Pakistan: Labour Relief Campaign launches appeal for millions affected by floods

[Readers can also donate via the Australian trade unions’ aid agency APHEDA at http://www.apheda.org.au/news/1281331224_14992.html.] 

August 7, 2010 – More than 12 million people are suffering from floods in Pakistan. Please donate to the Labour Relief Campaign to help people of Pakistan facing the worst-ever floods in its history. Torrential rains have unleashed flash floods in different parts of the country in the last three weeks. Levies have broken, leaving the people exposed to flood water.

More than 650,000 houses have collapsed, mainly in villages. Thousands of hectares of crops have been destroyed due to flood water. Livestock, household goods, clothes, shoes and other items have been destroyed. Residents of villages are without drinkable water, food, shelter and in need of clothes.

In particular, the situation is dire for children and women in desperate need of food and clothing. Disease is spreading fast due to the lack of drinkable water. In particular, flu, fever, diarrhea and cholera have been noted and are spreading.

The Pakistan government’s response has made matters worse. It failed to act immediately, leaving tens of thousands of people without aid. Only after 24 hours did it arrive at the makeshift camps with paltry amounts of food distribute. The gap between the food being distributed and the large number of people desperate to eat has led to fighting breaking out, making matters even worse for these desperate people.

Despite very little coverage in the media, the fact remains that the situation in Baluchistan is just as bad as in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa and western and southern Punjab. As usual, also, the people of Baluchistan are not at the top of the government’s priority list.

The situation is turning worse with heavy rains starting August 6 in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province.

The Labour Education Foundation, Labour Party of Pakistan, National Trade Union Federation, Women Workers’ Help Line and the Progressive Youth Front have set up Labour Flood Relief Camps in Lahore and so far have collected more than 300,000 rupees. Rs110,000 have already been sent to Baluchistan and more than Rs200,000 are on way to southern Punjab to help flood victims.

We appeal to our friends and organisations in Pakistan and abroad for donations of a monetary kind or in the form of drinking water, clothes (new), shoes and medicine.

For further information please contact:

Khalid Mahmood, director Labour Education Foundation, ground floor, 25-A Davis Road, Lahore, Pakistan. Email: khalid@lef.org.pk. Telephone: 0092 42 6303808, 0092 42 6315162. Fax: 0092 42 6271149. Mobile: 0092 321 9402322.

If you wish to transfer funds, the details of the account for sending money to the LRC are: Account: Labour Education Foundation; account number: 01801876; Route: Please advise and pay to Citi Bank, New York, USA Swift CITI US 33 for onward transfer to BANK ALFALAH LTD., KARACHI, PAKISTAN A/C No. 36087144 and for final transfer to BANK ALFALAH LTD., LDA PLAZA, KASHMIR ROAD, LAHORE, PAKISTAN Swift: ALFHPKKALDA for A/C No. 01801876 OF LABOUR EDUCATION FOUNDATION.

Australia readers can donate via the Australian trade unions’ aid agency APHEDA at http://www.apheda.org.au/news/1281331224_14992.html.

Pakistan: Losing lives to form trade unions

by Farooq Tariq
from Viewpoint

On 6th July while Mustansar was listening to a worker who had not been paid his wages by a textile boss, an unknown person with a Kalashnikov entered the front room and fired. Mustansar tried to save his life by running to the next room but 10 people were determined to finish him off.

Pakistan: Thousands rally for land rights

by Maqsood Mujahid
Labour Party Pakistan


A three months notice have been given to Punjab government to decide the fate of the 68000 of agriculture land owned by Punjab government and cultivated by tenants for over 100 years. The tenants have been demanding land ownership rights and despite promises to do so by Benazhir Bhutto [former leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party] and Mian Nawaz Sharif of PMLN [Pakistan Muslim League], the land in question has not been allotted to the tenants.
The three month notice was given at the end of a massive peasants rally on 29 June at Okara. The rally was organized by Anjaman Mozreen Punjab (Punjab Tenants Association) on the eve of the 10 years of tenants struggle for land ownership rights. Over 5000 peasants from different agriculture farms waving red flags chanted slogans against the regime and blamed that they are poor because the General Head Quarter of Army (GHQ) is looting the resources meant for peasants. The army owns over 25000 acres of land in Okara and Pakpattan districts of Punjab.

Behind the popular victory in Pakistan

Demonstrators in Lahore, Pakistan, support the reinstatement of deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry (Babar Shah PPI Photos)

Interview with Snehal Shingavi from US Socialist Worker 17 March 2009 A mass movement to restore Pakistan's ousted judiciary has ended in victory. After a huge protest in the streets of Lahore involving clashes with riot police, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani announced March 16 that Iftikhar Chaudhry, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, would be reinstated by the end of the month.

Continue

See also:

• Pakistan eyewitness report
• Victory for Pakistan's Long March!

Behind the popular victory in Pakistan

Interview with Snehal Shingavi from US Socialist Worker 17 March 2009 A mass movement to restore Pakistan's ousted judiciary has ended in victory. After a huge protest in the streets of Lahore involving clashes with riot police, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani announced March 16 that Iftikhar Chaudhry, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, would be reinstated by the end of the month. Chaudhry, along with dozens more judges and jurists, had been dismissed in March 2007 by then-military dictator and President Pervez Musharraf. When Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), came to power, he also refused to restore the judiciary, despite pledges to democratize the political system. Chaudhry's ouster in 2007 touched off a mass protest movement that eventually brought down Musharraf. The dictator finally left office in August 2008, following elections held earlier that year that brought to power Zardari, a corrupt playboy and widower of PPP leader Benazir Bhutto. Now, less than a year later, Zardari's own rule is shaken. Mass protests, culminating in a "Long March" to the capital city of Islamabad, have forced Zardari to agree to reinstate Chaudhry. New questions loom in the wake of this major political shift. We asked Snehal Shingavi to answer our questions about the movement that won the reinstatement of Pakistan's popular chief justice. JUST LAST September, Asif Ali Zardari won Pakistan's elections as a stand-in for his assassinated wife, Benazir Bhutto. What changed that brought hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis into the streets? THE FIRST thing that has to be said is that the restoration of Iftikhar Chaudhry as chief justice is an amazing victory for the people of Pakistan. Thousands of people came into the streets to demand the restoration of democracy and the return of an independent judiciary. And they won. The immediate political beneficiary of this victory is not just Chaudhry, but Pakistan's former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted by Musharraf in a 1999 coup. By aligning himself with the lawyers' movement that demanded the restoration of the judiciary, Sharif has greatly increased his popularity. This marks a huge political comeback for Sharif. After the 1999 coup, Sharif was exiled to Saudi Arabia, but returned to Pakistan in late 2007 after Musharraf was forced to concede new parliamentary elections. Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Bhutto's PPP forged a tentative electoral alliance to compete with Musharraf's supporters. After the assassination of Bhutto in December 2007, Zardari became the PPP's candidate and, following elections last August, became the dominant partner in a governing coalition. Zardari promised Sharif that Chaudhry and the other independent judges would be restored. But Zardari broke that promise--apparently because he fears the judges might revoke a special presidential law, issued by Musharraf, that exempts Zardari from corruption charges. In recent weeks, Zardari and his allies have taken an even more confrontational approach to Sharif and the pro-democracy movement. In late February, the Musharraf-installed Supreme Court ruled that Nawaz Sharif and his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, were ineligible to participate in electoral politics. Shahbaz Sharif had been chief minister, or governor, of Punjab, the most important province in Pakistan. Once the court effectively removed Shahbaz Sharif from office, Zardari used his power to oust the province's elected government and take direct control from the capital. But while the international and even the Pakistani media have focused on the Sharif brothers, the real movers of change in Pakistan are the ordinary people who came out into the streets in the thousands and challenged the corruption and the hypocrisy of the Zardari government. HOW COULD Zardari become so unpopular so quickly? ZARDARI RENEGED on every one of his promises--promises to restore the judiciary, to abandon extraordinary powers granted to the president when Musharraf amended the constitution, and to work to stabilize the country. Zardari has done none of these things--and has more or less brought about a return to Musharraf-style politics, running the country as his own playground. The most important of these betrayals was reneging on the demand to restore the independent judiciary. Most Pakistanis see Chaudhry as the one figure in power with a legacy of fairness and credibility. He brought corruption charges against high-ranking officials, stood up to Musharraf and investigated the cases of several "disappeared" persons. When Chaudhry was sacked by Musharraf, it brought people out into the streets in a spectacular way. So when Zardari failed to honor his pledge to restore Chaudhry to office, people got fed up. Secondly, the government's cooperation with U.S. military strikes against the Taliban and its allies in North-West Frontier Province and Waziristan have angered the majority of Pakistanis. Even Pakistanis who don't sympathize with the Taliban are outraged over the large number of civilian casualties caused by the U.S. and Pakistani armed forces. Third, the Pakistani economy is in shambles. Long lines for food have returned. Joblessness is up. Wide-scale power outages continue in major cities. People are genuinely worried about their futures. For these people, Zardari has become the symbol of all that is wrong with the Pakistani economy: corruption, elitism and nepotism. HOW HAVE these developments affected the mood within Zardari's own party, the PPP? ZARDARI'S ACTIONS in the last several months have really exposed the left flank of the PPP, which often touts its progressive credentials. In fact, at every turn, Zardari merely turned to Musharraf's playbook, implementing the same kinds of repressive actions as the dictator. Zardari shut down the independent media, locked up activists, put politicians under house arrest and made protests illegal. This was Musharraf part two. What is amazing is how ordinary people remained undaunted in the face of this repression. The question now is how this changes the political landscape. The return of the chief justice and the rise in popularity of Sharif almost certainly marks the beginning of the end for Zardari. That may take some time to work itself out, but it's almost a certainty. Even if Zardari remains in power, there are thousands of people who now have a taste of genuine people's power to keep the government in check. WHAT ARE the main forces behind the opposition to Zardari? There are really three main forces: the lawyers' movement; two conservative Islamist parties, Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and the Sharif's PML-N; and the secular, civil society organizations. The lawyers' movement is led by Aitzaz Ahsan, among others, and represents both lawyers and sacked judges who want a return to rule of law. Most of their demands are centered around the restoration of the judiciary and constitutional reforms that would limit the powers of the Pakistani president. The JeI and the PML-N are conservative parties with large religious bases and religious ideologies. But they are regular, parliamentary parties. The PML-N is the dominant party in Punjab, which was the scene of the confrontation with Zardari. Nawaz Sharif's stock has really risen in the past months because he has stepped forward as a defender of the judiciary. This is ironic, because as prime minister in 1997, Sharif forced the removal of the then-chief justice, Sajjad Ali Shah. At one point, Sharif had his party activists smash their way into the Supreme Court building to intimidate Shah, who had earned Sharif's wrath by pressing corruption charges against him and was soon ousted in a power struggle. These days, Sharif portrays himself as a defender of the judiciary and sounds increasingly populist. And along with the JeI, the PML-N has brought a good chunk of their followers on to the streets. The majority of the people in the streets, though, are either tied to civil society organizations and NGOs, or are unaffiliated. Students, workers, middle-class Pakistanis--these really make up the largest chunk of the people who have come out in the streets. And their demands are fairly left wing. One of the biggest problems, though, is that the left is still weak. It has been growing, but doesn't have the size or the reputation to lead the movement. The Labor Party of Pakistan (LPP), for instance, was a driving force, along with People's Resistance in the Long March. The International Socialists of Pakistan played a big role in the sit-in that happened in the Lahore High Court. These are impressive developments. WHAT IS the outlook of progressives and the left? THE MOOD on the streets is electric. One activist said that she hadn't seen Pakistan this way since the movement in 1969, which brought down Ayub Khan, another military dictator. People are genuinely thrilled by the first taste of real power. One of the most popular chants on the Long March was "Jeena hoga, marna hoga, dharna hoga, dharna hoga," which means, approximately, "Some will live, some will die, but the struggle will continue." There's a fairly combative mood out there. The repression has been pretty extensive in the lead-up to the Long March reaching Islamabad. Some 1,000 activists were rounded up and detained. A number of leaders went into hiding. People on the streets were attacked by the police. But on March 14 and 15, things began to change. People on the march reported that the police were increasingly reluctant to attack protesters. Terrible things were done, undoubtedly, by the police. But several top officials in Lahore, including the district coordination officer and the deputy attorney general of Pakistan, resigned in protest against the crackdown on the protesters. What's more, major fissures have developed in the PPP. High-ranking members, like Information Minister Sherry Rehman, have resigned over Zardari's decision to gag the media. Others have resigned because of the attacks on nonviolent protesters. These are extraordinary developments. It's unclear how well poised the left is to take advantage of this political opening. But it's there, and there are some real opportunities to build a durable, powerful left in the coming months.

Pakistan: Thousands demonstrate against price rises

by Tariq Mehmood Over 3,000 supporters of Labour Party Pakistan took part in a rally at Lahore against the ongoing neo-liberal policies of the present Pakistan People's Party government. They chanted slogans against price hikes, American imperialism and demanded an immediate end of policies dictated by imperialist companies and financial institutions. There were similar demonstration in 30 other cities of Pakistan including Islamabad, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta, Hyderabad, Multan, Moro, Dault Pur and Layya. Labour Party Pakistan organized the demonstration and rallies with support from trade unions, social movements and peasant organizations as a day of national action against price hikes. They also demanded an immediate restoration of top judges and the resignation of general Musharaf. The Peshawar demonstration by LPP was broadcasted live by private television channel ARY World. Over 400 participated in the demonstration, including over 100 women. At Karachi, over 250 activists demonstrated at Regal Chouck. They were shouting slogans against American imperialism and its policies towards the colonial countries. At Islamabad, over 150 demonstrated at Aab Para Chouck against price hikes and demanded a living wage of at least 12,000 Rupees for all the workers. They demanded action against bosses who are attacking workers forming trade unions in different parts of the country. At Lahore, over 1,000 women participants led the demonstration, including the main leadership of Women Workers Help Line, a working class women's organization. The main Mall Road was blocked for over two hours as the rally passed thought his most busy and prestigious road. Thousands on both sides of the road cheered the demonstrators. This was the largest demonstration against price hikes so far in Pakistan by any political party. Mall Road was red with all the waving red flags for a long, long time. The demonstraters raised slogans in favour of Socialism, saying that Socialism is the only answer to the problems facing the working class. "Capitalism has failed in solving the basic problems of the masses. It is a message of consistent price hikes and unemployment. We have to change the system and develop a party able to prepare a Socialist revolution," declared Farooq Tariq while addressing the public rally at Lahore. "We demand a minimum wage of 12,000 rupees with an introduction of an unemployment benefit for all adult unemployed. We want an end to privatization and cancellation of the foreign debts. Reduce military expenditures and spent it on the people," Farooq Tariq said. He demanded action against the owner of New Khan private bus company who have sacked 80 workers for forming the first trade union in the company. Several trade union leaders including Moeen Nawaz Punno, Muhammed Yousaf Baluch, Bushra Khaliq, Azra Shad and Mehmood Butt also spoke at the occasion. Leaders of the lawyer's movement also addressed the rally, while activists of the Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party participated in the demonstration. There were many slogans directed against general Musharaf. All the main print and electronic media were present to record events. Labour Party Pakistan has announced a further demonstration this month along the same lines, and is taking an active part in the long march planned by the lawyers movement starting 10th June from Sukhar in Sind. Labor Party Pakistan

www.laborpakistan.org

Washington's nasty diplomacy in Pakistan

Washington's nasty diplomacy in Pakistan by GRANT MORGAN and MUHAMMAD UMAR CHAND It is deeply troubling that people inside Pakistan are being labelled as "terrorists" by senior US diplomat John Negroponte. Negroponte has just returned from a top-level mission to Pakistan. His trip was widely interpreted as an attempt to put pressure on the newly-elected government that replaces Washington's former man-in-command, president-general Pervez Musharraf, who rose to power through a military coup. Negroponte is a cold-blooded hatchet man of the US state. During the 1980s, he directed, funded and armed the right-wing death squads that rampaged across Central America to crush grassroots movements. The hands of this state terrorist are stained with the blood of hundreds of thousands of civilians, including Catholic nuns from the United States who were slaughtered in their Central American monastery. Now Negroponte is fronting the US strategy of divide-and-conquer in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Therefore he is bitterly hostile to Pakistan's new government opening peace talks with groups in the country's Northern Tribal Regions that Negroponte labels as "Islamic terrorists". And why? Because these tribal groups oppose the US occupation of Afghanistan and Washington's other crimes against humanity. Yet the US state never had any trouble talking with Musharraf despite him being a military dictator who used state terror to suppress the cause of democracy in his largely Muslim country. Negroponte's double standards expose the imperial agenda of the US state. Diplomats of the Evil Empire are using deceitful propaganda about "Muslim extremism" in a bid to bend unwilling governments to their will and to prevent united resistance to Washington's crusade for global domination. But this crusade is being resisted by the overwhelming majority inside Pakistan and Afghanistan who share not only a common faith and ethnicity, but also a common wish to be free from imperial bullying. Thus not even Musharraf's crackdowns on his own judiciary coupled with a long history of electoral fraud could stop him being dumped at the polls by his own angry citizens early this year. The US state, having lost its main ally in Pakistan, is now casting around for new methods to re-impose control. That's where Negroponte comes in. Having mastered the dirty trade of political de-stabilisation in Central America, he is now attempting to de-stabilise Pakistan's new government by trying to stop peace negotiations with tribal leaders. Washington's un-Christian rejection of the message of Jesus, a promoter of peace in his time, illustrates that their real agenda has nothing to do with religion, but everything to do with power politics. So will peace break out in this turbulent region? No, if the US state can continue to call the shots. Yes, if the wishes of grassroots people can be acted on. The article below, by mainstream journalist Jane Perlez, gives useful and up-to-the-minute background on the unfolding battle for Pakistan. A chill ushers in new diplomatic order in Pakistan by JANE PERLEZ 28 March 2008 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan ‹ If it was not yet clear to Washington that a new political order prevailed here, the three-day visit this week by America¹s chief diplomat dealing with Pakistan should put any doubt to rest. The visit by Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte turned out to be series of indignities and chilly, almost hostile, receptions as he bore the brunt of the full range of complaints that Pakistan is now feel freer to air with the end of military rule by Washington¹s favored ally, President Pervez Musharraf. Faced with a new democratic lineup that is demanding talks, not force, in the fight against terrorism, Mr. Negroponte publicly swallowed a bitter pill at his final news conference on Thursday, acknowledging that there would now be some real differences in strategy between the United States and Pakistan. He was upbraided at an American Embassy residence during a reception in his honor by lawyers furious that the Bush administration had refused to support the restoration of the dismissed judiciary by Mr. Musharraf last year. Mr. Negroponte once told Congress that Mr. Musharraf was an "indispensable" ally, but the diplomat was finally forced to set some distance after months of standing stolidly by his friend. Mr. Musharraf¹s future, he said, would be settled by Pakistan¹s new democratic government. Perhaps the most startling encounter for the 68-year-old career diplomat was the deliberately pointed question by Farrukh Saleem, executive director of the Center for Research and Security Studies, at the reception Wednesday evening. "How is Pakistan different to Honduras?" Mr. Saleem asked, a query clearly intended to tweak Mr. Negroponte about his time as ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s, when he was in charge of the American effort to train and arm a guerrilla force aimed at overthrowing the leftist government in Nicaragua. He was later criticized for meddling in the region and overlooking human rights abuses in pursuit of United States foreign policy goals. The diplomat demurred, according to Mr. Saleem, saying, "You have put me on the spot." Mr. Negroponte had no reply to his next question, either, Mr. Saleem said. "I asked him, 'What do you know about our chief justice that we don't know?' " That question was meant to reflect, Mr. Saleem recounted afterward, that the Bush administration had refused to recognize the illegality of the firing of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and that many Pakistanis were angered that the United States had signaled it did not favor the reinstatement of Mr. Chaudhry who, it appeared, was too opposed to Mr. Musharraf for Washington's taste. Mr. Negroponte and the Bush administration were tone deaf, Mr. Saleem and others said, to the changes in Pakistan, though the message of the tune seemed inescapable. As they stood on the lawn of a diplomatic residence here in the spring evening, the chairman of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Aitzaz Ahsan, who has led the campaign to restore Mr. Chaudhry, picked up the challenge to Mr. Negroponte. First, Mr. Ahsan said he told the diplomat, the lawyers were miffed that Mr. Negroponte had not included them on his planned round of meetings. When the lawyers asked for an appointment on Tuesday, they were rebuffed by the American Embassy, Mr. Ahsan said. Then, Mr. Ahsan, a graduate of Cambridge and one of Pakistan's most talented orators, gave Mr. Negroponte a 10- to 15-minute discourse on why an independent judiciary was important to fight terrorism. "I told him that the most effective weapon on the war against terror is a people who have enforceable rights ‹ then they have a stake in the system," Mr. Ahsan said of his conversation with Mr. Negroponte. Mr. Ahsan said he argued that an independent judiciary was "a middle ground" between the military and religious fanatics. When Mr. Negroponte countered that the new Parliament had pledged to deal with the question of the restoration of the judges within 30 days, Mr. Ahsan said he retorted: "I said you can't build a Parliament on the debris of the judiciary." In contrast to Mr. Negroponte, a delegation of legislators, led by Rep. John F. Tierney, Democrat of Massachusetts, chairman of the National Security Subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee, visited Mr. Chaudhry at his home on Thursday. They were the first foreigners to see the judge since police barricades were removed Tuesday after four months of house arrest. "He believes the Parliament has a vote in the next 30 days and the judges will go back to work," Mr. Tierney said after talking to Mr. Chaudhry. "That's his position, and they're sticking with it." Although he had little to do with the lawyers or the judiciary, Mr. Negroponte, accustomed to seeing a limited circuit of figures, starting with Mr. Musharraf, had to widen his contact list this time. He met with the leaders of the two main parties in the new coalition government, Nawaz Sharif, and Asif Ali Zardari. They were both in exile for much of Mr. Musharraf¹s rule. He also met with prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, who was an unknown politician until this week, and the speaker of the National Assembly, Dr. Fehmida Mirza. Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif have said they want to change the military approach of Mr. Musharraf toward the extremists, and work toward talks. At a news conference in Karachi before leaving, Mr. Negroponte said Washington could work with the new government, but drew the line at negotiations with extremists. "Security measures are obviously necessary when one is dealing with irreconcilable elements who want to destroy our very way of life," he said. "I don't see how you can talk with those kinds of people." There was some hope, however, he said, of working with "reconcilable elements" who "can be persuaded to participate in the democratic political process." In a marked change of tone from the Musharraf era, the new prime minister, Mr. Gilani, said after meeting Mr. Negroponte on Wednesday that Parliament was now the supreme decision-making body. Pakistan supported its long alliance with the United States, but the fight against terrorism would be discussed in the legislature, he said. Mr. Negroponte's visit was generally poorly received. Coming in the week that the government was still being formed ‹ a cabinet has yet to be announced ‹ it was widely interpreted as an act of interference, a last effort to prop up a vastly weakened Mr. Musharraf. One television commentator called the visit "crude diplomacy." Others said Mr. Negroponte did not understand that Mr. Musharraf was a disappearing figure, isolated and with little power. One of his last loyal aides, Attorney General Malik Mohammad Qayyum, resigned Thursday. By the end of his trip, Mr. Negroponte indicated that perhaps Mr. Musharraf's usefulness to Washington had diminished. The future of Mr. Musharraf was up to the Pakistanis. "Any debate or any disposition as regards his status will have to be addressed by the internal Pakistani political process," he said.