Press Coverage – ENGLISH Daily Papers   Team from UK to attend Kissan moot By Our Correspondent TOBA TEK SINGH, March 20: A 25-member delegation of the South Asian Solidarity Organization office-bearers from the UK will attend the International Kissan Conference to be held on March 23. The moot is being organized by the National Workers Party. NWP Punjab chief Choudry Fateh Muhammad said this at a press conference on Sunday, adding that the delegation would be led by the organization head Mushtaq Lashari. He said that NWP office-bearers from UK, Engineer Pervez Fateh and Khalid Saeed Qureshi, besides Indian Workers Association UK president Diyal Singh Bhagri, Association of Indian Communists UK president Autar Singh and known Indian communist Dr Mehta would also participate in the conference. Giving details, he said Ajoka Theatre would present a play written by late Saadat Hasan Manto and directed by Madeeha Gohar, Toba Tek Singh, on the night of March 22. Mr Fateh said that NWP chief Abid Hasan Manto would preside over the conference to be held at Football Stadium on Jhang Road. Those who will speak at the moot will include Balochistan National Party chief Dr Abdul Hayee Baloch, Sindh Awami Tehrik chief Rasool Bakhsh Paleejo, Mazdoor Kissan Party chief Afzal Khamosh, Muttahida Mazdoor Mahaz president Tufail Abbas, Labour Party Secretary-General Farooq Tariq, Meraj Muhammad Khan from Karachi and human rights activist I A Rehman.  http://www.dawn.com/2005/03/21/nat19.htm   Dawn 21/03/2005         World Kissan conference on March 23 FAISALABAD (March 22 2005): A 25-member delegation of the South Asian Solidarity Organisation office-bearers from the UK will attend the International Kissan conference to be held on March 23 at Toba Tek Singh. This moot is being organised by the National Workers' Party. Addressing a press conference, NWP Punjab Chief Chaudhry Fateh Muhammad said that the organisation head Mushtaq Lashari would lead the delegation. He said that the NWP office-bearers from UK, Engineer Pervez Fateh and Khalid Saeed Qureshi, besides Indian Workers Association UK President Diyal Singh Bhagri, Association of Indian Communists UK President Autar Singh and known Indian communist Dr Mehta would also participate in the conference. Giving details, he said Ajoka Theatre would present a play written by late Saadat Hasan Manto and directed by Madeeha Gohar, at Toba Tek Singh, on the night of March 22. Fateh said that NWP Chief Abid Hasan Manto would preside over the conference to be held at Football Stadium on Jhang Road. Those who will speak at the moot will include Balochistan National Party Chief Dr Abdul Hayee Baloch, Sindh Awami Tehrik Chief Rasool Bakhsh Paleejo, Mazdoor Kissan Party Chief Afzal Khamosh, Muttahida Mazdoor Mahaz President Tufail Abbas, Labour Party Secretary General Farooq Tariq, Meraj Muhammad Khan from Karachi and human rights activist I. A. Rehman. Courtesy Business Recorder   Pakistan.com       Delegations arrive for kissan moot By Our Correspondent TOBA TEK SINGH, March 22: A number of delegations reached Pakistan on Tuesday to attend an International Kissan Conference being held here on March 23 under the joint auspices of National Workers Party (NWP) and the Pakistan Kissan Committee (PKC). NWP’s British chapter leader Engineer Pervez Fateh, who reached here on Monday, told newsmen on Tuesday that South Asian Solidarity (SAS) Chinese leader Johnson Wong, American Anti-Globalisation Movement and ‘Stop War in Iraq’ activist Saundra Sattelee, Indian Communist Party (Marxist) leaders Mrs Darshan Singh and Diyal Singh Bhagri, Indian Workers Association of UK president Autar Singh Sadiq and British SAS president Mushtaq Lashari have also arrived Pakistan. Special bogies with a passenger train brought delegates here from Lahore on Tuesday afternoon while activists of kissan and hari organizations from Karachi and interior Sindh would reach on Wednesday morning, he said. Conference organizing committee head Rana Azam told newsmen that Okara Military Farm and Khanewal Seed Farm tenants would also reach here in processions of buses while Bhatta Mazdoor Union workers from various nearby districts were also coming here. Chief organizer Chaudhry Fateh Muhammad said the conference was being held to commemorate the historic Maulana Hameed Bhashani Kissan Conference of 1970. One of the former organizers of Bhashani Conference, Ghiasuddin Janbaz (former member of central executive committee of PPP), said the conference had given awareness to the oppressed classes of society which benefited the PPP which won general election with overwhelming majority in Sindh and Punjab. He said former late deputy prime minister of Bangladesh Maseehur Rehman had termed Gen Yahya Khan a traitor in his speech. He was arrested and a Faisalabad military court had awarded him five years imprisonment. He said after the conference he (Janbaz) and Chaudhry Fateh Muhammad were also arrested and lodged in the Faisalabad District Jail along with Maseehur Rehman. He said talks were held in the Faisalabad jail with former prime minister Z. A. Bhutto and Mr Rehman was sent to East Pakistan where he was released after the fall of Dhaka and he became deputy prime minister. To counter the left wing conference, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan held a conference the same year in June at the same place. The PPP had held a two-day Mazdoor Kissan Rally in 1986 here on his proposal after the return of Benazir Bhutto from exile, Mr Janbaz added. He said on the opening day, Balochistan National Party chief Dr Abdul Hayee Baloch, Awami Tehrik chief Rasool Bakhsh Paleejo, Labour Party secretary general Farooq Tariq, Karachi labour leader Begum Kaneez Fatima, Mazdoor Kissan Party president Afzal Khamosh, Meraj Muhammad Khan and HRCP director I. A. Rehman would address the participants while NWP chief Abid Hasan Minto would preside over the conference. Earlier, activists of trade unions and political parties were received at the railway station by Mr Fateh and other local leaders. They were taken to the venue of the conference in a procession. Processionists were raising slogans against price hike and feudalism while marching on the Railway Road, Shorkot Road, Saddar Bazaar and Jhang Road. Meanwhile, Adil Afghani, the president of Afghanistan Labour Revolutionary Organization, and noted poet Saeen Akhtar arrived here to participate in the conference. PLAY STAGED: Ajoka Theatre staged play Toba Tek Singh, written by Saadat Hasan Manto, on Tuesday night. Noted TV actor Sarfraz Insari performed role of Bishan Singh who dies on India-Pakistan border. http://www.dawn.com/2005/03/23/nat29.htm Dawn 23/03/2005         Kissan moot ends with call for struggle By Our Correspondent TOBA TEK SINGH, March 23: The International Kissan Conference, attended by the delegates from Afghanistan, India, China, the US and the UK, besides Pakistan, concluded here on Wednesday evening. National Workers Party chief Abid Hasan Minto said the 1970 historic moot had resulted in the agricultural reforms of 1972. But after that, the leftists became silent and now after 35 years they once again gathered to launch struggle for the poor farmers and workers. He criticized feudalism and demanded its eradication. He also demanded that all federal departments be given to provinces except defence, currency and communications. Balochistan National Party chief Dr Abdul Hayee Baloch said military action was in progress in Balochistan and this was the fifth occasion when Balochs faced action — 1948, 1958, 1963, 1972 and now in 2005. He claimed that the Gwadar port was not being developed for the Baloch people. In fact it was being built for the international capitalists and land mafia. He said 15 districts were affected by the recent floods in Balochistan but the government did nothing for the marooned.. Dr Baloch said there was no justification of setting up of Cantonments in Balochistan as the rulers claimed that Pakistan had no conflict with Iran, Afghanistan and India so it was clear that cantonments were being built to occupy the land and subjugate the people. Tehrik-i-Insaaf former secretary-general Meraj Khan said until progressive political parties and organizations united the struggle for the solution of the problems faced by the poor masses would linger on. Sindh Awami Tehrik chief Rasool Bakhsh Palejo said half of the province had no water for irrigation and drinking. There were many areas where villagers face hardship for giving a bath to their deads for burial. He demanded trial of the rulers for depriving the province of its share of water. Kissan Rabita Committee secretary-general Farooq Tariq stated the MMA and the rulers were one and the same thing and the march was just a gimmick. If the MMA was faithful in launching anti-government movement, it should quit government in the NWFP and Balochistan, he added. He opposed Kalabagh dam and said in fact the rulers were trying to provide water to the lands allotted to the generals. He criticized the Toba district Nazim for failure to solve water crisis of the district. Karachi’s labour leader Begum Kaneez Fatima said there was no political party which had a programme for labourers. She said socialism did not fail in Russia, but bureaucrats had failed. Mazdoor Kissan Party chief Afzal Khamosh said until real representatives of farmers and workers reached the assemblies the system would stay. Mushtaq Lashari from the UK said there were more than 50 per cent people in the US and Western countries who opposed war in Iraq. Johnson Wong of China said peasants should be greeted for their struggle for their rights. Diyal Singh Bhagri and Autar Singh of India criticized globalisation and liberalisations slogans and said all this was being done to make the poor farmers of both India and Pakistan slaves. Begum Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan of Lahore urged the poor people to never sell their votes to rich candidates who never speak in their favour in assemblies. Bhora Mull of Sindh, Iqbal Rind of the Watan Dost Mazdoor Mahaz, Yousaf Masti Khan of Karachi and Aqeela Naz of the Kanewal Anjuman Mazaraen also addressed the conference. Through a resolution, the conference opposed retrenchment of more than 8,000 employees of Habib Bank and other government and semi-government institutions.   http://www.dawn.com/2005/03/24/nat19.htm   Dawn 24/03/2005         Afghan leader on Karzais election TOBA TEK SINGH, March 23: The Afghanistan Solidarity Party favoured Hamid Karzai as it had no other option. ASP central leader Adil Afghani, who is here to attend the farmers moot, told newsmen on Wednesday that although his party, the Afghan Labour Revolutionary Organization (a member of six-party alliance ASP), was not in favour of taking part in the countrys first ever election in its 5,000-year history, the alliances decision prevailed. The alliance found Mr Karzai a lesser evil than Mr Qanooni, the other presidential candidate and voted for him, he added. To a question, he said Karzai was a US puppet and he could not even come on streets without security. He said there was no liberty for the left-wing parties and organizations in Afghanistan and they were facing problems which they faced during the rule of pro-Russia rulers and the Taliban. Mr Adil claimed that his six brothers were killed by different governments for struggling for the rights of the masses. He urged the left wing parties in Pakistan to unite on international and national issues and sought their help for the poor left wing activists in Afghanistan. Correspondent http://www.dawn.com/2005/03/24/nat18.htm     TOBA TEK SINGH: Call to fix land-holding ceiling   By Our Correspondent TOBA TEK SINGH, March 24: The ceiling of land-holding in the country be fixed at 25 acres per family, and all extra land occupied by feudal families be seized and distributed among tenants at the ratio of 12.5 acres per family. Pakistan should resist implementation of the WTO agenda and join the struggle against this 'imperialist intrigue' against the Third-World countries. These demands were made through resolutions passed at the International Kissan Conference held here. Pakistan Kissan Committee Chief Chaudhry Fateh Mohammad gave the detail of the resolutions passed by the conference on Thursday at a press conference. In another resolution, the flat rate of abiana was opposed and it was demanded that the government should collect abiana on only cultivated farmland and orchards. The moot, through a resolution, criticized discrimination in the issuance of irrigation water quota and demanded equal quota for all districts of the country. It pointed out that at present, the areas of feudal lords were being provided more water than the areas cultivated by small growers. The moot demanded that all state land being used as military farms, stud farms, dairy farms and seed farms be distributed among tenants, while action against tenants of Okara Military Farm and Khanewal Seed Farm be stopped immediately. Dawn 25/03/2005 Brackish water causing abdominal diseases By: Staff Reporter Daily Dawn TOBA TEK SINGH, Jan 31: The Punjab National Workers Party (NWP) has expressed concern over the suffering from abdominal diseases by villagers and their cattle in the district due to the continuous suspension of water supply to the canals. The concern was uttered at the NWP's executive committee meeting held here on Monday under the chairmanship of its central president Chaudhry Fateh Muhammad. The meeting passed a resolution in which it said that since the subsoil water in the area was brackish, the villagers and their animals had the only option of using irrigation water for drinking purposes. But now for the last many weeks, the irrigation water supply had been suspended for annual rotation. As a result, the villagers and the animals were drinking saltish and brackish underground water. In another resolution, the meeting called for refixing the water supply quota which was much more in the districts where big landlords had farmlands while in Toba district it was only 2.7 cusecs per 1,000 acres of land. It also urged to collect water rate (abiana) only on the cultivated land while at present it was being recovered on all farmland as flat rate. The meeting was also addressed by Punjab NWP secretary-general Malik Muhammad Ali Bhara, Chaudhry Naeem Shakir advocate of Lahore and office bearers of Jhang, Bahawalpur and Khanewal. It also discussed arrangements for the March 23 International Kissan Conference which would be held by NWP at Toba Tek Singh. For this purpose, various sub committees were also formed. It was told that various international trade unions and left wing political parties had accepted NWP's invitation to attend the proposed Kissan Conference. An Indian Communist Party delegation and American Peace Council office bearers would also participate in the conference. Besides, the Pakistan Labour Party, Mazdoor Kissan Communist Party (Afzal Khamoosh group) and Karachi Mazdoor Ittehad delegations will also participate in this conference. Special trains would be chartered for carrying workers from all four provinces to Toba Tek Singh, NWP district president Rana Azam advocate apprised the executive committee members. Daily Dawn 01 February 2005 http://www.dawn.com/2005/02/01/local27.htm           TOBA TEK SINGH: Communist leaders to visit Toba     By Staff Reporter Daily DAWN TOBA TEK SINGH, Feb 28: Communist Party of India (Marxist) secretary general Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Communist Party of India secretary general A. B. Bhardan have accepted invitation of National Workers Party Pakistan (NWP) to visit the district on March 23 to attend an International Kissan Conference. Punjab NWP president Chaudhry Fateh Muhammad told journalists here on Monday that the conference organizing committee members met both the Indian leaders at Lahore and extended them an invitation. Various delegations of trade unions and farmers organizations from India would also attend the conference, he added. The conference is being held to commemorate the 1970 Maulana Abdul Hameed Bhashani Conference which had held here the same day. http://www.dawn.com/2005/03/01/local41.htm   Daily Dawn 01/03/2005         LAHORE: Farmers to protest on 23rd   By: Staff Reporter Daily Dawn LAHORE, March 9: Farmers from all over the country will protest on March 23 to highlight their plight. The decision was taken by the Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee, a conglomerate of nine farmer bodies, on Tuesday. A conference will be held in Toba Tek Singh to highlight worsening condition in the country's rural areas. The meeting noted with regret that out of 96 million acres in Pakistan, only 50 million acres were owned by people. The rest of the land had been given or being granted to civil bureaucrats and serving and retired generals, it alleged. The farmers said there was disparity in water allowances for farmers, as Faisalabad and Toba Tek Singh got water at the ratio of 2.64 cusecs per 1,000 acres, Multan at 3.50 cusecs and Dera Ghazi Khan and Rahim Yar Khan at 7.50 cusecs." The figure, they said, spoke volumes for disparity in the water distribution. To make the situation worse and heighten sense of deprivation among the farmers, the government charged flat rate of abyana (water cess), they added. The participants also regretted that feudalism had ruined the country to a great extent. Around 8.4 million families still owned land between one to 25 acres, whereas 200,000 big families owned over 20 million acres. Ground realities were even worse, they said. They demanded that the government must restrict the land ownership to 25 acres in irrigated areas and 50 acres in rain-fed areas. In spite of around 70 per cent population living in rural areas, the country was importing 1.5 million ton wheat, 250,000 ton sugar and huge quantities of edible oil and other food items. It was largely because of the fact that the government was ignoring the agriculture sector, they said. The farmers demanded that the government must rationalize water distribution and abyana charges, besides providing clean drinking water, health and education facilities in rural areas.   http://www.dawn.com/2005/03/10/local15.htm   Dawn 10/03/2005       TOBA TEK SINGH: Manto's play to be staged in Toba   By Our Correspondent TOBA TEK SINGH, March 10: Saadat Hasan Manto's play "Toba Tek Singh" will be staged here on March 23 on the occasion of International Kisan Conference. Punjab National Workers' Party chief Choudry Fateh Muhammad and the conference organising committee member Rana Azam informed journalists here on Thursday that the Ajoka Theatre would present the play. They stated that leaders of various left-wing political parties, including Baluchistan National Party chief Dr Abdul Hayee Baluch, Pakistan Siraiki Party chief Taj Muhammad Langhah, Mazdoor Kissan Party chief Afzal Khamoosh, Muttahidda Mazdoor Mahaz president Tufail Abbas and Pakistan Labour Party leader Farooq Tariq, had accepted the invitation to attend this conference. South Asia Free Media Organization Secretary Imtiaz Alam and Human Rights Organisation leaders I.A. Rehman and Hussain Naqi, will attend the conference, while the Pakistan Trade Union Federation chief Begum Kaneez Fatima will also lead a big delegation of workers from Karachi. Daily Dawn 11/03/2005       Tahira Mazhar Ali Khans life defined by fight for the have-nots Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan is one of the socialist ideologues who has struggled for freedom of expression and worked to uphold human dignity _______________________________________________Miriam Habib During her pre-Independence schooldays at Queen Mary College, Lahore Tahira Hayat shocked the British principal Miss Cox. "I was expelled from the school for six months," she reminisces. The provocation was a request from Tahira that the Indian leader Jawahar Lal Nehru be invited to the school during his visit to Lahore. "But we are a purdah institution," expostulated the principal. Upon this Tahira reminded her that the girls had earlier performed a water ballet in honour of a male visitor, the renowned Indian classical dancer Uday Shankar. Independent thinking and a rebellious spirit were early manifestations of the determined activism that would colour her whole life. Her father, Sir Sikander Hayat Khan, was Chief Minister of Punjab preceding the creation of sovereign Pakistan; social consciousness was part of her family heritage. Married to her kinsman Mazhar Ali Khan at the age of 17 Tahira is one of the group of socialist ideologues who has struggled for freedom of expression and worked to uphold human dignity, reduce exploitation and promote gender equality. On a call from the International Peace Council, after the Hiroshima bombing, she participated in a campaign to collect signatures demanding that the atom bomb be outlawed. For two years she was a member of the Women's Self Defence League and along with others threw her energies into relief for the Bengal famine and the Indian freedom movement. As a very young woman she joined the Communist Party of India and later the Pakistan Communist Party. She is proud that the first meeting of the party in Pakistan was called by the women's wing, the occasion being the eviction of refugees by the police. She says the party members went to the hovels and quarters in the camp near the Lahore Railway Station where the residents were being victimised, they invited the police to come in and hear the speeches. The small colony eventually got proprietary rights and a school for the children. Succour to society's least privileged members has been a motive force throughout. Her other great involvement has been the world peace movement. With a group of women she founded the Pakistan Democratic Women's Association which engaged in activism to foster awareness of their rights among women and workers. This was banned after the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case in 1951. Though revived again it was not allowed to function under successive military regimes, later the membership merged and co-ordinated with the Women's Action Forum. This protest group resisted draconian legislation perpetrated during the dark days of usurper-dictator General Ziaul Haq, and continues to highlight issues concerned with gender bias. Her late husband, brilliant, progressive intellectual Mazhar Ali Khan was editor of The Pakistan Times from 1951 to 1959. He resigned when the paper was taken over by the Government of military strongman Ayub Khan. Later he founded and edited an independent weekly Viewpoint, which closed a year before his death in 1993. Mother of two brilliant sons and a working daughter, Tahira, now a grandmother and great-grandmother, still supports all forward-looking causes. The radical Ajoka theatre company says of her: "Ajoka is greatly indebted to Tahira Mazhar Ali for her support and affection for Ajoka. Her commitment to the cause of the downtrodden and her courage to challenge military dictators and fundamentalist mullahs is a source of inspiration for Ajoka. She is a role model for Pakistani women." She has been a sportswoman in her time, a trekker in the hills and a keen swimmer. The swimming pool in the garden of her home in Shahjamal, Lahore testifies to her love of the sport. This veteran activist relates that at the time of the East Pakistan debacle in 1971 a small group of women from all classes demonstrated and distributed pamphlets in Lahore against the army action. They were arrested and their houses ransacked. "We said Pakistan cannot last this way, and such was the case, half the country was lost." She thinks the East Pakistan experience has politicised women. Some years ago she attended a writer's conference in Dacca, Bangladesh, where from the stage she apologised for what West Pakistan did in 1971. Bureaucrats here did not approve of and chided her for speaking as she did. Tahira Mazhar Ali considers the Ziaul Haq dictatorship from 1977 to 1988 as the period when the greatest damage was caused to Pakistani society. Attempts at protest or frank speech led to surveillance and arrest. A police truck outside her house became a frequent occurrence and this just because a few people had gathered. Once at her home, after the trial and sentencing of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, his daughter Benazir Bhutto and legal counsel Yahya Bakhtiar were her guests for dinner. When they left police from the waiting vehicle came to arrest her. Remembering from previous detentions the dirty water and sheets, Tahira made them wait while she washed her hair and collected bedding roll before being taken to Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail. The jailers seeing her remarked, "You must have been here before," "Yes", she replied, "I know this place." Not one to dwell on the past she pursues her ideal of social justice. As a member of the National Workers Party Tahira Mazhar Ali is preparing to attend the Kissan (peasant) conference to be held at Toba Tek Singh in March. Land reforms and co-operative farming will be among themes to be aired. Commenting on the current situation she thinks there is relative Press freedom and freedom of speech now as compared to the Zia era. "Politicians have not done enough; they have not cared for social justice and opportunity for all. They must pay attention to the masses, not forget them after having been voted in. There is great hardship among the common people; laughter has vanished from our society." According to Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan, the public has too short a memory, "Bhutto's trial should be made public even now, let the misdeeds of Ziaul Haq be widely known." Applauding the good work done by and for women in the struggle for freedom and rights before and after Pakistan she cites the names of Ra'ana Liaquat Ali Khan, and Nasim and Mumtaz, daughters of Jahanara Shahnawaz. Ismat Iftikharuddin, a progressive, and among grassroots activists the late Maasi Amtul Rahman and Baji Rashida Latif. Her colleague in the Democratic Women's Association Nasim Ashraf Malik has been a fearless activist also. For Pakistan to take a new, people-friendly direction Tahira says the present army sponsored fundamentalism should end. Indo-Pakistan friendship should be encouraged, especially amongst students and the young. People-to-people friendship should be fostered and both sides need to change their textbooks. World peace can come if all strive to have nuclear weapons scrapped, says Tahira. The lead should be taken by the USA whose arms industry supplies the world. Unfortunately America's statements are not to be trusted; they have failed in environmental protection and disregard people's rights when pursuing their global objectives.