OFF TO WAZIRISTAN, FOR PEACE

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) peace march against drone attacks in the Tribal Areas may not proceed beyond Dera Ismail Khan or Tank, as the South Waziristan political administration has refused to issue a permit for holding the rally inside the troubled agency.
The government claims the Taliban plan to attack the rally and news channels broadcast footages of shipping containers closing the road into South Waziristan on Saturday night.
The PTI rally, led by party chief Imran Khan, arrived in Dera Ismail Khan at night amid a trumpeting welcome. Drumbeats and woodwind chimes laced the air as a turban-clad Khan walked through a shower of rose petals to meet tribal elders gathered to welcome him.
The rally participants spent the night at Ameen Model Farm in Hathala Camp, where a tent city was set up for the purpose.
Khan is accompanied by around 30 US campaigners from the group Code Pink and the British head of legal lobby organisation Reprieve, Clive Stafford Smith. The rally aims to leave for South Waziristan today (Sunday).
Addressing participants at Hathala, Khan said the procession was a peaceful demonstration and nobody should raise any objection to it.
He said he did not fear the Taliban nor had they threatened him, adding that he would try his best to reach Kotkai in South Waziristan for staging a rally there.
Khan said if stopped, he would talk to the civil administration to gain access to Kotkai.
The PTI chief said it was an excellent opportunity to seek solution to the eight-year war imposed on the Tribal Areas, adding that he would seek suggestions from tribal chiefs in South Waziristan on ways to deal with terrorism, as they were the real stakeholders.
He said the rally had made foreign media take notice of the illegal US drone programme.
Khan said the government had deployed various tactics to fail his march, but the people had discarded bogus threats of suicide bombing by turning up and joining the march.
At a brief stop outside Mianwali earlier, Khan’s hometown, the PTI chief addressed around 5,000 supporters, condemning “the hypocrisy of the government, which tried its best to make this march fail”.
“They are saying the Taliban have sent nine suicide attackers. This march will not stop even if (President Asif Ali) Zardari sends even a 100 suicide attackers,” Khan said.
The PTI had planned to hold its rally in South Waziristan’s Kotkai town; however, the procession is unlikely to make it beyond DI Khan or Tank at the most.
According to sources in FATA Secretariat, the rally may not be allowed to advance further owing to non-conducive circumstances in the violence-hit area.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government was also not happy with the peace march, with Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain saying Khan would endanger his life and of others through the march.
The provincial government also raised objection to over 100 foreign media personnel and human rights activists travelling with Khan, as they did not obtain NOCs to enter DI Khan or SWA.
The KP Home Department has already said that no foreigners would be allowed entry without proper permits.
Earlier in the day, the historical PTI peace rally kicked off for Waziristan from Islamabad to stage a protest against US drone strikes in the Tribal Areas that have allegedly killed hundreds of innocent Pakistanis along with a few terrorists.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan on Friday denied reports the militant organisation had assured a safe-passage to the PTI peace march through their tribal stronghold. Kotkai is notorious as the place where Taliban commander Qari Hussain, said to have been killed in a drone strike in 2010, used to train suicide bombers for the Taliban who have killed thousands in Pakistan since 2007. Kifayetullah, the commissioner of Dera Ismail Khan, said it was “out of the question” that the protesters entered Waziristan. “Security will be provided to the rally but roads beyond Dera Ismail Khan will be blocked because there are threats of IED, sniper and bomb attacks. We have to protect the lives of everyone,” he told a foreign news agency.