ISLAMABAD - Well over a hundred tribesmen from Waziristan tribal region on Saturday joined several right-wing political parties including Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) yards away from the Parliament House to denounce the Pakistani government and the US over recurring drone attacks in Pakistani tribal regions.
Tribesmen, most of them family members of the civilian victims of remote-controlled drones, chanted slogans against the US and the CIA’s secret drone programme that is deeply unpopular among Pakistanis and blamed for hundreds of civilian deaths.
Central leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf including Dr Shireen Mazari and Javed Hashmi spoke on the occasion, besides former Ameer of Jammat-i-Islami and representatives of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl and Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid.
Speakers lambasted the Pakistani government for not implementing the joint resolution of the Parliament that suggested strong reaction in case of any such attack and also the US policies that according to them was playing havoc with the innocent tribesmen’s lives.
The fresh call to halt the drone attacks in order to reassert Pakistani sovereignty from the political parties and the tribesmen came at a time when the US is eager to resume its relationship with the Pakistani military establishment by tendering an unconditional apology on Salala Checkpost incident.
Speakers also condemned the Pakistani government’s approach over the issue by condemning the strikes in public and giving green light to US for further strikes in private.
Chanting ‘Death to America’ and ‘Stop the Drone Attacks’, the protesting politicians predicted that the days US government were numbered and America was destined to be doomed for its abominable policies for the region. “The drone attacks are targeting innocent people including women and children in tribal regions. While the NRO-tainted Pakistani government is not capable of curtailing the drone strikes,” said Dr Shireen Mazari, PTI’s senior leader and spokesperson on foreign policy, while addressing the protesters.
Dr Mazari said the government had lost the moral grounds to rule the masses of the country, adding that the nefarious designs of the US that it wanted to achieve by killing innocent Pakistanis through drone strikes would never be fulfilled.
She also criticised the armed forces of the country saying if Pakistan Air Force could destroy the drones, as they claim, then why should not it do so. “But the inept and corrupt Pakistani government will never permit them (Air Force) to go against the US.”
Addressing on the occasion, Javed Hashmi said the incumbent government had been pursuing the policies of dictator Musharraf. “For government, the time has come to rectify the mistakes it has committed over the period of time,” Hashmi said.
Former Amir JI Qazi Hussain Ahmed said it seemed Pakistani state had become enemy of its own people. “Do the armed forces lack the courage to save countrymen from the US aggression?” Qazi questioned.
He said government should appraise the masses, who had given them the mandate to rule them, so why it had so far not implemented the joint resolution of the Parliament over the issue.
During the course of protest the tribesmen from Waziristan were listened complaining against the politicians for politicising the serious issue on the venue of protest.
On that Dr Shireen Mazari asked the activists of PTI and the other political parties to not wave their respective party flags in a bid to show solidarity with the victims for greater interest of the country.