In order to condemn the US drone strikes and launch a vociferous protest against the killing of innocent tribesmen, a British filmmaker and campaigner, Carol Grayson, will participate in the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) peace march to South Waziristan.
The march has already created a stir, with the Pakistani Taliban having threatened to kill Khan – and then withdrawing the threat.
Grayson – who has campaigned to expose the infected blood scandal of the 1970-80s and has also helped to make a film about a notorious incident in Iraq in which a US army helicopter killed eight men, including two Reuters journalists, in 2007 – told the Drone Wars UK website that she refused to support “the US and British state-sanctioned terror of targeted killing by drone, being used in the so-called ‘war on terror’ which frequently annihilates civilians in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan”. She said she had been invited to join the march into one of the most dangerous areas in Pakistan by Imran Khan. “I will be joining a peace march to Waziristan with international media, human rights activists and anti-war protesters in solidarity with drone victims. I plan to publicly disassociate, ditch and disown any connection to those drones manufactured as remote control killing machines operated out of airbases in the US and soon the UK.”
She said she did not think the march was a gimmick and revealed that Khan had met with tribal leaders this week who were supportive of the march. An anti-drone protest will take place in Bradford, Yorkshire – in advance of the Waziristan march on September 14.
