HYDERABAD: An inclusive farmers’ conference with participation of representatives from Sindh, Pun­jab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and the Seraiki region reiterates the demand for halting plans for the construction of six ‘strategic’ canals on the Indus River and corporate farming projects and redistribution of land among landless haris.

The conference organised by Pakistan Kisan Rabita Committee in collaboration with Awami Tehreek in Bhit Shah the other day unanimously rejected the canals and corporate farming projects, declared the Green Pakistan initiative as anti-farmer, and condemned the proposed agricultural tax bill as an attack on farming community.

The speakers, Advocate Vishand Thari, president, Awami Tehreek; Farooq Tariq, general secretary of Paki­stan Kisan Rabita Committee; Ghulam Mustafa Chandio, president of Sindhi Hari Tehreek, and Bakshal Thalho, federal secretary of Awami Workers Party, said that Pakistan had been enslaved by the IMF and media and judiciary had been suppressed at the behest of imperialist institutions. They said the government had amended the Irsa Act to sell Sindh’s water to foreign corporations, labeling projects like Green Pakistan, Agricultural Revolution, and Uraan Pakistan as mere deceptive slogans aimed at displacing farmers and selling national resources.

They accused the ruling coalition of betraying Sindh and said the Pakistan Peoples Party had deprived Sindhis of their basic rights and had now become complicit in conspiracy to turn Sindh into a desert.

Mr Thari said that Maryam Nawaz had launched the Green Pakistan in Cholistan in collaboration with a military-run institution to implement the plan. The PPP had sold out the Indus in exchange for power as Cholistan Canal was being built to supply water to corporate farming projects, he said.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2025