ISLAMABAD, Jan 20: The Senate on Friday agreed to discuss last week’s deadly US airstrike in the Bajaur tribal area and the Balochistan trouble but delayed debates on both the issues until the next week with reasons that convinced the opposition.
The opposition parties had initially planned to press for immediate debates on the Jan 13 airstrike that killed 18 people in the Damadola village of the Bajaur Agency bordering Afghanistan and the continuing paramilitary crackdown in Balochistan.
But an agreement between the parliamentary leaders of the ruling and opposition coalitions to hold the debate on the Bajaur incident on Wednesday and on Balochistan on next Friday was announced as the house met at the start of a new session after a 17-day recess.
The schedule effectively spares Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz the embarrassment of the expected severe parliamentary criticism of the government and Washington while he is visiting the United States and until after his planned meeting President George Bush on Jan 24.
But one of the opposition senators who argued their side’s position at a joint business advisory committee meeting chaired by Senate chairman Mohammedmian Soomro on Friday morning said they agreed to the delayed debates for reasons of the already fixed schedule of house proceedings rather than the prime minister’s presence in the United States.
Plans for similar debates were scuttled at the start of an opposition-called National Assembly on Tuesday when speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain adjourned the house for an unusually long recess of 10 days to Jan 27.
As agreed in the advisory committee meeting, Senator Farhatullah Babar of the People’s Party Parliamentarians asked for taking up a joint opposition adjournment motion on the Bajaur strike as the house began proceedings, and the chairman immediately set Wednesday for a debate without a word of objection from the opposition benches.
However, there was a brief argument before leader of the house Wasim Sajjad agreed to the admission of opposition adjournment motion for a debate on Balochistan on Friday after Senator Amanullah Kanrani of the Jamhoori Watan Party complained of continued bombing by jets and firing by paramilitary forces on Baloch dissidents and what he called “Nazi-like” killings on the day of Eidul Azha.
Mr Sajjad did not agree with Mr Kanrani’s description of the situation in Balochistan where, he said, the paramilitary forces were acting only against alleged “ferari (absconders’) camps” and “terrorists but added that the government had no objections to hold a debate on the situation.
Mr Babar said an immediate debate on Bajaur or Balochistan could not be held because some opposition members did not want to forgo the day’s question hour for which they had put in some important questions, which eventually consumed the whole day’s remaining proceedings of one and a half hours before the house had to be adjourned early for the Friday prayers.
As explained by Mr Babar, the house must have a two-day weekend on Saturday and Sunday and the opposition also did not want to skip their motions or bills to be taken up on the private members’ day on Monday. There will be no session on Tuesday under the calendar set for the Senate, leaving Wednesday as the first available day for a debate on Bajaur.
By that time, the opposition will also have the benefit of the presence of its vocal leader Raza Rabbani, who was absent on Friday because of the death of his mother for whom — along with those killed in the Bajaur incident — the house prayed before the start of its proceedings.