HYDERABAD, April 26 The Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign said on Sunday that the rulers should emulate the 17 of 20 rich countries which had abandoned privatisation and adopted protectionism by nationalising assets, and warned if national assets were privatised, the poor would be left with no other option but to commit suicide.

The trade body`s president Riaz Hassan said at a news conference at the press club that the organisation had decided to launch a movement against privatisation to save workers from committing suicide. He said that a conference would be held in Karachi on May 17 to evolve a strategy for launching a consistent struggle against privatisation of the national productive units, and added that the workers would observe anti-privatisation year from May 1.

He said that since the creation of Pakistan, the working class had been exploited and rulers had always pursued imperialist and capitalist polices.

He said that the workers would resist the privatisation of national assets and pointed out that tens of thousands of workers had been rendered jobless and lives of the working class people had hit rock bottom in the wake of privatisation of 214 national units by the previous government.

He said that if national assets were privatised, the poor would be left with no other choice but to commit suicide. The organisation had, therefore, decided to launch a movement against privatisation to save workers from committing suicide.

He claimed that thanks to anti-worker policies of Pervez Musharraf, price hike had shot up by 200 per cent and during the present PPP regime, it had further jumped by 47 per cent. In some cases the prices had increased up to 100 per cent, he added.

Twenty-five per cent of the country`s population was jobless and 70 per cent living below poverty line, Mr Panhwar said.

He was of the opinion that privatisation of the national assets was neither in the interest of people nor of the state.

He said that as many as 9,000 industrial units were lying closed due to imperialist policies being followed by the rulers and trade deficit had skyrocketed to $22 billion. The government`s indifference had destroyed, he said.

He alleged that the capitalists had transferred $500 billion to foreign banks whereas the social fabric of society had been torn to shreds.

He said that only the poor were being taxed and they were being overburdened by increase in taxes every year.

He said that PML-Q government had recovered Rs1,050 billion tax from people whereas the PPP government had given the target of Rs1,551 billion.

If the government did not give up policy of privatisation, the national economy would be suffer greatly, Mr Panhwar said.

He said that the workers would not give up struggle under any circumstances till the government abandoned the privatisation policy.