A group of middle-aged American women are considering mounting a hunger strike outside the US embassy in Islamabad as part a campaign against CIA drone attacks in the Tribal Areas, the Guardian said on Wednesday.
Thirty-five activists from Code Pink, a US anti-war group, have gathered in Islamabad as they prepare to attend an unprecedented march and political rally by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf in South Waziristan Agency.
Despite the publicity surrounding the event, doubts persist over whether it will actually take place.
Authorities have expressed reservations over the safety of the march, even though the Pakistani military has long claimed its operations in the area have brought a semblance of security.
Medea Benjamin, the veteran activist leading the Code Pink delegation, said: “Frankly, it’s a win-win situation for us, whether we get into Waziristan or not. We are going because we are challenging the Pakistani government to allow us to go to a place that has been off limits but needs to be seen. And if they try to stop us, it will be clear they do not want the world to see what is going on there.” The US women met retired generals, ambassadors and even a former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) on Tuesday in Islamabad and discussed tactics to publicise their cause, the paper said.
Those included mounting a hunger strike outside the US embassy in Islamabad. Medea said the group was still considering the idea. “It was something a couple of members of the group brought up, but we wanted to wait until we got here to see how appropriate that might be,” she said.
On Wednesday, the women met people from North Waziristan who said they were victims of the US drone campaign, having lost relatives to missile strikes by the remote-controlled planes. They will also hold meetings with Pakistani and US government officials.
The group includes Mary Ann Wright, a former US diplomat and army colonel who condemned her country’s covert drone campaign as Barack Obama’s “personal execution device”, in reference to the US president’s weekly meeting at which he is reported to choose targets for missile strikes. The PTI march is due to take place this weekend. Organisers hope to spend Saturday night in a town outside the Tribal Areas and then move on to Jandola, just inside the border of South Waziristan, where the rally will take place.
The Taliban have given mixed signals over the march. In August, a spokesman said Khan would be targeted because he was a “liberal”, but other reports have said the Taliban would support the march.
