Protest Across Pakistan On Monday: Stop The Genocide In Balochistan Now!

The tabling of a resolution on Balochistan in the lower house of Congress has dramatically raised the profile of the ongoing insurgency in Baloch areas of Pakistan and precipitated demands within international circles for the Baloch people to be given their due rights. The irony of Washington’s sudden concern for the Baloch cause is painfully obvious: since the inception of the Pakistani state, the US and other western powers have supported the Pakistani military’s colonial dispensation in Balochistan. History testifies that no national liberation struggle has ever succeeded on the back of support from imperialist powers.
Yet it is also clear that the Pakistani state’s brutal policy towards the Baloch people is forcing the latter to look anywhere and everywhere for support. Four decades ago it was the Bengali people of the then east Pakistan that turned to external powers – India prominent among them – as a means of repelling the Pakistani military’s genocidal assault. If the kill-and-dump tactics and other gruesome methods of the Pakistani military do not cease with immediate effect, it will come as no surprise if the Baloch people look to outside powers to help them secure their basic rights, including the right to life.

The politics of hate is pushing Balochistan further and further away from the rest of Pakistan’s people, and into a potentially unholy alliance with the American Empire. It is up to the ordinary people of Pakistan – and particularly Punjab – to take up the gauntlet and speak in solidarity with our Baloch brothers and sisters.

The military’s kill-and-dump policy in Balochistan must stop. All military and paramilitary forces be withdrawn from their current ‘duties’ in the province, and all operations being conducted in the name of “national security” and protection of “national assets” must stop.

The Baloch people must be given maximum autonomy over their own destinies, including the right to decide their political future and the future of the so-called “development” process in Balochistan.

The military’s monopoly over virtually everything in Pakistan must give way to the sovereignty of the people.

The Worker’s Party Pakistan is organizing demonstrations across Punjab to

EXPRESS SOLIDARITY WITH THE LONG-SUFFERING PEOPLE OF BALOCHISTAN

JOIN US ON MONDAY, 27 FEBRUARY:

4PM AABPARA CHOWK, ISLAMABAD(Contact 03325240283)

3PM PRESS CLUB, LAHORE (Contact 03219410111)

1PM, PRESS CLUB FAISALABAD (Contact 03447774578)

For times and venues in: Pakpattan contact 03327467621; Sheikhupura contact 0333 4087823; Lodhran contact 0301 6500760; Khanewal contact 0301 7813359; Dipalpur 0300 6962842