LANDI KOTAL: Khyber Siyasi Ettehad, a conglomerate of various political and religious parties in the tribal areas, has rejected the proposed recommendations of Fata Reforms Commission and threatened to hold a sit-in outside Parliament House in Islamabad if these recommendations are not reversed forthwith.

The leaders of PPP, PTI, ANP, QWP, JUI-F, JI and National Party along with hundreds of their supporters on Sunday organised a protest rally at the historic Bab-i-Khyber to reject the recommendations put forth by Fata Reforms Commission.

Addressing the protesters, the political leaders said that the wishes and aspirations of people of Fata were totally ignored in those recommendations, meant for bringing changes in the prevailing system of governance in tribal areas.

“These recommendations do not protect and safeguard the basic legal and human rights of the people of Fata nor do these ensure a just administrative and legal system and thus we reject them in totality,” they said.

The speakers urged the federal government to repeal Article 247 of the Constitution. They demanded provision of constitutional powers to Fata parliamentarians to legislate for their own region.

“At present, Fata legislatures are only spectators to the legislative business in both the houses of the parliament as they can’t suggest any changes in the centuries-old oppressive set of regulations called Frontiers Crimes Regulation, which has been usurping the basic human and constitutional rights of Fata since the creation of Pakistan,” said a speaker.

The leaders of political alliance rejected completely the proposed creation of agency council and governor council, saying those councils were not true representatives of tribal people. They said that making political agent chairman of the proposed agency council was against the essence of a democratic local government system. Almost all political parties had been demanding curtailing the powers of political administration since long rather than augmenting them in the name of so-called agency councils, they added.

“We will never accept creation of such undemocratic councils as the prevailing system had been a major reason of keeping the people of Fata deprived and under-developed,” said another speaker.

He added their struggle was aimed at emancipating Fata from the prevailing inhuman and cruel system of governance in which all administrative, judicial and executive powers were entrusted in the office of political agent.

The rally was addressed by Akhunzada Chattan of PPP, Zar Noor Afridi of JI, Arbab Tahir of ANP, Maulana Jalil Jan of JUI-F, Asad Afridi of QWP, Mukhtiar Bacha of NP, Taj Mehmud of PML-N and Abdur Razziq of PTI.

Through a unanimously passed resolution, the Khyber Siyasi Ettehad rejected nominated governor and agency councils and demanded local government elections on adult franchise basis.

“We want a local government system, which has complete powers to safeguard the legal rights of the people of Fata at the patrons of the local government system in rest of the country,” the resolution demanded.

The protesters threatened to stage a sit-in outside Parliament House in Islamabad if their demands were not met.

Published in Dawn, May 18th, 2015

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