PPP Denounces Conspiracy to force defections

Asks human rights bodies to take note of agencies bid to break mainstream political parties

Islamabad, March 23, 2006: Pakistan Peoples Party has denounced the latest bid by intelligence agencies to further break the mainstream political parties with a view to pre election rigging. The PPP called upon the newly appointed Chief Election Commissioner to demand that the intelligence agencies produce all meetings and minutes in the last three months with members of political parties. It called upon human rights bodies and the international community to take note of the military dictatorship's attempts to deny the People of Pakistan a democratic future through such attempts on the even of the 2007 general elections.

Having failed to pressure former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto into absenting herself from the forthcoming election campaign through the motivated requests to Interpol and filing of a complaint through Mutual Assistance in Spain, the intelligence agencies have started work to further factionalise the PPP to benefit those who are puppets of the military dictatorship said a spokesman of the Party in a statement today.

"State sponsored defections from the Party is the brutal face of military dictatorship in the country and is condemned in the strongest terms".

Opposition to the major political parties comes in the form of fictionalisation and judicial abuse at the hands of the state apparatus and not through other political parties the spokesperson said, adding, "The state apparatus is making and breaking political parties from the time when MPAs were taken away to Changa Manga in 1988".

The spokesperson said that leader of Jamaat e Islami and a former ISI official had confessed that money was taken from Osama Bin Laden to stop the PPP in 1988 and a conference of Jihadi parties was called for the same purpose. The spokesperson said that the same elements are now afraid of the return of the PPP to power and the establishment of the writ of government which will lead to the sovereignty of the people and their implementation of their economic and political rights.

The spokesman said that such elements are backing the present military dictatorship under whose nose the pro Taliban forces control parts of the tribal areas posing fresh threats to Pakistan's sovereignty.

It may be noted that General Musharraf, army chief, admitted during visit of President Bush that there had been "slippages" in Pakistan's support against terrorism. He said that such slippages was an admission of the rise of Taliban power in parts of the Tribal areas as well as attempts to destabilise the neighbouring Karzai Government.

During PPP government, writ of government had been established in the tribal areas where narcotics barons had previously roamed with impunity as well as in Karachi where the army had been called out to suppress an insurgency.

The spokesperson said making and breaking political parties and rigging elections worsened when public money was used for such purposes. He pointed out that money was stolen from banks and used to bribe official candidates in the 1990 elections. A case had been filed in the Supreme Court in this connection.

The spokesman said such manipulations of political parties by intelligence agencies eroded the moral foundations of the state and gave birth to corruption, nepotism, loot and plunder.

"Without democracy, the rule of law and freedom to the people to choose their representative in a fair and free manner the future generations would be doomed."

"The state apparatus lured people through corrupt practices and abuse of power including coercion or inducement. However, the PPP was confident that such manipulations would be rejected by the people of Pakistan who knew that their progress and prosperity lay in a representative government that could offer peace, justice, employment and human dignity in a society free from the threats of sectarian violence or bigotry."

The spokesperson said that the PPP united people on a much higher moral pedestal consisting of a vision of a democratic Pakistan, free of the forces of extremism where poverty was eliminated by judicious use of the available resources instead of wasting them on white elephant projects like building a second GHQ next to the first".

He said that the present military dictatorship will fall and be condemned forever as were the dictatorships of Ayub, Yayha and Zia because victory belonged to the masses.

"These tactics of those forces that foisted the Taliban, harboured Al Qaeda, launched the ill fated Kargil war, presided over the export of nuclear technology, brought economic bankruptcy and given birth to sectarianism, extremism and suicide bombers would ultimately fail because freedom was the birthright of every Pakistan".

The PPP calls upon the youth, farmers, labourers, traders, students, women and minorities to wake up and meet the challenges of dictatorship with determination, courage and steadfastness, he said.