and Peshawar so there were no health facilities for the people.

He said that businesses had also been closed down due to the military operation.

Mr Mahsud criticized the military government for using tribesmen as guinea pigs.

Advocate Ghulam Nabi said if the military government now talks about the solution of Kashmir issue through negotiations, then why couldn’t it demilitarise the tribal agencies and solve the problem through tribal elders and jirgas.

The forum members demanded of the government to expel Afghan refugees from the tribal areas and compensation for the loss of life and property in the military operation.

They said that the government should resign if it could not establish peace in the tribal areas.

The FLF demanded that the military operation should be stopped and the army should go back to the barracks.