The Worker’s Party Pakistan (WPP) said only comprehensive and long-term structural changes in Pakistan’s foreign, defence and economic policies will take the country and its people out of the clutches of imperialism – including the United States of America. The WPP said the dire internal political situation must be addressed by political forces without the fear that the military establishment will resist. It said it was time to stop pretending all of Pakistan’s problems were attributable to a ‘foreign hand’.
After attending the All-Parties Conference called by the prime minister in Islamabad on Thursday, WPP President Abid Hasan Minto and Information Secretary Aasim Sajjad said the task of political leadership is not ‘fire-fighting’ but to address the structural crises facing the Pakistani people. They said while no Pakistani is willing to compromise to the US or other foreign powers, the response must be more than just raising slogans since Pakistani governments have shown a deep economic, military and political dependence on imperialist powers, particularly US.
The WPP demanded change on three fronts: first, the strategic vision adopted by the military establishment must be overhauled to ensure peace with neighbouring countries and to redress the sectarian and other forms of violence plaguing Pakistan from within. This includes halting all support to religious militant groups immediately. Second, economic dependence on the international financial institutions and countries such as the USA must be reduced by an overhaul of economic policies. In particular the non-productive expenditures on defence and debt-servicing – which constitute 70-80% of each budget – must be reduced. Third, all disaffected regions of Pakistan, and particularly FATA and Balochistan, must be given full democratic rights and the military ‘solution’ to political problems must be abandoned.
The WPP leadership has said that simply holding high-profile APCs without initiating a process of fundamental change in policies will simply delay the inevitable existential crisis that the state of Pakistan will eventually have to grapple with.
