MULTAN, Jan 19: An all-party conference held here on Wednesday under the aegis of the Punjab chapter of the Jamhori Watan Party has demanded that Islamabad should resolve the issues with the leadership of smaller province through dialogue rather than at gunpoint.
Besides the delegations of the component parties of the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement, representatives of several other political organizations including the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Pakistan Seraiki Party were present in the conference.
The participants unanimously adopted the resolutions that the centre should stop subjecting the Baloch to military operations time and again, the people of Punjab would not accept income from Gawader port at the cost of the rights of Balochistan and Gen Pervez Musharraf should seek public apology for passing humiliating remarks against the Baloch people (in a television interview).
The conference also demanded respectable return of former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and release of incarcerated PML-N leader Javed Hashmi and PPP leader Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani.
Addressing the conference through telephone from Dera Bugti, JWP chief Nawab Akbar Bugti alleged that the government wanted to launch a military operation in Balochistan on the pretext of protecting the gas installations in Sui.
He claimed that the authorities were deliberately delaying repair of the gas pipeline in order to cultivate people's opinion in other areas in favour of the military operation.
Former National Assembly speaker Syed Fakhar Imam said on the occasion there had always been a power struggle between centre and the provinces in the country.
He said that a federal parliamentary system on the lines of one being exercised in India, Canada and Australia could resolve the issue of provincial rights in the country.
He said there would be no confrontation between provinces and the centre if the quantum of provincial autonomy ensured in the Constitution of 1973 was followed in letter and in spirit.
He alleged that the establishment had deliberately raised non-issues to divert people's attention from the burning issues of Gawadar Port, royalty of natural resources and the proposed garrisons in Balochistan.
Seraiki Party's Taj Langah alleged that the people at the helm of affair in Islamabad assumed that the natural resources of Balochistan and other smaller provinces belonged to the military and Punjab. Prominent among other speakers were Mukhtar Ahmed Awan, Nafees Ahmed Ansari, Nawabzada Mansoor Ahmed Khan and Marghub Kithran.