ISLAMABAD: The Awami Workers Party (AWP) on Wednesday opposed the initiation of new military operation entitled ‘Azm-i-Istehkam’, and has demanded audit of previous operations as part of the ‘war on terror’.

Party has alleged that all previous operations failed to address the root causes of religious militancy and resulted in the deaths, displacements and enforced disappearances of thousands of innocents.

In a statement, President AWP Akhtar Hussain said that the space given to newer militant groups like the TLP have produced a new epidemic of lynchings as evidenced most recently in Sargodha and Swat.

“The logic that military operations can eliminate terrorism has been proven wrong, time and again. Political problems never have a military solution – this is true as much for the phenomenon of right-wing religious militancy as it is for the ethnic insurgency in Balochistan. While the establishment has repeatedly fomented militancy and then undertaken operations in the name of eliminating it, mainstream political parties have been complicit by unconditionally supporting the so-called National Action Plan, military courts, and all other such initiatives,” he stated.

Party claimed that in fact, these operations worsen the desperate plight of the people of Balochistan and ex-FATA district which are still the site of the establishment’s policy of ‘strategic depth’.

General Secretary AWP Bakhshal Thalho condemned the fact that the ruling classes continue to benefit from their control over ethnic peripheries, including by extracting natural resources, while the most basic constitutional rights are still denied to the people of these regions.

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2024